Apple Watch ULTRA

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Apple Watch ULTRA

Apple Watch ULTRA

Apple Watch ULTRA. (502 × 410 pixels at 332 PPI LTPO OLED always-on display, 2.160 oz./ 61.1g; 2.475 oz./ 70.2g total with band). I'd get my Apple Watch ULTRA at Adorama or at Amazon, or any Apple Watch at Adorama, at Amazon, or at eBay if you know How to Win at eBay.

This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use those or any of these links to my personally-approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Get yours only from the trusted sources I've used personally for decades for the best prices, service, return policies and selection. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.

 

August 2023   Apple Reviews   Watch & Clock Reviews   All Reviews

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The Apple Watch is amazing in how it lets us run our entire world from our wrist, and the ULTRA is the best Apple Watch yet. Back in the 2000s we were amazed at how we could communicate, get our news, sports, weather and stock information and do our banking and shopping from our computers. In the 2010s we could do all of this even more easily from our iPhones. Today in the 2020s we can do much of this from our wrists, and for fitness nuts like me, my Apple Watch lets me measure, track, compete and share all my workouts for effort, distance, elevation and more.

The ULTRA is beautiful, with a brilliant display that appears against the inky black depths of its sapphire crystal. Its screen always responds instantly to our touch as we expect from Apple, its response isn't delayed or often irresponsive like the crummy touch display of a Mercedes S580.

Unlike all other Apple Watches, the black sapphire that covers the screen is completely flat. The titanium case protrudes a microscopic amount ahead of the sapphire cover to protect it, although you won't see this with your eye and only barely can feel it.

For bicyclists and classic car buffs we can do our all communication and navigation from our wrists regardless of what we're driving - even on a hoverboard. Heck, I can make calls and run navigation by voice alone in my classic convertible, no need for a car with Bluetooth or GPS!

The Apple Watch is the world's top selling watch because it's the world's most accurate watch, the world's most legible watch and the world's most functional watch. It is also supremely comfortable, with a choice of many different cases and band styles.

The Apple Watch's design is astounding in how well we can control everything intuitively right from its tiny screen. It may be tiny, but it's so well programmed it's super-legible and always easy to use. It's Apple at its best.

The Apple Watch works as an extension of your iPhone. Everyone who has an iPhone should have an Apple watch. Just like the iPhone, you don't think you need it until you have one for a few days, and then you know why you can't live without it.

Even if I can't live without all the new things my Apple Watch does, even if just as a watch it's more accurate and easier to read, from direct sunlight to pitch-black darkness, than any other watch ever created in the entire history of watchmaking.

Add the new features unique to the Apple Watch, and that's why it's been the world's best selling watch for the past seven years. If you don't have yours yet, just ask whoever's next to you; it seems like just about everyone has one.

While I'm a cheapskate and consider my ULTRA as an ultimate luxury (it is, being made with extraordinary materials, precision, features, flawless design and technology, while in olden days any $50 watch was fine with me), I am astounded at how often normal people and kids ask me how I like it, including the student who helps my pool guy. He was going to get one, too. That's an amazing thing about Apple: they've been doing it so long it's easy to take them for granted, but no one else makes or has ever made such exquisite luxury affordable to everyone. No one else builds such beautiful, well-made and pleasant-to-use and enjoy products at prices everyone can and does afford.

The ULTRA is quality and luxury. Mine arrived 95% charged so it was ready to go right out of the box!

 

Versus Series 8 and Earlier

When I ordered my ULTRA I was concerned that this would be a big, heavy dive watch with a big, bulky dive band, that the Alpine Loop bands only adjusted in steps, and that the cloth "Trail Loop" bands only appeared to be available in light, easy-to-soil colors. I was concerned that I wouldn't like the day-to-day wearability of the ULTRA versus the new Series 8 which was very similar to my Series 7, but I figured I'd go for the ULTRA for the sake of checking out something genuinely new.

Luckily I discovered the cloth band also comes in black/gray, so I ordered it as seen here (these photos are of my actual watch) and it turns out my ULTRA is 25% lighter with its cloth band (2.475 oz./70.2g actual measured weight, total) than my older Series 7 and its stainless steel Milanese loop band (3.275 oz./92.9 g actual measured weight, total)! Yes, this big, beautiful watch and band weighs much less than my old Apple Watch, or if I ordered a new Series 8 in stainless with another Milanese loop band.

See also All Apple Watches Compared and What's New.

 

I'd get my Apple Watch ULTRA at Adorama or at Amazon, or any Apple Watch at Adorama, at Amazon, or at eBay if you know How to Win at eBay.

 

Apple Watch ULTRA

Activity Digital face shows my workouts and exercise so far throughout the day. It shows calories burned, minutes of exercise and clock hours during which I've stood up. Tap your watch for explicit details. bigger.

 

New since Apple Watch Series 7      top

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blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Twice the maximum screen brightness, 2,000 nits versus 1,000 nits.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Big, brilliant display that swims in a flat sea of inky blackness without the distracting reflections from the curved edges of the Series watches' crystals.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Twice the battery life due to twice the battery capacity, now rated up to 36 hours, or up to 60 hours in the new LOW POWER mode, up from 18 hours on the regular Series watches.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Double-sized battery lets us clock pretty much unlimited long workouts every day without worrying about power! For those of us who love to be out hiking and biking and working-out out for hours and hours all day, every day, no longer do we need the Low Power Mode. I tried it, and my ULTRA was able to clock a 12-hour-long workout, in addition to everything else that day.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com New programmable left-side ACTION button. This is nice, but it also means I have to be more careful when saving screen shots (pressing the crown and right-side buttons at the same time) that I don't press the ACTION button at the same time.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Adds a second speaker so ULTRA can be 40% louder than the new Series 8. It's now easy to hear phone calls on my Apple Watch.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Watch OS9 adds Heart Rate Zones in some workouts, including my favorite, Outdoor Cycle:

Apple Watch ULTRA

Heart Rate zones in the Outdoor Cycle Workout. bigger.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Rated to 100 meters (330' or 10 atmospheres) static water pressure, up from 50 meters.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Rated for SCUBA diving to 40 meters (130 feet) when new, the world's first Apple Watch rated for recreational SCUBA diving.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Built in depth gauge, water temperature indication and dive computer app.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Unlike every other dive watch I've owned, it's thin and light.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com It's 25% lighter with its cloth band than my older Series 7 and its stainless steel Milanese band!

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Slightly larger active display area.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com While the active screen area is only about 1.5% wider and taller than the Series 7, what's also new is that the flat area of the bezel is much larger. Now the active screen lies inside an inky black, flat face, rather than just about touching the rounded edges of the Series 7.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com More accurate GPS adds L1 and L5 bands.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Accelerometer now detects up to 256 Gs, enabling a new crash detection and autodialing 911 system.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Bigger controls and crown work great with gloves.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com The bigger crown is now guarded by big blocks of titanium to protect it from getting knocked or bent, but it also means I have to pay attention to press it directly head-on rather than anywhere from the top as we can do with regular Series models.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com The crown-protection lugs prevent my bike gloves from hitting the crown and changing modes accidentally as they did on my older Apple Watches.

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Automatic brightness control now works great when worn under a sleeve. Earlier models would take a while to wake up when you pulled them out (I wear my ULTRA on my left arm).

blue ball icon © KenRockwell.com Largest case size yet, 49mm, takes its own series of 49mm bands.

 

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green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Easy to use! While it does a zillion things, it's super-easy to do them all with just a fingertip, as we expect from Apple. This is an extremely well thought-out product.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Mine arrived fully charged, making setup easy.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Built-in automatic fitness tracking and coaching encourages daily exercise so you'll feel better and have a longer life. Not many products can do that!

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Brilliant and colorful 502 × 410 pixel LTPO OLED always-on display.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Perfect automatic brightness control: flawless legibility from direct sunlight to total darkness.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Perfect Stratum-2 level accuracy; rated to ±50 milliseconds maximum absolute error.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Onboard temperature-compensated quartz crystal oscillator (TCXO), like the most exotic chronometers, to keep extraordinarily good time even if offline.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Always sets itself.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Always has the correct day and date.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Just like $187,000 mechanical watches that correct automatically for leap year, so does Apple Watch.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Also sets itself for daylight savings time and leap seconds.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Heart-Rate sensor.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Do-it-yourself EKGs monitor your heart, and it creates PDFs to send to your doctor.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Tracks heart rate and route while running, biking or otherwise working out.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Weighs less than an iPhone, which you can leave at home to make you faster in competition.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com It syncs remotely via the cellular signal to your iPhone.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com If you have no coverage, syncs everything automatically when you return or do have signal.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Magnetic compass.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Sound-Pressure Level (SPL) Meter reads from 30 to 120 dBA, and logs and tracks noise exposure in your iPhone's Health app:

Apple Watch ULTRA

Excellent SPL meter (scroll down with crown to read more). bigger.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Internal accelerometer reads to ±256 Gs.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Fall detection, and it can call 911 for you automatically if you've fallen or crashed and can't get up.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Smooth-running hands. They don't jump each second or jitter around with the ticking of a mechanical or quartz watch.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com 1/100 second stopwatch, timers, alarms and everything any other watch has done — and they are all very easy to set and use.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com "Nightstand" Mode shows time, day, date and alarm if you just tap a nightstand on which the watch is sitting.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Clever alarm starts brightening the screen gradually a few minutes before wake time to help you wake up more pleasantly.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com You may set your own text sizes to taste.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Easy to zoom the screen (two-finger double-tap).

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Rated for recreational SCUBA to 40m (130'), static pressure rating to 10 ATM/100 meters.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Additional "Do Not Disturb for One Hour" option perfect for meetings and appointments. You also can control the regular Do Not Disturb Mode from your watch.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com "Theatre Mode" keeps the display off unless you tap it or rotate the crown up; the automatic wrist-flick and always-on modes are deactivated so you don't bother anyone else.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Unlocks your Mac automatically; no need to type in password when you wake it.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Make and answer phone calls direct from your watch, and be able to use your phone for other things at the same time.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Built-in flashlight, and so smart it dims when pointed at your face.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Voice-controlled everything, including navigation.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com If you have a classic car with no phone, GPS navigation or Bluetooth, no worries: the Apple Watch lets you do all this by talking to your wrist! Honestly, my Apple Watch works better than many modern day infotainment systems, so I'm missing nothing by driving a classic.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Built-in GPS works everywhere on land, sea or air, even if there's no cellular signal. (You won't see much in the way of maps without a data connection, but it will track your location.)

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Can control your iPhone camera remotely, complete with a self-timer and previewing the picture on your watch!

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Bands are easily interchangeable without tools.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Fitness apps even encourage you to get up and walk around if you've been sitting too long.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Controls iPhone music or video playback, and the watch's crown sets volume faster and more precisely than the up-down button on my iPhone!

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Tiny battery will recharge numerous times from a small USB power bank with the included Charging Cable.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Innumerable other features not found on regular watches.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com Works with many third-party iPhone apps like PayPal, Canary, Ring doorbell, YouTube, many news and weather apps and so much more to ding you every time anything interesting happens — or warn you anytime something is about to happen.

green ball icon © KenRockwell.com The cloth "Trail Loop" bands are easy to clean. After 10 months mine was a little dirty, and just washing it with my fingertips and some dishwashing liquid under running water in my kitchen sink made it like new again. I didn't bother to remove the band from my ULTRA, I just held the band under the running water.

 

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red ball icon © KenRockwell.com Nothing, other than not being free and that you have to charge it.

 

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gray ball icon © KenRockwell.com All models have cellular; there is no GPS-only model.

gray ball icon © KenRockwell.com I still haven't figured out how to answer calls without having to touch my watch. I can't just say ANSWER or raise it when my other hand is full. I usually try to hit the (answer) icon with my nose.

 

Sample Watch Faces       top

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I'd get my Apple Watch ULTRA at Adorama or at Amazon, or any Apple Watch at Adorama, at Amazon, or at eBay if you know How to Win at eBay.

Here are some of the faces I use. There are many, many more you can set and customize. All I do is swipe left or right to swap among these and many more:

Apple Watch ULTRA

Infograph face can display just about anything. bigger.

This particular watch face is called Infograph. Each item in all of the many spots on the face are programmable. In this typical face, I've set it to show at glance:

1.) Beautiful and legible smooth-running hands to show hour, minute and seconds.

2.) Current temperature, as well as today's predicted high and low. Tap this for the full weather report and reports for numerous cities.

3.) Stopwatch. Tap to go to its screen for start/stop and analog/digital display options. Reads to 0.01 seconds and reads to thousands of hours.

4.) My next appointment or event shows along the top. Tap for your Calendar of events.

5.) Day and Date. Tap to go to Calendar of events.

6.) 73º: My app to control my home thermostat settings.

7.) iMessage. Tap to go to text messages.

8.) Battery charge state. Tap to go to the details and control Low Power Mode.

9.) Countdown timer. Tap to start/stop and set the duration.

10.) Alarms. Tap to go to them.

 

Apple Watch ULTRA

Utility face. That's a full moon and its rise time shown at the top right, and sunset on the bottom. bigger.

 

Apple Watch ULTRA

Modular face. bigger.

 

The Photos face is fun; it randomly pops up images you can sync from your Favorites album on your iPhone.

Apple Watch ULTRA

Photos face. Original Photo from iPhone. bigger.

 

Apple Watch ULTRA

Photos face. Original Photo from Nikon Z7 II. bigger.

 

Apple Watch ULTRA

Astronomy face shows where I am (green dot at Bridgeport, California) as well as day, night and live clouds. bigger.

 

Apple Watches Compared       top

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I'd get my Apple Watch ULTRA at Adorama or at Amazon, or any Apple Watch at Adorama, at Amazon, or at eBay if you know How to Win at eBay.

 

See All Apple Watches Compared.

 

Apple Watch User's Guide       top

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I'd get my Apple Watch ULTRA at Adorama or at Amazon, or any Apple Watch at Adorama, at Amazon, or at eBay if you know How to Win at eBay.

 

Setup

Use the Watch app in your iPhone to connect to it and set it up the first time.

After that you also can do a lot of setting right in the watch.

 

App Installation

Everything comes from your iPhone.

Download apps on your phone first, and then in the Watch app on your phone be sure you set each app in My Watch (bottom left tab) to install on your Watch.

 

Power & Charging

It charges via USB with the included Apple Watch USB-C Charging Cable.

It charges about three times as fast with the included Apple Watch USB-C Charging Cable rather than the older USB-A charging cable.

With the Apple Watch ULTRA mostly discharged, the USB-C Charging Cable draws 5.2 watts, while the USB-A cable only draws 2 watts.

While I'll admit I still use the same old USB-A charging cable on my nightstand because it easily charges overnight, if I needed a faster charge of course I'd use the USB-C Charging Cable.

The Apple Watch ULTRA has such huge battery capacity I can't see why I'd ever need to fast-charge between workouts, but if I did, obviously I'd grab the included Apple Watch USB-C Charging Cable rather than the older USB-A cable.

There is no AC wall adapter included; c'mon, we all have USB wall adapters or computers or cars or power banks with USB sockets.

Mine charges at about 1.4% per minute through most of its range, of course slowing as it nears a full charge.

It's AOK to leave it charging all night; it shuts off when full.

You don't need it if you have a power bank, but there are also self-contained portable chargers with a built-in battery.

 

Cellular Data (LTE)

All Apple Watch ULTRA come with standard LTE.

If you activate it with your carrier, your watch works perfectly while out and about even without your iPhone around. That's the point of the LTE (Cellular Data) option; the watch can work all by itself in the field. Go for a run, out to dinner, bike ride or swimming in the ocean and leave your phone at home, and everything on your watch — even the Phone app for making telephone calls — all work as they always do.

The gotcha is that it costs $5~10 a month paid to your carrier (Verizon, AT&T etc.) for LTE service.

If you always have your iPhone with you, you don't need the LTE option. The Apple Watch doesn't use LTE, even if you have and pay for it as I do, when your iPhone is around because LTE uses much more battery power than Wi-Fi or a direct connection to your iPhone.

If you're at home, work, or school and leave your iPhone elsewhere or turned off, your watch connects with WiFi and works great — again, no LTE needed. Even before I had LTE I loved that my iPhone could be in one part of the house, and if a call comes in, it rings on my watch over WiFi even if I'm out in my backyard Jacuzzi. It's all transparent; the Watch just works and you don't have to do anything; it swaps among connections and networks all by itself.

The Apple Watch only uses LTE when your phone or WiFi isn't around. LTE uses a lot of battery power. Think about it: usually the watch talks to your iPhone two feet away with Bluetooth, or WiFi in your house 20 feet away, but LTE has to transmit enough power to make it to a cell tower potentially a mile away.

Even if your iPhone or WiFI is always near, a nice reason to have LTE activated is if you're taken hostage or enter a secure facility where you no longer have your iPhone, or if your Apple Watch is misplaced or stolen. You can use the Find My app on your Mac or iPhone to locate your watch transmitting all by itself.

 

Classy British Voice

If you're James Bond or otherwise want your watch to speak in a more interesting voice, in Settings on your watch or in your iPhone select Siri > Siri Voice and pick British Female.

Your friends will be amazed, and there are plenty of other options.

 

Speak the Time

To hear the time, be sure you have the ringer activated (swipe-up and see the bell icon), then hold two fingers on the face for a second until it speaks.

If the Apple Watch is awake, then hold two fingers on the face for two seconds and it will speak as you remove them. It's much easier with the watch in its usual "always on" idle state, in which just applying to fingers for a second will make it speak.

 

Disable Silly Interruptions

I had Siri set for "Raise to Speak" in the Watch app in my iPhone so that all I had to do was lift my ULTRA and say "Call Home" or whatever, but all too often Siri would think I was talking to her and say crazy things for no reason as I went about my day. Turns out Siri wasn't smart enough to ignore me when my watch was raised but I wasn't talking to her.

I fixed this in the Watch app in my iPhone by setting: My Watch > Siri > Raise to Speak > OFF.

 

Hour Chimes

To get a Ding! and a poke each hour, in the Watch app on your iPhone select the My Watch tab at the bottom, then scroll down to Clock > Chimes > ON.

There are also options for quarter-hour chimes.

 

Long Workouts & Low Power Mode

Since I can log 12 hours of workout on my Apple Watch ULTRA and still have some charge left at the end of the day I haven't had to use any of these power tricks since my Series 5, but here they are for reference.

During workouts the heartrate sensor is ON continuously. That's the bright green LED on the back of the watch, which uses a lot of power. Normally your watch only checks heartrate every ten minutes or so.

Low Power modes check heartrate less frequently during workouts. Set this in the Watch app in your iPhone at My Watch (lower left) > scroll down to Workout > Low Power Mode > ON. This enables the Low Power Mode automatically only while you're doing a workout, and otherwise you're in regular mode.

You also can set Low Power Mode on the watch at the Settings App > Battery > Low Power Mode > ON, but that won't come out of Low Power Mode when your workout is done as it does if you set it under Workout in the iPhone app.

In olden days on century (100 mile) bike rides we could keep a tiny self-contained charger in our tool bag and recharge during rest stops or lunch. You probably could complete the RAAM (Race Across America) this way, but remember to charge the tiny charger and your watch every night.

If you have a locker without a power socket, take a USB power bank and Charging Cable (or a self-contained portable charger) in your bag and you can charge while you hit the showers.

Thank goodness my Apple Watch ULTRA has never required any of these tricks, it just goes.

 

24/7 Power

If you want to wear it 24/7 to track sleep, it charges at about 1.4% per minute with the included Apple Watch USB-C Charging Cable, so if you charge it while you're getting ready in the morning and getting ready for bed at night, that may be enough minutes each day to keep it charged all the time.

 

Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring

If you want heart rate to readout at about once per second, go to the Heart Rate app, and touch the crown with the tip of your finger, just as you do to read EKGs.

 

Backups

It should back up by itself to your iPhone, which in turn you should have set to be backing up automatically to iCloud each night.

You can check the last backup in your iPhone at Settings > General > iPhone Storage > (scroll down a huge list of apps, maybe halfway down to Watch) > and you'll see all the watch backups.

If you're like me and have had several older watches, you'll see backups for each, along with the date it was backed up.

If you unpair your watch from your iPhone, it backs up so when you re-pair it or a new watch, it will by default copy the most recent backup into the watch you're pairing. Backups store all your faces and settings and which apps you have loaded where.

To force it to backup, unpair it at your iPhone (Watch app > My Watch > All Watches > (find the watch you want to backup and unpair) > tap the (i) on the right side > Unpair Apple Watch.

Don't rush the process, what's taking time is the watch backing itself up to your iPhone.

 

Migration to a new iPhone

If you are migrating to a new iPhone the pairing should transfer magically to the new iPhone, automatically unpairing from the old iPhone in the process.

The reason I had to learn the above under Backups the hard way is because I made a big mistake when migrating to a new iPhone.

I don't know about you, but it takes me quite a few tries in the process of trying to transfer my massive collection of music and movie and photo files from my Mac as well as everything else that's on my iPhone.

When my attempted migration didn't work the first try and I wanted to try a different way to migrate data, I simply reset (erased) the new iPhone and tried again.

It turns out that iCloud backups don't restore the music, movies and photo files to my iPhone that I created myself and live on my Mac. Apple isn't clear about this when you get the new iPhone in your hand and it offers many ways to migrate data, but I later realized that the best way for me to transfer everything is to use the option to copy everything directly and wirelessly from the old iPhone (which takes about 3 hours and moves everything), not through iCloud which only transfers items that I've bought through Apple's various services, and then would require re-syncing with my Mac to transfer the files I had created myself.

What I learned the hard way is that by resetting (erasing) the new iPhone, I had never unpaired my watch first and thus it had never backed up. By resetting my new iPhone without first unpairing the watch I orphaned my watch: it would only reconnect to its paired iPhone, but since that new iPhone had just been erased, there was no way to restore it. I had to erase the watch at the watch itself, and then restore it from a backup on my iPhone, but by the time I did this there was no backup of my current Apple Watch, since I had never unpaired it. Instead I had to restore it from a 2-year old backup of an older watch that was on my iPhone, which was the newest backup I had since apparently I had no backups of my current watch in all this.

After I went through this and got my watch set up again (which takes longer than you'd think because there are so many set up options), unpair your watch and let it take its time to back up. Once that's done, re-pair the watch and you should be good to go.

It's supposed to backup automatically all the time, but I don't see that happening. It's something I need to research.

 

Map My Ride app

I've been using the free Map My Ride app to track my bike rides and runs for years before I got my Apple Watch. The Watch's included Workout app does the same thing.

Map My Ride works with the Apple Watch, so you can control it and read it on your watch.

Update the settings in Apple's Health app in your iPhone to link Map My Ride's data with Apple Health. Map My Ride certainly records the data perfectly inside Map My Ride when you control it with the watch, but it might not share data with your watch unless you activate communications between the two in the Health app settings.

I can run the Apple Workout app at the same time as Map My Ride.

It works best for me to start Map My Ride on my iPhone, then start a workout on my watch so they both run together. The reason to run both is that they each record and display data differently, so I have different ways to see different things about the same workout.

While both apps show your path on a map, Apple's is better by color-coding your relative speed throughout your route — but Map My Ride plots elevation and speed graphically.

Like everything, all the apps get better all the time so whenever you read this it may have changed.

Map My Ride records percentage of effort based on heart rate thusly:

100 BPM 0%
110 BPM 8%
120 BPM 20%
130 BPM 32%
140 BPM 43%
150 BPM 55%
160 BPM 67%
170 BPM 79%

Map My Ride divides heart rates into five zones:

Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4 Zone 5
50-60% of maximum heart rate 60-70% of maximum heart rate 70-80% of maximum heart rate 80-90% of maximum heart rate 90-100% of maximum heart rate

Easy

You're talking normally without having to stop to breathe.

Easy to Moderate

You're probably taking a short breath after each sentence.

Hard

You're taking a deep breath after each sentence.

Very Hard

You're taking deep breaths every few words.

Exhausting

Unable to speak; you're breathing as hard as you can.

Active Recovery
Endurance
Tempo
Race Pace
Maximum, Capacity

 

Here's how your heart rate looks displayed as you're riding (among many other possible screens):

Map My Ride Training Zones Map My Ride Training Zones
Map My Ride Training Zones Map My Ride Training Zones

More at Training with the Apple Watch.

 

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The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you find this page as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

As this page is copyrighted and formally registered, it is unlawful to make copies, especially in the form of printouts for personal use. If you wish to make a printout for personal use, you are granted one-time permission only if you PayPal me $5.00 per printout or part thereof. Thank you!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Ken.

 

 

 

02 August 2023, April 2023, 31 March 2023