Sometime last week was Amazon Prime Day. To those unfamiliar, it’s when Amazon offer some of its products on deep discounts for their Prime members. It is an anticipated event for some people. For some shoppers who are also good planners, they anticipate their personal and business needs and buy in bulk. Someone like us in the short term rental business, for example, would have been able to save on towels and linens and such. But sadly, I have not anticipated this early enough to take advantage.
What happened instead was an impulse buy of an Apple Watch series 7. It was discounted for at least $100! It was $298 from the usual $$399! And in my favorite color! Who could resist? So Into the cart it went, and of course with Prime shipping, it arrived at my doorstep in probably less than 72 hours. Also, because it was an impulse buy, I also did not anticipate that I will be out of town for the weekend when it was supposed to arrive! So, I had to ask my good neighbor, Martha, to pick up my package for me to keep it from porch pirates!
I have been an iPhone user since 2008. I don’t upgrade every time there’s a new one, but I do love it. And even though I’m a late adapter to the AirPods, I fell instantly in love with the ease of connection to my phone. So I had no doubt that I will love the Apple Watch too. It is sleek in design, just like any Apple product, in my opinion. And so many bells and whistles! And the newer versions now can give an ekg tracing. Also, I see it on most everyone’s wrists now. So I thought why not? Let’s just join the bandwagon! I was so excited! I thought I could finally get one of those 3 in 1 charger stands that I thought was really cool.
So anyway, I finally got it. And it did not disappoint in terms of design. It felt so light on my wrist I hardly felt it. The sport band was comfortable.
The ekg functionality was cool! I’m NSR! normal sinus rhythm. I do have the need to be in the normal range in everything. Boring I know.
Now, the bells and whistles. It had too much for me. It downloaded almost all my phone apps. So it literally could replace my phone if I wanted it to. It took me a little while to find the step tracker feature. I guess because it had too much going on.
It took me 2 days to figure out the sleep feature. Which is important to me. Apparently I have had to download another app to have the detailed sleep analysis that I wanted. It was $4.99 but still. I already paid $298 for this thing!
And now the deal-breaker: the battery did not last very long. I like to sleep with my tracker on because of the sleep feature. It did notify me the battery was low a few minutes after I woke up. So that first couple of days I remembered to charge it. It only takes a few minutes to fully charge it which is the good thing. I charged it before I went to bed and in the morning as I got ready for work. The third day, though, I forgot to charge it before I went to work. Because, who actually remembers to charge twice a day? Anyway, not me, apparently. So by 10am that morning it was dead. I was very irritated by that.
By this time I had complained about the watch so much I knew that it was not for me. My disdain for it was almost comical. I complained about it to anyone who would listen. At home, at work, my patients.
So anyway, I had it for 3 days when I decided that my smart watch was way too smart for my liking. It probably needed to charge that much because of all the things it wanted to do. I didn’t want all my apps on it. I didn’t want the calls or text message to go through it. I already have my phone for that. Which by the way I’m struggling to keep my mind and hands away from already. I’m already way easily distracted as it is.
Back to Amazon it goes. Which thankfully they made it easy to return. Had to remember to wipe it off all its memory of me. I had it only for 3 days but it literally downloaded my life, I felt like. Now that I think about it. It had all my apps. I imagine even my banking apps. I didn’t get that far to figure it out. Anyway, wiped it clean physically and electronically.
And I went back to my trusty Fitbit Charge 3. And apparently they are up to 5 now.
Their devices truly last long. I have been a Fitbit user for almost 10 years and this is only my third device. It still works well and I charge it every 5 days or so. It does all that I need as a health tracker and all in one app that I do not pay for at all. Imagine that, Apple Watch!
I guess my takeaway lesson from this experience is that impulse buy can lead to buyers remorse, ha ha! It was not worth the aggravation in the end.
Note to self: plan ahead of time.