I restarted using Apple Watch after two years and can’t believe I ever quit

There was a time I despised smartwatches — yet another screen tied to the wrist, always trying to grab my attention. That was getting too much for an analog watch person. Smartwatches felt way too nerdy to me, like a cyborg-ish human laden with tech from top to bottom.

My tech reviewing side ensured that I was never completely detached from smartwatches, but I haven’t had one tied to my wrist full-time in more than two years. My last full-time smartwatch was a Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. It worked superbly well, and I was quite a fan of its clicky rotating bezel, but once I ditched it, I didn’t look back — until recently.

I paired an Apple Watch with my primary iPhone out of sheer curiosity and not with my mind made up to use a smartwatch full-time again. But now the situation is such that I regret ever quitting smartwatches.

My previous smartwatch was becoming too much to handle every single day. After a point, I found it frustrating that the watch buzzed every waking moment — and on top of that, both the watch and the phone lit up at the same time, showing the same information, forcing me to dismiss everything on both devices.

Suddenly, I had not one but two devices to charge. While traveling, I had to remember to carry another cable because smartwatches don’t have a universally accepted charging standard like USB Type-C on phones. And then there were all the data and health metrics constantly being thrown at your face. I had just crossed the data fatigue line when I gave up on smartwatches back then.

Two years isn’t a short time. It gave me enough of a breather to rethink smartwatches and even rekindle my relationship with them. Now with a clear mind, I decided to just play around with one again, but with zero commitments. Since I’m using an iPhone these days, it had to be an Apple Watch — that’s some sort of rule, I heard.

Why Apple Watch

Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel watches have come a long way since the early days. I’m honestly a fan of what Google has been doing with Gemini on smartwatches. That said, I still reckon that, as a smartwatch, the Apple Watch offers a more polished experience even if it may not match Wear OS’s flexibility.

For instance, I’m fond of the Apple Watch’s rings that nudge you to stay active throughout the day. They’re encouraging enough to take you over the line without acting like a pushy trainer — the kind that bothers you so much that you want to take the watch off and throw it away. And I also find it extremely adorable when the Apple Watch tells me to leave a loud environment while I’m watching an action-packed sequence in a movie theater.

I only had faded memories of what it was like to wear a smartwatch full-time, so I was essentially starting afresh. I went in with zero expectations and came out genuinely impressed.

My biggest complaint with my phone (but more so with myself) is how often I pick it up just to check a notification and then end up scrolling through Instagram Reels for minutes, sometimes hours, before I snap out of that zone. The smartwatch helped cut that down right from the first step of that loop.

Since notifications now appear on my wrist, I only pick up the phone when something actually needs my attention and requires a bigger screen, like replying to an important Slack message. These interruptions no longer break my workflow the way they used to. It has made me noticeably more productive.

Within this first week, I also formed a habit of intentionally “forgetting” my phone, leaving it in my room while sitting with family in the living room or during meals. It’s so freeing that I don’t need to lug around my phone everywhere — that’s when I realized the value of cellular smartwatches.

My primary reason for wearing a smartwatch isn’t health tracking — it’s notifications. Health and fitness come second, though they’re still important. What I use the Apple Watch most intently for is sleep tracking, especially given how messed up my sleep schedule tends to be.

I can sleep and wake up without being mindful of the time, knowing the watch will track everything accurately without my intervention. It logs my awake times far more precisely than I ever could manually. I’ve found Apple Watch sleep tracking to be more consistent and accurate than what I’ve experienced on other devices.

Even though I picked up an Apple Watch for the reasons above — and because I use an iPhone as my primary device — I’m not here to convince you to buy an Apple Watch. I’m here to make a case for smartwatches in general.

Just like smartphones matured over the last half-decade, smartwatches have quietly grown up. You may not see flashy upgrades year after year, but coming back to one full-time after so long made the progress obvious. I now rely on my smartwatch for overall well-being, which, for me, also includes not picking up my phone as often as I used to. And you can achieve that with pretty much any good smartwatch today.

Battery life, once the biggest downside, is no longer a deal-breaker. While I’d still love multi-day battery life, I’m fine charging a smartwatch daily or every other day, given how much value I’m getting out of it.

And that’s the entire point of my return to smartwatches. The Apple Watch is adding to my life instead of taking something away from it. Yes, it’s another device I’m carrying, but it also replaces an existing one — and does so without getting in my way.

From where I stand, the future isn’t smartphones; it’s wearables. Smartwatches are going to play an increasingly important role going forward, especially as smart glasses begin relying on them to track hand gestures for control. They’re primed to become the next frontier of AI and gesture-based interaction. And honestly, it feels like I’m coming back at just the right time.