I Bought the Apple Watch Series 8!

I was supposed to wait a while before purchasing an Apple Watch, and it was supposed to be a Series 7, but I saw that Amazon was having a sale, specifically the Amazon Prime Early Access sale that occurred on 11-12 October.  I wasn't even aware of the sale until 12 October at maybe 9 PM.

I ended up purchasing a Series 8 45mm GPS model in silver aluminum, for $379.  That price was good enough to where I decided not to pass it up.  I didn't want the steel version, as there's no way I'm going to spend $700 on ANY smartwatch, which also left out the Ultra.  NO SMARTWATCH IS WORTH THAT MUCH.

I ended up ordering it the day before I went on vacation to New England.  It's already been delivered at my home and it's awaiting me to open it.

Yes, I deviated from my plan of purchasing the Series 7, but that watch would've been refurbished if I'd chosen to buy it from Apple.  I'd thought to buy the Series 7 through Amazon, but didn't want to worry about Apple not offering support with refurbished Series 7s and didn't know if I could find new Series 7s on Amazon.

I really didn't want to worry about support (if the watch ever had an issue) and wanted the max support duration possible, so Series 8 was the best choice.  I'm also tired of always getting older tech equipment, so this time I bought something that's been recently released.

I'll eventually be buying a watchband for this watch.

The Fitbit Sense will be used at night only (it has good sleep tracking) and maybe for workouts (it has great workout detection and tracking - probably much better than the Series 8).

I'll document my experiences with this watch on this blog.

Back to Wearing My Samsung Watch (SM-R800)

I've a Samsung Galaxy Watch that my wife gave me for Christmas a few years ago.  It wasn't a new product when she got it for me (I believe the next version was released less than a year later).

This watch sits between their S3 and Watch 4 - they botched the naming convention for this watch and just named it Galaxy Watch, which is confusing as hell!

It replaced my Galaxy Gear S watch, which was a cellular networked watch.  That watch was functional but dated when I got it, as well.  I loved taking calls from that watch, though!

This particular watch is the 46mm BT version of the Galaxy Watch.  It works well enough but stopped being fully supported maybe a year ago (it runs on the Tizen OS, which has been depreciated).  Well, let me rephrase:  the watch is still supported; it gets occasional updates, but nothing like the current Samsung Watch products (because Tizen OS isn't supported anymore - it will eventually die).  The last update I got was 8/18/2022, a small update that enhances GPS stability.  The update prior to that was 11/2021 and was probably the very last large update.

I'd replaced this watch with a FitBit Sense, which is equivalent to an Apple Watch Series 7, but the Sense stopped working maybe a month ago (it won't charge).  I'm in the process of RMAing the device.  They'll send me another one once I send mine back to them.  

I bought the Sense using employee stipend funds (bought it during the thick of Covid - the employer gave us funds to use to stay healthy at home).  I should've just bought a damned Apple Watch instead, because Fitbits aren't really dependable/durable.  There's a chance I'll eventually have issues with the replacement.

To be honest, I may just sell the replacement and use the funds to buy an Apple Watch.

So, for now, I reverted back to my Samsung Watch and am liking it.  I love it's heft and it's UI is easy to navigate.  It's also GPS-capable, so it should be able to track my runs and other physical activities (using tethered software, I assume).  It's doing a lot of what the Sense does.  The only thing the Sense does that this Samsung Watch doesn't is sleep tracking and heart monitoring.  

Continuing to use the Samsung Watch even once I get the Sense replacement, wouldn't be the worse idea, I guess.

We'll see.

The Apple Watch Series 7 is still on my radar, too.