10 Benefits of Having an Apple Watch in 2023

An Apple Watch can do many things than you can imagine. Here are the top 10 benefits of having an Apple Watch.

Since its first introduction to the masses, the Apple Watch has been depicted by many as a wearable iPhone. After all, it offers you the ability to make calls, send messages, create reminders, play music, and a ton of other functions that your iPhone does, all from your wrist. Of course, the Apple Watch also dabbled in fitness, offering you the ability to track workouts, keep an eye on your heart rate, and of course, count your steps.

As you can see, Apple Watches are wristwatch-sized computers with additional functions in addition to timekeeping. Read more on the benefits of an Apple Watch that are worth every cent.

Without further ado, here are the top ten benefits of an Apple Watch in 2023.

10 Benefits of an Apple Watch in 2023

1. Quickly View Notifications

One of the main benefits of having an Apple Watch is that it lets you see the notifications without having to touch your iPhone. You don’t need to take your iPhone out of your pocket if you have an Apple Watch on your wrist. You may receive and respond to messages while on the move. The watch delivers a tone and a light vibration to your wrist to alert you of nmew notification.

if you don’t want to be disturbed by the noise, the Apple Watch makes it really easy to mute alerts and keep the light vibration enabled instead. The benefit of this Apple Watch feature is that you can stay up to date with what’s happening without getting distracted.

You might wish to check your messages, calls, or notifications while running, cycling, swimming, or doing any other sort of exercise. It’s not always practical to carry your phone with you during those activities, and when you do, it may be awkward and annoying. This is when an Apple Watch comes in handy. Are you submerged? It’s not a problem at all! An Apple Watch Series 2 and later are water resistant to a depth of 50 meters while an Apple Watch Ultra has a water-resistance rating of 100 meters. You can read your messages without leaving the pool by taking a small break while swimming.

2. Multiple Health Features

Another big benefit of an Apple Watch is that it can potentially save your life. There have been numerous stories of how the Apple Watch has saved someone’s life, such as when the watch informed the user that his heart rate had dropped to well below normal and encouraged him to seek medical attention. At the hospital, he found out that he had seven blood clots that they were able to treat.

Besides heart rate monitoring, the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models, including the new Apple Watch Ultra, offers an ECG functionality, giving the users the ability to check their heart rhythm for atrial fibrillation.

An Apple Watch user started receiving notifications that he may potentially have atrial fibrillation: a condition that can be fatal if not treated and monitored properly.

When seeking medical attention, a doctor told him that his Apple Watch was likely mistaken, but they did a full check-up anyways. When Mint saw a specialist, they confirmed that he did indeed have two leaking heart valves. Doctors told him that without the message from the Apple Watch, it’s possible the undiagnosed condition could have caused a heart attack or stroke.

Newer Apple Watch models can also measure your blood oxygen level, track your sleep, and measure your temperature to help you get an idea of when you might be ovulating. With a wide range of health features, the Apple Watch enables you to keep track of your health while still being everything a smartwatch offers.

3. Personal Safety

Another huge benefit of an Apple Watch is that it provides users with some key life-saving features that can come in handy in unexpected emergencies. In 2022, Apple introduced Crash Detection, which means the watch can detect if a user has been in a car crash.

It automatically calls emergency services if you don’t respond to the on-screen prompt within a certain period of time. The Apple Watch can detect if you have been in a car crash thanks to a high g-force accelerometer and a new gyroscope in the Series 8, SE, and Ultra models.

The other feature that the Apple Watch provides is Fall Detection. This feature works similarly to Crash Detection. The Apple Watch can detect if you’ve taken a hard fall and will ask if you are ok. If you don’t respond after a minute, the Apple Watch will contact emergency services to get you help.

In June 2020, 92-year-old Jim Salsman went up on a ladder to shoo away some pigeons from a grain bin. According to him, the wind knocked the ladder over, and he went tumbling down over 20 feet to the ground. All alone, Jim attempted to use Siri to contact someone, but the Apple Watch already had it covered.

As intended, Fall Detection on his Apple Watch was triggered when he tumbled to the ground. That sent out an emergency alert to the local volunteer fire department. Not only did it reach out to emergency services, but the responders were also able to find him due to the GPS location from his Apple Watch.

William Rogers was skating at Salmon Falls River when he fell through a thin patch of ice. He attempted to pull himself up out of the water several times but the ice kept breaking underneath him.

He didn’t have a long time before hypothermia likely set in, so after taking a second to weigh his options, Rogers remembered that he had his Apple Watch on him. Thanks to the Apple Watch being water-resistant and able to be submerged, it still worked just fine, and he was able to call emergency services right from his wrist.

Crash Detection, fall Detection, and Emergency Services are just some of the Apple Watch features that could literally save your life.

4. Great Fitness Device

Another great benefit of an Apple Watch is that it’s an excellent Fitness tracking device. Since the first generation, the Apple Watch has focused on being a device for fitness and exercise.

The workout app comes built-in with every Apple Watch, and exists solely on the watch. The data from this app feeds into the Health app on your iPhone, covering all sorts of activities, such as indoor and outdoor walks and runs, cycling, elliptical machines, rowing, hiking, and more. You can even set up custom workouts in watchOS 9.

Another way to stay active with Apple Watch is by closing your activity rings. They have become popular among Apple Watch users. The activity rings are daily goals that help you stay active throughout the day and can be an excellent tool for reminding you to exercise or even stand up from time to time. You can even collect awards for completing your rings and challenge friends to a friendly competition.

Existing on both the Apple Watch and iPhone, the Activity app keeps detailed records of each day’s activity. Using the iPhone app, you can explore your activity for each day that you’ve worn your Apple Watch, getting breakdowns of how and when you burned calories, looking at exact details of each workout, and exploring your past achievements and achievements still to come. So, if you live an active lifestyle, you will enjoy using an Apple Watch.

5. Great Sleep tracking Device

Another big advantage of an Apple Watch is that it includes a reliable sleep tracking feature. This can come in handy if you are particularly concerned with your sleeping habits.

Sleep is important because without it we would, quite literally, lose our minds. And with an Apple Watch on your wrist, be that an Apple Watch Series 7, Series 8, SE, Apple Watch Ultra or other, you’ve got some great options to help track and improve your night’s rest.

Sleep provides your brain with the essential opportunity to rest and repair itself. According to the Sleep foundation, every year, the United States loses 1.23 million working days due to insufficient sleep and sleep-deprived workers are twice as likely to miss work as their better-slept colleagues. And not only does a lack of sleep hit you in the wallet, it changes your mood too. If you are sleep deprived you are more likely to become irritable, anxious and depressed. Sleep deprivation also massively decreases your performance.

Apple’s solution to built-in sleep tracking is to get your Apple Watch to capture your sleep data and then the Health app on your iPhone to display it. In fact, you get so much information about your sleep in the Health app that you can easily start obsessing over the results, and paradoxically lose sleep worrying about how little sleep you’re getting.

What this means is you’ll have to wear your Apple Watch to bed, then pick up your iPhone in the morning to judge the quality of sleep you got.

With the Sleep Schedule feature, you can set up a goal for how much sleep you hope to get every night and enable alarms, screen time restrictions, and more.

A little before your bedtime goal, you can enable Wind Down, which will clear your iPhone of distractions and put your devices into Sleep Mode. You can set up Shortcuts to play music or turn down the lights, open the Notes app so you can write a journal entry, or open an app of your choice.

The idea is to teach you how to reduce your screen use right before bed in order to help you relax and get into the mindset of going to sleep.

I can see how this could be empowering to someone that does have trouble getting to or staying asleep, however. If you’re tired a lot during the day and you have a weekly or monthly view of your sleeping habits, you might be able to see a pattern that needs to be addressed. This information is also something you can share with your doctor if you’re concerned about your sleep health.

6. Listen to Music Right From Your Wrist

The Apple Watch features a dedicated Music app. When your watch connects to your iPhone, it can act as a controller for the music playing on the phone.

When you’re playing music on your iPhone, your Apple Watch’s Now Playing app will get triggered. This allows you to control the volume, adjust the queue, pause/play, and change the output device. This will definitely spare you the hassle of taking your phone out, unlocking it in some cases, and entering the music app to select a different playlist. Let your phone rest in your pocket, and use the Apple Watch to add songs to the queue.

Another benefit of an Apple Watch is that you can transfer music to your watch to play songs independently. The Apple Watch lets you connect a pair of AirPods over Bluetooth, meaning you can easily listen to music directly from the watch wirelessly.

Being able to do this is excellent for situations where you might be working out or participating in an activity where carrying around your iPhone can be a burden. The Apple Watch with AirPods is an excellent combination for listening to music on the go.

7. No Need to Carry Your iPhone All the Time

While the Apple Watch requires an iPhone to set up, it still is very capable on its own. The cellular model provides even more independence, like calling and sending SMS through a carrier and using 4G on the go. However, as a WiFi-only model user, the watch still can do a lot when your iPhone is dead or not around.

For example, you can download songs to it for offline listening, leave your phone behind, and connect Bluetooth earbuds to it. This allows you to go on a jog while leaving your phone at home — without missing out on the music. Other features you can take advantage of when your phone isn’t around are FaceTime and iMessage, assuming you’re connected to WiFi. You can communicate with your loved ones through Apple’s services even if your phone is off.

8. A key to your Mac

Another great benefit of an Apple Watch is the ability to unlock a MacBook without entering your password or Touch ID. If you are unfamiliar with this feature, macOS offers you the ability to unlock your MacBook with your Apple Watch. The process is instant, and you don’t have to click any buttons. You just wake your Mac as you would usually do, and you’re in! Of course, there are certain conditions for this feature to work, such as having an unlocked, password-protected Apple Watch on your wrist. The feature feels so natural and is instant, you forget it exists. It becomes a transparent part of your workflow. You only miss it when you’re not wearing that handy buddy.

Unlock your iPhone

Despite its compact and cute design, the Apple Watch is actually a lil hacker that can bypass Face ID on your iPhone. Now, before you freak out, only you can enable it to do so. Apple released the iPhone X with Face ID before the COVID19 pandemic started. After it spread globally, unlocking Face ID iPhones when masked started to become a big annoyance to everyone around the world. Lowering your mask every time you want to check something on your phone is most definitely not a safe option, and inputting in a 6 digit pin every single time is not convenient either. And don’t get me started on typing a longer password instead. As a redemption, Apple eventually implemented a feature that allows users to use their watches as an alternative to Face ID when masked.

The feature is similar to that of unlocking your Mac. The watch has to be on your wrist, unlocked, password-protected, and close to your device. Once Face ID detects your mask, your watch will vibrate — as a security notification — and unlock your iPhone instantly. If that was someone next to you holding your phone, you can lock the iPhone again through the security alert on your watch. This feature makes life so much easier, and you’ll only realize it’s importance when you go out and leave your watch behind on its charger.

10. It makes it easier to locate an iPhone

Have you ever misplaced your iPhone at home or think you’ve lost it? Chances are maybe it went under the couch, but how can you find out for sure?

Misplacing an iPhone, as you are well aware, is a frustrating situation. It always seems to happen before a big event for which we cannot afford to be late.  Thankfully, an Apple Watch can eliminate this inconvenient situation.

You can use your Apple Watch to ping your iPhone, instead of rushing over to your computer and iCloud.com.

I mean, you could use iCloud.com to ping your phone, but then your inbox will get hit with a flood of emails saying that a noise has been sent — annoying! Using your Apple Watch to find your iPhone is much easier.

Just swipe up and tap that Find iPhone button until you actually find it! And yes, you can hold that button down and even get the LED flash to light up, making it easier to find, especially in the dark.

Conclusion

The Apple Watch has many benefits. If you have an iPhone and you want a smartwatch, buying an Apple Watch is a no-brainer, and for most people, the Apple Watch Series 8 is the best option available. But with all of Apple’s newly introduced watches, deciding which Apple Watch to choose is harder than ever. This year, Apple has three new models: the Apple Watch Series 8 (which replaces last year’s Series 7), a second-generation Apple Watch SE, and the expensive, rugged, and huge Apple Watch Ultra.
Offering advanced health and fitness features, car-crash detection, and all the notifications and third-party apps that people have come to expect from smartwatches, the Apple Watch Series 8 has the best combination of features and price for most people. If you don’t need the Series 8’s health-tracking functions, which include temperature sensors for more granular data about menstrual cycles, the second-gen Apple Watch SE is our budget pick. Our upgrade pick, the Apple Watch Ultra, is designed for athletes but is also great for anyone who wants a gigantic screen and lengthy battery life.