cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world/p/2367535/the-new-apple-watch-will-use-microphone-and-other-sensors-to-generate-ai-recaps-of-your
Since we’re headed headfirst for a dystopian world of social credid and whatnot, I’m gonna invest in sarcasm.
The stupidest tech purchase I made, ever, was an Apple Watch. Useless piece of shit.
I’ve never seen anyone come up with anything even slightly useful for any smart watch.
$500 bucks to learn that your heart rate goes up when you exercise and to start each day being told your sleep wasn’t perfect. Wow what awesome actionable information thanks
Oh you paid a thousand bucks for the one with the built in altimeter that gives you the exact same information printed on the trail map? So cool, wow so we really did go up the mountain and then back down, who could have known. Oh my god it even remembers where we parked the car?
having a map on your wrist is helpful, not $500 useful but useful.
Sleep and exercise tracking are the number one reason why I bought one. Just because you don’t get excited by it doesn’t mean others don’t.
You and I both get excited about many things in our lives that are totally useless, or even activey detrimental to our goals. The watch probably makes your sleep worse in and of itself, for starters. And I’ve never seen anything helpful on the exercise tracking side, what do you use it for?
How in the world is the watch going to make my sleep worse? Yeah maybe the first week when I had to get used to something being strapped to my wrist. But that’s no different from when I slept with my old Cassio. The watch has bed time reminders that prompt me to go to bed, which has only helped me be more consistent with my sleep. It also alerted me that I was having sleep apnea and prompted me to get a proper test which has only helped me get better sleep. the watch doesn’t magically make my sleep better though, it just tracks my sleep and lets me know when there’s problems. In ways that I can’t do when I’m ya know… asleep.
You’ve never seen tracking heart rate or exertion be useful while exercising? Really?
There are tons of stories from people who report the sleep tracking causes them unneeded stress and worsens their sleep. That’s if they realize it’s happening. Plenty more never make the connection.
The watch has bed time reminders
Your $1 casio also has the ability to set an alarm
sleep apnea
lets me know when there’s problems
Anxiety based marketing. Yes, if you were previously not mindful of your health and the watch was the catylist that got you to seek treatment, that’s genuinely great.
Everyone should however be familiarizing themselves with the symptoms of common preventible illnesses, including the vast majority of which the watch doesn’t track and has no way of alerting you to. Typically you want to pursue medical assistance when you encounter some type of problem, and not just spend oodles on consumer tech because a mega corporation realized they can rake in cash by larping as a preventative diagnostic.
You’ve never seen tracking heart rate or exertion be useful while exercising?
Correct. “Heart rate zone” is a fundamentally worthless metric. It was contrived as an excuse to sell trackers. Even if it were 100% accurate there is literally no benefit to knowing or considering that information during or after your workout. I mention accuracy because there are plenty of examples of people wearing two different brands during the exact same workout and getting wildly different results, just so you know.
If you want to monitor your exertion you just use your breathing. Forced to slow down due to breathing = max, breathing challenged but sustanable (barely possible, but possible, to have a conversation) = mid, sustainable breathing and could easily have a conversation = min. Totally free and you can even do interval training with that same casio if you so desired
It’s what got me my POTS diagnosis. No doctor would even listen to me unless I brought in my own data (60bpm lying, 80 sitting, 110 standing, 130 walking). Obviously I shouldn’t have to pay $500 just to do their job like that, but it changed my life for the better, personally. Now I have medications that help
That’s awesome, genuinely. I’m glad things worked out well in the end
But did they require that information to come from a $500 smart watch? Simply heart rate monitors can be had for $20. For sitting/walking/standing you can check your own pulse for free in a few seconds with a timer or any clock that has a seconds display
They wanted the ECG recordings. Since it came in fancy PDF form it added some legitimacy. They didn’t care about anything I said at all, but being able to show actual evidence like that was a big deal. Just like, hey this is actually real, stop ignoring me.
I dunno if other heart rate monitors would give the same level of data. It was also good for setting up an alarm when my heart rate goes above 190bpm (dangerous), but I don’t need it anymore because I know what that feels like now. I still keep it around just in case though.
Mine’s probably a unique case though. But I also saw a study that 7 people around the entire world got diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which is a tiny number overall; but I wasn’t included in that study either so they probably missed others too.
The main thing I use mine for is being able to check notifications without having to grab my phone. I already enjoy wearing a watch, so the time, date, temperature and any other bonus info I want can be there too.
That’s about where it stops though. It should be a mostly passive device. I don’t think the design of fiddling with buttons and talking to it are reasonable. It should tell you information, not take it.
Hey if you simply enjoy it that’s awesome. My main problem is really just the marketing angle where people end up believing the watch has unlocked the ability for them to go for a walk around their neighborhood
It’s like that black mirror episode where the couple can replay their arguments
“The Entire History of You”
Exact same thought when I saw their presentation. Fucking unreal how many episodes are getting more and more real over last few years. Can’t wait for this stupid AI boom to die, it still won’t go anywhere but at least they would stop accelerating the planet’s death. Hopefully, maybe.
I don’t need recaps; I was literally there.
You will once you’ve got permanent brain fog from super Covid.
Apple seems really focused on preventing the audio from making it off the device.
Which fine, I believe they’ll make that very difficult. Apple has engineering chops.
But it’s not the fucking point. I ALSO don’t want every watchhole around me making transcriptions of anything I say within earshot of whoever wears one. Which will be way less noticeable than even smart glasses. Say goodbye to having an unrecorded conv in most public places.
The whitewashing of the privacy probs with this is galling.
Apple seems really focused on preventing the audio from making it off the device.
Huh? That tiny fucker uses AI to process the conversations itself?! How?
Isn’t that going to drain the battery and heat up the thibg to high hells? I’m assuming it’s either that or the output will be crap.
I was reading up on that and how they plan on processing it in the Secure Enclave part of the watch. My only concern though is as you move more stuff into the enclave, the bigger the attack surface for the entire enclave becomes. And then at what point is more working being done in the enclave than the rest of the watch basically becoming a useless demarcation of security.
It’s processed in an exclave, not the secure enclave
And some places still have policies that don’t allow you to record audio.
Once the technology is implemented and ubiquitous it would only take a secret government mandate and a gag order for the code to be altered to listen for particular words and phrases and log them
And its all closed source and propretieary. So no one would know.
I wonder what goes through these designers’ minds
Its gonna keep a scoreboard of how much you crank your hog
Why would anyone want that?
No one does. That’s where we’re at in tech now. It’s never anything any consumer wants, but it’s always what the surveillance industry wants. A recap of my day is fucking useless. I was there, for fuck sake!
I’ve been wondering the same about all technology for the last 10 or more years now.
Oh great, now we’re all going to have to buy voice modulators that interject some kind of patterned noise that scrambles audio recording. Just like those masks that interfere with video.
The privacy arms race has begun.
In a decade we’ll all be wearing privacy helmets.
Wait, that sounds kind of cool actually.
Daft punk was ahead of their time
Their Israeli R&D center hard at work
is this for people with Alzheimers? do people not remember what they did through the day or need more granuality? took a shit vs took a shit fron 9:05:47 to 9:35:48 vs did i shit today ?
No thanks
Coming soon! The iWatch U
Who wants a recap of their day?
“You woke up at 7:22am!”
“You played stardew valley in bed for 14 hours!”
“You took minor chickie mcnuggie breaks twice today!”Ideal day tbh
Damn, this day sounds awesome.
Are you watching me through a camera rn???
We all are
On your LG TV, yes.
All these years we have been watching TV, and now the tables have turned. The TVs are watching us.
