In 2024 I lost my watch, my ID and other important things to a volcano. Due to the politics and stupidity surrounding the removal of the blood oxygen sensor feature caused by a patent dispute between Masimo and Apple I decided to not replace it.

It's not like I needed the O2 sensor (although it did come in handy while hiking at 12,000ft / 3657 meters above sea level to see how much I should rest to get my numbers back up). It was more the principle of the thing. Two extremely rich companies fighting over something that really shouldn't be patentable.

I'm now approaching almost two full years without an Apple Watch and life has never been better. At first I started missing meetings, phone calls, and reminders like crazy. Having notifications on my wrist is a massive help. It's also a hindrance. I was more easily distracted, less present in conversation, and usually would react to the notification by pulling my phone out anyway.

Since then I've gotten re-accustomed to my pocket vibrating, and pro-actively checking my calendar before taking a walk (to make sure I don't accidentally miss anything). I use the timer or alarm feature on the phone to alert me to critical time sensitive things.

As someone who is relatively fit and healthy, the health features of the Apple Watch just aren't worth it to me to justify the price of the watch and the cellular plan for it to be truly useful to me. Apple may have restored the O2 monitor (but in a way that makes it almost useless to me climbing a volcano again since you can't view the results on the watch--the patent workaround), and with Masimo suing Apple as a result of that workaround, we could be looking at this feature being removed again in a future model.

So instead of spending $500 dollars on a smart watch I don't need, I bought some overpriced headphones that I don't need which quickly switch between my personal laptop, my phone, my TV, my iPad and my work computer without having to unpair from any of them! An actual useful feature that Apple was sued for, and won.

Patents make consumers' lives so needlessly complicated. At this time the Masimo patent is making neither Masimo nor Apple any money from me. Y'all should kiss and make up or something.