at 49 millimeters and 61.3 grams the Apple watch Ultra is Apple's largest and most rugged watch to date it has dual frequency GPS a peak brightness of 2000 nits a 36 hour battery life a bright orange action button a titanium case water resistance down to 100 meters and of course an Ultra price tag of 799 Apple claims that every detail has been engineered to create the most rugged and capable Apple watch Ever So in the last three months we got lost yeah we're the fools with uh 20 pounds of gear on our back we Dove deep we went on long runs and we even tore it apart average use should probably get you about two years to see just how Ultra this watch really is so in this video I've created these mini reviews or vignettes that highlight some of the most important features on the appalache ultra I've called in some pros too and I encourage you to jump around all of the sections are labeled down below the Apple watch Ultra is an amazing device but much like a Jeep or a fancy pair of hiking boots it sells this Grand idea of off-the-grid Adventures that it isn't always capable of delivering on enjoy bud [Music] we're putting a lot of trust in technology today lucky for one of us I've started my trackpad so new to the Apple watch SE the Apple Watch series 8 and of course the ultra is a track back feature within the compass app if you start a walk a bike or a hike it will automatically start dropping waypoints as you're going so that you could track back but Apple claims that it will also start automatically when you are quote unquote Off the Grid in the fine print on their website it says that that means that you are away from locations that you are normally in and you're away from Wi-Fi so I'm going to start a hike which should automatically start the track back feature but viren is not going to start a hike and we're going to see if it actually starts tracking back for him because well I think that you're going to need track back when you don't think you'll need it the most if that makes sense anyway let's go get lost V you ready for this not really we have a lot of gear why are we doing this apple in its September keynote seemed set on convincing all of us that danger is everywhere and only an Apple device running Apple software can save us on the Apple watch Ultra that means safety features such as fall detection emergency SOS that can alert specific contacts if you need help car crash protection and backtrack this is my supervising producer viren I'm so glad I brought my hiking shoes I made him set out on a six mile hike with me we were both wearing Apple watch Ultras and well quickly our Tech began to fail us that way or that way I think that way I said that way first it was the lack of turn-by-turn directions or way to follow a preset route so less than a mile into our hike we took our first Wrong Turn embarrassing even though I did have an offline map I was attempting to follow on my phone I think we keep veering and let's go you think we keep the erroring veering like oh this mistake ended up adding an extra three miles to our hike there were also multiple times we had to make an educated guess about which Trail to follow since our Trails were not well marked long story short we probably [ __ ] no a watch meant for Adventures should have integrated offline Trail navigation hey how you doing kid second holding my camera led to my wrist pushing down on a combination of physical buttons which paused our walk 4.6 miles before I realized it was paused the watch still recorded points in the compass app for the backtrack feature even though the workout was paused but no one wants any amount of Miles missing from the final count of a workout dumb dumb I hate that and third and most importantly viren's backtrack it never started there's absolutely nothing on here which is a little concerning despite being incredibly Off the Grid and having started a walk after the watch noticed fear and was walking for a while the compass never began dropping any waypoints yeah at this point you really should see a lot of little breadcrumbs so if he had gotten lost he wouldn't be able to use the backtrack feature I guess you have to just like assume that you will get lost dude that sucks that kind of sucks um since I physically started my hike workout on the watch when we started I had many many waypoints to follow on our way back hella points V thank God you got me what would you do with that what would you do without me so at the top of the mountain which was the middle of her hike I simply pressed the back track button on the compass app and it led me to every point I had dropped this is going to be incredibly useful when bushwhacking or hiking without a trail to the top of a peak but in our experience with two days of hiking unless you physically start a workout this feature does not always start on its own and I don't think it should be relied upon when heading out on an adventure don't assume this feature is just going to start downloading an offline hiking map such as one from all Trails is still a safer bet another safety feature on the Apple watch Ultra is its siren Apple claims that they worked very hard to make this 86 decibel siren unique so that when you hear it you know that it's not just another sound in nature but to test it I'm going to start walking away from viren and every 30 seconds he's going to sound the siren if I can hear him I'll stop I can hear that now note that I can hear him and then I'll keep walking till I can no longer hear him but I've also bought a four dollar whistle so after we test this iron we're going to test just a normal whistle and see how far away I can get from that piece wait give me that camera in order to turn on the siren all you have to do is just hold on to the action button and then you'll get prompted to slide across the screen to turn on the siren all right I'm 125 feet away and I hear that oh yeah I hear ya all right so you can hear that continuing down the path your feet yeah I can hear that all right all right this is 450 feet [Music] oh yeah okay 450 feet we're gonna go to 550 feet oh yeah okay 0.1 miles 550 feet I can still hear him but barely barely [Music] either he's not ringing it or I can't hear it so 0.12 miles that's uh that's about
where I stopped hearing it I gotta walk back it's like the Walk of Shame whistle time four dollar whistle you remember you're like you might die yeah like this is your safety full power yeah it's not gonna help holy [ __ ] on the road again I'm gonna go right to 550 feet and then I'm gonna go all the way to 0.12 miles assuming I could hear him at 500 feet three two one oh yeah oh yeah it's like not even a question you could definitely hear the whistle yep I just heard it at .14 miles this is 0.15 Miles yep I just heard it I feel terrible blowing this whistle oh my God 0.2 miles so I'm really hoping
I wouldn't have to keep walking I'm officially at a quarter of a mile and we're gonna see if we can hear him here I have to keep doing this right I do hello you might hear a whistle feel free to ignore it okay okay I just heard it but it was very faint dude yeah quarter of a mile yeah you're not even surprised makes sense honestly four dollars I felt terrible blowing this whistle I will everybody walking by yeah same so while these safety features okay I need to rant about the action button for a bit so hear me out by default when you press the action button it is set to open a list of workouts for you to choose from and I think that's wrong you can set up complications to do that I set mine so it starts my most used workout which is something that I do every day like walking and from a practical point of view when it comes to the button it is super convenient and I trust it whenever I leave the house I just press it I don't even double check to make sure that the workout has started and it's easy to pause exercises even when your screen is locked except well that really means the button is only good at one thing which is starting my walking workout and that is it so if you're someone who uses Focus modes on your phone like me wouldn't it be cool if the action button just sort of remaps itself so for example let's say you're on mountain if I'm on a mountain and I have my skiing watch face turned on you'd expect that the action button would just assume that the next activity that I want to do is skiing and it would adapt itself to skiing or turning on the slopesat same thing with any other Focus mode that is based on a specific activity that I do luckily internet is a great place and somebody already made a series shortcuts just for that except it's a series shortcut so it doesn't work as good as it should the screen itself is big and bright it can reach up to 2 000 feet of Maximum brightness and I had no problem looking at my info during the day the weight and size of the ultra also didn't bother me while skiing or Everyday Use but yeah it can look absolutely massive on a smaller wrist so I do have one other gripe that I want to talk about and that is screen size so on paper the screen is four millimeters bigger than the standard Apple watch like the 45 millimeter Series S but in practice this newly gained real estate isn't really being well used I was expecting either just more information displayed or even more new watch faces right now everything just looks pretty much the same just bigger maybe even the lack of curve doesn't help here I don't know anyways who's next time for a transition okay so transition I'll cut to the chase the Apple watch Ultra is a good running watch it's not the best but there's a lot to like now I've used other Apple watches for years and those were good too I trained for the New York half marathon with the series seven and like three other watches and didn't have a lot of complaints but the ultra wasn't designed with shorter distances like a half in mind it's meant to be the Apple watch for triathletes marathoners and Ultra marathoners back when we thought this thing was going to be called the pro I wrote that apple had to get four things right for this to be a true multi-sport watch that's a better battery increased durability more physical buttons and Recovery metrics the ultra gets three of four the big one is battery foreign battery life is the best of any Apple watch it's got an estimated 36 hours of regular use I've been wearing this for two months and I regularly get 48 to 55 hours and that's without enabling any low power modes if you flip those on I wouldn't be shocked if you stretched that to 72 hours but it's not going to beat a chorus or Garmin the koros Apex 2 Pro lasts a month and you can get 26 hours of multi-band GPS out of it the ultra could easily last a whole Marathon but it depends on how fast you run for Ultra marathons that said I would stick to 6 to 12 hour races because this thing's not gonna make it a full 24. viren talked about the action button but from a runner's perspective it's really helpful I dig that I can launch straight into my go-to run skip intervals if I'm not feeling it and pause more easily if I feel like taking a picture I'm a fan as for running data Apple's added a bunch to watch OS 9 that were previously missing like Cadence stride length ground contact Time elevation charts and heart rate zones oh and you can create custom interval and Tempo runs now these are Staples on other running watches that were missing from the Apple watch the ultrafix is that though the metrics themselves are simpler than a Garmin or puller especially since there's no recovery metrics or training load data recovery is so important to athletes and is a huge Trend in Fitness Tech no one wants to close rings when they're injured that's a miss another Miss for trail Runners is that you have no maps and no turn-by-turn navigation Runners really care about GPS accuracy and on that front the ultra gets an A plus that's partly due to the fact that it has multi-band GPS which is relatively new-ish to smart watches the gist is is that it can communicate with multiple satellite frequencies and that in turn means you get more accurate GPS data in challenging environments like cities or dense forests I live in New York City a GPS Nightmare and the ultra performed just as well as the Garmin epics 2. the Apex 2 Pro also has multi-band GPS and the ultra beat it in testing it still struggles in some areas but it's way more accurate than the standard GPS on an Apple Watch series 8. take a look at these screenshots I ran up and down the exact same path and the ultra is clearly more accurate as for durability I mean look at this thing it is a titanium Beefcake dropped it I've knocked it against walls we might have cracked a pixel watch in the first week but we have multiple Ultras and they're all doing fine but that doesn't mean accidents can't happen thank you the Apple watch Ultra has four pentalope screws on the back a pentalope screw is Apple's proprietary screw that they've invented this is essentially a Torx screw a Torx has six teeth and a pentalope has five teeth so you can't fit a Torx inside a pentalobe screw sneaky sneaky Apple engineers but sneaky Russ will break into anything that they make I'm Sharon mukhtari and I'm a teardown Tech at iFixit and this is Sharpie our chief morale officer iFixit advocates for a right to repair we believe that the devices that you buy they belong to you and you should be able to do with them as you please which includes being able to repair them or giving them to a person of your choosing to repair so what's interesting about the Apple watch Ultra is that you have those four pentalope screws on the back unfortunately opening the back only results in you destroying the waterproofing of this device there's a gasket under there you should not open the back of this device up the most common repair is likely to be the screen and if you don't have AppleCare that's going to set you back by about five hundred dollars that's about two-thirds of the value of the entire device which means in all likelihood if something like this happens people are either going to throw the device away or buy a new device and throw this device away anyway but the next most common repair is going to be the battery a Lithium-Ion battery will on average last about two years you might get a bit more mileage depending on how you use your device but you will need to replace that battery and it's wasteful to throw away an entire device just because the battery is hard to get to or maybe even impossible to get to and to risk your screen in order to remove that battery well that's kind of a big ask Apple will replace the batteries for free if you have Apple Care Plus but otherwise it will set you back 99 we sell these batteries for 25 to 35 dollars you can see where apple is making their profit you can see why they want to lock down their devices you can see why they want to force you to go to them for the repairs it's got nothing to do with your ability to repair and it has everything to do with them wanting to make profit this device is a Marvel of engineering it is Cutting Edge technology it's a gorgeous device a lot of people spend a lot of time and effort and poured their hearts and soul into this thing we would just love it if it was more repairable as well foreign [Music] we are out here beautiful Monterey Bay we're at an outer Chase Reef often in Monterey the visibility isn't great so it gets pretty dark when you get down pretty deep but we'll try and push it since we can I started diving in 2014 it's just a way to fully immerse in nature in ways that you can't on land we are going to go on a boat to do a dive there's a deep Canyon out there we're going to try and get some good depth to test out the Apple watch Ultra and the oceanic Plus app let's see what its capabilities are see how it compares to another Death computer that I use that is also a smart watch and just kind of test out the differences Oceanic plus is an app for your iPhone it allows you to set your pre-dive parameters it is your digital logbook and it allows you to make certain adjustments on the dev computer itself as well I also set it so it should activate at depth so I was going to do a test with both it not not hitting the action button and just descending and see what happens interesting did not activate okay basic functions that any Dev computer is going to need to be able to do is either air function nitrox usually some kind of free diverse snorkel you are going to need to be able to set the different air Blends for nitrox it's going to need to tell you your current depth your maximum depth your total downtime it's going to need to have some kind of ascent alarm to make sure that you're not ascending too fast it's going to need to be able to tell you your no Deco time and that's kind of like the most basic information that it's going to need to tell you yes it did tell me all of that which is great way that it's displayed is pretty intuitive which is nice it does have some limitations my my main gripe is that when you are on the compass little section down here you don't know how long you've been down you should always be able to see what your depth is how long you've been down what your no Deco time is one of the things that is a little bit difficult is toggling through some of the screens and trying to get back to them especially if you're wearing gloves so not having just a back button that can take me to the previous screen as opposed to sending me back to the whole original screen the battery life is is a pretty significant thing I started the dive out with 92 battery is a 50 minute dive and ended with 69 with that I could get three long Dives and maybe four short Dives but then it would be completely done probably so there's different colored alarms there's yellow and red yellow alarms were for when I hit my targeted depth and targeted time and those were all very clear the one thing that was a little Annoying was that it kept buzzing it kept going off until I actually hit a button to acknowledge that I was in it the red alarms or for a few if you get too close or beyond your no Deco time I wasn't able to activate because we didn't hit proper depth or you know I didn't stay at 60 feet for quite long enough all of the alarms that I set went off beautifully and it is kind of nice that it both vibrates and gives you a flashing screen you know the depth limitations are definitely there you can't go deeper than 130 feet so you shouldn't be using this watch if you're trying to do you know Deco Dives you shouldn't be using this if you're doing much more technical Dives I can definitely see how this would appeal to somebody who just wants one device you don't have to have multiple computers the size is nice a lot of basic dive computers are quite big like twice the size of this it's definitely for recreational divers foreign all of us agree that the Apple watch Ultra is a great smart watch it has good battery life a large bright screen precise GPS unique features such as the oceanic Plus app that can turn it into a recreational dive computer and a rugged build that in our three months with it has stood up to rock climbing diving hiking running and everyday use but while the Apple watch Ultra sells a grand idea of being the perfect companion to folks who live adventurous lives often it falls just short of Other Extreme watches from Brands like Garmin koros and polar those watches have longer battery life and provide more in-depth metrics for athletes not to mention some of the safety features on the Apple watch Ultra are not as reliable or in the case of the siren as loud as we had hoped and without AppleCare plus repairing the ultra is very hard to do on your own and will end up costing a lot of money instead the Apple watch Ultra is for folks who want a device that can be an everyday Smartwatch as well as an outdoor companion when needed it's for the aspiring marathoner it's for the weekend warrior and it's especially for the tech lover that just wants the biggest baddest Apple watch money can buy and well for that person and for 800 dollars it's gonna feel really badass holy schnikes I'm looking at the complete timeline for this video and um what a beast anyways view I thought I'd never see uh thank you so much for watching I'd love to know what you thought of this format we took our time with this review and did some crazy stuff um anyway I hope that you're well I appreciate you very much Happy New Year and uh yeah be well
2022-12-24