Smartwatch

About five years ago I got myself a Garmin smartwatch. Mainly for measuring my heart rate during workouts. Since then I've seen a good amount of wearables around me. Bracelets, rings. There's even a bed that measures your temperature and sleep.

As a data science graduate I obviously love any type of data. But I stopped wearing it recently, since I didn't feel like I needed it anymore. What did that watch actually do for me?

- I could 'train using heartrate'. Once you have a baseline of your max heart rate, you can calculate your zones. It's better to train on lower zones for endurance. And you can set the watch to buzz once you go above or below the zone. It can help turning your workout into a game.

- Tracking workouts. If you want to hold yourself accountable or track the amount of workouts over time.

- See progress. Either your heart rate went down, or your pace went up, which was always nice to see. It did also work the other way around.

- I could see I was or was getting sick. My heart rate would spike right before and during sickness. It didn't change the trajectory of getting sick. You still get sick anyway. You just see your higher heart rate as a confirmation.

- The effect of alcohol on my heart rate. Even though I kinda knew already from feeling groggy, or my anxiety skyrocketing after a night of drinking, once I saw it in a graph, it changed my perspective.

- You can also see sleep quality, but that didn't do much for me. You feel rested or not and you watch tells you your sleep quality was good or not. You already know the basics. The watch didn't change much.

Overall, apart from tracking my heart rate, which makes a big difference in training, these are all nice-to-haves. Maybe WHOOP does a better job of giving you actionable results. My sense is that if you sleep well, eat well, and workout, there isn't much to optimize.