When I first gave my parents an Apple Watch each, my 70-year-old mother still signed her own text messages “love, mom,” and wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing anything around her wrist besides her delicate analog watch and carefully curated selection of bracelets. My dad, more tech-savvy and curious, thought the Apple Watch was a pointless waste of money that he’d never wear.
I’ve spent well over a decade teaching people how to use tech at CNET — and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it — but nothing is more humbling to a tech reporter than trying to teach your own parents how to use a new device, let alone one they have no interest in. The Apple Watch wasn’t an easy sell, but it’s been well worth the effort as it allows me to keep tabs on my aging parents even though we’re miles apart.
In the 10 years since the Apple Watch was announced, the device has found its footing by pivoting away from fashion and more toward health monitoring. Features include heart rate notifications, AFib history, fall detection, cycle tracking and more. Analysts expect this focus to continue in the next model, which many believe will be announced at an Apple event later this year.
My parents in all their Apple Watch glory.
Life Alert on your wrist
My parents may be in their 70s, but they’re still fully mobile and capable of getting around the house and beyond. Suggesting they wear a Life Alert-like device to monitor falls would be borderline offensive to them. The Apple Watch spared me the awkward conversation because it does this discreetly, regardless of age.
The Apple Watch (Series 4 or later, SE and Ultra models) can detect when the wearer has taken a hard fall — whether at home or on a hike — and will call emergency services if they’re unresponsive for over a minute. It will also send a text to their emergency contacts (in this case, me) with their exact location. I fortunately don’t have any first-hand experience with this feature, but I’ve written about others who’ve been saved by it.
ECG and heart health alerts
The one health feature that hit home for me was the electrocardiogram, which is available on the Series 4 or later and the Ultra models (not SE models). When I tested out the ECG feature on the Apple Watch Series 4 against a hospital grade EKG back in 2018, the doctor noticed an irregularity on my chart. Both the Apple Watch ECG and the hospital-grade EKG showed my heart occasionally skipped a beat. After further investigation, it turned out to be stress induced and totally benign, but the experience highlighted how well the Apple Watch had performed against a medical device. This feature, along with heart rate alerts to notify the wearer when their heart rate dips or rises above a healthy threshold and irregular heartbeat notifications that signal irregular heart rhythms, were my main selling points when pitching the watch to my parents.
Sure enough, about a year into wearing it, my dad started getting low heart rate alerts on his Apple Watch after running. My stoic father, who would rather run on a broken ankle than admit defeat and avoids doctors unless absolutely necessary, willingly put himself through a full heart checkup thanks to the Apple Watch. His condition wasn’t serious, but he now knows to pace himself to avoid excessive strain on his heart.
The rings that sealed the deal
I’m a millennial with almost 20/20 vision, and I still find the Apple Watch screen tiny and difficult to maneuver. Now picture a 6-foot-7 baby boomer with bulky fingers and bad eyesight, and the odds of him choosing this watch over his analog wristwatch for daily use were slim to none, regardless of its impressive health features.
Enter his competitive streak. The Apple Watch tracks physical activity using a three-ring system that takes movement, exercise and standing frequency into account. The goal is to close your activity rings daily to receive badges and compete with friends. Users get notified when someone on their list completes a workout or closes their rings and gives the option to engage in a friendly competition. This worked on my dad. We started competing to see who could close their rings more often, and then once that got old (he was beating me most of the time) he kept it going for himself.
My mom, though not nearly as obsessed with closing her rings, uses the watch as a barometer to gauge how much, or how little she’s moving throughout the day. Unlike other trackers, which she’d tried and forgotten, the Apple Watch gives her a visual cue right on the watch face, and it sends her notifications when she’s lagging behind.
Find my phone, find my mom
My persuasion efforts in action.
The benefits of having a piece of tech strapped on your wrist almost 24/7 are that it’s easy to locate, which means you are too. The time saved by the Find My feature on the Apple Watch is worth its weight in gold, especially when we’re all rushing out the door. One tap on the screen lets you ping your iPhone, or locate other devices and people from the Find My apps.
I’ve also set up location sharing with my parents which means I can use the Find My app on my iPhone or Apple Watch to locate them even if they forget their phone.
With my parents hooked on the Apple Watch, and my ego inflated, I set my sights on my inlaws. The following Christmas, my husband and I gave them two Apple Watches (SE). We gave them the same spiel as we did my parents and waited expectantly to see if we’d have the same results.
It’s been over a year now, and… we’re still waiting. Because they’re not my parents, I can’t be as pushy with them as I was with my own, and I’m not sure my father-in-law would find the friendly ring-closing competition quite as amusing as my own father. For them, I may have to resort to other persuasion tactics, like sharing a certain CNET article about the benefits of the Apple Watch for older adults. I’ll be sure to report back once I do.
