Many of us have talked about it at one time or another. I am curious about what people think now. Several kids here have Dexcom + smartwatches, and others don’t. Thoughts? Lessons learned?
As for us, so far: for years I tried to get my son to wear a smartwatch. He has never agreed and has strenuously objected, arguing he would break it in no time, get water in it, or forget to charge it. Now I think he is likely right—but I still wish there was a way
My dream would be a Dexcom-compatible Casio G-Shock, like I used to wear when I was sailing professionally:
Here’s some thoughts from my use of a smart watch as a late teen/young adult
I have an “original” apple watch (released in 2015 - end of my senior year of HS), have had it almost since they first came out, and I found it very handy for taking a quick glance at BG while driving or while in class. Freshman year of college I used to wear it into the shower in the dorms to keep an eye on BG and the time before my classes. I don’t wear it much anymore because it runs super slowly, can’t really keep up with the Dexcom app anymore, and yes, I always forget to charge it
Overall I found it handy for making it easier to take a quick glance at how things are going but wouldn’t say it was “critical” to my management in any way. It did spam me with harder to ignore notifications (with haptic feedback on my wrist being harder to ignore than phone vibrations) if I was getting a Dexcom alert though. I sometimes still pull out my watch if I’m going to have a particularly busy day (particularly a busy day in lab, because taking off my gloves to pull out my phone is kinda annoying). But the battery life on the original Apple Watch is very bad, not sure if newer ones are any better and I’m confident other brands are better for this particular aspect.
We purchased my son the 2nd generation apple watch in stainless steel that is also waterproof.
We have zero issues with it. We 3D printed a stand for the charger and velcro’d that to his nightstand. The charge lasts a full day and evening without issue, but note he isn’t receiving tons of emails or other stuff like that. I would say he wears it 90% of the time, when he doesn’t it is because he forgot to charge it. He finds it useful during weight training and in class when the teachers are hyper sensitive to people looking down.
Have to pick your issues carefully with teens. Works good when it is their idea.
Same - We have an Apple Watch that works great in classroom when the teacher has instituted a cell phone ban. This avoids the issue of why one person is allowed to pull out a cell phone while others can not. Well - same for school - not same for weight training. lol.
Excellent point. I didn’t even think of this aspect.
@Thomas, you are amazing! I have broken every kind of watch, including my favorite Longines, my original favorite SKX007 dive watch, and a passel of Sony business watches—but I have never broken a G-shock in hundreds of thousands of sea miles that have included hundreds of days of ocean racing, several ocean crossings, several dismastings and a 25-day trip back to the coast under jury rig. I thought it was impossible!
