Hello all,
I'm looking to purchase my third Apple product after my iPhone 13 and MacBook Air (2020). This time, I’m considering getting an Apple Watch — specifically the Apple Watch SE 2.
I’m not planning to go for Series 9 or 10 because:
They’re quite expensive, and
I’m not a health freak — so advanced health tracking features won’t be of much use to me.
My main usage would be for basic tasks like:
Notifications
Checking the time
Setting alarms and timers
VoiceOver-friendly navigation
Quick responses to messages or calls
So I’d love to hear your suggestions. Is the Apple Watch SE 2 worth it and fully usable with VoiceOver?
Also, if I do go for the SE, what case size (40mm or 44mm) would you recommend, especially in terms of screen readability and comfort?
Looking forward to your advice. Thanks in advance!
Best,
Siddarth
Comments
Case Size
Well what you are going to use the watch is completely accessible with voiceover. Now for the case size, I recommend the 44 as battery is a bit larger. By the end of the day, you have to charge overnight. Consider matching the case size with your wrest size.
I have a 44mm SE2, and my…
I have a 44mm SE2, and my use case is the same as yours. Note though that there is (apparently a known bug) with the very hardware of the smaller displays (40-44mm) modern watches 41-45 or 49mm do not have. The taptic time feature is broken on the SE2 and I confirmed this when I tested other apple watches as well as those of my friends. Basically, normally for hactic time with VO, the guide
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/watch/apd2c755c294/watchos
tells to double tap the display when it's inactive. However, while this works perfectly fine on modern watches with slightly larger displays than the SE series
Double tap: time with hours and minute in the digits mode depending on what you have set your watch at
Triple tap: time with only the minutes
This, one of the most useful feature of the apple watch for us IMO, is quite unreliable on the SE2. We have to do triple tap for the full time, and worst, quadruple tap, with quite a slow speed (very hard to describe you have to experience it to understand) for only the minutes. This works very efficiently, and is reliable, on like the watch 9>, but on the SE2 this does ruin the experience quite a lot in my opinion.
This is of course completely undocumented and I discovered this myself and had to go to several apple stores and try random watches to understand that it was not a random problem in my unit.
Otherwise, as pointed out in the forums, you have to try to know if the watch will be any useful to you. Frankly I would probably not have bought the watch at all but for the unlock the mac with apple watch feature (yes).
It is useful when it's there and certainly handy when your iphone is away to control media playback and etc (even if it's mostly redundant with the airpods). Speaking of airpods, if you are thinking like me:
Smart watch? Oh, airpods work great with VO on iphone and mac so this is gonna be very useful!
Forget it. When there is no playback from the watch like on a call or media, VO will drop the connection after 15s if you're lucky, so this dream of a silent smart watch we could use with people around without having to break our neck... simply does not exist.
Also I kinda regret only buying the gps version...
I have never used dictation for messages or such at all, it's simply a very useful tool to mirror notifications (a tap on the wrist is sometime nicer than a phone vibration), the exercise ring doesn't mean anything to me although for workouts it is kinda cool but just because it is there so...
The apple Pay experience is great though (I have 0 knowledge whether apple pay is actually useful/reliable at all in India)?
Honestly, if you are already convinced to buy it, then just go for it. Accessibility wise, it's, apple, so very good and usable as we have the base of the ios voiceover rather than the mac's. Otherwise, the best thing you could do if possible is just to buy one, try it for a week and decide for yourself.
Note that it will be weird at first but the watch doesn't have the same paradigm than your regular device, IE it's not meant to be actively used if it makes sense. You have to experience it to understand. It is an accessory, useful if you give some value to it, but certainly not required if you can (unliked me) ignore the hidden marketing of the apple ecosystem trap :)
Hope this helps!
One thing to think about
One thing you might consider is that the SE2 Apple Watch is approaching its second or third year, so you should think about how many more software upgrades you’ll be able to make to the watch itself. Especially if you are using it with Apple Pay. For that very reason, I am planning on getting the latest Apple Watch either app 10 or 11 depending on when they get the money together.
re: Rixon Smith
hi, thank you for the comment but, sadly, apple pay doesn't support in india. , will that support the software update atleast for another 3 to 4 years?
Unknown
Your best bet is to check with Apple to find out that answer or if someone who has an older Apple Watch might be able to answer that question for you
Rixon Smith
When Apple consider device end there will be no more updates. Do not know if phone companies have deals on watches but check with them. Also check Amazon for deal specially when they are doing their Summer deal.