I felt reluctant buying an Apple Watch with cerebral palsy. I thought I’d destroy it by having a spasm or just couldn’t use it. My mistake. When FitBit decided to stop doing challenges, I decided to give the Apple Watch Series 8 a try.
Apple Watch with cerebral palsy pros
- Setting up the Apple Watch is simple. Just follow the directions on the screen and phone. Everything syncs easily to your iPhone. Fairly easy set up with hardly any frustration.
- The screen is big enough to see and even with Athetoid cerebral palsy or spastic cerebral palsy, you can control mostly everything. I turned off needing a passcode every time that I used my watch. Typing that in became cumbersome with my cerebral palsy. The button on the side is nice and big to hit and scroll through what you need. You hit the button to turn on the watch.
- I bought a screen protector and a bumper. The Apple Watch is durable if you have spasms and fearful of breaking it. I also have Apple care for it just in case anything should happen to break.
- I like when someone texts you, you can text back a reply easily on the watch. The automated text selections are really good and intuitive to a proper response. There is a keyboard that pops up, but I don’t have the dexterity to type on it. You can also speak your texts into the Watch. I like using this feature at work especially so I don’t need my iPhone out constantly.
- Interestingly enough, when I use my Apple Watch as a phone, people can understand me clearly than they do on my iPhone. I can have full conversations without anyone asking me to repeat myself.
- If you fall or crash, the Apple Watch will detect it and call for emergency services and your emergency contacts. I have this feature on, and thought it would go off every time I got out of my wheelchair or down off of anywhere onto the floor, but it doesn’t. I haven’t set it off as of yet, and it makes me feel safer when I’m home alone.
- I don’t use it because I use a motorized wheelchair, but you can set your Apple Watch to wheelchair user. Setting it to wheelchair user will make it count your pushes in a wheelchair. I set mine to not that because it forces me to use my left arm for steps and encourages me to move.
- You can join all kinds of challenges using other apps to complete any kind of goal that you want. I like the apps Stridekick and MoveSpring. I also use the app Pedometer to put my steps on my Apple Watch face.
- I like that the watch tracks your sleep, resting calories, active calories, heart rate, cycles, exercise minutes and so much more. You can also see weather, temperature, battery life and a bunch of other details on your apple face.
- It’s easy to charge using a magnetic charger and charges pretty fast.
- Bands and faces are customizable. Just go on Apple Watch app to change the face or you can get a third party app to change it. Bands are easy to buy on Amazon or a store.
Apple Watch with cerebral palsy cons
- The battery life just lasts a day with the series 8. This is a pain because I can’t take it off or put back on myself. The Fitbit charge lasted 5-7 days.
- I didn’t like the band that came with it so quickly bought a new band like the Fitbit. It stays on much better.
- The Apple Watch isn’t water proof but it is water resistant. I do shower with it but not sure if I’d swim with it. Make sure that you put it on water mode before showering and turn off when finished.
I’d recommend buying the Apple Watch with cerebral palsy. There are a million things to customize and it is a great investment to make your life easier and safer.
