It's been five days since the Apple Watch came out, and the internet has rushed to put the device through a litany of non-professional impact and torture tests, because who needs Consumer Reports reports anymore? This blender schill has already put the thing in a blender and [spoiler alert!] it gets easily destroyed. And barely hours after the release, CNET (see below) dunked one in cold water for ten minutes, in boiling water for a few seconds, and doused it with everything from red wine, to ketchup, to Nutella. The only thing that did anything serious to it was a quick slam by a cast iron pan, which did indeed shatter the screen suggesting that a good smack of your wrist onto solid metal would probably yield a similar result.
But CNET performed a number of drop tests from four or five feet that appeared to have no effect at all on the Apple Watch, and this may not prove to be the case for everyone. As YouTuber TechRax shows us in the video above, shattering that screen can actually occur with a drop onto pavement from four feet or less. A random drop doesn't do any damage, but a head-on drop, when the watch lands directly on the screen from approximately four feet, shattered the screen quite easily.
As SFGate notes, the AppleCare+ plan for the watch ($49) extends the warranty to two years and provides two incidents of damage coverage at $69 per, for screen replacement, etc.
Other potential issues have to do with irritation to peoples' wrists either from metal or plastic components, or the various sensors Tech Times went through the fine print of the user guide and it notes that "You may be more likely to experience irritation from any wearable device if you have allergies or other sensitivities. If you have known skin sensitivities, please take special care when wearing Apple Watch." But this follows on some well reported issues with the FitBit causing rashes for some users, and they even did a voluntary recall last year for users who had reactions to prolonged exposure to the nickel content of the device.
You might also want to be aware that the Apple Activity app on the phone can get a little annoying if not set properly, or shut off. As Matt Haughey noted on Medium, "My favorite unknown feature was the Apple Activity app informing me halfway into a movie with a forceful haptic jolt and message demanding I needed to stand for one minute out of every hour to remain healthy and I should do so right now because I hadn’t stopped sitting since the movie began."
And, finally, people with arm sleeve tattoos and wrist tattoos are probably going to find that the Apple Watch's heart monitor doesn't work correctly for them. As iMore reports, via Apple's own support documentation, "Apple Watch uses green LED lights paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at any given moment." Therefore if you have solid-colored tattoos interfering with that LED detector, it's not going to be able to give you an accurate heart rate. So, sorry, wrist tattoo people.
Below, the full CNET torture test. You'll note that in extreme heat, like the iPhone, the watch does shut down and will, probably, eventually die.
