Apple Watch Ultra 2

[stuartv]

The Apple Watch series two ultra won't have AI. I can say this with certainty because when a product with a radio is to be made available for sale in the US, it must be tested by a government agency called the FCC. All technical details regarding communication are publicly available here for the Apple Watch Series 2 ultra: FCC ID BCG-A2986 Apple Watch by Apple Inc.. As you can see, the lowest frequency it can communicate on is 13MHz (NFC). The next lowest is 699MHz, and so on - up to 60GHz.

Hoseless AI transmitters use the Low-Frequency band (30kHz-300kHz) because that's what will travel through water fairly well. There's no unlicensed use lower than LF. For example, the Shearwater swift transmitters use 38kHz. Unlicensed use means the person using the product doesn't have to purchase a license from the FCC.

Maybe some future Apple watches will have such a feature, but this one does not.

What if it used ultrasonic instead of RF? Like the Garmin does.

 

[stuartv]

To Apple, the DC market is a tiny niche & I suspect they had no desire to enter it – but they did need to round out their watch product line with a higher-end "adventure" & exercise model – to avoid ceding that territory to Garmin in the wearables sector. Add in Google's acquisition of Fitbit.

Giving the AWU its DC features was necessary for larger goals. That's my theory at least.

An afterthought so Marketing can tick a box. Makes complete sense given how short-featured and (apparently) unreliable it is. Requiring a subscription to even make it somewhat useful also makes sense. "We don't want to do this, so we're going to make the users of it explicitly pay to cover the R&D that goes into it."

 

[stuartv]

That's quite a time investment- I'm curious about what motivated you. EDIT - I noticed that you have a Teric.

And of the 172 SB Teric owners who voted, over half had problems. What the hell is going on with all those Terics?

I have 2 Terics. I have followed the thread since its inception. A small time investment every few days or a week doesn't feel too costly.

90+ people with problems reported? That seems like a trivial # considering how many Terics are in use in the world (for actual diving). Obviously, it is not reasonable to suggest that over half of all Teric owners have had problems. That thread pulls in the ones on ScubaBoard that have had problems. Naturally, they would be overrepresented in that poll.

And what percentage of the problems reported have prevented someone from diving or caused them to have a dive cut short because of their problem? My gut recollection is that that is a very small percentage. OTOH, my gut is telling me that a fairly high percentage of problems reported here with diving with the AWU have been ones where the person was unable to dive with their AWU - only being able to dive by virtue of having some other device to use as their dive computer.

 

[Diver27]

I made 78 dives this year with the Ultra 1 and the oceanic app. I am a happy camper. Nothing to complain. It just works. Absolutely love the vibration on my wrist during the safety stop.

 

[kimh]

[Apple’s DC was] an afterthought so Marketing can tick a box. Makes complete sense given how short-featured and (apparently) unreliable it is. Requiring a subscription to even make it somewhat useful also makes sense. "We don't want to do this, so we're going to make the users of it explicitly pay to cover the R&D that goes into it."

Why do you have such a hard-on for the AWU/DC?

Sorry, but I don’t have a better way to express this.

 

[Failed captcha]

Why do you have such a hard-on for the AWU?

Sorry, but I don’t have a better way to express this.

There was an article I read a few years ago that was about how Apple uses something in the way it displays information to cause endorphins to release in the user's brain. Basically they did a ton of research on how to activate the reward centers in the brain to make using their devices addictive. It would explain a lot.

 

[kimh]

As you can see, the lowest frequency it can communicate on is 13MHz (NFC). The next lowest is 699MHz, and so on - up to 60GHz.

I mentioned this RF frequency issue earlier in the thread. Thanks for the cool FCC link.

 

[kimh]

…Apple uses something in the way it displays information…

The US English expression I used is a bit unusual. You might think it means a positive reaction, but usually (and in this case) connotes hostility.

 

[Failed captcha]

The US English expression I used is a bit unusual. You might think it means a positive reaction, but usually (and in this case) connotes hostility.

It doesn't make my response less fitting. It just means you probably didn't hit the nerve you were aiming for.

 

[kimh]

It just means you probably didn't hit the nerve you were aiming for.

I wasn’t “aiming for a nerve.” Just trying to be descriptive.