Smartwatches and fitness trackers · Apple
Owners keep the Watch 4 because it still does the basics years on (steps, notifications, workouts) and shrugs off knocks, and they accept roughly a day of battery for that.
It survives ordinary abuse. Owners describe years of daily wear without a case or screen protector, showers, pools, mountain-bike crashes in a rugged case, and the watch still running with little more than a scratch and some wear on the metal.
Swimming is where it fails. Several owners say pool chemicals or salt water got past the seal and killed the watch, warranty claims were refused as water damage, and they now take it off before getting near water.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
Once the novelty is gone, the watch settles into a narrow job and does it: counting steps, putting notifications on the wrist, tracking workouts, the odd Shazam. One long-term owner finds it about as usable as the current model and says battery was the only real reason to upgrade. Others wear it without any protection and treat it like an ordinary analogue watch, or keep it as the beater for situations where a newer, pricier watch would be at risk.
Battery is the thing owners are divided on. Some are content with what they get; more say it lasts around a day, or about 20 hours, and they charge nightly. A few compare it unfavourably with older models or other brands that ran for several days. Charging speed splits the same way. The companion app also divides owners, with complaints about bugs, lost edits and duplicate workouts sitting alongside people who are fairly happy with it. Owners of an older model also wish it still received more software updates.
The hardware holds up. Accounts of four years of daily wear, repairs done at a service centre when needed, crashes absorbed by a case that tore while the watch did not, and screens with only a minor scratch are common in the durability and longevity themes. Most owners who talk about how long it lasts intend to keep it until it stops. The clear failure mode is water: pool and sea swimming has killed units, and owners then learn the warranty will not cover it. The practical response is to take the watch off before swimming or washing up.
Not every account is good. One watch died two weeks after being sold on, with a screen that looked burned, and a few owners mention an orange tint around the screen edge or minor screen wear, though too few raised screen durability to judge it. The long-term evidence here is thin beyond the battery discussion: the durability, longevity and water themes rest on a handful of owners each, so treat them as a pattern, not a verdict.
Nothing with a clear majority yet. Owners who raised these subjects were split, or too few to judge.
Nothing has a clear majority against it yet. Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
The same owner, asked again at each point. Fills in as owners answer.
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Public discussions we read and summarised in our own words. Nothing here was submitted to Still Kicks.
Counted from public accounts by people who said they own it, and summarised by Still Kicks in its own words. Not a manufacturer claim, a lab test or an estimate.
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