We gave the Apple Ultra Watch to five pros (diving, running, hiking, teardown)

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- [Becca] At 49 millimeters and 61.3 grams,
the Apple Watch Ultra is Apple's largest
and most rugged watch to date.
It has dual frequency GPS, a peak brightness of 2000 knits,
a 36 hour battery life, a bright orange action button,
a titanium case, water resistance down to a hundred meters,
and of course an ultra price tag of $799.
Apple claims that-
- Every detail has been engineered to create the most rugged
and capable Apple watch ever.
- So in the last three months, we got lost.
Yeah, we're the fools with 20 pounds of gear on our back.
We dove deep.
(water splashing)
We went on long runs and we even tore it apart.
- Average use should probably get you about two years.
- To see just how ultra this watch really is.
So in this video, I've created these mini reviews
or vignettes that highlight some of the most important
features on the Apple Watch Ultra.
I've called in some pros too,
and I encourage you to jump around.
All of the sections are labeled down below.
The Apple Watch Ultra is an amazing device,
but much like a Jeep or a fancy pair of hiking boots,
it sells this grand idea of off the grid adventures
that it isn't always capable of delivering on.
Enjoy, bud.
(gentle music)
We're putting a lot of trust in technology today.
But lucky for one of us,
I've started my track back, so.
New to the Apple Watch SE, the Apple Watch Series Eight
and of course the Ultra is a track back feature
within the Compass app.
If you start a walk, a bike, or a hike,
it will automatically start dropping way points
as you're going so that you could track back.
But Apple claims that it will also start automatically
when you are quote unquote, "off the grid."
In the fine print on their website
it says that that means that you are away from locations
that you are normally in and you're away from wifi.
So I'm gonna start a hike which should automatically
start the track back feature but Vjeran
is not gonna start a hike and we're gonna see if it actually
starts tracking back for him because,
well, I think that you're gonna need track back
when you don't think you'll need it the most
if that makes sense.
Anyway, let's go get lost.
V, you ready for this? - No, no.
Not really.
We have a lot of gear.
Why, why are we doing this?
- [Becca] Apple in its September keynote
seemed set on convincing all of us that danger is everywhere
and only an Apple device running Apple software can save us.
On the Apple Watch Ultra, that means safety features
such as fall detection, emergency SOS that can alert
specific contacts if you need help,
car crash detection and backtrack.
This is my supervising producer, Vjeran.
- I'm so glad I brought my hiking shoes.
- [Becca] I made him set out on a six mile hike with me.
We were both wearing Apple Watch Ultras
and well quickly, our tech began to fail us.
- That way or that way?
- I think that way. - I say that way.
- First it was the lack of turn by turn directions
or way to follow a preset route.
So less than a mile into our hike
we took our first wrong turn.
This is embarrassing.
Even though I did have an offline map,
I was attempting to follow on my phone.
I think we keep veering in.
Let's go. - You think we keep veering?
- Veering like, oh. - Oh.
- [Becca] This mistake ended up adding
an extra three miles to our hike.
There were also multiple times
we had to make an educated guess about which trail to follow
since our trails were not well marked.
- Long story short, we're probably fucked.
- [Becca] No!
A watch meant for adventurers
should have integrated offline trail navigation.
- Hey, how you doing, kid? - I'm doing great.
I'm doing so good up here.
Second, holding my camera led to my wrist pushing down
on a combination of physical buttons,
which paused our walk for 0.6 miles before I realized
it was paused.
The watch still recorded points in the Compass app
for the backtrack feature even though the workout
was paused, but no one wants any amount of miles missing
from the final count of a workout.
Dumb, dumb!
I hate that.
And third and most importantly,
Vjeran's backtrack, it never started.
- There's absolutely nothing on here,
which is a little concerning.
- [Becca] Despite being incredibly off the grid
and having started a walk after the watch noticed Vjeran
was walking for a while,
the compass never began dropping any way points.
- [Vjeran] Yeah, at this point you really should see
a lot of little breadcrumbs.
- [Becca] So if he had gotten lost,
he wouldn't be able to use the backtrack feature.
- I guess you have to just like assume
that you will get lost.
- Dude, that sucks. - That kind of sucks.
- Since I physically started my hike workout on the watch
when we started, I had many, many way points to follow
on our way back.
Hello points.
V, thank God you got me.
What would you do without?
What would you do without me?
So at the top of the mountain,
which was the middle of our hike,
I simply pressed the backtrack button on the Compass app
and it led me to every point I had dropped.
This is going to be incredibly useful when bushwhacking
or hiking without a trail to the top of a peak.
But in our experience, with two days of hiking,
unless you physically start a workout,
this feature does not always start on its own
and I don't think it should be relied upon
when heading out on an adventure.
Don't assume this feature's just going to start.
Downloading an offline hiking map
such as one from All Trails is still a safer bet.
Another safety feature on the Apple Watch Ultra
is its siren.
(siren blaring)
Apple claims that they worked very hard
to make this 86 decibel siren unique
so that when you hear it, you know that it's not just
another sound in nature.
But to test it, I'm gonna start walking away from Vjeran
and every 30 seconds he's gonna sound the siren.
If I can hear him, I'll stop.
I can hear that.
And I'll note that I can hear him
and then I'll keep walking till I can no longer hear him.
But I've also bought a $4 whistle.
So after we test the siren,
we're gonna test just a normal whistle
and see how far away I can get from that.
Peace.
Wait, gimme that camera.
- In order to turn on the siren
all you have to do is just hold onto the action button
and then you'll get prompted to slide across the screen
to turn on the siren.
(siren blaring) - All right.
I'm 125 feet away and I hear that.
Oh yeah, I hear you.
- All right, she can hear that.
- Continuing down the path.
250 feet.
Yeah, I can hear that.
- All right.
- All right, this is 450 feet.
(siren ringing weakly)
Oh yeah, okay, 450 feet.
We're gonna go to 550 feet.
(siren ringing weakly)
Oh yeah, okay.
Point one miles, 550 feet.
I can still hear him, but barely, barely.
(siren ringing weakly)
Either he's not ringing it or I can't hear it.
(siren ringing weakly)
So 0.12 miles.
That's about where I stopped hearing it.
Now I gotta walk back.
It's like the walk of shame.
Whistle time.
- $4 whistle.
- You remember, you're like,
you might die. - Full power?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Like this is your safety. - Just full power.
Full power?
- Yeah. - Oh gosh.
- [Becca] Let me back up a little bit.
- That's not gonna help.
(whistle blaring)
- Holy shi-
On the road again.
I'm gonna go right to 550 feet
and then I'm gonna go all the way to 0.12 miles,
assuming I could hear him at 500 feet.
- Three, two, one.
(whistle blaring)
- Oh yeah. - Oh yeah.
- That's like not even a question.
At 0.1 miles, you could definitely hear the whistle.
(whistle blaring)
Yep, I just heard it at 0.14 miles.
This is 0.15 miles.
Yep, I just heard it.
- I feel terrible blowing this whistle.
(whistle blaring)
- Yeah.
Oh my God.
0.2 miles.
I was really hoping I wouldn't have to keep walking.
I'm officially at a quarter of a mile,
and we're gonna see if we can hear him here.
- I have to keep doing this, right?
I do.
- Hello. - Hi.
You might hear a whistle.
Feel free to ignore it. - Okay.
(whistle blaring)
- Okay, I just heard it, but it was very faint.
Dude.
- Yeah.
- Quarter of a mile.
- Yeah.
- You're not even surprised.
- Makes sense, honestly.
- $4. - I felt terrible
blowing this whistle.
- I warned everybody walking by.
- Yeah, same.
- [Becca] So while these safety features can be very useful,
they should not be depended on.
- Okay, I need to rant about the action button for a bit.
So hear me out.
By default, when you press the action button,
it is set to open a list of workouts for you to choose from,
and I think that's wrong.
You can set up complications to do that.
I set mine so it starts my most used workout
which is something that I do every day, like walking.
And from a practical point of view when it comes
to the button, it is super convenient and I trust it.
Whenever I leave the house, I just press it.
I don't even double check to make sure
that the workout has started.
And it's easy to pause exercises
even when your screen is locked,
except well, that really means the button
is only good at one thing
which is starting my walking workout and that is it.
So if you're someone who uses Focus Modes
on your phone like me,
wouldn't it be cool if the action button
just sorta remaps itself?
So for example, let's say you're on a mountain.
(fingers clicking)
If I'm on a mountain
and I have my skiing watch face turned on,
you'd expect that the action button would just assume
that the next activity that I wanna do is skiing
and it would adapt itself to skiing
or turning on the slope side.
Same thing with any other focus mode that is based
on a specific activity that I do.
Luckily, internet is a great place
and somebody already made a serious shortcut just for that.
Except it's a serious shortcut
so it doesn't work as good as it should.
The screen itself is big and bright.
It can reach up to 2000 peak of maximum brightness
and I had no problem looking at my info during the day.
The weight and size of the Ultra also didn't bother me
while skiing or everyday use, but yeah,
it can look absolutely massive on a smaller wrist.
So I do have one other gripe that I want to talk about,
and that is screen size.
So on paper the screen is four millimeters bigger
than the standard Apple Watch, like 45 millimeters Series S.
But in practice, this newly gained real estate
isn't really being well-used.
I was expecting either just more information displayed
or even more new watch faces.
Right now everything just looks pretty much the same,
just bigger.
Maybe even the lack of curve doesn't help here.
I don't know.
Anyways, who's next?
Time for a transition?
Okay, so transition.
- I'll cut to the chase.
The Apple Watch Ultra is a good running watch.
It's not the best, but there's a lot to like.
Now I've used other Apple watches for years
and those were good too.
I trained for the New York Half Marathon
with the Series 7 and like three other watches
and didn't have a lot of complaints.
But the Ultra wasn't designed
with shorter distances like a half in mind.
It's meant to be the Apple Watch for triathletes,
marathoners and ultra marathoners.
Back when we thought this thing was going to be called
The Pro, I wrote that Apple had to get four things right
for this to be a true multi-sport watch.
That's a better battery, increased durability,
more physical buttons and recovery metrics.
The Ultra gets three of four.
The big one is battery.
The Ultra's battery life is the best of any Apple Watch.
It's got an estimated 36 hours of regular use.
I've been wearing this for two months
and I regularly get 48 to 55 hours
and that's without enabling any low power modes.
If you flip those on, I wouldn't be shocked
if you stretch that to 72 hours,
but it's not gonna beat a Coros or Garmin.
The Coros Apex 2 Pro lasts a month
and you can get 26 hours of multi-band GPS out of it.
The Ultra could easily last a whole marathon
but it depends on how fast you run for ultra-marathons.
That said, I would stick to six to 12 hour races,
'cause this thing's not gonna make it a full 24.
Vjeran talked about the action button
but from a runner's perspective, it's really helpful.
I dig that I can launch straight
into my go-to run, skip intervals if I'm not feeling it,
and pause more easily if I feel like taking a picture.
I'm a fan.
As for running data, Apple's added a bunch to Watch OS 9
that were previously missing,
like cadence, stride length, ground contact time,
elevation charts and heart rate zones.
Oh, and you can create custom interval and tempo runs now.
These are staples on other running watches
that were missing from the Apple Watch.
The Ultra fixes that,
though the metrics themselves are simpler
than a Garmin or a Polar,
especially since there's no recovery metrics
or training load data.
Recovery is so important to athletes
and is a huge trend in fitness tech.
No one wants to close rings when they're injured.
That's a miss.
Another miss for trail runners is that you have no maps
and no turn by turn navigation.
Runners really care about GPS accuracy
and on that front the Ultra gets an A plus.
That's partly due to the fact that it has multi-band GPS
which is relatively new-ish to smartwatches.
The gist is, is that it can communicate with multiple
satellite frequencies and that in turn
means you get more accurate GPS data in challenging
environments like cities or dense forests.
I live in New York City,
a GPS nightmare and the Ultra performed just as well
as the Garmin Epix 2.
The Apex 2 Pro also has multi-band GPS
and the Ultra beat it in testing.
It still struggles in some areas, but it's way more accurate
than the standard GPS on an Apple Watch Series 8.
Take a look at these screenshots.
I ran up and down the exact same path
and the ultra is clearly more accurate.
As for durability, I mean look at this thing.
It is a titanium beefcake.
I've dropped it, I've knocked it against walls.
We might have cracked a Pixel Watch in the first week
but we have multiple Ultras and they're all doing fine.
But that doesn't mean accidents can't happen.
- The Apple Watch Ultra has four pentalobe screws
on the back.
A pentalobe screw is Apple's proprietary screw
that they've invented.
This is essentially a torx screw.
A torx has a six teeth and a pentalobe has five teeth.
So you can't fit a torx inside a pentalobe screw.
Sneaky, sneaky Apple engineers.
But sneakier us, we'll break into anything that they make.
I'm Shahram Mockhtari and I'm a teardown tech at iFixit
and this is Sharpie, our Chief Morale Officer.
iFixit advocates for a right to repair.
We believe that the devices that you buy,
they belong to you and you should be able
to do with them as you please,
which includes being able to repair them
or giving them to a person of your choosing to repair.
So what's interesting about the Apple Watch Ultra
is that you have those four pentalobe screws on the back.
Unfortunately, opening the back only results
in you destroying the waterproofing of this device.
There's a gasket under there.
You should not open the back of this device up.
The most common repair is likely to be the screen
and if you don't have Apple Care
that's going to set you back by about $500.
That's about two-thirds of the value of the entire device
which means in all likelihood,
if something like this happens,
people are either gonna throw the device away
or buy a new device and throw this device away anyway.
But the next most common repair is going to be the battery.
A lithium ion battery will on average last about two years.
You might get a bit more mileage
depending on how you use your device
but you will need to replace that battery
and it's wasteful to throw away an entire device
just because the battery's hard to get to,
or maybe even impossible to get to.
And to risk your screen in order to remove that battery,
well that's kind of a big ask.
Apple will replace the batteries for free
if you have Apple Care Plus,
but otherwise it will set you back $99.
We sell these batteries for $25 to $35.
You can see where Apple is making their profit.
You can see why they want to lock down their devices.
You can see why they want to force you
to go to them for the repairs.
It's got nothing to do with your ability to repair
and it has everything to do with them wanting
to make a profit.
This device is a marvel of engineering.
It is cutting edge technology.
It's a gorgeous device.
A lot of people spent a lot of time and effort
and poured their hearts and soul into this thing.
We would just love it if it was more repairable as well.
(gentle music)
- My name's Devin.
We are out here in beautiful Monterey Bay.
We're at a outer chase reef.
Often in Monterey, the visibility isn't great
so it gets pretty dark when you get down pretty deep
but we'll try and push it since we can.
I started diving in 2014.
It's just a way to fully immerse in nature
in ways that you can't on land.
We are going to go on a boat to do a dive.
There's a deep canyon out there.
We're gonna try and get some good depth
to test out the Apple Watch Ultra and the Oceanic Plus app.
Let's see what its capabilities are,
see how it compares to another dive computer
that I use that is also a smartwatch
and just kind of test out the differences.
Oceanic Plus is an app for your iPhone.
It allows you to set your pre-dive parameters.
It is your digital logbook
and it allows you to make certain adjustments
on the dive computer itself as well.
I also set it so it should activate at depth
so I was gonna do a test with both it not hitting
the action button and just descending and see what happens.
(water splashing)
Whoop, whoop, woo!
(Devin laughs)
Interesting.
Did not activate.
Okay.
Basic functions that any dive computer
is gonna need to be able to do is either air function,
nitrox, usually some kind of free diverse snorkel.
You are going to need to be able to set the different
air blends for nitrox.
It's gonna need to tell you your current depth,
your maximum depth, your total downtime.
It's gonna need to have some kind of ascent alarm
to make sure that you're not ascending too fast.
It's gonna need to be able to tell you your no deco time
and that's kind of like the most basic information
that it's gonna need to tell you.
Yes, it did tell me all of that, which is great.
Way that it's displayed is pretty intuitive, which is nice.
It does have some limitations.
My main gripe is that when you are on the compass
little section down here,
you don't know how long you've been down.
You should always be able to see what your depth is,
how long you've been down, what your no deco time is.
One of the things that is a little bit difficult is toggling
through some of the screens and trying to get back to them,
especially if you're wearing gloves.
So not having just a back button
that can take me to the previous screen
as opposed to sending me back to the whole original screen.
The battery life is, is a pretty significant thing.
I started the dive out with 92% battery,
it was a 50 minute dive and ended with 69%.
With that I could get three long dives
and maybe four short dives
but then it would be completely done probably.
So there's different colored alarms, there's yellow and red.
Yellow alarms were for when I hit my targeted depth
and targeted time and those were all very clear.
The one thing that was a little annoying
was that it kept buzzing.
It kept going off until I actually hit a button
to acknowledge that I was in it.
The red alarms are for if you,
if you get too close or beyond your no deco time.
I wasn't able to activate because we didn't hit proper depth
or you know, I didn't stay at 60 feet for quite long enough.
All of the alarms that I set went off beautifully
and it is kind of nice that it both vibrates
and gives you a flashing screen.
You know, the depth limitations are definitely there.
You can't go deeper than 130 feet
so you shouldn't be using this watch
if you're trying to do you know deco dives.
You shouldn't be using this if you're doing much more
technical dives.
I can definitely see how this would appeal
to somebody who just wants one device.
You don't have to have multiple computers.
The size is nice.
A lot of basic dive computers are quite big,
like twice the size of this.
It's definitely for recreational divers.
- All of us agree that the Apple Watch Ultra
is a great smartwatch.
It has good battery life, a large bright screen,
precise GPS, unique features such as the Oceanic Plus app
that can turn it into a recreational dive computer
and a rugged build that in our three months with it,
has stood up to rock climbing, diving, hiking, running,
and everyday use.
But while the Apple Watch Ultra sells a grand idea
of being the perfect companion
to folks who live adventurous lives,
often it falls just short of other extreme watches
from brands like Garmin, Coros and Polar.
Those watches have longer battery life
and provide more in-depth metrics for athletes.
Not to mention some of the safety features
on the Apple Watch Ultra are not as reliable
or in the case of the siren,
as loud as we'd hoped.
And without Apple Care Plus,
repairing the Ultra is very hard to do on your own
and will end up costing a lot of money.
Instead, the Apple Watch Ultra is for folks
who want a device that can be an everyday smartwatch
as well as an outdoor companion when needed.
It's for the aspiring marathoner,
it's for the weekend warrior
and it's especially for the tech lover
that just wants the biggest, baddest Apple Watch
money can buy.
And well, for that person and for $800,
it's gonna feel really badass.
Holy schnikes, I'm looking at the complete timeline
for this video and what a beast.
Anyways, a view I thought I'd never see.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'd love to know what you thought of this format.
We took our time with this review and did some crazy stuff.
Anyway, I hope that you're well.
I appreciate you very much.
Happy New Year and yeah, be well.