Apple Watch Ultra 2

11owners with an opinion

73%of verdicts positive

8/3positive/negative since 2024

1.5 yrslongest happy owner

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for battery and performance; criticized for reliability and software.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 1.5 years

I switched to the Ultra 2 about a year and a half ago and the battery life is excellent - I don't have to charge daily, I can run or hike for several hours while listening to music or podcasts being streamed from the watch. It actually allows me to carry my phone much less, since the watch can make/take phone calls too & let me pay for things. The battery life on the apple watch I had before this one, was really abysmal though.

Likes it

Local! I do not mind the cost honestly. And a bit slower also works. I just use one older mac ultra 2/192G ram and another with an rtx5060/16G and an and r9700/32G. Between those I get my models working fine. That also gives me full privacy. And that is worth way way way more than any cost.

Likes it

I had two (an OG kickstarter pebble, and the steel), and also suffered screen death. The battery life was incredible, but I don’t know that I could give up the standalone features that the apple watch ultra 2 has. On-device Siri, tap to pay, calling without the phone nearby.. I hate the digital crown though, and it could use a proper torch like the Garmin watches have, so it’s far from perfect.

Doesn’t like it

I feel the important piece to remember with VO2Max estimation is: Its an estimation. Its significant figures [1]; reporting the value to one or more decimal places communicates a level of confidence inappropriate for how inaccurate these estimations generally are. Especially the Apple Watch's; Garmin's is known for being pretty decent, usually +/- 2, but Apple Watch's is all over the place and is infamous for being really inaccurate. Clamping pace to 5 seconds is a similar idea. GPS isn't super accurate: within 16 feet some sources say [2], though it gets better if you've got dual band, if you're moving; but it gets worse when you don't have an open sky. Just ten feet of GPS inaccuracy over a ten minute mile means your recorded pace is somewhere between 9:58/mile to 10:02/mile. And, experimentally, these systems are way, way more inaccurate than that: on a recent bike ride, with no major sky obstructions, I wore both an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Garmin Enduro 3; the AWU2 recorded 25.05 miles, Enduro 3 recorded 25.18 miles. That's a difference of ~686 feet; ~27 feet/mile. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures [2] https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/

Likes it

At the risk of sounding like a shill, you can get by on the Apple Watch ecosystem’s battery life. The charge time is really quick, so throwing it on the charger while showering each day is sufficient. Your point that a 36 hour battery life on a watch is pretty inconvenient stands. I have an Ultra 2 almost entirely because it can be described as an Apple Watch with a slightly more reasonable battery life. That’s a price I don’t expect most folks to pay.

Likes it

This is the approach I take and it works well enough to let me wear it while sleeping. With a USB-C charger (faster) and not putting it back on until I'm all done getting ready, I rarely have to charge outside of showering.

Likes it

There is a material difference between the older Apple Watch (where the charging puck uses USB A) and the newer Apple Watch and/or the Ultra (where the charging puck uses USB C). Plugged into an appropriate source, the USB C puck gets much faster charging and is usually sufficient for a day's wear after about 10 minutes (depending, of course, on what the day includes). Charging to 80% is likely to be more than enough for most uses, and topping it up with another 15% just before bed is enough for overnight (probably). I had the Series 4 previously and the Ultra 2 now; with the older watch, I would charge it for about an hour while watching TV in the evening. With the Ultra 2, I charge it for about 20 minutes here and there depending on what I’m doing and whether I remember. I’m currently at 39% which will be just fine for my hourlong exercise ride (with GPS), and then I can toss it on the charger while I shower and it’ll probably be at 70% which is good enough for another full day.

Likes it

Went diving last vacation and my Ultra 2 turned into an excellent dive computer (after paying $10 for one month of the corresponding app). The equivalent watch from Garmin is much more expensive.

Likes it

I got the Watch 10 with cellular, so that I could cycle without taking my phone along for emergencies. Turns out the battery life of the 10 with cellular is horrible (even more so if you use cellular for music streaming). So I upgraded to the Ultra 2 purely for the battery (though I have started liking its look as well).

Doesn’t like it

I was swimming with my Apple watch in Hawaii, after a couple of days of swimming the side button sank into the case and got stuck. Now the fun began, long press on that button is an automatic call to 911. I had several calls happened and had to explain to a 911 operator why I'm calling but eventually I was able to turn off (shut down) the watch completely.

Doesn’t like it

I have the same issue. It’s clearly a bug and maybe both the funniest and most serious one I’ve ever had to deal with. In my case I was waking up to my watch using itself. It changed contacts, added locations in maps, placed and cancelled two calls to emergency services and more. I then made the mistake of taking it off my wrist. Now the screen is locked and the watch will continue to enter wrong PINs, locking itself for more time every time. You can’t shut it down - the watch will start to type and dismiss the shutdown dialog (or call 911 again!). I haven’t gotten around to taking it to an Apple Store and have returned to my Garmin watch.