I noticed even before the Apple Watch shipped that its watch bands weren’t very long. Designed for wrists up to 215mm at the largest, this excludes a lot of people with thick wrists. As for me, using the sport band, I generally wear it with the pin in the last hole. When I use the Workout app, to ensure that my heart rate gets recorded, I use the second-to-last hole.
I don’t have fat wrists, but my wrists are big-boned. As such, I’d always wondered if wearing the watch with the pin in the last hole was a risk. Well, my Macworld editor Roman Loyola found out the hard way. He lost his Apple Watch on the way to work the other day, because the sport band just doesn’t hold well enough when you have the pin in the last hole.
The problem with this closure is that its security relies on the band being tucked. I use the last hole on the Sports Band, which leaves about a half-inch of band to be tucked–a half-inch isn’t enough. I’ve have many times where throughout the day, the band becomes untucked, which makes the Watch unsecure on my wrist.
Apple has released a larger band for the sport watch, but only in black; it goes up to 245mm. They also released a $49 (!!!) Link Bracelet Kit for those who want to wear the link bracelet band. But those are the only two bands that you can wear if you have very large wrists; and you have to pay an extra $49 to buy the larger sport band; you can’t choose to get it with a watch. (You can see the sizes of the different bands here, but this chart does not include the new XL sport band.)
I think I’ll make sure to wear my Apple Watch with the pin in the second hole when I’m away from my house in the future. I work at home, so most of the day I’m in or around my house, and if I were to lose the watch I’d use Roman’s trick to find it:
I walked through my house again, but this time, I took out my iPhone, opened the Watch app, and continuously adjusted the Alert Volume to create an audible “alert ping” from the Watch. And after a few steps in my garage, I heard it and saw it laying next the compost bin.
I’m glad he found the watch. I hope others who lose it are as lucky.