# Apple Watch review: fitness features and tracking accuracy > Updated: 2026-06-19 · Source: https://dorsi.ai/topics/apple-watch-review Apple Watch reviews usually obsess over display brightness, battery life, and chip benchmarks. But for the 73% of owners who use it for fitness tracking… The Apple Watch is the best smartwatch you can buy for an iPhone. For pure fitness tracking, though, it has real blind spots. The Ultra 2's battery finally lasts multiple days and GPS is trail-ready. But the heart rate sensor still can't match a chest strap during intervals. And most running metrics are basic without third-party apps. This review breaks down what's actually useful. Apple Watch reviews usually obsess over display brightness, battery life, and chip benchmarks. But for the 73% of owners who use it for fitness tracking, what matters is how the sensor suite translates into real training decisions. Morning resting heart rate trends, HRV shifts after a night of poor sleep, and the occasional AFib notification (the Apple Watch ECG feature has flagged atrial fibrillation in over 1 million users) can be vital signals, if you know how to interpret them. Dorsi turns those raw measurements into actionable strength training cues without drowning you in dashboards. The sections below break down what the hardware actually delivers for lifters, runners, and everyone in between. ## What does Apple Watch measure for strength training? Most reviews gloss over this. The Apple Watch tracks heart rate, HRV, and calories, but for lifting those numbers can be noisy. Its optical sensor sometimes locks onto cadence instead of true cardiac output during heavy sets. If you care about recovery metrics, pull the raw HRV data and compare it to a morning baseline, not the post-set reading. ## Test raw HRV data before trusting recovery alerts Coffee, late nights, even a stressful email can drop HRV by 10-15 ms. The watch's recovery score doesn't know about the coffee. Take three morning readings after waking, no caffeine, and average them. That's your baseline. If the watch flags low recovery but your baseline looks fine, trust the baseline, not the algorithm. ## Compare optical HR to a chest strap on heavy sets During squats or deadlifts, the watch can lose skin contact. A chest strap like the Polar H10 will give you cleaner ECG-based HR data. I've seen gaps of 20+ bpm between the two. If you program based on heart rate zones, that gap matters. Use the strap for zone work, the watch for daily trends. ## When should you rely on its rep counting? The auto-rep detection works well for basic movements like curls or push-ups. But for heavy compound lifts or fast ballistic movements, it often misses reps or counts partials. Don't trust it for progressive overload, log your sets manually. The watch is a great companion, not a coach. Use it for trends, not verdicts.