What are the disadvantages buying my husband the ultra appple watch for Christmas and setting up on my iphone since he is dead set on not having an iphone?!

As explained in the support document you posted from:

[When using Family Setup], The following features and apps are not available: Medications, respiratory rate, irregular heart rhythm notifications, ECG, Cycle Tracking, Sleep, Wrist Temperature, Blood Oxygen, Audiobooks, Remote, News, Home, and Shortcuts.

The Ultra watch would be a fantastic tool for his health. But not through family setup. Too many features he should be able to take advantage of for health monitoring will be disabled unless he has his own iPhone.

If he refuses to own an iPhone, you should buy him the Galaxy Watch5 Pro.

You can use family setup to setup more than one watch on one iPhone, there are multiple disadvantages to this and is mainly tailored for kids under 18 without an iPhone of there own but could be used for someone else. He will have multiple features disabled with family setup. I would recommend that he should get an iPhone for best result’s.

I hope you find this helpful!

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Garmin makes an excellent line of sport watches with GPS. They can be linked to either iPhones or Android phones using an app from Garmin.

At a lower price point are Fitbit watches, at least some of which have GPS. They also use an app.

I agree. I own a Garmin Fenix 5x Plus (yes, long name) and it's great. I use it mostly for tracking my swimming.

It can't make calls or send messages though. It also does not have cellular service like the Apple Watch.

It does measure heart rate and stress levels though.

Garmin makes an excellent line of sport watches with GPS. They can be linked to either iPhones or Android phones using an app from Garmin.

At a lower price point are Fitbit watches, at least some of which have GPS. They also use an app.

Phil0124 wrote:

It can't make calls or send messages though. It also does not have cellular service like the Apple Watch.

The OP focused mainly on health aspects of the watch. However, if they also want to be able to make calls, the Garmin might not be the right choice.

When I was running seriously, in the pre-Apple Watch days, I had a Garmin. I loved it. Even then, it had the ability to set up workout sessions with intervals.