Can you use apple watch on the inside wrist?

I tested the apple watch multiple times at the apple store and the "auto on" function (when raising your wrist or turning the wrist so that you can read the watch face) DID NOT WORK when wearing the watch on the inside of the wrist. The Apple employees confirmed with me that the screen will not wake up if you wear the watch that way, unless you tap the screen. This is the one thing that is holding me back from buying an apple watch.

How can you submit feedback to apple regarding this?

I tested wearing the watch on the inside of my wrist when i did cardio this morning and it became wildly inaccurate. The cardio equipment showed my rate was 115 and the watch had me at 150. When I twisted the watch back to the outside of my wrist, Apple Watch matched the heart rate showing on the cardio equipment.

Thanks for the feedback link Nick. I have now proffered several suggestions there.

As for the "difficulty" of handling the more sensible (if less common) inside of the wrist orientation...it is not about the sensors at all. Quite simply, the sensors can sense everything they need to regardless. The development is in the software that "listens" to the sensors.

These days all of this kind of work is done using machine learning techniques. They simply "record" sensor values for many many motions of the arm/wrist/hand, and "label" them as "yes this is an attempt to make the watch come on" or "no, stay asleep". They then use machine learning techniques to have a computer develop ways of comparing new incoming sensor data to what the software has learned about sensor data for these two cases.

So, while it is not a trivial development to make the auto-on detection work for inside of wrist, it would take a small amount of additional work of the same sort they are already familiar with. They would also need to add this as a new orientation in the UI and have the auto-on detection use that to decide which set of learned responses to use.

Although Apple specifically say the watch should be on the outside of the wrist for the sensors to work, I did test this on the inside, and it seemed to be fine. I measured heart rat and got a sensible number back, although I didn't check it against anything else. Everything else was fine.

I didn't test during exercise, so there may be measurement issues there, but I'd only expect those to affect heart rate

Setting aside the risk of banging the face on things, it doesn't do any actual harm

The watch works fine on the inside of the wrist, until you exercise. Hitting the dial seems to turn off the app your on. As your hand moves more towards the inside of the wrist there is more chance of turning the app off, making work outs only last a few minutes.

Don't know why Apple configured to only be accurate when worn one way

I know that this is old, but I just tried wearing it on the inside for a lifting session and I found that it worked a lot better. Outside the wrist averages 60 bpm slightly above resting while on the inside it averaged 150s moving between 140-177 bpm. Outside wrist seems to work just fine on most cardio workouts, I have had issues with the row machine.

Auto on when you hold your arm up would be mighty difficult given the angle the watch needs to be at to trigger this. I guess you can turn this off and just use a tap to illuminate the display if you wished.

I often wear mine on the inside but - as suggested by Winston - it does have trouble figuring out when I turn my wrist to read the time. I often have to tap it. Also, I haven't tested if the heart rate readings are less accurate on the underside.

Douglas Bailey wrote:

Also, I haven't tested if the heart rate readings are less accurate on the underside.

I'm inclined to believe they are likely to be just as accurate but less prone to inaccuracy, if you see what I mean.

Yes; I'm lead to believe the skin might be thinner on the inside.

Douglas Bailey wrote:

Yes; I'm lead to believe the skin might be thinner on the inside.

I'll remember that if these communities ever get me that depressed. 😁

Boy loz wrote:

I Am wondering if you can use Apple watch on the inside wrist Instead of facing outwards, it's just the way I've always worn a watch, and wondering if I have to change?

The manual says that the heart rate monitoring wouldn't be as accurate if worn on the inside. However, other people have posted that it works fine.

Both my mother and my brother have always worn watches on the inside of their wrists. I've never figured out how they (and you) don't bang them up on desks and edges of keyboards. But I'm sure it would be as annoying to you to change to wearing a watch on the outside as it would be for me to change to the inside.

no apple says you cannot the sensors do not work the same

Ethan Pirso wrote:

no apple says you cannot the sensors do not work the same

I believe that's what I said.