The Apple Watch Ultra is designed for extreme sports enthusiasts, but it doesn’t get much tamer than a pleasant Saturday morning mowing the lawn.
However, one mow-athlete decided to use his brand new Apple Watch Ultra to test the precision dual-frequency GPS tech to its limits… while tracking his grass chopping activity as a one-mile outdoor walk.
The results, compared to his old Apple Watch Series 4, are as interesting as they are unscientific. Using the Apple Watch Ultra, you can spot actually see the rows he mowed. The Series 4 made it look like he’d gone walkabout.
In a post on the r/AppleWatch subreddit (via 9to5Mac), user ‘suburbandad’ posted images of the same route a few weeks apart, side by side. Turns out the new watch did a much better job of tracking what the route actually looked like.
“When I mow my lawn I start an outdoor walk,” he wrote. “Image on the left is the hilarious GPS track of me mowing my lawn a few weeks ago with my Series 4 (RIP). It would even have me zip a couple doors down and shows about 1.4 extra miles of distance compared to the image on the right. Apple Watch Ultra shows every intricate row I did. anyways, I know this isn’t scientific, or an ultra marathon, but thought this sub would appreciate.”
Apple itself says the tech, which is also included within the Apple Watch Series 8 and the Apple Watch SE 2 (as well as the iPhone 14 Pro range), should offer improvements on the single-band tech in environments where users are surrounded by tall buildings, trees, or dense foliage that can block satellites.
The company writes: “Apple Watch Ultra integrates both L1 and L5 GPS into a new antenna design for greater range with incredible power efficiency. It combines data from these two frequencies to provide amazingly accurate distance, pace, and route calculations.”
You might like…
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
