MedCity News has shared the story of Ken Robson, Apple Watch user who was able to correctly self-diagnose a heart ailment thanks to Apple Watch heart rate data:

When he got to the hospital, Robson told staff that he had been tracking his heart rate on the watch, and had two weeks of back data. “Going in with the data certainly reduced my stay by a couple of days,” he told MedCity News. It also assured that he could have the operation nearly immediately.

Because the hospital could check his Apple Watch data, Robson did not have to wear a heart monitor for a week before the medical team at Scripps Mercy could confirm the diagnosis of sick sinus syndrome.

SELF’s Fitness Director Liz Plosser has another solid review of the Apple Watch, with a focus on fitness (she gave birth to a baby boy five days before getting a Watch). Make sure to read until the end, though, because her conclusion is surprising and smart.

I began testing the Apple Watch five days after giving birth to a baby boy—not a traditional fitness event like a marathon, but an exhausting physical experience nevertheless. And since strapping on the coveted gadget, my “workouts” have consisted of walking to and from my baby’s bassinet at all hours of the day (and night) and pushing him in a stroller to his pediatrician’s office a half-mile away for newborn check-ups. But Apple Watch gives me credit for that stuff (as it should!). Even when the Watch’s Workout app isn’t open, its accelerometer, along with GPS from your phone, measures all of your physical movement. The three-ring interface keeps tabs on the minutes you spend in each category (exercise, movement and standing), and is so intuitive that even my four-year-old twins understand how it works. Plus, I love that all it takes is a flick of my wrist and a quick glance to enjoy the instant gratification of knowing how much activity I’ve logged—I don’t need to sync it to my laptop or wait for an app to load on my phone.

Marissa Stephenson, writing for Men’s Journal, has one of the Apple Watch reviews I wanted to read today. Stephenson’s review is focused on fitness and using Apple Watch during workouts.

It won’t replace your heart rate monitor.
To track any workout, the Watch employs an accelerometer and optical heart rate monitor. I used the Watch’s built-in Workout app whenever I began a session, designating if I was going for a run, walk, cycle, or “other.” Just like nearly every other tracker or sports watch on the market, the Watch is primed to gauge my cardio workouts, but not muscle-activation during strength training — if I bend over to pick up a quarter or a 200-pound barbell, it doesn’t know the difference. But the Apple Watch can factor heart rate. Pick up that barbell enough, and it should read my elevated heart rate and log a higher calorie burn. Except the optical HRM didn’t really seem to do that. Huffing through heavy squats, the Watch read my heart rate as fairly low. And more frenetic CrossFit workouts perplexed it; the Watch couldn’t get a read on my second-by-second HR during box jumps, burpees, and pull-ups, and my overall calorie burn and HR seemed off for these “other”-type training sessions. That’s a problem Apple says you can fix by using a heart rate monitor strap and synching it with your Watch. Or, maybe you don’t care so much about hyper-accurate HR and calorie counts, and in that case, just go by the Watch’s less-than-perfect estimate.

Based on Stephenson’s take, it seems like Apple could use a few updates to make the Watch more accurate and compatible with a wider variety of workouts. I look forward to trying one in my daily routine soon.

Apple, known for keeping its product developments under the strictest of lock-and-key, gave ABC News exclusive access into its top secret health and fitness lab, where only Apple employees became test subjects for the new Apple Watch.

Apple engineers, managers and developers have been secretly volunteering for the past year in this state-of-the-art lab to participate in rowing, running, yoga and many more fitness activities in order to collect data for the Apple Watch’s inner workings.

ABC News got exclusive access to Apple’s secret fitness lab, where the company tested the fitness and health functionality of Apple Watch and iOS for years. I needed to watch the video with a VPN (ABC is regionally restricted to the U.S.; YouTube version embedded below), and it was worth it: Apple has set up an entire facility with equipment and machinery worth millions of dollars to accurately calculate calorie burn and the response of the human body to various conditions – this includes special climate chambers, breathing masks, and even yoga tests.

This is impressive, and it reinforces the idea that health and fitness are going to be a big deal for Apple going forward. The video makes me even more excited about the potential of Apple Watch as a daily fitness companion.