Does anybody have experience with smart watches on the water in terms of mobile reception? Which carriers work best within 1-2 km off the coast in the Sydney region (Botany, Northern Beaches, Cronulla)? I assume Telstra has the best coverage -- is anybody using Optus or Vodafone? Also, is it possible to make (short) phone calls in a windy environment without proper ear phones? Cheers.

My partner has an apple watch. She can make/receive calls on it, it works well outdoors though hasn't tried in the water with blowing winds. Dunno about other smart watches. I have a Garmin Epix 2 but that doesn't have LTE (a sim card).

From being out fishing, I can tell you there is still 1-2 bars of Telstra / Optus reception at 12 mile reef - 18km offshore. But none at Browns mountain (42km out) where you can't even see land. So you won't have any problem in that regard.

I've watched the kardashians on stan during a downwinder

You will get less reception than a normal phone. I had an apple watch and would lose coverage sometimes within 500m from shore (vodafone though).

on a run to rottnest (~20km) i didn't have coverage for most of the trip.

you can't really hear someone if its blowing but if my missus rang me i could answer and yell 'ON THE WATER, HOME AT 6' and she could understand me. Then she would text and tell me whatever it was i had forgotten to do.

if i came into beach i could have a convo by holding watch to ear, and on light wind foil days could have a chat ok. If you're bunking off work for a light wind foil it sounds enough like you're on the toilet that it buys you time to get back to the shore and answer properly (probably, not that you would do that).

^^^ agreed.

Use a waterproof phone, in a waterproof case, in a drypack. Reception for miles as mentioned above

You can't really use an Apple watch in the water. You have to lock the screen so that water drops don't trigger random actions. It's almost impossible to reliably unlock the screen with wet fingers. It's a bugger to come in and find your battery flat and no session recorded because your phone has been doing dumb random stuff, including making phone calls.

You can have a button set to allow voice commands and yell "Phone home" or whatever. You can use the SOS button to call for help.

If it's windy no one will be able to understand you and forget flying a kite with one hand while chatting to your wrist with the other.

I had three Apple watches die within 18 months. One replaced under warranty and one replaced at a huge discount. Meanwhile my Garmin Fenix 3 is 6 years old and still going strong.

If you want reliable emergency communications get a Garmin Inreach Mini. Very reliable, satellite communication, live tracking. They're a bit expensive to buy and the plans are expensive. You can pause the plan on a monthly basis.

My strong preference is for live tracking devices. They're useful all the time and the people at home can see you whenever they want. They give constant feedback which is pretty reassuring.

Notionally EPIRB and PLB are the go for last resort, "Help I'm dying!!!!!" but they're totally useless for anything else. The ones I had you play with the test button a few times then throw them out when the expiry date is past.

I have an apple watch, I had the band come undone during a hard crash, so it fell off (somehow managed to find it an hour later) You can't really do anything with it with wet fingers, and you can't hear anything in the wind, neither can the other person

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Zigs said..
I have an apple watch, I had the band come undone during a hard crash, so it fell off (somehow managed to find it an hour later) You can't really do anything with it with wet fingers, and you can't hear anything in the wind, neither can the other person

Good point should probably add that i have lost 2 apple watches kiting and then gave up on them.

The inreach is great, between that and a phone you can get comms anywhere. I have a PLB as well, cheap insurance to prevent a night at sea.

apple watch is more useful to call an uber when you wash up a long way from your intended destination.

Thanks everybody, very helpful!