This week I’m “liveblogging” my trip to Ukraine. Unlike traditional reports, these posts will be shorter and more frequent.
Ah yes, my first mistake of the trip (I know some still insist the trip itself was a mistake…). I left my Apple Watch onboard the overnight train from Warsaw to Kyiv. #idiot
Each month your Apple Watch provides you with a workout challenge. The February challenge is to walk or run 81.1 miles. I spent the afternoon walking through Kyiv and after finishing my second cup of coffee, stopped to check on my progress. How much had I walked thus far?
There was no watch on my wrist.
My heart skipped a beat. Was the watch charging in the hotel room? I must have taken it off when I showered…maybe I just never put it back on? But I could not recall taking it off or setting it on the charger.
I hopped in an Uber and returned to the hotel, hoping I had simply inadvertently taken it off and it would be sitting next to the bathroom sink.
It was not.
Yes, I’m the guy who left all the passports on the Lufthansa flight…so perhaps this should not come as a surprise.
You see, I had never intended to take it off. Once we had passed over the Ukrainian border, I tried to get some sleep. But being 10 hours earlier in California, I continued to receive a flurry of messages and emails. Each time I receive a message, email, phone call, or even a comment on this blog my watch buzzes. The buzzing was driving me crazy. Rather than (wisely) turning off the watch, I just took it off and laid it next to me in bed.
Only apparently when I woke up as we approached Kyiv, I never put it back on.
Now I do recall carefully checking the sheet and blankets when getting ready to depart, so perhaps it fell down somewhere while I was sleeping.
In any case, I presumed it was a lost cause. Even so, I decided…just in case…to return to the railway station and see if it had been turned in.
I summoned an Uber and was soon on my way back to where I had started in Kyiv earlier in the day.
I’m not looking for sympathy here – another stupid and unforced error. Still, it’s never fun to lose a watch.
Shouldn’t it be visible on the FindMy App?
Good question. It showed that it was with me – I used the FindMy app to ask it to play a sound and there was no sound played (that I could hear).
Is it not showing in your Bluetooth devices? If it’s “with you” it should be visible.
I’m sure you’ve already explored this, but just want to point out that FindMy will also show *when* the location was last updated. If it is showing it with you *now* that would really seem to suggest it is with you.
If the Watch isn’t connected to Wifi/Cellular on its own, it probably can’t update its location, but if you place it in “lost” mode it can help you recover if/when someone does try to use it.
That’s too bad. Whenever I take my watch/wallet/phone, etc. off (or out of my physical possession on a plane or other mode of transport, I put it into my bag.
Which is exactly what I should have done.
This one is on me.
Perhaps in from being tired you did turn it off and removed at a later time? Search through your stuff again.
I never take my Apple Watch from my wrist unless it is charging. Charging is big problem with the Apple Watch as it needs charge every night. When I travel, I have a double charger where I connect both the watch and my iPhone so that reduces the chance I will lose the watch as I always get both from the charger. It is not a huge cost when compared to the phone at least.
I have littered the world with my belongings long forgotten or left behind. Some I get back, most I don’t. If you travel, you lose stuff, you forget stuff, you even get mugged in Switzerland. Stuff happens. Of course, the “every week lost object” I usually leave behind in hotels are random pairs of LuLu Lemon underwear. If you ever find a pair in some location, please return them to me. I write my name inside them all.
Laughing. But I have also littered the world with stuff. However the undies I’ve thrown away. But never the expensive stuff!
Not much of a watch wearer, but I always worry about losing my stuff.
I think part of my fear of losing stuff helps to prevent me from.l losing stuff.
For example, I only wear my FitBit to run and as such it goes on my wrist when I go out for my run and goes back on the charger when I return.
I don’t travel with it and just live without my runs while traveling not being logged.
Losing stuff sucks, I am sorry to hear that you lost your iWatch.
So brave.
Yeah so hard when you lose your watch in a war zone. Shame on you for all of this.
“I summoned an Uber and was soon on my way back to where I had started in Kyiv earlier in the day.”
Is anyone else intrigued by this final sentence?
Umm, no? Is it a secret message of the Illuminati?
This did not warrant a post.
I’ll determine that.
I feel your pain. It seems to be my unintentional life purpose to leave ipads behind all over the world.
Last year, I lost my Apple watch swimming in the surf in Florida. I marked it as “Lost” on the Find app. 10 hours later ( 11pm ) I received a notification – my watch checked in! The location was 1 mile South of where I lost it. My watch did not have LTE (so no direct Internet connection) but apparently the watches can piggy-back on other people’s iPhones within range to “phone home”. I ran down the beach and ended up talking to a nice metal-detector scavenger dude that promised to give me back my watch if I could make it beep…