Attain by Aetna

Started to use this app as was offered by my early insurance and incentive to get moving. I tried to order the watch and was never able to, would take me to start of app. After several attempts to order Apple Watch and not able to as app kept freezing, in order to get app to work had to click on have my own watch. Needless to say had to purchase a watch and cost of paying up front to get so to work wish I could have gotten through app and pay monthly. I called customer service to inform of what happened and they advised they would eventually offer purchase of watch to those who couldn’t purchase due to app issues, this was a year ago and still nothing. Liked the idea of paying monthly and use points to pay for watch monthly but that didn’t happen for me. Would still like to get watch through app as watch I purchased is not working well. Goals of hitting 750 daily points is somewhat attainable if you are very active. Even working in a shipping and receiving area I don’t reach my daily goal unless I track other work out from moving packages and walking around to deliver packages as nonstop for 30-45 mins. Goes from 3 times a week to 7 days to achieve daily goal. Watch is set to 600 as daily goal, most days I reach this but app has me at 750 and don’t reach this goal so much. Wish there was a way to change this to a more realistic goal.

I am able to complete daily actions and earn points even while there are some weeks I haven’t met goals due to illness. I haven’t experienced the issues many have had, yes goals were increased but even then did not require me to work out every single day, but as long as I am semi-active most of the day (I.e. getting up from my desk and walking around on my break), I am still able to make my goals. I Love this app! I have had since January, “payments” for my watch started in February, I haven’t had to make a payment yet- and if I took the next month “off” I’d still have enough points to cover 2 months of payments. I love it! It’s motivating without feeling unreachable. Today I actually got a notification that they’ve adjusted calorie goals for members- mine actually went down, which is good for my points, as this new goal will be easy- but I am a little disappointed because my previous goal requires that I stay conscious of my movement and I had to put in at least a little effort every day to stay focused on it. Hopefully they’ll use current activity to gradually increase goals. Overall I’m very happy!

Overall I am happy with the app and am happy to be able to “work off” the payment for an Apple Watch. But like others I have a problem with when you get to 7 days required for the weekly bonus. This isn’t like training for a marathon, the requirements aren’t so strenuous that you need a day of rest. The goals seem pretty much like push yourself a little more than usual and you’ll meet your goal. So I’m not going to complain about the 7 days as a whole. But, as a source of motivation, I think it’s bad. If you miss one day, that’s it. Your week is shot, and you will pretty much have to pay something for the watch that month. There is no margin of error and it is not possible to make up the 2000 points for that week by any other means other than paying the $2 for that missed weekly bonus. And again, the $2 isn’t the end of the world either. I just don’t think that is effective in motivation. To me, it feels more punitive if you don’t hit your goal. If it was maybe changed to a weekly average or something, you would have the motivation to work more to make up that difference. As of now, if you have a work trip or something and are unable to do much on Monday, then there is no motivation to do anything for the rest of that week, because you cannot make it up.

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Make your goal? The next week it will Jack your days up... and keep doing this until you have to meet your calorie burn 7 days a week, with no rest days. Eventually, if you can’t sustain the 7 days, you get no points for meeting goals. Which means, for me, for example, I will not ever get my watch paid for just by activity alone unless I’m a robot! The other activities are small points and barely contribute toward meaningful pay down of the cost of the watch. So what do you do? Miss a month of goals so you can get it back down to 3x a week that you can manage, knowing that once you do, the cycle starts all over again. In short, this program doesn’t motivate me. It frustrates and makes me feel worse because the goals eventually get unreasonable. It asks for 500 calories of burn for me and on a good day, I can get 300. For me to get all 500 it would be an hour and a half on the bike every single day. This program actually sets you up to fail by being too rigid in the expectations. 4 days a week is reasonable. 7 days of hard exercise a week for 2,000 points, $2 toward the watch, is a lot to ask. So only do this if you are OK with them singing your credit card each month for the watch payment. Don’t think you will actually be able to earn the watch payment every month as advertised, because you won’t. They don’t tell you at sign up how they lure you in and then change the expectations on you. Caveat emptor.

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I’ve been using this app for a year now. Like others my weekly goal goes up if I hit it until I have to make it all 7 days. The goal is not particularly hard to reach- I don’t even have to get a workout to get it. As long as I’m not a couch potato I’m good. But every now and then I need a couch potato day. Or I’m sick, forget to wear my watch, need to charge it, or can’t wear it because I’m doing something (like painting). One day missed, and my entire week is shot- thus losing motivation and at times giving me an excuse to be lazy the rest of the week. If I miss my weekly goal 2 weeks in a row, my weekly goal goes back down...until I reach it again. So at this point I’m usually only getting my weekly goal 2 out 4 weeks in a month. I almost always miss it one day a week. A year in, I still haven’t paid a dollar for my watch. I had enough accumulated points with the extra actions to cover my missed weeks. I’ll probably have to start paying in the next month or so. $8 a month isn’t a bad deal for an Apple Watch- realistically it’ll be more like $4 a month for a year. 🤷‍♀️ So it’s a flawed system, but still a good deal. But if their point was to motivate....the system needs to be reworked a little.