[ThePowerOfFuet]

>The amounts of spyware in the app store have caused me to massively scale back my use of apps now, so I almost never wear my apple watch anymore.

Why not just use it without the third-party apps you're concerned about? It has a ton of functionality out of the box.

[sneak]

The main functionality I want is notifications. If I don't install apps on my phone, I'm not getting notifications on my phone, and thus can't get them on my wrist.

Additionally, keeping health tracking turned off on the watch means that, in addition to not taking your pulse dozens of times per day, you can't engage in the normal workouts either. Each time I work out it's four steps: enable health tracking, start workout, end workout, end health tracking.