I have the 9 and it’s solid. As others have said the 10 won’t be coming out for almost a year. I’d say go ahead and get the 9; if the next watch turns out to be really fantastic as others have said you can trade the 9 in.

It does exist but not solely through the phone. If you get a device like the Freestyle Libre (I think there are others) you can get noninvasive readings on the phone. We used it on our dog that had diabetes.

I don’t have diabetes but my dog did. There are implantable devices (the one we used on our dog was a Freestyle Libre) and they will work with an app on your phone (and maybe your watch, I’m not sure about that). The watch itself cannot monitor your blood sugar.

I also upgraded from an SE to a 9 hoping on-board Siri would be an improvement. Jury is still out for me. At first, Siri was horrible. Would constantly just hang and not execute commands. I went through all available troubleshooting with Apple and they could not fix it. At that point since I had had the watch less than 14 days (bought it from Apple) I took the option of exchanging it for a replacement. The replacement has been much better, but the issue still recurs occasionally. Now I am able to fix it by rebooting. Sometimes I have to reboot a couple of times. Once it’s ready to go, it works perfectly the rest of the day. I just updated to 10.1.1 a couple of days ago (waited due to seeing all the horror stories about battery capacity suffering) and it’s been flawless since then. Hoping that will continue to be the case. I use Siri on the watch constantly, much more than on my phone.

I didn’t exactly plan it this way but I have an SE 2 without cellular and a 9 with cellular. I wear the SE at night for sleep tracking (although I don’t particularly need to track my sleep) and when the 9 is charging. I do like having a backup because I really rely on the watch a lot; much more than I thought I would. The SE 2 I bought used from eBay for a very reasonable price and it’s in great condition, so if you do want 2 watches something like that is a great option for a second watch. Note that you can only use one at a time.

Whichever one you choose you will definitely be able to switch bands. There are a ton of cheap ones on Amazon that all work, but you can also get more expensive (and maybe classier) ones. Sometimes I’ll switch bands several times in one day depending on what I’m wearing (around the house vs. going out, it’s not like I just change outfits all the time)

I use a case. I don’t give a rat’s patootie what anyone says it looks like. And yes, I could afford to buy another one tomorrow if I had to but maybe that’s because I don’t flush my money down the toilet. (Sorry; I’m feeling a little snarky about some of the earlier comments). Also, being a girly, I have a few different cases and can change them to match what I’m wearing.

Next step: get FIL his own watch and make sure he uses it!