Apple Watch inventory tracking

[mconners]

Happy Monday!

Say, we are running into something strange here at the college. We have a program that teaches iOS programming. This program is expanding and will teach Apple Watch programming this fall. We have always tracked our college assets using a small asset tag. Well, on the Apple watch, that simply won't work. Putting an asset tag on the watch will damage it, mess up the sensors and more.

Have any of you dealt with these? Just curious how to go about tracking the Apple Watch as an asset.

Thank you,

Mick

[mm2270]

I'm not sure there will be a good solution to this. I know this goes against what "management" may desire, but I don't think any organization should be trying to manage the Apple Watch (right now). Apple has made it very abundantly clear that they view the Watch as a very personal device, much more so than the iPhone or iPad.
There is a valid argument that phones and tablets can be institutionally managed devices, and Apple has added a lot of capabilities in that regard, but the Watch is a different beast. I would not hold my breath for Apple to really change their view of the Watch for some time.

I know you're question was specifically around asset tagging, but I think the same thinking holds true. The fact that its hard to tag them means Apple had not even given it a passing thought on where such a tag would go without damaging the user experience. Maybe they will offer some kind of engraving in the future, a la iPhone? Not much room on the back to even do that though.

If nothing else, it seems a little premature to purchase organizationally owned Apple Watches right now. Hopefully some more things will surface to help with this from Apple and others by the Fall for you.

[mconners]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The good news is we don't want to manage them and really could care less what the faculty member is planning on doing with them. Our main goal is to be able to track them if the item should come up as stolen.

The faculty member did tell me that through a magnifying glass, he can read the serial number. Perhaps we will simply tag the box directly. As this is a class to teach the programming of the watch, I think this is new ground for many of us. I am sure we can come up with a creative solution.

Thanks again!

[davidacland]

The only thing I could think of to try and deter theft (if that is the concern), would be to get the sport watches and permanently mark the strap with the college's logo.

Definitely not fool proof, but as @mm2270 says, I wouldn't hold out for a device management system!

[mm2270]

Yeah, recording down the serial # would probably be a good solution since I doubt that is something that couldn't be changed from the device itself or removed from the case without damaging it.

I haven't looked into it much, but does the Apple Watch currently offer anything similar to Find my iPhone type functionality? I don't know if that was mentioned at WWDC or if it was in some of the sessions, but that may be something to look into as well. Hopefully for something as expensive as this Apple will have a similar function so it can be tracked by some means later.

[jarednichols]

watchOS 2 will bring Activation Lock to the devices to deter theft.

[mm2270]

@jarednichols That's good to know, thanks! I must have missed that in all the WWDC news. That's at least something to help out there.