Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't) but overall it didn't make sense to me as a product (or, evidently, to my partner, who now leaves it gathering dust).
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
The Apple Watch is also a terribly designed device for running. Too much of its functions rely on interacting with the touchscreen, something you are either unable to do with sweaty hands when running or don't want to do as it draws your attention away for a prolonged amount of time and hurts your form.
Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
> Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
Most people may be unaware that Garmin has a strong foothold in the stringently regulated avionics industry, in particular in flight instruments, displays, deck and others human-machine interface products. In turn, specific regulations informed by ergonomics research are unambiguous in prioritizing safety and unanimously contain minimum usability requirements.
As an example, an AC [1, Ch. 7] advises on (electronic display) control devices, and another AC [2] advises on design and evaluation of controls and displays. The software-defined counterparts have immensely harder requirements that must be satisfied, which, in my reading, is incompatible with pure touchscreen devices.
That was true with something like the G1000, but their newer avionics are very much touchscreen in favour of physical buttons. See the G3X or G3000 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21eOTAXdXLM&t=18s
Yes, but you can perform the essential functions with buttons on the GTN650 or 750 (or xi). Frequency changes, direct to, etc are all still accessible on physical buttons, which makes a big difference in turbulence.
As a non-Appleista, what strikes me most is their "silo" mentality. Most of the iPhone /iWatch using fitness types I know log their stuff inside the Apple cloud, and do not crosspost to Garmin Connect or Strava so the non-Appleistas don't see their stuff. Whereas the Garmin/Strava world is relatively open. I can for example take the original Forerunner (pictured in the article) and upload stuff from it to the Garmin or Strava cloud, albeit slightly cumbersomely. I sometimes do with a later model, a Forerunner 305, even if it does take USB download to do it.
Physical buttons, though... I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
> I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
I've had that happen to me during yoga and boxing workouts I've recorded. There's a way to lock the physical buttons (at least on my Instinct watch), which requires multiple presses to stop/start a workout. IIRC, it's by holding the light button.
An example of how Strava is geek-compatible (so far! it may get ensh*ttified in the future). I found some old GPS logs from 22 years ago, when I first got a handheld GPS and geeked out with it, logging a whole bunch of rides and hikes.
It took a bit of work to get those converted to a modern format (load into ancient tool, which is still maintained, and write out as GPX files... one at a time). But then these GPX files can be uploaded to Strava and there they are! Activities older than Strava itself, fully integrated.
Also I've more than once had a "whoopsie" - app left recording during the drive home, for example. Download activity from Strava, edit the GPX file, delete the activity and re-upload from the file.
And when you download your stuff from Strava, you get a database dump. That's both good and bad; e.g. users are just numbers and you'd need to use the web Strava to translate them to names, but all your photos and all your traces and all your stats come down in standard formats (jpeg, gpx and csv respectively) and nothing is dumbed down; everything is in the best possible format for re-import to something else.
Strava has a built in feature to trim an activity if you accidentally keep recording on the drive home. Happens all the time. You can just select the time when you want to cut it off.
What strikes me is that I alread have a central authoritative store of health and fitness information on my Apple devices bundled directly into the operating system but every single app in that category wants me to use them as the single database of truth instead. Even when they have integration with Health!
Everything goes into Apple Health but individual apps can barely talk to one another. Oura won’t pull heart rate data from Apple Health, so when I track my lifting workouts on my watch (a ring is a no-go for barbell work) it’s not there. Same for my Polar chest strap which I use during judo and BJJ. Oura is completely blind to this despite the data being available and it having access through Health.
Strava only pulls in workouts for apps that have been directly connected to it. So I have to have n:m connections between apps with this model, and only get sync between apps that have explicit Strava integration. For Garmin cycling workouts this works okay. When I integrate with Polar workouts, Strava insists on reduplicating the data back into Apple Health a second time. I have yet to find a way to get the data into Strava but have it recorded once instead sold zero times or twice.
Garmin directly refuses to use anything not recorded from their own devices. It won’t import sleep from my Oura or Withings trackers, heart rate from anything else, etc. Want to use any of the derived metrics in their app? Sorry, you'll need to exclusively use Garmin devices for everything in order to have all that data in place.
The only thing that isn’t a complete shitshow in this entire ecosystem is Apple Health.
Garmin, Polar, and Strava existed before Apple Health/Watch were released. They had to have a solution in a non-Apple world, and I doubt they'd abandon existing users once Apple appeared (and stuck around).
Oura's first Ring was released the same year as the Watch, so I don't think that Oura was given early access.
Apple Health has been around over ten years. Oura could have figured out in the intervening time how to read heart rate data from Health.
All I’m asking for Strava, Garmin, and the rest is to just use Apple Health to import data from other sources and assume that it is the source of truth for externally-generated data rather than requiring direct app-to-app integration or simply ignoring anything their devices didn’t emit.
What are you not getting imported? Strava does import activities from Apple Health and it's treated no differently than an activity recorded in the app. (Feel free to email me with details, my first name at strava dot com).
There’s a very easily-discovered button to export everything. It goes to some sort of XML format that I haven’t bothered to inspect but which I assume others have written extractors for.
I don’t think I really care all that much though. Other than older heart rate data from my watch and workouts recorded on my watch, all the data is already stored in the apps that created it: Strava, Oura, Garmin, Polar, etc. If I went elsewhere, those apps will still have all their own collected information.
I don’t mind that those apps are the source of truth for stuff collected from their own devices. I just want them all to share data with and communicate to one another through Apple Health instead of insisting they can only use data they directly collected (Garmin, Oura, Polar) or requiring direct integration between every pairwise set of apps (Polar, Strava).
Yes, with maps. The Apple Watch Strava app will record and upload directly or you can import workouts from Apple Health, both give you GPS, HR, etc.
If recorded elsewhere it can depend, but that’s due to Strava being irritating/changing/dropping integration features in the last couple of years and not an Apple ecosystem issue.
Or those people have maps uploaded but have chosen not to make them public?
They may be less gatekeeping than others, but they don't let you get data off the device without a cloud account, at which point all your biometrics are for sale.
Just plug in the Garmin watch to your computer, and its storage opens revealing sensibly named folders. You can open the folder named Activity and copy your sport files in FIT format. Everything else is JSON.
Are you talking about Garmin? If so, that's not my experience of the two watches I have had, which let you take data directly from the device over USB (as FIT files).
Genuinely curious, what do you need to change mid-run on your watch? I set an apple music playlist to start, open a run on WorkOutDoors, and go. I really am only interested in heart rate, distance traveled and pace. And if I need to stop for anything walking back to my apartment after a session I have apple pay.
Granted, I'm not a serious runner, I only do it as a supplement for my muay thai training (i.e. I'm only running 5-8k at like a 4'30" or so pace). So I guess I'm interested in what runners who are running as their primary sport like about the Garmin, as I often hear people say the Garmin is so much better.
FWIW there are a lot of features that are really great on a run, but you might have to switch screens or even manipulate the screen. For instance, zoom in and out on a map. Or instruct your watch to re-route you to the fastest way home, or start guiding you the reverse way you came so you end up doubling your distance when you get back home. You might have other sensors feeding info and the data doesn't all fit on one screen. Maybe you want to control music playback and find playlists subpar (you might want to change based on how you feel in the moment, or pick another podcast because you added time onto your run or the other one ended up being boring, etc.).
Play music and run is fine for lots of people, though, so I'm not surprised it works for you.
Ok yeah, the map stuff makes a lot of sense then, if I were out on trails or somewhere unfamiliar I can see that being very helpful. I'm always just running the bridges of NYC, so it's hard to get lost! Although I might get more serious this year so I can run the ridiculous williamsburg bridge marathon [1], so maybe I'll check out what I'm missing with Garmin.
Besides the various metrics other have mentioned (and which you could in theory put all in one screen, unless you're interested in a lot of them), you might want to interact with the workout and e.g. set it to the next interval. If you planned a 15min warmup at low pace but already feel good after 10min, you might want to already go to the main part of your workout. On Garmin that's one button away, I'd be annoyed if I had to touch the screen for that.
Oh interesting, so is this for separating out metrics for your main part of your run versus warmup? I guess I don't intentionally warmup so I've never thought to need that, but I can see that being useful for people that are more professional where seconds on your pace count. I tend to just look at the splits in WorkOutDoors and see "ok yeah I ran the first km at 5' and the last at 4'23", I should try to bring the middle kms down a bit next time".
> is this for separating out metrics for your main part of your run versus warmup
That's one aspect that's relevant once you're done, the other one relevant during the workout is that you can set different targets for different parts of your workout, e.g. you want to be at 100 bpm during your warmup, 160 bpm during a 4min interval, then rest 2min at 120bpm, things like that. If you don't strictly follow the program you initially planned (e.g. you want to have as much rest as you feel you need) then you'd have to interact with your watch.
I'm usually on the same main screen with time/distance/heart rate, but when I change screen that would mostly be for:
- Map/routing, useful for trail running or when running in an area you are unfamiliar with
- Elevation, vertical speed (useful for trail running too)
- Workouts (steps/next step/instructions/duration/etc.)
I may want to pause my run for certain reasons - one time I came across a woman whose dog got off the leash so I helped him corral him before continuing on. There's also times I want to skip a song on my playlist because it's not fitting the current pace/vibe of my run. Always easier to do with physical buttons.
I've been using a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch for years, and what I've found I like the most about it is actually the Garmin Connect app on my phone. I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop. Connect is a great application for tracking your workouts over time. A fair number of runners even use Garmin's workout plans from the app. Even compared to running apps exclusively for iOS and Android I think the Garmin app is one of the better ones around, and is free to use with no monthly fees. Combine that with the fact that I don't even have to take my phone with me, I just wear my watch and it syncs with my phone when I get home. Running with a phone sucks, I have yet to find a way to carry one that isn't annoying.
Well I have to set the record straight that I do find bugs regularly, both on the watch and the app. I'm still very happy with it (and I'm sure I prefer it over competitors), but not all of the features have been polished to the same extent nor do they seem to go through the same QA for every upgrade. The Garmin forum is a good witness to that.
I have the forerunner watch as well, and also the inReach personal gps. Both are quite rugged and the forerunner's metrics collection is great if you want to see your health progress ie. VO2 max and other key metrics. The inReach is for me a life insurance policy in case I twist an ankle out in the middle of nowhere and can flag an emergency responder. I would not part with either device and pay the monthly subscription to the inReach device for years now.
I have tried a bunch of options and the Rabbit running shorts with a rear phone zipper pocket are the least annoying. They hold a large phone securely without bouncing around but but are still easy to access on the move.
I may need to dig into the app more. I have mostly had complaints so far. Years ago I had an android wear device and the software integration seemed a lot better; I have considered the garmin software to be on the weak side and fairly annoying to use. I only switched over because of hardware build quality.
I had been an Apple Watch user until it died after I was in a water park. It is supposed to be waterproof, but I guess Apple wants me to refresh after two years.
I switched to a Garmin Venu 3. It is better than AW in many aspects, but is also lacking in some. But the Connect app is a lot better than Apple Health.
For all runs except races and interval sessions I carry my phone in a Naked band.
Works well for me and allows me to carry some other things like gels, tissues, keys, light...
People value things differently but the battery life is always interesting to me. Certainly if I was backwoods hiking I get it but for my day to day I only take it off post workout in the morning as I shower and get ready for the day. It’s charged so quickly that I throw it back on as soon as I am done.
Ultimately I charge my phone (almost) every day, so I'm sure I could charge my watch every day as well. But it's still another habit I have to build, another way I have to adjust my routine to accommodate the things that are supposed to make my life easier.
The other thing is, battery life degrades over time, which is relevant if you don't want to be buying new devices every couple of years. When I got my Garmin it probably held a charge for 6-7 days. After four years, that is probably closer to 4 days, which is still pretty good. If less than a day is the starting point, I can imagine that after 3+ years the battery life will be poor enough that you regularly end up wearing a paperweight on your wrist for some portion of the day.
With the newer Apple Watches you can just use fast charging. I basically just charge it when I shower and do my night time hygiene routine and it’s ready to go back on my wrist to track my sleep and act as a silent vibration alarm in the morning so that I don’t wake my wife up early. The only time I run into battery life issues is when I go on a weekend camping trip.
Likewise–I pop it on the charger in the shower and occasionally at work if I'm at my desk. The alarms, timers, and reminders access (via Siri) more than makes up for the inconvenience of frequent charging. Notifications for messages and e-mails is just a bonus that sometimes ends up being a double-edged sword. The only downsides for me come on long bike rides, and that it is ugly (and getting too big, coming from a Casio F91-W).
I’ve owned both and the truth is Garmin makes the best fitness tracker that can be a smartwatch and Apple makes the best smartwatch that can be a fitness tracker.
My preferred alarm clock is the vibration from my fitness band. I wanted something extremely light with a long battery.
Unfortunately, no modern fitness bands target this functionality. The vibration is weak, band is heavier, and the use large display. The best ones I used are probably 6-10 years old now.
All the manufacturers today are trying to sell connected services, so devices are accumulating lots of features and heft. In addition, none of the manufacturers quantify the strength of vibration (what units would that be expressed in?). The lightest bands are the lowest end/value models and have the worst vibration mechanisms.
What I want is:
(1) see the current time
(2) get a buzz for a notification
(3) alarm clock
(4) ability to wear for multiple days without charging.
That means you're always showering at home, which might work for you but it's a big constraint. If you work out / shower in different places and at different times, it might be harder to find a suitable charging routine.
I'm also wondering how it evolves. Batteries don't get better over time, I'd be worried of having to end up charging it twice a day in one year, which for a device this expensive is not great.
Certainly but my point was more that the watch charges quite quickly when done so on a daily basis. Not to mention it’s surprising that someone can get by without giving their skin a breather for a small portion of the day. Given that it’s healthy to let the skin breath it’s always interesting to hear the daily charge constraint as an issue. Are people keeping a garmin on their wrist 24/7 for 7 days? Simply a strange constraint that is always mentioned.
Similar to your battery life concern. It’s valid but we are on what…evolution 11 now? My current two year old watch has more than enough battery. Prior to that I had one for 4 years I think. Same deal no issues in batteries.
I understand the sentiment. But I have an old Garmin Forerunner 35 watch that charges in about 2 hours and the charge lasts for three weeks. So the cognitive load is less than you would think.
My Garmin watch asks me if I want to enable the battery saver mode whenever it reaches 20% or so (most likely configurable anyway), which is still more than a day's worth of battery. If you go for several days without a charger, you need to plan that in advance and charge it beforehand, but at least that's a possibility which you don't have with other watches that require daily charging.
The advantage of a watch that only needs to charge every few weeks is that it likely doesn't need a lot of time to top it off if you're charging it daily (unless it has a massive battery or only charges extremely slowly). When I wore Pebble watches, charging them while I was in the shower was plenty of time to last until I showered the next day. With my Apple watches, I've gotten into the habit of not wearing them for a while in the evening as well as my morning shower.
indeed, I try to do that when I remember with my Garmin Venu 2 (~11 day battery life). Otherwise, I charge it on weekends while I'm home doing nothing.
It's also nice because most trips I take are under 11 days so I don't need to remember to pack the charger.
It would be cool if digital watches could borrow the idea of harvesting power from movement from the mechanical watch world. I wonder how close to that we are?
Yeah but we can always just shift that goalpost of a tradeoff and act like our arbitrary choice is the only right way.
You need to charge that every week? Well this one lasts two weeks. Only two weeks, what a drag, this one lasts a month.
You need to actually charge it? A Citizen Eco Drive charges itself even with only indoor light. Or an automatic watch that self winds on regular wrist movements, never really needing a "charge" so long as you're actively wearing it.
It's all a trade off of what kind of features you want on your "watch". I'm not taking phone calls and doing NFC payments on an Eco Drive. People are going to value different things, to many charging a few minutes every day isn't an issue for what they seem to get from it.
Of course, I just want the activity and sleep tracking, and the occasional alert or notification, so the tradeoff is easy. If I wanted whatever the apple watch can do beyond that I might make a different choice
yeah, i've had a garmin and i've had an apple watch. both have their strong points, but the battery life of the apple watch was really just never an issue for me. it seems like it should be an obvious downsite, but it's pretty easy to get in the habit of charging it, and once it is habit its just really not an issue.
if anything, the garmin's battery life was a downside, because i wouldn't charge it daily, and then i'd go to start a bike ride and find it was at 10% battery.
Unless you're riding for 4-5 hours, 10% should still be more than enough to get through a workout though? And in my experience a 10 minute charge would have you north of 30%.
not in my experience. i had an edge 120 bike computer and a vivoactive watch, and the last 10% wasn't enough to get through anything. the 10% from 100 to 90% would be plenty, but the last 10% always drained really quick and charged slow.
Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their phone. Full stop.
Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note, though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
It's more like "Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their iPhone. Full stop."
Apple Watch is not smartphone agnostic (requiring iPhone for Apple Watch setup). That's Apple's choice. Apple Watch has done well targeting just iPhone users. It makes some stuff easier for devs.
> I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad.
The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering, getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked for me for years.
From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for.
They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same ball park.
My perspective is the exact opposite - I can't tell what "smart watch" features the Apple Watch is supposed to provide me over my "fitness" Garmin as a trade off for terrible battery life.
The Apple Watch actually provides worse functionality for notifications than my Garmin, since it wants to act as its own separate device, instead of simply mirroring my phone's notifications.
Interacting with the Apple Watch is usually so difficult and the app support is lacking (I believe it's actually gotten worse over time) that I generally take out my phone for anything beyond pressing the dismiss button, so it's no better than the Garmin.
A Garmin watch is absolutely designed for wearing all the time, even when sleeping. You might prefer not to for reasons of appearance or because there are features of some other smart watch that you like, but Garmin is fine for what I use it for and does notifications etc. The battery life was a game changer for me (as an Apple Watch switcher) since it's now something I just don't worry about whereas with Apple Watch it was a daily thing and it let me down on several runs too.
What things do you want from a smartwatch? For the basics, notifications+, music controls, fitness tracking, Garmin handles well. It does not have an extensive ecosystem of apps but what apps do you need?
And for fitness Garmin is very very good. Today was below -10 C on my run and my watch was 100% usable with gloves. Garmin actually tells me when I get a GPS lock and it works ANT+ devices.
I use the GPS all the time on my Fenix, it's 6 years old and I'm still charging roughly once a week. I think a 6 year old Apple Watch would struggle to get a day, if that.
Echoing a comment I left in a different thread: from my perspective as a Garmin watch owner, I can't find any reason why I'd want to switch to an Apple watch. (Admittedly my phone is an Android, so there's some inherent bias there. But the general point stands that I can't think of anything I'd want in a smart watch that's not a feature of my current Garmin.)
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch, which boils down to "show me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages and the contact name when I receive a phone call". Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not for text messages, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make attention-grabbing noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
If you just talk about notifications, the apple watch is better, in that you can reply without pulling out your phone, or even take the voice call, which you can't (at least afaik) on a Garmin.
If you look at Apple watch activity tracking, though, Garmin is playing a different ballgame.
Calorie counting on apple is off by 2-5x (compared to energy output measured on an erg, and running and biking are similarly _really_ incorrect on apple, and in my experience pretty spot-on with Garmin).
Reviewing an activity on apple fitness is really, _really_ coarse. You can't pick what metric is shown on the map. You can't plot a metric over time. Even something as simple as max speed? Who knows!
Apple's attempted copycat of body battery functionality in the new iOS 18 seems like it was designed by a PM that was handed 2-3 screenshots from a Garmin, shrugged, and went from that. It's wholly useless—but on Garmin, this is a valuable feature included 8 years ago in their cheapest running watches.
Some Garmin devices have a speaker and microphone so you can take a voice call using it as a Bluetooth device linked to your phone.
You can also reply to text messages with a limited set of canned responses on Android phones only. This doesn't work on iPhones because Apple has intentionally blocked third-party smart watches from being allowed to use that API in a particularly monopolistic and consumer-hostile move.
Oh man so many... inaccuracies to be polite in 1 post.
My wife uses GPS all the time, why else you would buy premium watch like Fenix for. Apple watch needs charging / daily/bi-daily. Garmins of my wife who even sleeps with them with monitoring on - every 5-6 days, after cca 4 years of ownership already with same battery. You can definitely wear them all the time, and if you can't, same goes for other watch as well. This is what these watches are for if you still have issues understanding their market proposition, long term usage, without battery anxiety and additional management of frequent charging.
They can have eSim, but I really don't see a reason and the price to pay in terms of battery drain is too steep. I don't know anybody around who is using it, everybody still have their phone with them.
If I want to be reachable, there is phone which I can put into any pocket, if I want some quiet peace time, I can just listen to the music streamed from watch. I would never rely on tiny watch with crappy battery and super tiny cellular antenna re safety ie in wilderness or mountains where signal is non-ideal.
can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"?
I wear my Epix 2 every day and it does all I want from a smartwatch - see incoming texts and calls while it tracks my health stats day and night. Yes, apple watch or Samsung ones may have more features, but I am not missing anything.
The newer Fenixes are a lot more elegant looking. If you paired it with one of those steel-link straps I don't see why it wouldn't look great with a suit.
Ummm... and Apple Watches are the epitome of high fashion? I don't think this is a strong argument when directly comparing these two things. Fwiw, I have met quite a few watch enthusiasts who wear a mechanical watch on one wrist and an Apple Watch on the other. This seems natural, honestly, since the primary function of an Apple Watch is definitely not to tell time.
Sorry, hard disagree with everything you've said here.
I have a Fenix 6, I've worn it every day for the last 4.5 years. Its a brilliant smartwatch. I have multiple apps from Garmin's IQ store on it. Battery lasts between one and two weeks, thats including recording multiple activities each week, while using it to play music to my bluetooth headphones.
With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.
That's funny, phone related features are the first things I turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out obnoxious.
I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are fantastic as well.
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it was to illustrate that the ability to receive these notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches' target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.
I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch. Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and Airplay music to soundbars.
It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.
The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a built in eSIM.
There is a separate number as far as billing. But the cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they were coming from your iPhone’s number. Whenever someone calls your phone - they both ring.
If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice communication is relayed through your phone to save battery life.
If your watch isn’t connected to your phone, the Watch uses cellular.
Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
As far as I know, the watch’s eSIM technically has its own phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone’s phone number.
We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things differently if you set it up in that way.
As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the watch; the other two are e-waste.
The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).
I have a Garmin Instinct 2 solar. I had g-shock watches before, because I liked how tough they were, and the instinct2 is pretty close. I wear it swimming, running, sleeping, showering, etc. I take it off about once a month when I charge it up. This summer, I went 6 weeks between charges.
The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my physical activity, and sleep).
I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing for a low level garmin.
Apple to me has clearly a goal of providing a tiny version of smart phone on your wrist. Garmin aims at as-smart-as-possible watch. Everything else comes from this philosophy, be it battery, design of not only display and it shape etc.
Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
Premium price, premium look, massively better battery, durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top, saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-device syndrome.
The first thing I do when I buy a Garmin watch (I have several) is turn off phone notifications. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would want them on. I tried for a decent amount of time but I just don't see the value in it, it's just aggravation I don't need. Not because of the implementation from Garmin, which is fine, but the whole concept.
Garmin's hardware, including the hardware of their smartwatches, are very tempting. They are designed to be easy to use even with gloves, have good battery life, and on some high end they have solar and/or 40-meter scuba diving rated.
If there's a way to use Garmin's smartwatches without using their cloud I probably would consider that. But since their ransomware attack from 2020, I really can no longer trust their cloud any more, especially that the data collected from a smartwatch is on the more sensitive side. The only Garmin hardware I'm still using is their bicycle tail light+radar, which I just use with wahoo's bike computer instead of other Garmin products.
My Garmin Forerunner 265 has pretty decent battery life, maybe 8 days. I think what was the value for many was how their Connect app processed and displayed stats, though a recent change to "be pretty" has undone much of the usefulness.
Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact, stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
Fwiw, I felt the same way about the Connect app changes last year, but that went away after a couple months once they released an update that lets you customize your main screen view. Now I appreciate the much richer widgets and the ability to swipe between several of the metrics that are most valuable to me.
Also, I've found that the current iteration of their wrist HR sensors are quite good [compared to a chest strap] for everything except outdoor cycling. I have an Epix 2 Pro and never wear a chest strap for anything but cycling anymore.
There's really only 2 features my garmin forerunner lacks that would make it pretty awesome.
1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send out live track notifications from my watch would be really fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that stuff.
2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not having them.
I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two features above are the only things it does that I'd want from it.
I just don't understand how Apple, supposed masters of design and aesthetics, ever thought it was a good idea to release a square watch. It just looks so dumb.
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).