For those that wear Apple Watches. How do you like it? Is it good for sports/health tracking like HR monitoring and such.
I’ve never been a fan but I wanted to treat myself to a Garmin watch and realized well the new Apple Watch 10 is not much more and I use an iPhone so maybe there’s some benefits that I would like.
Apple watch is smart watch first, activity tracker secondary. Fitbit and Garmins are activity tracker first, smart watch second. The thing that is most annoying about apple watch to me is the battery life. You have to charge it pretty much daily.
I have a Garmin (fr 945) and my so has an Apple watch. Different strengths - the Apple watch is a better smart watch /phone companion, the Garmin a better sports watch. Battery life on the Garmin demolishes the AW, which is useful if you want to use it for things like sleep tracking (or just don’t like plugging in every night).
There’s also a LOT of different Garmin options depending on the niche you’re looking to fill, looks, solar charging, etcc,.etc.
I’m thinking of buying one for my wife. She started swimming again, and I like how the watch is good for tracking this activity.
@lostinasia , do you use an Apple watch for swimming?
I’ve had a series 9 since it came out.
The thing I like most about it is that I can check my notifications and see who’s calling without taking out my phone.
I use it for tracking my cycling and running and it works well for those. I have have also become a little bit obsessed with tacking and trying to improve my heart rate variability.
All of those things can probably be done with a Garmin, but I think the form factor of the Apple Watch is better.
As for charging; the daily charging is no big deal for me. I put it on the charger when I’m in the shower at around 9~10pm and put it back on my wrist before I get into bed. By the next evening, the battery is at around 40%. It takes about 45mins to charge from 40% to 100%.
If mine broke, I’d buy another one.
I love it
I’m on my third having lost one and given one away
Love it
I don’t wear
Any other watches
Mine tracks my bike
Rides and daily activity and heart rate as I go through my day
With it I can leave my phone at home if I want to as it can make and receive calls and text without the phone nearby
It can tell me which public transport is nearby in my location
I can use it to pay for transit and other things with Apple Pay
I can sign in to my gym when I go there
I can swim with it and track my progress
On and on
One charge lasts the whole
Day
So it’s great and the price is right
Costs me 20 a month with the phone service
Watch is essentially free
I can find stuff online and use the navigation as well as play music through my wireless headphones but I don’t because a lot of power is needed using nav and playing music so I don’t use those features
Nav only when needed and phone is not in my hands or in the car
Because it has calling capability it allows me to detach from my fone on days off
As I use the phone way too much at work
Mine is the second generation SE with cellular
Think it’s 4 bucks a month and 20 a month phone service
After two years the watch is paid off and then it’s just 20 a month for the phone
Something like that
4 a month for 24 months for the watch
It’s a deal
It’s subsidized because the phone service costs 20 a month and you can’t cancel the service for 24 months
I got the 44mm
I have a series 9 and love it. I use it to track my daily workout and it seems to work quite well. I’m in the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, Mac) so it integrates nicely with the other devices (notifications and stuff).
By the way my first SE did not have cellular and it was fine and when I lost it I replaced it with a cheaper one also non cellular but then I decided to replace that one with a SE 2nd gen with cellular and for me cellular is awesome
Means I can ride my bike and leave my fone behind entirely and yet be in contact still
For me it’s worth the extra to be able to do that
I now have mixed feelings about Apple Watches. I had an Apple Watch 6 for almost four years and loved it: great for tracking swim laps and times, cycling routes, heart rate for exercise, etc. I also enjoy the Apple Fitness+ exercise videos: I believe those are free for a few months, and then cost money, but I’m not sure where they’re available (I get them because I use a Canadian credit card for my Apple stuff). Until July this year, only great experiences.
Then, since the battery was getting unhealthy, back in July I paid for a “refurbishment” - i.e. a new Apple Watch 6 with a healthy battery (this seemed an affordable way to get a couple more years of use on a device that doesn’t have any updates I consider that significant). And the new one’s been glitchy: it started crashing and not responding a few hours after a swim (even though I’d swum with it a bunch of times before). It spent a few days in a bag of rice and got back to mostly normal, but I haven’t dared swim with it since. Occasional weird glitches since, like last week suddenly telling me the time was five minutes later than it actually was (which was a weird non-ending to class: “Oh, sorry, we’re overtime! Wait … we’re not?! Huh?!”). Today’s bike ride has two weird GPS glitches where I apparently warped back to an earlier point for a few seconds, so that added an unexplained 6km to the ride, something I don’t believe ever happened with the previous watch.
I have read on Reddit that the AW6 can be a bit glitchy compared to other models, especially with regard to water-proofing - but still, this is getting annoying. Like I said, great experiences with my first one for almost four years. I do intend to buy a new one, but I’m not sure when, since I’ve currently got what seems to be a bit of a lemon. At some point I’m going to see what my options are for getting my replacement replaced, but I’m not optimistic about that, especially since the errors aren’t replicable.
See a few other threads …
I have an Apple Watch. If you’re a fitness nut, it’s useful for different types of measurements like heart rate, steps taken, etc. If not, it’s pretty useless. Many of the apps are pretty redundant as they’re just smaller versions of the one on the iPhone. Half the time I forget to wear my watch and it’s a pain to charge it every day. I won’t buy a new one when this one finally breaks or gets lost.
I’m going to the Apple Store to check it out. But I think I’ll go with the Garmin. The idea of it being an extension of my phone isn’t that great for me personally as I have to use my phone for work all the time and I would not like to have my watch to notify me of things on my phone. I’m sure I could turn off those features but that defeats the purpose of having the Apple Watch I would think.
The 1 day battery seems pretty useless to me also
I have a 7 that I’ll replace with a 10 on Black Friday. I don’t subscribe to the Fitness+ app although I use it mainly for fitness.
I like the ability to track my heart rate, which I’m sure Garmin and others do just as well, but I’ve finally talked my doctor into accepting an import of my heart data from the Health app. That was a struggle (he’s worried about liability so the deal is that I will allow him to replicate data if my data turns bad) that I won on the back of the Apple brand itself. I’ve also agreed to run an EKG on my 7 if his PA asks me to.
Way back in the day I owned a Jawbone sleep tracker. My 7 is terrific at this; I use an app called AutoSleep that accepts data from the 7 and gives me good information about my sleep (actionable information for me). Not sure Garmin interacts with AutoSleep, it might.
The battery is not a problem for me.
The one really nice thing about the apple watch compared to the garmin, if you get the lte version, is you can make / take calls and txt on it without your phone, so you might end up leaving your phone and not feeling the need to have it on your all the time. This is something I hardly ever see anyone use (wife included), but way up there in the “just in case” features.
On the Garmin, it turns out I bought way more features than I ever use. I never used the music or mapping features after initially playing with them. I use it for sleep, hr, and exercise tracking / prompts on a run if a predefined workout (by pace, time, distance, or hr). To dismiss notifications on my phone. Occasionally mobile pay when I forget my wallet.
The apple watch can be more or less - the high end garmins are up there in price.
It’s wonderful to have a choice diff needs for diff people
No, nobody asked me but let me tell you about my day without my cell phone just to give you an idea. so I went on the newly restarted L taraval Street car which has been Dormant for five years down to Embarcadero and then walked almost to Pier 39 to see the blue Angels perform today
The focal point of the show was around the Pier 39 area but I figured it might be super crowded there so I stopped about who knows half a mile or so before that focal point and still saw a great portion of the show. It was really pretty fantastic however I can see that if you were at the focal point When they dip down really low closer to the water that must’ve been a great vantage point and I wasn’t there. I had a building blocking me maybe next year I will research into how much it cost to get a ticket to have a seat at the show. I’m sure it’s well worth it. It look pretty spectacular .
I did miss not having my phone so I could look up what the itinerary was what the schedule was for the performance but then I forgot that I actually have Internet capability so I could still have looked it up, but I forgot about that so I kind of thought if I had my cell phone. I could look up what the order was for the performance cause I know there was a set schedule, but I could’ve done that anyway on my watch alone now that I know, but I didn’t know then or didn’t remember.
And a good thing was during this time I had a couple unknown callers and I had my watch silenced so if it was an unknown caller, I didn’t have to bother to answer it. I’m sure it was related to work, but it’s Sunday. I don’t have to answer anything.
And furthermore, when a friend called, I just said hey I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m talking on my watch and it’s not as clear so I could make the conversation super short. It’s a great excuse to not have a conversation with somebody when you don’t really want to.
Great way to keep in touch and not keep in touch so not having my phone today was a plus because I stare at that goddamn thing too much on a weekly basis so I’m staring at it right now. Come to think of it it’s good actually to insist that I don’t have the phone with me that two days a week that I’m not working, and I don’t have to have the phone with me so there’s a real plus there
So for me this ability to not have my phone with me and still be in contact for emergencies basically it’s a real plus for me that garmin can’t do I don’t think
Until you have too many choices (if you’re the type that likes to optimize). The Tyranny of Choice is a good read. 
long time Garmin User here and new iPhone user (convert from Android, yes, it happens).
Garmins are solid (depending on which ones you buy), had a terrible experience with the Venu 2, very good with the forerunner 945, I LOVE MY FENIX 7 solar (especially here in TW if you buy a TW local version you can have easycard embeeded in the watch, only watch left to be able to do so after Fitbit pay got dismissed, not even samsungs can do that). The sport tracking with Garmin is top-notch and probably the best there is.
I have only a few things which are really “pushing” me to get an apple watch too:
AW10 is a very good deal imho, AW Ultra 2 is very bulky too and pricey (like the new fenix 8) but has amazing battery and even diving functions.
Only 2 things will keep me in the Garmin: Jet lag adviser and an actually nice skiing tracking function. Else, if you have an iPhone, AW just makes sense (and that’s the whole point, sneaky Apple fuckers them).
EDIT, 3 things: easycard support, however next year it seems that turnstiles at MRT stations in Taipei will be upgraded with card payment and QR payment support, so that will be progressively less relevant to me as I only use Easycard for transit and I guess bus and TRA will follow suit soon after.
Making a shameless plug for the AW you would think I’m an Apple Store salesperson or what
You can select diff app widgets on the face
For me I got one for timer one for activity one for transit near where I am and one for the ticker to check if my heart is running normal
And on the bike thingy I can set heart beat range for example 100bpm to 150bpm
So it alerts me if out of this beats per minute range so I can slow down if I’m over exerting or speed up if I’m under exerting and it tells me verbally no need to look at the watch
Very cool
Plus lots of other info avout my ride
Time in each zone of exercise where I’m
Riding and temp and humidity and elevation gain etc etc
Very cool
You got a bum steer
Also watches getting cheaper and cheaper may well mean a planned shorter
Service life
Not designed to last and last because new models come soon as you buy the current one
Do you need to be told to slow down though? I mean I’m old so my heart doesn’t go over 144 but there’s a school of thought that says you should judge your own effort by feeling.
Unless you have a heart condition of course.
When I did not set a range on my watch I continuously went up to 180 bpm before I felt winded and my readings suggest that this level is probably dangerous for me because I did feel lightheaded too
So I feel that I was getting close to the edge of perhaps losing consciousness and or perhaps setting off an irregular heart rhythm
Which will be bad on a ride in traffic
So now when it goes beyond the range I feel is still safe for me at 150 bpm even though I didn’t feel light headed or winded I feel this is my safe upper limit the watch chimes in a loud voice “above range your heartbeat is 152 beats per minute “. And I slow down and soon as i go below it chimes “below range 149 beats per minute”
Having the voice read out your bpm is to me very helpful
So now I don’t push the envelope beyond safe level
There’s your long answer
The short answer being YES
Now I’ve learned to even not reach the upper limit because I know the level of exertion that is near 150 bpm as shown here on my last ride
