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If you use your watch for just athletic stuff and getting push notifications, Garmin watches like the Venu are a much better piece of hardware and software. The
by exabrial 5y ago
If you use your watch for just athletic stuff and getting push notifications, Garmin watches like the Venu are a much better piece of hardware and software. The battery last for days, the app on the phone is better, the tracking is better, the sensor integration (Ant+) is better, and there are entire ecosystems that revolve around the Garmin/Strava combo.
IF you are looking for more of a SOAW (Smartphone On a Wrist), I think iWatch is probably the best thing on the market.
- cunidev 5y agoI still don't understand how a watch with declared battery life of 18 hours is considered acceptable, or even supposed to exist in 2021. Any competitor offers at least 5x of such an essential parameter for a wearable. Necessary edit: don't get me wrong, I understand how useful or good it can be feature-wise, but this is still a huge dealbreaker.
- qzw 5y agoYes, but the Apple Watch will compile the Linux kernel twice as fast as those other watches. Seriously though, my Apple Watch is definitely the one device that runs out of battery the most in my life. I would love more battery life, so long as it doesn’t compromise any of the functionality or design. But there’s the rub.
- sva_ 5y agoI've recently been wondering if it would be technically feasible to make one of those more traditional metal watchbands, where the metal elements would be Li-Batteries. Perhaps too small though.
- qzw 5y agoI think the tricky part would be the linkages where you'd need an electrical connection. Making that robust enough to be in the band but not too bulky would be a serious challenge. You'd also lose the big variety of bands and the sweet profit margins that they bring.
- r00fus 5y agoI don't know if there's been a regression since the series4, but my Apple watch easily lasts 30-36h (maybe I'm just too sedentary these days with WFH + occasional ride). Even on busy weekends where I'm out all day with multiple "workouts" it usually lasts the day fine.
- speg 5y agoI think because most people don’t need it more than 18 hours per day? If you’re taking it off at night, you might as well drop it on the charger.
- ghaff 5y agoEspecially when I'm traveling (normally), an additional thing to charge is just more overhead. I have an older Apple Watch and I just don't use it very much. When I do, it's for hikes and, barring major upgrades, I probably won't upgrade and may get a new Garmin at some point.
- ilikecakeandpie 5y agoYou may be using it for more than 18 hours per day if you're trying to sleep track
- Jtsummers 5y agoFortunately it doesn't take 6 hours to charge! I'm still not sure where the 18 hour number comes from, I use mine for close to 24 reliably. About 1 hour charging every morning while I'm at my desk not doing much physically anyways is all it takes. Before the WFH times I'd charge it in the morning after it woke me up and maybe in the evening if the charge was below 30% so I'd be certain it would get through the night.
- rtkwe 5y agoIn that case you could probably get away with just charging it for a bit in the evening and a top up in the morning while you get ready and be able to wear it basically all day. It's supposedly 90 minutes to 80% from zero and that should get you to the evening where it'd be good to unplug and unwind for a little bit anyways.
- subpixel 5y agoActually one of the best features of the apple watch is that it can wake me silently (so as not to wake my spouse) and I can adjust my alarm schedule on my phone (without digging through tiny menus, which are even worse on a Garmin). So I have developed a habit of taking off my apple watch when I sit at my desk. By the first time I think to look at my wrist, it's charged. I put it in sleep mode all night, and wake up with plenty of battery anyway.
- the_dune_13 5y agoUsually people charge them during showers. It charges quite quickly. The watch part is additional as funny as it sounds.
- harikb 5y agoI felt that a battery that lasts one day is better than one that lasts something like 6 days. It is easy enough to remember to charge at night. Yes, one can’t use sleep features, but I am ok with that. When you are in apple ecosystem, unlock phone with watch, unlock Mac with watch, accept Okta verify (2FA) on watch without an unlock, etc are life changing things for me. What sucks is that I can’t gift it an Android/PC person without replacing thousands worth of everything else.
- burkaman 5y agoI have a Garmin watch and I just charge it while I'm taking a shower. Easy to remember, and I've had it for a few years and it's never run out of battery.
- pjerem 5y agoYes but what if you take a shower every days ?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 5y agoThat's what I do with my Apple Watch, too. I wear it 24x7 excepting my daily shower.
- wetpaws 5y agoThe amount of coping is strong in this post.
- bosie 5y agoCan you name those competitors? For example a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 lasts a day or a bit more. Nowhere near the 90 hours mark.
- wetpaws 5y agoGarmin can easily last a week or two.
- bosie 5y agoSure but how many of those are actually comptition for Samsung Galaxy watches or Apple Watches? I have a Fenix 5 but wouldn't consider that to be competition for an Apple watch due to the terrible display and lack of apps. Easy to get a weeks worth of battery if the device doesn't run anything.
- wetpaws 5y agoCompetitor as a fitness watch? Definitely. For my use case neither galaxy watch or apple watch clarify as a anything but a glorified kid toy.
- stagger87 5y agoI use the Garmin solar instinct. It lasts 30-40 days on a charge. If it doesn't get any sun (winter months), its ~22 days on a charge.
- bosie 5y agoSure but how is that a competitor for an apple watch? At least a competitor to me would have to be able to run the equivalent of Fantastical and Omnifocus.
- stagger87 5y ago> Sure but how is that a competitor for an apple watch? Hopefully you understand that watches can still be competitors in the smartwatch space even if they don't have feature parity?
- rb666 5y agoI love the features, and I charge it every night (with 50% spare as well).
- eightysixfour 5y agoI don't understand why I need to wear my watch 24 hours a day. I wake up, put it on and wear it until I go to bed. While it is charging it is my nightstand clock. Other than the nightstand clock thing, this is how I wear my "real" watches too.
- nostromo 5y agoBecause sleep tracking and an alarm that doesn’t disturb your partner are two of the best features.
- eightysixfour 5y agoI have a different sleep tracker and me and my partner use a wake light, so I don't find these things relevant to my use case. A quick poll of my friends is similar, although one uses the sleep tracker and charges while getting ready in the morning.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- exabrial 5y agoThe Garmin watches have Pulse Oximeters in them that tell your your 02 saturation while you sleep, breaths per minutes, and use that data to calculate all sorts of metrics for you.
- regulation_d 5y agoI haven't found the battery life to be an issue. Part of that is how quick the Apple Watch is to charge. I throw it on the charger when I wake up, and it's charged by the time I get out of the shower.
- enos_feedler 5y agoExactly this. At some point I stopped being a nightly charger for all my Apple devices and find more convenient times to charge. Sort of lazy, but I would rather have my phone within reach while I'm sleeping and plug it in when I can't use it (shower, out running with my watch). Same goes with the Watch. More useful to be with me while sleeping.
- thoughtpeddler 5y agoThis. Getting something like the Belkin 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe at work has been a lifesaver. I get to work, throw on my phone, watch, and AirPods, and within an hour everything's charged back up. Having a few charging pucks around the house also helps. I like wearing my watch at night for sleep tracking, and the longer it's on my wrist, the more data it's capturing, which my hope is that in the years to come, can be harnessed for improving my health, somehow.
- whoisburbansky 5y agoThe 18 hour battery life is the price you pay for at least 5x the functionality of competitors with better battery life (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but you do realize the reason other wearables can get away with much longer battery lives is that they are capable of far less).
- StevePerkins 5y agoIf you JUST want a pedometer, heart rate and sleep monitor that syncs with Apple Health and can also send push notifications when in Bluetooth range of your phone... then the going price on Amazon right now is around $30-35. For something that looks nearly identical to an Apple Watch, and has a battery life of 7-10 days. And for which you can find non-proprietary metal or leather replacement bands for ten to twenty bucks. It's insane at this point. I resisted getting a smartwatch for years, because I like the aesthetics of traditional analog watches, and did not want to charge a battery every day or two. Especially when the cheaper options a few years ago often required you to disassemble the band to reveal a USB male plug for charging, instead of just attaching a magnet to the back. But for "starter" smartwatches, prices have fallen and quality risen to the point now where you can try one out as a next-to-free impulse purchase, and just shrug and move on if it's not for you. Now I'm hooked on it. I don't so much care about push notifications for calls and emails, etc (i.e. my phone is already right there). But it's pushed me to walk about twice as many steps per day as I used to, and get about an hour more sleep per night. I've lost over 20 pounds since buying mine six months ago, from no conscious lifestyle changes beyond that. Plus the aesthetics have grown on me, so I don't think I'll ever be going back. On the other hand, I wouldn't even consider "upgrading" to a true Apple Watch until their battery life improves 5-10x.
- stanmancan 5y agoBattery life hasn't been an issue for me on the Series 5. I put it on when I wake up at 7am and when I go to bed around 10:30 I usually have about 40% battery life left. I don't sleep with mine on, so it charges at night, but even if you did you could probably get by on charging it for about an hour a day. My wife plops hers on the charger when we watch TV in the evening. The one nice thing I've enjoyed on this version is I went with the one with cell service. I haven't used it a ton, but it -is- nice to be able to leave your phone at home. I wouldn't intentionally make or accept calls on it, but having kids you always want to be reachable so in the case of an emergency it works fantastic.
- billti 5y agoIt's a good way to force yourself to disconnect from work email and social media for a bit, but still be reachable. Leave the phone at home, and just wear the watch. You can still take a call or reply to a text from the wife in a pinch, but doing email or checking twitter/Facebook/hacker news isn't an option. I try and do this now when I go out with the kids to the park so I'm not tempted to be buried in my phone.
- exabrial 5y agoThe other thing I didn't mention in my original post is Garmin watches are _meant_ to be used disconnected from the phone and internet, whereas the designers of the iWatch and Android watches assume you universally have a cell signal. Retaining nearly all of your capabilities is a huge selling point for me since I spent an enormous amount of time away from cell towers and wifi in the outdoors.