10 ms·

Apple Watch Ultra

51 points by happyopossum 4y ago

manuelabeledo 4y ago
They could have eaten Garmin's lunch here. Instead, they released an interesting smartwatch that still cannot compete with the Fenix in terms of battery life.
- hnburnsy 4y ago
  Just posted this in another thread... Until they do something about battery life I don't see how Garmin watch users would bother switching. Apple Watch Ultra... >The battery life can reach 36 hours of battery life. There will be a new battery optimization feature as well coming later this fall. With this setting on, you can reach 60 hours of battery life. From Garmin... >Luckily for you, Garmin watch batteries last a long time — and we mean a long time. At minimum, you should be getting up to 5 days of battery life before having to recharge, and at maximum you could be getting up to 50 days. (No, that is not a typo – the Garmin Enduro™ boasts up to 50 days in smartwatch mode — or 65 if you’re using solar charging.)
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    "It’s important to know that this chart only depicts smartwatch mode." You don't get anywhere near 5 days in full GPS tracking mode.
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      That’s technically true, but I can’t think of a scenario where you would be doing GPS tracking 24/7. If you went on a multi-day hike and intentionally tracked it as an outdoor walk I suppose this would do it, but you otherwise wouldn’t use the watch in that way.
      - zimpenfish 4y ago
        > I can’t think of a scenario where you would be doing GPS tracking 24/7. I've done several 24 hour runs (where my Fenix 3 needed charging during the event) and there's also the 100 milers which most people take >24 hours to complete. But these are rare events for people to be doing, I will grant you that.
        parkingrift 4y ago
        Interesting. I’ve never heard of a 100 miler or a 24 hour run. I have so many questions.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    Bought a Fenix 7x two weeks ago, charged to max the day I got it and haven't charged it since. The watch says I've still got 8 days battery remaining. Absolutely love it.
- izacus 4y ago
  Fenix arguably has worse screen though (transreflective with backlight). Epix 2, with its OLED though... still lasts for 5 days easily. Such a great job on Garmin's side.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    Call me old fashioned but I've not looked at my Fenix since I've had it and really thought "Oh I wish this screen was better, I'd be willing to trade 2 and half weeks of battery life for a better one." There are people (I'm assuming like yourself?) who do however and that is perfectly fine we all have different needs and requirements and what is great is that Garmin have made watches for BOTH sets of people. I'm an Apple fan but why they refuse to make a watch with a lower quality screen and a massively improved battery life absolutely baffles me. I don't know anyone who is sports focussed who would choose one. I trained with a local triathlon club a couple of years ago and almost everyone had a Garmin, I don't recall seeing anyone with an Apple watch and I doubt much has changed. I can't believe they still don't have some kind of Body Battery/Strain/Training Readiness metric built in as standard and that you have to download a third party app to access this kind of data. Whoop, who seemed to pioneer this as far as I can tell, released their first band in 2015. 7 years later and Apple still haven't included it as standard, and for a device that they heavily market as being great for fitness. Absolutely ridiculous.
- kemayo 4y ago
  I suspect they are eating Garmin's lunch, although (to stretch the metaphor) we have to define the ingredients of said lunch. Let's stipulate that there's fairly few people who outright need the Fenix's 18 days of battery life. People who go on multi-week off-grid hikes are uncommon. These people will still buy the Garmin. However, the existence of the Ultra is going to suck up the probably much larger group of people who like the Apple Watch but feel they need something a bit tougher for sports or with enough battery for a weekend of hiking. Instead of buying a second watch for activities, they'll buy the fancier version of their existing watch that they can just wear all the time. I thus strongly suspect that Apple is peeling off the larger part of the active-watch market here, using their existing status as the maker of the most-popular smartwatch to spread in to the new segment just by being able to say "we can do some of that now, and y'all already know you like us elsewhere".
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    I don’t go on multi-week off-grid hikes but I still switched to the Fenix from an Apple Watch. I don’t want to charge my watch every day, and I want to be able to wear it 24/7 to track sleeping and other metrics. Simple as that. The killer feature of a watch for me is battery life.
    - okdood64 4y ago
      > I want to be able to wear it 24/7 to track sleeping What do you do with sleep tracking data?
      - milkytron 4y ago
        Personally, I use it to determine what habits to avoid or which ones to adopt in order to feel more rested. I had always heard the common dos and don'ts for how to improve sleep. But never really felt that motivated to improve it. Once I started tracking my sleep, I realized how bad certain habits were having on my sleep, and ultimately how I felt the following day. Being able to quantify sleep quality provided me with data that I can use to try to make myself healthier and learn about my own body. Sure, I could make the same changes without having that data. But personally I wouldn't be as motivated to continue with certain habits. Others may differ. But the same also applies for me with fitness activities and other health metrics. Seeing progression and improvement encourages healthy habits. And having the data from it is just a way to measure progress or regressions.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  I used to have a Garmin FR645. Until the case cracked where the watch band rods go. Replaced it with an Apple Watch 7 about 6 months ago because I wanted better integration into the rest of my Apple ecosystem. The 1.5 day battery is pretty bad - I toss it on a charger most nights (sleep tracking wasn’t particularly useful for me - I use it occasionally, but don’t need it nightly). Anyway, the Ultra with the 60 hour battery makes the watch useful over a camping weekend, where I currently leave the AW7 at home and go watchless. That’s a pretty big improvement and big selling point. If I had an AW5 or 6, I’d probably upgrade. Maybe I’ll get an Ultra for Christmas or an anniversary.
nickpp 4y ago
Did anybody catch the maximum depth for diving?
- arturhoo 4y ago
  40m, recreational diving only
  - underbluewaters 4y ago
    It's unclear if that is a limitation of the Oceanic app or the sensors. The watch waterproofing is rated to 100m. +40 meters is beyond the limits of recreational diving so it would make sense that the app no longer gives you decompression info beyond that range. When freediving, 40 meters is not unusually deep. Many divers can get past 30m after a long weekend of training. I'd be disappointed if a different app couldn't track beyond that limit.
- quitit 4y ago
  100m
gcau 4y ago
How many will buy this, seeing the epic features, only to wear it sitting in an air-conditioned office? :)
- pivo 4y ago
  If the number of traditional dive watches in air conditioned offices is any indication, a lot of people will buy this.
  - archagon 4y ago
    Or pilot watches, or sport watches, or...
- gnicholas 4y ago
  If it's the only way to get more than a day and a half of battery life on an AW, then they'll sell plenty to desk jockeys. I like the battery improvement and the lip that surrounds the glass. But all the other features would be wasted on me. I could afford one, but can't justify the cost. If they'd released an Apple Watch Extended alongside the Ultra, I would have sprung for the former. Optimize for the battery life and scratch protection that most people care about, not the extreme sports that most people never do. But you're right — this will be like a Palo Alto parking lot filled with virgin Range Rovers.
nickpp 4y ago
I think that for divers, at this price and capabilities, is a must. Just to be able to have your regular smartwatch under water… Half the price of the corresponding Garmin dive computer.
dag11 4y ago
I wasn't tuning in to the livestream but ten friends simultaneously messaged me about this watch since I'm "the scuba diving friend." I currently dive with a Shearwater Perdix which syncs to Shearwater's phone and desktop apps with detailed dive info and graphs, and supports cloud-synced dive logs and equipment notes. It also syncs with a wireless transmitter attached to my tanks to plot my air consumption over the course of the dive. Because of all of this, I can't exclusively use the Apple Watch as my dive computer. That said, it's not uncommon to dive with multiple computers for redundancy if performing multiple dives in a day, and I'm sure Apple's iOS UI for viewing their dive log will be easier to bring up in a pinch than the Shearwater app, which is a clunky Unity app. I'll probably buy it and dive with both. But I don't imagine existing avid divers will exclusively be using the Apple Watch as a dive computer until it has air integration and dive log notes (if not already). But for casual divers who dive once a year on vacation and don't already have a computer? This is probably an excellent feature.
- izacus 4y ago
  I didn't follow, does it actually work like a dive computer (calculating deep stops, surface time, time to flight, etc.) or is it just rated for going deep?
  - jolux 4y ago
    Yeah it calculates deep stops and such.
  - dag11 4y ago
    It does calculate emergency deco stops, and I believe TTS, and so on, but it's only designed for recreational diving.
- evgen 4y ago
  This is also a first step into taking a big bite out of this (niche) market by Apple. As you note, everything now is very veritcal. You pick your computer and then you are locked in to its app, its cloud, and its air integrated units. Now that Apple has cracked this open a bit you are going to see more apps plus air integrated units that support dive computer X _and Apple Watch Ultra_. Breaking the vertical nature of this market and capturing most of the low end is probably going to be the net result when you look back in five or ten years.
skilled 4y ago
The backtrack GPS feature definitely looks nice, but I wouldn't use it for much else.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  It looks to me like it replaces everything I use my SPOT device for, but in a hardware form I can use everyday and doesn't cost me an extra subscription.
aaroninsf 4y ago
Satellite integrated into the watch: would be a killer app. As integrated into phones: ok, 100x better than nothing—but, not in any way a replacement for a satellite communicator for anyone intentionally going into the backcountry. Missed opportunity: sat antenna accessory that removes the "track that sat" requirement. Source: someone who regularly intentionally goes into the backcountry carrying a Garmin InReach sat communicator. Which is among the most-amazing pieces of technology I own, even though it's got some flaws as a product.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
I've been jonesing for an all-red Watch face since I jumped on this train with the Series 3, quite a bummer and inexplicable that it's an Ultra-exclusive feature. Every year when they announce new Watch faces, I joke "maybe this year one of them will be good." Not this cycle, alas…
nightski 4y ago
This looks really neat, but it feels like Apple isn't very keen on biking? I don't think I could replace my Garmin with this until they get better support on that front.
- rwc 4y ago
  As a cyclist and Apple Watch user, out of curiosity what is your Garmin doing better?
  - sumitgt 4y ago
    ANT+ support comes to mind
  - nightski 4y ago
    Synchronizing with a bike computer, connecting to sensors (speed, power, cadence, some hrms), triathlon features, battery life (although the ultra here is OK, but nothing like a fenix), strava live segments are a few that come to mind.
  - mshroyer 4y ago
    ClimbPro, ANT+ for my HRM/power meter/speed sensor, offline navigation, and battery life

51 points by happyopossum 4y ago

They could have eaten Garmin's lunch here. Instead, they released an interesting smartwatch that still cannot compete with the Fenix in terms of battery life.

hnburnsy 4y ago
Just posted this in another thread... Until they do something about battery life I don't see how Garmin watch users would bother switching. Apple Watch Ultra... >The battery life can reach 36 hours of battery life. There will be a new battery optimization feature as well coming later this fall. With this setting on, you can reach 60 hours of battery life. From Garmin... >Luckily for you, Garmin watch batteries last a long time — and we mean a long time. At minimum, you should be getting up to 5 days of battery life before having to recharge, and at maximum you could be getting up to 50 days. (No, that is not a typo – the Garmin Enduro™ boasts up to 50 days in smartwatch mode — or 65 if you’re using solar charging.)
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  "It’s important to know that this chart only depicts smartwatch mode." You don't get anywhere near 5 days in full GPS tracking mode.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    That’s technically true, but I can’t think of a scenario where you would be doing GPS tracking 24/7. If you went on a multi-day hike and intentionally tracked it as an outdoor walk I suppose this would do it, but you otherwise wouldn’t use the watch in that way.
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      > I can’t think of a scenario where you would be doing GPS tracking 24/7. I've done several 24 hour runs (where my Fenix 3 needed charging during the event) and there's also the 100 milers which most people take >24 hours to complete. But these are rare events for people to be doing, I will grant you that.
      - parkingrift 4y ago
        Interesting. I’ve never heard of a 100 miler or a 24 hour run. I have so many questions.
- rcarr 4y ago
  Bought a Fenix 7x two weeks ago, charged to max the day I got it and haven't charged it since. The watch says I've still got 8 days battery remaining. Absolutely love it.
izacus 4y ago
Fenix arguably has worse screen though (transreflective with backlight). Epix 2, with its OLED though... still lasts for 5 days easily. Such a great job on Garmin's side.
- rcarr 4y ago
  Call me old fashioned but I've not looked at my Fenix since I've had it and really thought "Oh I wish this screen was better, I'd be willing to trade 2 and half weeks of battery life for a better one." There are people (I'm assuming like yourself?) who do however and that is perfectly fine we all have different needs and requirements and what is great is that Garmin have made watches for BOTH sets of people. I'm an Apple fan but why they refuse to make a watch with a lower quality screen and a massively improved battery life absolutely baffles me. I don't know anyone who is sports focussed who would choose one. I trained with a local triathlon club a couple of years ago and almost everyone had a Garmin, I don't recall seeing anyone with an Apple watch and I doubt much has changed. I can't believe they still don't have some kind of Body Battery/Strain/Training Readiness metric built in as standard and that you have to download a third party app to access this kind of data. Whoop, who seemed to pioneer this as far as I can tell, released their first band in 2015. 7 years later and Apple still haven't included it as standard, and for a device that they heavily market as being great for fitness. Absolutely ridiculous.
kemayo 4y ago
I suspect they are eating Garmin's lunch, although (to stretch the metaphor) we have to define the ingredients of said lunch. Let's stipulate that there's fairly few people who outright need the Fenix's 18 days of battery life. People who go on multi-week off-grid hikes are uncommon. These people will still buy the Garmin. However, the existence of the Ultra is going to suck up the probably much larger group of people who like the Apple Watch but feel they need something a bit tougher for sports or with enough battery for a weekend of hiking. Instead of buying a second watch for activities, they'll buy the fancier version of their existing watch that they can just wear all the time. I thus strongly suspect that Apple is peeling off the larger part of the active-watch market here, using their existing status as the maker of the most-popular smartwatch to spread in to the new segment just by being able to say "we can do some of that now, and y'all already know you like us elsewhere".
- parkingrift 4y ago
  I don’t go on multi-week off-grid hikes but I still switched to the Fenix from an Apple Watch. I don’t want to charge my watch every day, and I want to be able to wear it 24/7 to track sleeping and other metrics. Simple as that. The killer feature of a watch for me is battery life.
  - okdood64 4y ago
    > I want to be able to wear it 24/7 to track sleeping What do you do with sleep tracking data?
    - milkytron 4y ago
      Personally, I use it to determine what habits to avoid or which ones to adopt in order to feel more rested. I had always heard the common dos and don'ts for how to improve sleep. But never really felt that motivated to improve it. Once I started tracking my sleep, I realized how bad certain habits were having on my sleep, and ultimately how I felt the following day. Being able to quantify sleep quality provided me with data that I can use to try to make myself healthier and learn about my own body. Sure, I could make the same changes without having that data. But personally I wouldn't be as motivated to continue with certain habits. Others may differ. But the same also applies for me with fitness activities and other health metrics. Seeing progression and improvement encourages healthy habits. And having the data from it is just a way to measure progress or regressions.
alistairSH 4y ago
I used to have a Garmin FR645. Until the case cracked where the watch band rods go. Replaced it with an Apple Watch 7 about 6 months ago because I wanted better integration into the rest of my Apple ecosystem. The 1.5 day battery is pretty bad - I toss it on a charger most nights (sleep tracking wasn’t particularly useful for me - I use it occasionally, but don’t need it nightly). Anyway, the Ultra with the 60 hour battery makes the watch useful over a camping weekend, where I currently leave the AW7 at home and go watchless. That’s a pretty big improvement and big selling point. If I had an AW5 or 6, I’d probably upgrade. Maybe I’ll get an Ultra for Christmas or an anniversary.

nickpp 4y ago

Did anybody catch the maximum depth for diving?

arturhoo 4y ago
40m, recreational diving only
- underbluewaters 4y ago
  It's unclear if that is a limitation of the Oceanic app or the sensors. The watch waterproofing is rated to 100m. +40 meters is beyond the limits of recreational diving so it would make sense that the app no longer gives you decompression info beyond that range. When freediving, 40 meters is not unusually deep. Many divers can get past 30m after a long weekend of training. I'd be disappointed if a different app couldn't track beyond that limit.
quitit 4y ago
100m

gcau 4y ago

How many will buy this, seeing the epic features, only to wear it sitting in an air-conditioned office? :)

pivo 4y ago
If the number of traditional dive watches in air conditioned offices is any indication, a lot of people will buy this.
- archagon 4y ago
  Or pilot watches, or sport watches, or...
gnicholas 4y ago
If it's the only way to get more than a day and a half of battery life on an AW, then they'll sell plenty to desk jockeys. I like the battery improvement and the lip that surrounds the glass. But all the other features would be wasted on me. I could afford one, but can't justify the cost. If they'd released an Apple Watch Extended alongside the Ultra, I would have sprung for the former. Optimize for the battery life and scratch protection that most people care about, not the extreme sports that most people never do. But you're right — this will be like a Palo Alto parking lot filled with virgin Range Rovers.

nickpp 4y ago

I think that for divers, at this price and capabilities, is a must. Just to be able to have your regular smartwatch under water… Half the price of the corresponding Garmin dive computer.

dag11 4y ago

I wasn't tuning in to the livestream but ten friends simultaneously messaged me about this watch since I'm "the scuba diving friend." I currently dive with a Shearwater Perdix which syncs to Shearwater's phone and desktop apps with detailed dive info and graphs, and supports cloud-synced dive logs and equipment notes. It also syncs with a wireless transmitter attached to my tanks to plot my air consumption over the course of the dive. Because of all of this, I can't exclusively use the Apple Watch as my dive computer. That said, it's not uncommon to dive with multiple computers for redundancy if performing multiple dives in a day, and I'm sure Apple's iOS UI for viewing their dive log will be easier to bring up in a pinch than the Shearwater app, which is a clunky Unity app. I'll probably buy it and dive with both. But I don't imagine existing avid divers will exclusively be using the Apple Watch as a dive computer until it has air integration and dive log notes (if not already). But for casual divers who dive once a year on vacation and don't already have a computer? This is probably an excellent feature.

izacus 4y ago
I didn't follow, does it actually work like a dive computer (calculating deep stops, surface time, time to flight, etc.) or is it just rated for going deep?
- jolux 4y ago
  Yeah it calculates deep stops and such.
- dag11 4y ago
  It does calculate emergency deco stops, and I believe TTS, and so on, but it's only designed for recreational diving.
evgen 4y ago
This is also a first step into taking a big bite out of this (niche) market by Apple. As you note, everything now is very veritcal. You pick your computer and then you are locked in to its app, its cloud, and its air integrated units. Now that Apple has cracked this open a bit you are going to see more apps plus air integrated units that support dive computer X _and Apple Watch Ultra_. Breaking the vertical nature of this market and capturing most of the low end is probably going to be the net result when you look back in five or ten years.

skilled 4y ago

The backtrack GPS feature definitely looks nice, but I wouldn't use it for much else.

poulsbohemian 4y ago
It looks to me like it replaces everything I use my SPOT device for, but in a hardware form I can use everyday and doesn't cost me an extra subscription.

aaroninsf 4y ago

Satellite integrated into the watch: would be a killer app. As integrated into phones: ok, 100x better than nothing—but, not in any way a replacement for a satellite communicator for anyone intentionally going into the backcountry. Missed opportunity: sat antenna accessory that removes the "track that sat" requirement. Source: someone who regularly intentionally goes into the backcountry carrying a Garmin InReach sat communicator. Which is among the most-amazing pieces of technology I own, even though it's got some flaws as a product.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Eric_WVGG 4y ago

I've been jonesing for an all-red Watch face since I jumped on this train with the Series 3, quite a bummer and inexplicable that it's an Ultra-exclusive feature. Every year when they announce new Watch faces, I joke "maybe this year one of them will be good." Not this cycle, alas…

nightski 4y ago

This looks really neat, but it feels like Apple isn't very keen on biking? I don't think I could replace my Garmin with this until they get better support on that front.

rwc 4y ago
As a cyclist and Apple Watch user, out of curiosity what is your Garmin doing better?
- sumitgt 4y ago
  ANT+ support comes to mind
- nightski 4y ago
  Synchronizing with a bike computer, connecting to sensors (speed, power, cadence, some hrms), triathlon features, battery life (although the ultra here is OK, but nothing like a fenix), strava live segments are a few that come to mind.
- mshroyer 4y ago
  ClimbPro, ANT+ for my HRM/power meter/speed sensor, offline navigation, and battery life