4 ms·

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 fair

by 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.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    I used the sleep tracking data to dramatically improve the quality of my sleep. Nowadays I’m focused on other health areas, but I cannot overstate how much better I feel now that I am getting consistent high quality sleep.
- kemayo 4y ago
  So, for what it's worth, I have an Apple Watch series 7 and find its battery life to be sufficient to wear (basically) 24/7. I have to charge it, but that's a matter of putting it on the fast-charger while I'm in the shower. It'd be better if it had the battery life of the Fenix, not going to lie. But the base models now are good enough that it's a daily-routine thing rather than an inconvenience.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    I tried that, and it didn’t work for me. There were too many edge cases where my watch would die. If it works for you that’s great, but I will personally not go back to a watch that requires me to charge it more than once a week.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  > The killer feature of a watch for me is battery life. Exactly. For me, extended battery life is part of the definition of a 'watch'. I know that there are mechanical watches that require daily winding, but this doesn't take anywhere near as long as charging an Apple Watch (and doesn't require any special equipment or access to electricity). For now, I am limping along with my trusty old Pebble, hoping that Apple or someone else will come out with a decent replacement someday. The battery life is waning (4 days if I remember to activate airplane mode each night), and the display is discolored in spots. But it does what I need! If it died tomorrow I'd probably get a Fossil hybrid smartwatch, which has 5x the battery life of the Ultra and costs 1/3 as much. It's not perfect (hard to read messages, UI isn't great), but it has a watch-like battery life. The Apple Watch is a lovely wristworn computer, but in my book it isn't a watch until it can go a week without charging.

by kemayo 4y ago

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.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  I used the sleep tracking data to dramatically improve the quality of my sleep. Nowadays I’m focused on other health areas, but I cannot overstate how much better I feel now that I am getting consistent high quality sleep.
kemayo 4y ago
So, for what it's worth, I have an Apple Watch series 7 and find its battery life to be sufficient to wear (basically) 24/7. I have to charge it, but that's a matter of putting it on the fast-charger while I'm in the shower. It'd be better if it had the battery life of the Fenix, not going to lie. But the base models now are good enough that it's a daily-routine thing rather than an inconvenience.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  I tried that, and it didn’t work for me. There were too many edge cases where my watch would die. If it works for you that’s great, but I will personally not go back to a watch that requires me to charge it more than once a week.
gnicholas 4y ago
> The killer feature of a watch for me is battery life. Exactly. For me, extended battery life is part of the definition of a 'watch'. I know that there are mechanical watches that require daily winding, but this doesn't take anywhere near as long as charging an Apple Watch (and doesn't require any special equipment or access to electricity). For now, I am limping along with my trusty old Pebble, hoping that Apple or someone else will come out with a decent replacement someday. The battery life is waning (4 days if I remember to activate airplane mode each night), and the display is discolored in spots. But it does what I need! If it died tomorrow I'd probably get a Fossil hybrid smartwatch, which has 5x the battery life of the Ultra and costs 1/3 as much. It's not perfect (hard to read messages, UI isn't great), but it has a watch-like battery life. The Apple Watch is a lovely wristworn computer, but in my book it isn't a watch until it can go a week without charging.