7 ms·

I'm amazed apple has got by with a 3/4 day charge for 10 generations while garmin has had products with a 7+ day charge for years.

dboreham 2y ago
Samsung has had 2+ day charge for several generations. Their software was/is terrible, but since the switch to Google code 2 generations ago it is not bad.
Etheryte 2y ago
They target different market segments, that's all there is to it. Similar to how some phones get away with having an absolute rubbish camera while other brands offer high resolution cameras — they sell to different people and both companies do fine.
hx833001 2y ago
Ultra has better battery life, most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost everything essential in terms of communication without a phone if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.
- dkdbejwi383 2y ago
  > most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway for me at least, the silent alarm so as to not disturb my partner is a huge part of the value in a smart watch.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for this feature alone. Works great for that.
- KeplerBoy 2y ago
  I thought the sleep tracking and resting heart rate tracking is one of the most important features of a smartwatch. pretty sure most garmin users wear them at night for these reasons.
  - LandR 2y ago
    I always thought resting heart rate while sleeping was a pointless metric ? YOu can have a resting heart rate while sleeping in the 30s, yet your real resting heart rate in the 60s. I don't need a watch to tell me if I was sleeping or not, I was there, I know if I was sleeping... I also don't see the point if it telling me if I got enough sleep or not. Again, I know if I didn't get enough sleep as I'm tired... I also don't think it's sleep tracker is accurate, I've had my garmin tell me I have taken naps when I hadn't. I was just lying on the sofa watching a film and didn't get up for an hour or so. That doesn't mean I'm asleep.
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      I guess most metrics are pointless if looked at in absolute terms and isolation, but trends might still be interesting.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc. A lot of value is in the long term trends. One bad night doesn't mean much but if our sleep quality is trending down over weeks, it's a sign you should change something.
      - iamacyborg 2y ago
        > You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc. Anecdotally, this is very inaccurate for me.
        LandR 2y ago
- cassianoleal 2y ago
  The Ultra is the most bizarre in the lineup. It's marketed at extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc. For that demographic, battery life of less than at least a week is a non-starter, not to mention 100% button navigation as opposed to touchscreen + dial. Those are really hard to operate whilst wearing thick gloves.
  - wil421 2y ago
    Garmin makes solar powered watches for adventures types in the back country. The Ultra is probably good for scuba diving since you aren’t doing it for so long.
  - mcintyre1994 2y ago
    I know the Ultra has an extra button, but I wonder if you can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch). That was what finally pushed me away from Apple Watch, and the marketing of the Ultra is quite funny if it doesn't solve it.
    - jagermo 2y ago
      plus, no support for ANT+ is a dealbreaker.
      - nradov 2y ago
        ANT+ appears to be dying and Garmin has started moving away from it. Although I'm sure they'll still support it for several more product generations. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/the-begining-of-the-end-for-ant-wireless.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/the-begining-of-the-end-...
        thirdsun 2y ago
        ANT+ is still very much present in the cycling world and likely won't go anywhere. While most sensors and devices will also support bluetooth it seems to be a much more fragile and problematic connection. From my own experience I'd always opt for ANT+.
- hunter-gatherer 2y ago
  > most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping Eh, what? When watches were just watches, most everyone wore there watch while sleeping. On that note, my brother and I were talking about these smart watches the other day and I expressed how having a gshock is nice because with my use I seem to get about 7 years of battery life, so my watch is always on. Whereas people with smart watches has (as he put it) significant time blind-spots. But he made a comment at one point and basically said something like "It's not a watch. It is a fitness device that has a clock in it". I think that is a good point. As a watch, all these actually perform rather poorly. But as fitness/GPS/communication devices they perform well.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    My watch charges for the 15 minutes each day that I'm in the shower and getting ready. I'm not missing out on huge tracks of time.
  - grujicd 2y ago
    What do you mean it performs poorly as a watch? Smartwatches sync time, change time zone as you travel, automatically apply DST. It's actually better watch than classic watch.
- hedora 2y ago
  My non-ultra gets at least 28 hours, and over 48 in low power mode. I leave it in airplane mode (this leaves bluetooth on, so it doesn’t impact functionality when my phone is nearby) and disabled the always on screen. I agree about the questionable value proposition though. A $35 Amazfit band is surprisingly competitive with it, and has much better battery life.
jgtrosh 2y ago
An Apple device would need to bring 9.3x the value of a Garmin device in other ways to compensate the charge gap? I'd say Apple users would agree that it does.
scarface_74 2y ago
I can just leave my phone at home when I’m running or in the gym and get phone calls, send messages, and stream music from my watch. I have a stand by my bed that I just plop my phone, watch and AirPods on and they all charge wirelessly and use MagSafe so I don’t have to worry about placement.
- joeofbook 2y ago
  [dead]
- marliechiller 2y ago
  If you have to charge overnight, you miss out on all the benefits of sleep tracking which personally, has been essential in managing recovery and also illness
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Other people are commenting here that they can wake up, put their phone on the charger and it is charged enough to last a full day by the time they take a shower and get dressed in the morning. It’s fully charged in an hour and half from looking at the documentation.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      I usually spend half an hour or less between waking up and leaving for work, and also shower less than half an hour. I definitely find the Apple Watch battery life to be one of its biggest downsides.
tzs 2y ago
Many people get more than 3/4 day. For the Series 10 that 18 hours of battery is based on 300 time checks, 90 notifications, 15 minutes of using apps, and a 60-minute workout with music playback from the watch via Bluetooth. For watches without cellular it also assumes 18 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone. For watches with cellular it assumes 14 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone and 4 hours of LTE cellular connection. I've got mine set to charge to 80%, and over 23.5 hours it typically falls to somewhere in the 30-40% range. I put it on the charger for 30 minutes when I sit on my couch in the evening to watch Jeopardy! and do the NYT crossword puzzle. That's plenty of time to get it back to 80%. I do have the always on display turned off, so the display only comes on when I turn the watch to look at it or tap or click. Always on display would take more power but my recollection from before turning it off is that it would still easily make it 23.5 hours starting from 80%. With a 20 W charger it can go from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, so that would still be done by the time I finished Jeopardy and the crossword. (I didn't turn off always on display to save battery. I turned it off because I didn't really find it useful. When I'm not actively checking the watch I almost hold it in a position where I don't really have a good look at the display, and moving it so I can get a good look almost always would be enough to turn it on in "raise to wake" mode).
rm445 2y ago
Once you give up sleep tracking as a feature, it doesn't matter too much as people can charge their watch nightly. I'm very much on the other side of that decision - I find sleep tracking to be a killer feature, but you can see how Apple got away with it.
- layer8 2y ago
  From my research, none of the available sleep tracking solutions are reliable, unless you attach electrodes to your head. When using multiple sleep tracking solutions in parallel, they all report significantly different results.
  - mbirth 2y ago
    Yes. Simply sleeping on the arm where you wear your watch will make it record crazy values. The sleep quality and breathing measurements are based on movement - which doesn’t make sense when you have another person or pet with you in the bed that also tends to move at night. That’s why we still have sleeping labs. However, the watch’s data can be an indicator that something is wrong and get people to at least mention it to their doc.
- mbirth 2y ago
  I’ve got a charger for my Apple Watch on my desk. I charge my watch in the evening while I’m doing stuff on the computer. When it’s bedtime, the watch is at 100% - ready for sleep tracking and the next day.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
That's because the analysis about Garmin is wrong. None of that stuff matters. Garmin's competition is having kids. Moms and dads will buy Apple Watches because it is more compatible with the having kids lifestyle. In contrast you don't need a dive computer or a bicycle thing when you have no time for hobbies. So an Apple Watch with a diving app meets the demand for aspirational hobbies, which of course, aspirations have a much larger audience than going out and doing something. That said, people having fewer kids is ultimately what is helping them the most. Every hobby got more expensive, there is more demand. If you believe that more dogs and cats, less home buying, more video game playing and TV watching, etc. is also related to the trend of fewer kids - if you read what experts say about this, and if you can believe that LOTS of stuff people spend money LOTS of money on is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the decision to have or not have kids - then expand your mind and look for it everywhere.
- busterarm 2y ago
  I live in a part of the country where most people still have 3-5 kids. Some of their parents had like 8. Everyone is very active outdoors here and as a family. The gyms are family gyms and have daycare services while you work out. Fitness is VERY popular here as are fitness trackers and Apple is a distant third to Garmin & Fitbit.
- blairbeckwith 2y ago
  I don't know if you have any data to back up your claims, and I have nothing to back mine up but anecdotes but – all of the most active people I know have kids and all my single friends are amongst the most sedentary.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    I have kids and I'm very active too. I'm not saying they're not active. I'm saying they're not diving. And if they do dive, once, wouldn't they be buying an Apple Watch Ultra for Christmas, that says that it can do your dive, but also be useful every single day of the year? In terms of data, well, the number of kids per family is trending down, marriage is trending down, relationships are trending down... I don't need to measure anything, everyone's audience is becoming the No Kids audience.
thebruce87m 2y ago
My Apple Watch is normally >40% by 10pm then goes on the charging stand when I go to bed. It’s part of the routine. Even if it lasted 7 days my routine would be the same.

dboreham 2y ago

Samsung has had 2+ day charge for several generations. Their software was/is terrible, but since the switch to Google code 2 generations ago it is not bad.

Etheryte 2y ago

They target different market segments, that's all there is to it. Similar to how some phones get away with having an absolute rubbish camera while other brands offer high resolution cameras — they sell to different people and both companies do fine.

hx833001 2y ago

Ultra has better battery life, most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost everything essential in terms of communication without a phone if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.

dkdbejwi383 2y ago
> most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway for me at least, the silent alarm so as to not disturb my partner is a huge part of the value in a smart watch.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for this feature alone. Works great for that.
KeplerBoy 2y ago
I thought the sleep tracking and resting heart rate tracking is one of the most important features of a smartwatch. pretty sure most garmin users wear them at night for these reasons.
- LandR 2y ago
  I always thought resting heart rate while sleeping was a pointless metric ? YOu can have a resting heart rate while sleeping in the 30s, yet your real resting heart rate in the 60s. I don't need a watch to tell me if I was sleeping or not, I was there, I know if I was sleeping... I also don't see the point if it telling me if I got enough sleep or not. Again, I know if I didn't get enough sleep as I'm tired... I also don't think it's sleep tracker is accurate, I've had my garmin tell me I have taken naps when I hadn't. I was just lying on the sofa watching a film and didn't get up for an hour or so. That doesn't mean I'm asleep.
  - KeplerBoy 2y ago
    I guess most metrics are pointless if looked at in absolute terms and isolation, but trends might still be interesting.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc. A lot of value is in the long term trends. One bad night doesn't mean much but if our sleep quality is trending down over weeks, it's a sign you should change something.
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      > You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc. Anecdotally, this is very inaccurate for me.
      - LandR 2y ago
cassianoleal 2y ago
The Ultra is the most bizarre in the lineup. It's marketed at extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc. For that demographic, battery life of less than at least a week is a non-starter, not to mention 100% button navigation as opposed to touchscreen + dial. Those are really hard to operate whilst wearing thick gloves.
- wil421 2y ago
  Garmin makes solar powered watches for adventures types in the back country. The Ultra is probably good for scuba diving since you aren’t doing it for so long.
- mcintyre1994 2y ago
  I know the Ultra has an extra button, but I wonder if you can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch). That was what finally pushed me away from Apple Watch, and the marketing of the Ultra is quite funny if it doesn't solve it.
  - jagermo 2y ago
    plus, no support for ANT+ is a dealbreaker.
    - nradov 2y ago
      ANT+ appears to be dying and Garmin has started moving away from it. Although I'm sure they'll still support it for several more product generations. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/the-begining-of-the-end-for-ant-wireless.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/the-begining-of-the-end-...
      - thirdsun 2y ago
        ANT+ is still very much present in the cycling world and likely won't go anywhere. While most sensors and devices will also support bluetooth it seems to be a much more fragile and problematic connection. From my own experience I'd always opt for ANT+.
hunter-gatherer 2y ago
> most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping Eh, what? When watches were just watches, most everyone wore there watch while sleeping. On that note, my brother and I were talking about these smart watches the other day and I expressed how having a gshock is nice because with my use I seem to get about 7 years of battery life, so my watch is always on. Whereas people with smart watches has (as he put it) significant time blind-spots. But he made a comment at one point and basically said something like "It's not a watch. It is a fitness device that has a clock in it". I think that is a good point. As a watch, all these actually perform rather poorly. But as fitness/GPS/communication devices they perform well.
- sanswork 2y ago
  My watch charges for the 15 minutes each day that I'm in the shower and getting ready. I'm not missing out on huge tracks of time.
- grujicd 2y ago
  What do you mean it performs poorly as a watch? Smartwatches sync time, change time zone as you travel, automatically apply DST. It's actually better watch than classic watch.
hedora 2y ago
My non-ultra gets at least 28 hours, and over 48 in low power mode. I leave it in airplane mode (this leaves bluetooth on, so it doesn’t impact functionality when my phone is nearby) and disabled the always on screen. I agree about the questionable value proposition though. A $35 Amazfit band is surprisingly competitive with it, and has much better battery life.

jgtrosh 2y ago

An Apple device would need to bring 9.3x the value of a Garmin device in other ways to compensate the charge gap? I'd say Apple users would agree that it does.

scarface_74 2y ago

I can just leave my phone at home when I’m running or in the gym and get phone calls, send messages, and stream music from my watch. I have a stand by my bed that I just plop my phone, watch and AirPods on and they all charge wirelessly and use MagSafe so I don’t have to worry about placement.

joeofbook 2y ago
[dead]
marliechiller 2y ago
If you have to charge overnight, you miss out on all the benefits of sleep tracking which personally, has been essential in managing recovery and also illness
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Other people are commenting here that they can wake up, put their phone on the charger and it is charged enough to last a full day by the time they take a shower and get dressed in the morning. It’s fully charged in an hour and half from looking at the documentation.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    I usually spend half an hour or less between waking up and leaving for work, and also shower less than half an hour. I definitely find the Apple Watch battery life to be one of its biggest downsides.

tzs 2y ago

Many people get more than 3/4 day. For the Series 10 that 18 hours of battery is based on 300 time checks, 90 notifications, 15 minutes of using apps, and a 60-minute workout with music playback from the watch via Bluetooth. For watches without cellular it also assumes 18 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone. For watches with cellular it assumes 14 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone and 4 hours of LTE cellular connection. I've got mine set to charge to 80%, and over 23.5 hours it typically falls to somewhere in the 30-40% range. I put it on the charger for 30 minutes when I sit on my couch in the evening to watch Jeopardy! and do the NYT crossword puzzle. That's plenty of time to get it back to 80%. I do have the always on display turned off, so the display only comes on when I turn the watch to look at it or tap or click. Always on display would take more power but my recollection from before turning it off is that it would still easily make it 23.5 hours starting from 80%. With a 20 W charger it can go from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, so that would still be done by the time I finished Jeopardy and the crossword. (I didn't turn off always on display to save battery. I turned it off because I didn't really find it useful. When I'm not actively checking the watch I almost hold it in a position where I don't really have a good look at the display, and moving it so I can get a good look almost always would be enough to turn it on in "raise to wake" mode).

rm445 2y ago

Once you give up sleep tracking as a feature, it doesn't matter too much as people can charge their watch nightly. I'm very much on the other side of that decision - I find sleep tracking to be a killer feature, but you can see how Apple got away with it.

layer8 2y ago
From my research, none of the available sleep tracking solutions are reliable, unless you attach electrodes to your head. When using multiple sleep tracking solutions in parallel, they all report significantly different results.
- mbirth 2y ago
  Yes. Simply sleeping on the arm where you wear your watch will make it record crazy values. The sleep quality and breathing measurements are based on movement - which doesn’t make sense when you have another person or pet with you in the bed that also tends to move at night. That’s why we still have sleeping labs. However, the watch’s data can be an indicator that something is wrong and get people to at least mention it to their doc.
mbirth 2y ago
I’ve got a charger for my Apple Watch on my desk. I charge my watch in the evening while I’m doing stuff on the computer. When it’s bedtime, the watch is at 100% - ready for sleep tracking and the next day.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

That's because the analysis about Garmin is wrong. None of that stuff matters. Garmin's competition is having kids. Moms and dads will buy Apple Watches because it is more compatible with the having kids lifestyle. In contrast you don't need a dive computer or a bicycle thing when you have no time for hobbies. So an Apple Watch with a diving app meets the demand for aspirational hobbies, which of course, aspirations have a much larger audience than going out and doing something. That said, people having fewer kids is ultimately what is helping them the most. Every hobby got more expensive, there is more demand. If you believe that more dogs and cats, less home buying, more video game playing and TV watching, etc. is also related to the trend of fewer kids - if you read what experts say about this, and if you can believe that LOTS of stuff people spend money LOTS of money on is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the decision to have or not have kids - then expand your mind and look for it everywhere.

busterarm 2y ago
I live in a part of the country where most people still have 3-5 kids. Some of their parents had like 8. Everyone is very active outdoors here and as a family. The gyms are family gyms and have daycare services while you work out. Fitness is VERY popular here as are fitness trackers and Apple is a distant third to Garmin & Fitbit.
blairbeckwith 2y ago
I don't know if you have any data to back up your claims, and I have nothing to back mine up but anecdotes but – all of the most active people I know have kids and all my single friends are amongst the most sedentary.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  I have kids and I'm very active too. I'm not saying they're not active. I'm saying they're not diving. And if they do dive, once, wouldn't they be buying an Apple Watch Ultra for Christmas, that says that it can do your dive, but also be useful every single day of the year? In terms of data, well, the number of kids per family is trending down, marriage is trending down, relationships are trending down... I don't need to measure anything, everyone's audience is becoming the No Kids audience.

thebruce87m 2y ago

My Apple Watch is normally >40% by 10pm then goes on the charging stand when I go to bed. It’s part of the routine. Even if it lasted 7 days my routine would be the same.