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Gotta be honest I feel like Garmin is the perfect balance of pebble vs apple watch

• WD-42 2y ago
  I like my instinct, but Garmin is so locked down, less hackable than even an Apple Watch.
  • teruakohatu 2y ago
    You can download the SDK and side load applications. No annual developer fee. Not sure how it’s more locked down.
    • abcd_f 2y ago
      Don’t know about Apple Watch development, but the scope of what you can do with Garmin's SDK is limited, apps run in a VM, ie no native code with respective performance issues and, as important, their developer support is a complete and utter garbage. It's a lucky day when someone from Garmin graces Forums with their presence and bestows few sentences they think could pass for an answer. In other words, yeah, the SDK is free, you can side-load and it’s not hard to write for, but you just can't write much.
      • scarface_74 2y ago
        You run native code on the Watch itself and most of the limitations are around not doing anything that will kill the small battery.
        • abcd_f 2y ago
          Nope, not native code. > Monkey C compiles into byte code that is interpreted by a virtual machine, similar to Java. https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/reference-guides/monkey-c-reference https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/reference-guides/mon..., 2nd paragraph.
          • scarface_74 2y ago
            I meant the Apple Watch, I should have quoted the relevant bit I was replying to > Don’t know about Apple Watch development
    • askvictor 2y ago
      One example: I would like to program a (dumb/ID-only) RFID card into it to unlock a door. I can't as the NFC off limits to apps.
      • jrockway 2y ago
        Apparently there is some transit system in China that uses this format for payments. So you can get one of those cards, add it to your watch, and program the RFID system to accept the ID of the card you got. There was an HN article about it this weekend.
        • bean-weevil 2y ago
          My Garmin watch will only allow me to add emv cards.
        • yellow_lead 2y ago
          You can also use Garmin watches for transit in Japan, if it's a Japanese model.
        • notpushkin 2y ago
          I think that was NFC. The problem was, iPhone generated a random UID for all other cards, while this one was fixed.
    • gck1 2y ago
      It's severely limited in terms of what you can do. Garmin doesn't support some Unicode (Georgian) characters, and when you get a notification with Georgian characters, watch freezes, starts heavily draining the battery and then resumes in a few seconds. Garmin has refused to fix this for many many years, and there's no games you can play with SDK that will help you fix it yourself
  • knifie_spoonie 2y ago
    I'm curious why you're saying it's less hackable? I've written my own little app for my Garmin watch, and I didn't need to get permission from them or pay them anything.
  • HumblyTossed 2y ago
    Less hackable in what way? I've found it's tremendously easier to write a watch face for the Garmin than the Apple Watch. I know, I've done it (and if you, like me, don't want to share your watch face, leave it in Beta all the time).
  • Levitating 2y ago
    The Instinct 2 has an SDK and a sort of app store. I must admit that adding real new functionality is hard, but it's something at least.
• abraxas 2y ago
  I just gave away a very expensive Garmin to my son. Its feature set is to dream of. Its user interface is hot garbage. When I'm out on a hike or in the pool trying to just measure my fsking laps I need a single click option or something. Their paradigm of "button 1, button 3, button 5, long press button 4, button 1 again to confirm. Now you can push off the wall in 3... 2... 1" is beyond fucking stupid. Does anyone at Garmin actually practice sports? For a company with such great hardware they really need someone competent on the UX team. Throwing everything into more and more menus and submenus is not working. The specific watch I'm criticizing is Garmin Instinct 2x solar. The name is very ironic because there is nothing intuitive about using that watch. Like, at all.
  • Moldoteck 2y ago
    Don't some Garmin watches support long press app launch?
  • hparadiz 2y ago
    All this plus not being able to see any data while offline. Super useful when you're 13,000 feet up on a mountain somewhere.
    • elric 2y ago
      Which data are you unable to view while offline? I never sync my Garmin watch to my phone, and I'm able to view all the data that interests me on the watch.
      • abcd_f 2y ago
        Any data in the app. It just doesn't work offline, at all. Like they looked at a book chapter on basics of data caching and went "nah, not doing that, that's too f#cking advanced".
    • hobos_delight 2y ago
      I'm not sure I understand. I have had an Instinct, Tactix Delta, and Tactix 7 Pro and have always been able to see the data without a phone or any network present. I love these watches after moving from an Apple watch, primarily for two reasons: 1) the battery life - I cant stand having to charge my watch every day or so - my (current) Tactix 7 will go ~3-4 weeks depending on how much GPS I use. 2) (this may be out of date) when I would use the Strava or Run app on the Apple watch, it would not signal when it had a GPS fix, which resulted in a number of runs that had a "teleport" at the start, resulting in messed up metrics. Only a small thing, but it really frustrated me.
• rafaelmn 2y ago
  I really like vivomove looks but after buying lux as a gift for my wife I think I will steer clear. App was bad, syncing issues, she wore it for a while because she liked how it looks but I think she has not charged it in over a year because of how much the experience sucks compared to apple watch or even withings. I have a withings scanwatch right now, the app is nice, ecosystem is nice - but accuracy is very underwhelming. I would pay 1k for a watch that - is hybrid with subtle watch aesthetic and minimal display/vibration for notifications - has Apple watch level metric accuracy - has week long battery life - ideally would have replaceable battery but not a deal breaker if warranty is 3 years
  • synecdoche 2y ago
    2 short taps on the top button on Garmin Venu Sq 2 when swimming is the default activity. It counts laps automatically. It can be setup to display 2—4 statistics during the swim. Now if someone could explain what the other thing is that appears for a few seconds when changing direction at the wall in the pool is, and how to disable it, that would be useful. Two counters, one in large font and below one in small font. Typically they start at, or are, 0.
    • seanhunter 2y ago
      Probably SWOLF? Which is a measure of your stroke efficiency https://thirdcoasttraining.com/2024/11/22/understanding-swolf-swimming-a-guide-to-improving-your-score/ https://thirdcoasttraining.com/2024/11/22/understanding-swol...
• Steltek 2y ago
  My Pebble Time Steel finally bit the dust so I turned to a Garmin Instinct. I can't stand it. The button placement is totally random and legitimately painful to use. The Garmin software focuses on fitness activities to the exclusion of everything else. I recoil at having been tempted by the more expensive Garmin watches. What a waste of money that would have been!
  • m_kos 2y ago
    You could always sell it. <hint hint>
• asdff 2y ago
  I can't get over garmins predatory business model. The way they bin their products by activity is terrible if you have multiple hobbies. All of these devices are just a gps reciever, screen, battery, yet they sell it to you a dozen different ways for $500+ a pop usually because why unify the software and make it easy for the consumer?
  • wingerlang 2y ago
    > why unify the software and make it easy for the consumer I honestly believe that selling them as separate products is easier. Both for the company who can focus in on the advertising, and for 99% of the customers who can go straight to their hobby. That being said, it does look like the very first watch on their website is specifically in its own multi-sport category.
    • asdff 2y ago
      They only offer that for watches and often certain features are cribbed within that watch vs the dedicated sport one (I know this is the case for the golf line where the multi sport watch have limited featureset). Really I want the head unit. Thats what people want on their bikes. Thats what people use hiking. Thats what I like for golf just something smaller than my wallet to slip into my pocket (incidentally I carry a simple bushnell gps that goes for a fraction of the price). But Garmin doesn't offer that. If I want all of that I need three units, one for the bike, the garmin approach, and one of their hiking units. Really therre is nothing stopping any of these devices from offering the same functions but an insistence of binning these into different skus in the hopes of selling multiples to someone who already shells out on multiple personal hobbies. No advantage to the consumer with how it is lined up, only pain.
  • bdavbdav 2y ago
    That’s just marketing surely? Is there any activity that you’d want, apart from diving, missing from a fenix/epix?
    • asdff 2y ago
• seanhunter 2y ago
  Garmin is the perfect solution if you want a smart watch with a gps that takes 5mins to possibly sync 50% of the time and a touchscreen-only interface that doesn’t work if it gets wet or say sweaty. Ie during most of the activities it’s supposedly designed for. When I got a garmin smartwatch I was astounded by how poor the basic ux is in almost every single way. If I’m swimming, how do I stop my work out? The touchscreen doesn’t work because it’s wet. I have to do some sort of double click of the button. No that’s pause. Maybe triple click - no that didn’t do anything. Maybe hold the button? Now it wants to delete my whole workout. And the GPS sync thing amazes me. I put up with this problem when I was using garmin GPSs for accurate time sync for servers back in the 1990s, but 25+ years later for them not to have figured it out when literally every other GPS device does it just fine completely blows my mind. Apple watch? I want to go for a walk/run/whatever I hit go. If I move during the 3-2-1 countdown nbd it figures it out. Garmin I want to do it I hit go, it tries to sync the sattelites. If I move during this process it starts from scratch. Sometimes the sync takes 30 seconds or so. Annoying but not impossible to live with. Most of the time however the sync takes 30seconds or so and just fails. Also annoying but whatever. Some of the time however the sync takes a few minutes and then fails. And if I move at all during this, it gives me a message saying it’s going to have to start again and starts from scratch. And to add insult to injury the thing has a custom charging plug with the socket on the back of the watch. It has a ridge and two spikes that physically press into my wrist making it actually painful to wear. So bad.
  • primozk 2y ago
    Which Garmin to you have? This isn't my experience. And you have option to buy Garmin watches with actual buttons, I agree the touch-screen only are useless.
    • khasan222 2y ago
      Im not OP, but this sounds like the garmin instinct.
      • Levitating 2y ago
• Levitating 2y ago
  I absolutely love my Garmin instict. It has an always-on display and a battery that lasts for nearly a month. I mostly use it for reading my calendar, weather, notifications and time. Occasionally I use it for exercise. But what it also excels at is GPS. I use it as a backup navigational tool when sailing. It has also prevented me from getting lost when running in the woods a number of times.
• tylervigen 2y ago
  Did you randomly bring this up, or are you saying this because you see a Garmin redirect when you click "No"? I ask because I get directed to the Apple Watch homepage.
  • Chilko 2y ago
    Oh interesting, I got directed to Pixel Watch