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Apple Watch Ultra 3
- rcarr 1y agoI wish they'd put an actual flashlight in it, easily the thing I use most on my Garmin.
- lockyc 1y agoThey have a flashlight app, which turns the screen on bright. You can activate it with the action button. It works really well.
- hu3 1y agoWhy can't Apple, of all manufacturers, produce a watch that can last longer on a charge than one or two days? Garmins easily last a week.
- bangaladore 1y ago> Garmins easily last a week. I'm getting basically exactly what Garmin claims on my 45mm Venu 3-- 14 days. Wild that nobody else is even close.
- daemonologist 1y agoThe new Pebbles are also claiming two weeks (they're only just now shipping, so we'll see how that pans out): https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production https://ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-duo-is-in-mass-production In any case I agree that it's crazy - particularly for Apple which tends to have pretty good power efficiency in its other devices.
- bangaladore 1y agoAnd even crazier about the Garmin is that functionally they seem the same as say a Galaxy watch. Good screen quality, continuous monitoring, same or better refresh rate & overall features. Pebble seems to use e-paper, larger design/battery to get there.
- tandyman 1y agoThe new whoop lasts that long, and delivers. 14 days.
- basisword 1y agoIt has no screen.
- bangaladore 1y agoWhat's impressive about Garmin is its essentially competitor to Apple Watch / Galaxy Watch feature wise but with a 5x+ battery life. No compromise.
- johnbellone 1y agoI still get a little over 24-hours on my first generation Ultra. For a device that I barely "use" I do expect a lot more battery life out of it.
- varispeed 1y agoVery much every one I know bought a smart watch, worn it for a couple of weeks, then forgot to charge yet again and then forgot where it is. None wear smart watches today. People still revert to "dumb" analogue watches or Casio stuff. For me personally smart watch is pointless. For everything it does I have a phone. Other than that, it's just another thing that I have to babysit - want to measure sleep? Oh no I forgot to charge it before bed. There goes my measurement etc. It's a cool gadget, but very much useless still.
- johnbellone 1y agoIf the Vision Pro ever takes off I'd be interested in seeing if all of these sensors on my hands could be used for more accurate gestures. But imagine by that point the sensors and models running on device will be good enough it won't matter.
- lostlogin 1y ago> It's a cool gadget, but very much useless still. For you. The health stuff is compelling and the marketing videos about lives saved are nice and all, but actual doctors are recommending Apple Watches for health monitoring.
- varispeed 1y agoIt is sold as a watch, not health watcher though. If you want to measure health, maybe dedicated device for health measurement would be better. Some doctors love kickbacks, if you know what I mean.
- lostlogin 1y agoThey aren’t paid by Apple, and if cost is no object, they recommend an Apple Watch. Unfortunately I now know this. The standalone devices are interesting, but aren’t as good. Continual monitoring is a powerful tool.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y agoWhy can't Apple produce a watch that you don't have to use with an iPhone? There's not a shot in hell I'm ever switching from Android to iOS. People rarely do this. Theoretically, I might buy an Apple Watch or Air Pods or Apple TV if they didn't go out of their way to make them either impossible to use without an iPhone or a living nightmare.
- johnbellone 1y agoWhy would you want an Apple Watch without an iPhone? Most of the benefits are because the ecosystem is tightly integrated. I expect that there isn't a large enough market and it so happens to lock people into their other products. I haven't tried using my Air Pods on an Android phone, but they work perfectly fine on my Steam Deck (Linux).
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago> Why would you want an Apple Watch without an iPhone? Same reason I have a MacBook without an iPhone.
- lostlogin 1y agoHere is how I’d convert you: Open your phone copy some text, open your MacBook, paste that text. I don’t don’t do it a lot, but it’s the best.
- hu3 1y agoThat works between Android and Windows too. You just need to be signed using the same Microsoft account in both devices, and enable clipboard sync. And yeah, it's kinda useful sometimes.
- buu700 1y agoI discovered that feature by accident while doing some testing with an iOS device, and found it concerning. IIRC it wasn't too difficult to disable, but it really should be opt-in.
- berelig 1y agoSolving for a longer charge may get them some sales from holdouts who went out and bought a Garmin instead. Cramming more features that make existing Apple Watch users feel like their watches are obsolete will get them a lot more.
- beingforthebene 1y agoIsn't longer battery life a feature that makes "existing Apple Watch users feel like their watches are obsolete"?
- burnerthrow008 1y ago> Garmins easily last a week. Oh, really? https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-EECCAC99-90D6-4AB1-9A3A-EC433D3365E2/EN-US/GUID-40B16F18-75A1-4B3E-8F1A-AB4919BC9E51.html https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-EECCAC99-90D6-4... Looks like they last dramatically less than that if you buy an Garmin with comparable display and actually use the advertised features.
- nulld3v 1y agoBut that huge reduction in battery life is when you use GPS activity tracking. GPS usage on any watch will impact battery life, including the Apple Watch Ultra. Comparing both watches in activity tracking mode + AOD off, the Garmin (44h) still has 2x the battery life compared to the Apple Watch Ultra (20h).
- burnerthrow008 1y agoYou’re cherry picking again… You also get a huge reduction when you turn on SpO2 (off by default on Garmin, on by default on iWatch). Same for music, always on display, etc etc etc.
- nulld3v 1y agoMy understanding is that no smartwatch takes SpO2 readings during activity/workout tracking as the sensor is not accurate when you are in motion. The 20h number I mentioned is from the OP: "For continuous outdoor workout tracking, Apple Watch Ultra 3 now gets 20 hours of battery life in Low Power Mode with full GPS and heart rate readings." Low Power mode disables AOD and SpO2 (which is already disabled anyways during workout tracking). I doubt SpO2 is very battery intensive either, certainly it can't be worse than the heart rate sensor. Both sensors work in the same way fundamentally.
- dontlaugh 1y agoIf Apple made a watch with a smaller display and fewer features but 10-30 days of battery, I’d buy it. I always have lots of Apple devices, but won’t deal with multiple that need daily charging.
- infecto 1y agoTwo different consumer groups? I look at a garmin and have no care about a week long battery.
- whycome 1y agoI'm surprised Apple hasn't used the strap to extend the battery life. Is that a thing with an aftermarket strap or for phones from other providers?
- afavour 1y agoThis was a huge concern of mine before I got an Apple Watch but it really doesn't make a big difference to me. If anything charging every night makes it easier to remember to charge it than there being random off-days where I have to remember.
- xur17 1y agoIn normal cases I mostly agree - you can just charge it while taking a shower or something that you do every day. That said, Garmin's battery life shines when you are using it on a non-normal day. Overnight camping, and sleeping in a tent for a few nights is a good example. I'm not "taking a shower" and hence don't really have a great time to charge it. With my garmin I just leave it on, and it keeps working for the entire trip. Same thing with other "adventure" travel, flying overnight, etc.
- dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago> charging every night Funny as I bought it as they advertised sleep measurement features. I quickly realized I need to actively think about charging time and at some point I just stopped using it.
- buu700 1y agoYou could always buy two and swap them out.
- mbirth 1y agoI put it on the charger every evening when watching TV or playing games, i.e. some activities that don’t need any tracking anyways. I go to bed with the watch at 100% and it’s usually at around 30-40% when I put it on the charger again the next evening.
- basisword 1y agoI'm shocked so many people find it this difficult. Particularly to the point you abandon a $500 device. You take off the watch before showering, stick it on the charger. By the time you're dressed it's fully charged. A bit like how you wouldn't jump in the shower every morning with a mechanical watch.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoKnowing very little about the Apple Watch and Garmin, I would assume the goal of being a generic application platform means the watch needs to guarantee a higher level of cpu/gpu/sensor resources than a watch for fitness enthusiasts who only use it for tracking? Or does Garmin have all the same apps as the Apple Watch or just a much better battery?
- jamwil 1y agoYou are correct. The Garmin does less. They are different products.
- ofrzeta 1y agoThere was this discussion recently where owners of an Amazfit watch (including me) said it has great battery life https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44843888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44843888 I could not stand having to charge my watch every day.
- mbesto 1y agoIts because Apple can't NOT have a beautiful screen and smooth FPS. Garmin uses AMOLED (ForeRunner 965) and focuses on the tradeoffs of battery life.
- cyberpunk 1y agoI only ever charge my Ultra 2 while i’m in the shower and getting ready for bed. It never runs out during the day for me, and run at least an hour a day often more. Doesn’t seem like all that big a problem tbh.
- mikestew 1y agoI’m content to charge every day, but I need the thing to be guaranteed to last the length of a slow mountain 50 miler. Remember the intro of the original Ultra, with Scott Jurek? You know Jurek, won Western States 100 (et al.) a few times? Yeah, well, us mortals sometimes need 12 hours to finish a 50 mile race with lots of elevation or desert heat (or both), and my experience says that I’m not guaranteed to get 12 hours of GPS activity tracking out of the thing without turning down GPS/HR frequency. I love my Ultra, but for big running I had to go back to Garmin. I can leave the house with it half charged and still get a good 12 hours of running out of it before it dies. OTOH, I’ve also had a Garmin 945TLE, with a cell radio in it. Fire up that cell radio, and goodbye battery life. I’ll be curious to see how that new Fenix does in the real world with its LTE radio blazing away.
- maxglute 1y agoI'm surprised they can't do a "fitness" band style watch with 2-3 week battery life... like the itouch nano tier.
- joshjob42 1y agoMy OG Ultra lasts 3 days if I turn off the always on display, which I do because it doesn't serve much of a purpose, I can just tap the watch to wake it. It charges from 0 to full in 1.5 hours, pretty linearly, so dropping it on the charger for half an hour or an hour while I'm on a work call every other day or so keeps it plenty charged. This one will have even more battery life, and gets 12 hours of use in 15 minutes, which I suspect will mean for me without the always on display I may well be able to charge it only while I'm actively in the shower (when I'd take it off anyway as I hate wet bands) and be good for the day.
- mvdtnz 1y agoI'd throw my Garmin in the bin if it lasted a week. I get 18 days from a charge, and that's if I'm not getting much sun. Garmin Instinct 2X Solar.
- tiahura 1y agoPurely subjective, but way too big. They look ridiculous on anyone smaller than 6’5 275.
- ycombinete 1y agoCase in point from the article: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2025/09/introducing-apple-watch-ultra-3/article/Apple-Watch-Ultra-3-hypertension-notification-250909_big.jpg.small_2x.jpg https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2025/09/introducing-ap...
- Insanity 1y agoYup, I would be in the market for an Ultra if it wasn't so large lol.
- AlanYx 1y agoIt's strange that Apple keeps pushing large watches, given how sensitive they are to design trends. Among traditional non-smart watches, things have started to reverse in the last couple years, with 36mm-39mm watches enjoying a resurgence in popularity.
- drdaeman 1y agoMy guess is that they can't make it battery efficient (non-Ultra watches barely survive a day just showing a watchface and whirring at notifications, with widgets severely lagging in updates due to extremely tight budgets: e.g. weather forecast is nearly always out of date for me, I use the widget to open the app and force it to refresh to get anything accurate), so they're pushing towards bulkier packaging under the guise of ruggedness.
- quickthrowman 1y agoAgreed, a 46mm x 40mm watch face is absolutely massive, you’d need 8”+ wrists to have it look right. It would look like a hockey puck if I tried it on right after removing my 36mm automatic, but I have 6.25” wrists. It’s approaching the size of the (in)famous Diesel ‘Mr Daddy’ watches lol: https://shop.diesel.com/en/man/watches/mr-daddy/ https://shop.diesel.com/en/man/watches/mr-daddy/
- IlikeKitties 1y ago> while keeping the messages end-to-end encrypted I just want you all to think back just 10 years ago, when your average consumer neither knew what that meant, nor cared about it. How far we've com.
- 1oooqooq 1y agopush notifications are not encrypted tho.
- toisanji 1y agoON battery life, I would love some kind of dumb phone/ ultra low power mode that we can set when we just want watch mode at certain times and nothing else. I imagine that would give us a week of battery.
- ghaff 1y agoOn the other hand, I just use my cheap Timex (with years of battery life) unless I need/want the more advanced features of the Apple Watch Ultra. I've been of two minds about the Ultra (and the Apple Watch generally). When I'm really using it like on a hike, I really like it. For more day to day stuff I mostly have notifications turned off and I rarely get legit phone calls when my phone isn't handy.
- ahofmann 1y agoMobile phones two decades ago lasted for weeks. I don't remember how many, but long enough, that we constantly lost our (expensive) charging cables. I believe battery time went down as fast as screens got bigger (and colorful).
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- nomel 1y agoThat exists, always has since second gen. It’s called low power mode. It’s a toggle.
- tzs 1y agoThey used to have this with "Power Reserve Mode" (PRM) which turned off everything except showing the time briefly when you pressed the side button. If you got below 10% it would ask if you wanted to switch to this mode. You could also turn it on in the battery settings. I've read that in this mode you could get a week or two on a full battery. Sometime around watchOS 9 they replaced this with "Low Power Mode" (LPM). LPM reduced things like notifications, background processing, and update frequency enough to get about 50% more life out of a non-Ultra and 100% more on an Ultra 2. LPM is gone from watchOS now but the underlying functionality still works and there is still a way to access it. You have to turn the watch off. While it is off if you press the crown it will briefly display the time. If you wanted to frequently switch between normal operation and this low power time-only mode it would be somewhat of a pain since you'd have to turn the watch off and on to switch modes, and watchOS boots really really slow. If you don't have to quickly switch between modes though it might be reasonable.
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- herval 1y agoThe way Apple is iterating slower and slower on all product lines is kinda sad. It's not like there's a shortage of things to do - it just feels like they got in the habit of small increments to cut costs everywhere (keep the design exactly the same to reuse the same machines, minor software tweaks, etc). The updates are so minor, they don't even bother to put on a show (like this one - a major product, launched as a release note). I guess even that saves some money too...
- astrange 1y agoThere's a stream right now, you just aren't watching it.
- drdaeman 1y agoI'm watching it out of a mix of boredom and FOMO-like curiosity. It's such a load of enormous, the best ever bullshit Apple had presented I'm thrilled to frown at it 75% more. And 7-ish years ago I felt genuinely excited about their products.
- infecto 1y agoThe BP monitoring on the watch seems pretty awesome. Translation on the iPods seems nice if it works well. Are they really slowing down?
- dilyevsky 1y agoThe products are in a lot of cases at the limits that can be delivered with existing battery and chip technologies. Pretty hard to keep delivering “wow” when this is the case. If they were really becoming ineffective wed see others leapfrogging them but we dont
- drdaeman 1y agoExcept it's not a BP monitoring, it's some ML gimmick that detects signs of high BP. If it's like their sleep monitoring (which e.g. thinks I was in a "core sleep" while I was unable to fall asleep so I was sitting and playing a game), it's just a "maybe it'll work, but don't rely on this and don't expect any accuracy" type of thing.
- varispeed 1y agoI'll buy "smart" watch once it lasts a year on a single charge.
- julienfr112 1y agowith plutonium ?
- varispeed 1y agoBy the time they invent it, we will probably be bartering. But I think gold will be the currency, not radioactive materials.
- adastra22 1y agoYou can buy a sundial watch.
- submeta 1y ago> Emergency SOS via satellite,…, 42-hour battery life So if I am in a critical situation in the mountains, with only 8h battery left, I hope rescue teams will find me in that 8h window. My Garmin will give me a week at least, and in low power mode two to three weeks?
- relaxing 1y agoSOS message went out with your GPS coordinates, so best advice is to remain where you are and use its reflective surface as a signal mirror.
- infecto 1y agoSo keep the garmin? This also sounds like an edge of an edge case. If the SOS went out it includes coordinates. You would want to stay put.
- pythonaut_16 1y agoBasic survival advice is to stay put and wait for rescue unless you're in imminent danger. So maybe if your watch is your only lifeline stop running around the mountains once it dies. Or use something intended for the purpose like a Garmin inReach. The satellite SOS features on phones and watches are nice to haves that could absolutely save your life but they're no replacement for being prepared. Really no device is a replacement for being properly prepared in the wilderness, even with your location you still need a way for rescue teams to spot you, for example.
- mwambua 1y agoI personally wouldn't rely on my phone/watch if I'm headed anywhere remote without cell service & electricity. With Garmin inReach you don't just get better battery life - you also get the Iridium satellite network and a team that's more experienced at search and rescue. That being said, I do think that these new emergency SOS features will come in handy for people who don't know what they're getting themselves into, or who just run into unexpected bad luck on what was supposed to be a quick day trip.
- lostlogin 1y ago> So if I am in a critical situation in the mountains, with only 8h battery left, Please carry a personal locator beacon.
- butlike 1y agoQuestion for the audience: If I'm not a hypochondriac, why would I want an apple watch?
- netule 1y agoIf you’re really into fitness and/or min-maxing your own stats. Honestly, it can create a bit of an obsessive loop once you get deep into it.
- misiti3780 1y agoWhoop is more accurate though.
- aliljet 1y agoIs it? Across what metric?
- cenamus 1y agoAnd most likely still junk
- hombre_fatal 1y agoNo, the Apple Watch is basically best of breed in terms of sleep and heart rate accuracy. The Whoop is like 90% accurate compared to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SzUDTBK-i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SzUDTBK-i0 It's just trade-offs: if you're using the Whoop, you don't want a screen and you like two weeks battery life.
- arresin 1y agoThere’s a study that pitted different devices against each other. The whoop was more accurate. At least a few years ago it was
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- skippyboxedhero 1y agoDoes anyone know if wearable BP monitoring can actually be accurate? I have a relative who is unwell and this could be useful for them but, equally, would be very unhelpful with inaccurate data. Are there better alternatives?
- AlanYx 1y agoIt doesn't actually report blood pressure to the user, so it's not a question of accuracy in a traditional numerical sense.
- hombre_fatal 1y agoIt doesn't give you a live BP reading. It just does some sort of fuzzy inference using data over time kind of like how the Whoop tries to estimate your BP in the morning based on overnight data. The Apple Watch just notifies you when it thinks you might have high BP and you have to use a cuff to see if it's correct. So, we're still some ways away from passive BP.
- brandonb 1y agoIt doesn't give you a blood pressure number -- just alerts if it thinks you have high blood pressure. I wrote a bit about the science of blood pressure on the wrist here: https://www.empirical.health/blog/apple-watch-blood-pressure/ https://www.empirical.health/blog/apple-watch-blood-pressure...
- sgustard 1y agoAlso some existing watches will support BP features: As of September 9, 2025, hypertension notifications are currently under FDA review and expected to be cleared this month, with availability on Apple Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later.
- randycupertino 1y agoThe wrist cuff from Omron Gold is probably the least-worst option out there, but they'll still have to take it at specific times per day, not wear it constantly. However a lot of my patients use it and like it and I find it relable. Same brand we use in the office.
- trenbologna 1y agoVery cool. My only issue is spending so much on a watch that doesn't have a replaceable battery making it useless after a few years.
- Tepix 1y agoYou can have the battery replaced
- seemaze 1y agoIn a conversation with my parents (who both have an apple watch) we realized they will likely be the first generation to navigate aging with a consistent and extensive history of health data from these devices. I’m curious what benefits and challenges that will bring.
- drewbitt 1y agoOnly if we can get that data exported in a format that can be used by the next 'standard'. I've already got health data on my Android phone, a Fitbit account, my Withings devices, my old iPhone, and probably more elsewhere.
- basisword 1y agoYou can export all the data from Apple Health from a button in the app. It exports a zip with data in a usable XML format. The Health data is also available via an iOS API so there are apps available which pull and export the data in other formats (e.g. CSV). I try to connect any health related apps to Apple Health (e.g. Withings, MyFitnessPal) and use that are the central repository.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoI would love to try it but I'm guessing it won't work if I just buy a cheap used one and never attach it to an account and never bring it online?
- astrange 1y agoNot sure what you mean by "one" but a watch will work fine without a network connection. It does need to be paired to a phone. It'd make it less useful as a watch though because the time will drift without an NTP server.
- nerdsniper 1y agoI don't think this is true? All my Apple Watches refuse to provide any functionality at all, including just telling the time, until I pair them with an iPhone. This was an issue when I bought my first Apple Watch because I owned an Android.