Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't) but overall it didn't make sense to me as a product (or, evidently, to my partner, who now leaves it gathering dust).
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
The Apple Watch is also a terribly designed device for running. Too much of its functions rely on interacting with the touchscreen, something you are either unable to do with sweaty hands when running or don't want to do as it draws your attention away for a prolonged amount of time and hurts your form.
Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
> Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
Most people may be unaware that Garmin has a strong foothold in the stringently regulated avionics industry, in particular in flight instruments, displays, deck and others human-machine interface products. In turn, specific regulations informed by ergonomics research are unambiguous in prioritizing safety and unanimously contain minimum usability requirements.
As an example, an AC [1, Ch. 7] advises on (electronic display) control devices, and another AC [2] advises on design and evaluation of controls and displays. The software-defined counterparts have immensely harder requirements that must be satisfied, which, in my reading, is incompatible with pure touchscreen devices.
That was true with something like the G1000, but their newer avionics are very much touchscreen in favour of physical buttons. See the G3X or G3000 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21eOTAXdXLM&t=18s
Yes, but you can perform the essential functions with buttons on the GTN650 or 750 (or xi). Frequency changes, direct to, etc are all still accessible on physical buttons, which makes a big difference in turbulence.
As a non-Appleista, what strikes me most is their "silo" mentality. Most of the iPhone /iWatch using fitness types I know log their stuff inside the Apple cloud, and do not crosspost to Garmin Connect or Strava so the non-Appleistas don't see their stuff. Whereas the Garmin/Strava world is relatively open. I can for example take the original Forerunner (pictured in the article) and upload stuff from it to the Garmin or Strava cloud, albeit slightly cumbersomely. I sometimes do with a later model, a Forerunner 305, even if it does take USB download to do it.
Physical buttons, though... I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
> I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
I've had that happen to me during yoga and boxing workouts I've recorded. There's a way to lock the physical buttons (at least on my Instinct watch), which requires multiple presses to stop/start a workout. IIRC, it's by holding the light button.
An example of how Strava is geek-compatible (so far! it may get ensh*ttified in the future). I found some old GPS logs from 22 years ago, when I first got a handheld GPS and geeked out with it, logging a whole bunch of rides and hikes.
It took a bit of work to get those converted to a modern format (load into ancient tool, which is still maintained, and write out as GPX files... one at a time). But then these GPX files can be uploaded to Strava and there they are! Activities older than Strava itself, fully integrated.
Also I've more than once had a "whoopsie" - app left recording during the drive home, for example. Download activity from Strava, edit the GPX file, delete the activity and re-upload from the file.
And when you download your stuff from Strava, you get a database dump. That's both good and bad; e.g. users are just numbers and you'd need to use the web Strava to translate them to names, but all your photos and all your traces and all your stats come down in standard formats (jpeg, gpx and csv respectively) and nothing is dumbed down; everything is in the best possible format for re-import to something else.
Strava has a built in feature to trim an activity if you accidentally keep recording on the drive home. Happens all the time. You can just select the time when you want to cut it off.
What strikes me is that I alread have a central authoritative store of health and fitness information on my Apple devices bundled directly into the operating system but every single app in that category wants me to use them as the single database of truth instead. Even when they have integration with Health!
Everything goes into Apple Health but individual apps can barely talk to one another. Oura won’t pull heart rate data from Apple Health, so when I track my lifting workouts on my watch (a ring is a no-go for barbell work) it’s not there. Same for my Polar chest strap which I use during judo and BJJ. Oura is completely blind to this despite the data being available and it having access through Health.
Strava only pulls in workouts for apps that have been directly connected to it. So I have to have n:m connections between apps with this model, and only get sync between apps that have explicit Strava integration. For Garmin cycling workouts this works okay. When I integrate with Polar workouts, Strava insists on reduplicating the data back into Apple Health a second time. I have yet to find a way to get the data into Strava but have it recorded once instead sold zero times or twice.
Garmin directly refuses to use anything not recorded from their own devices. It won’t import sleep from my Oura or Withings trackers, heart rate from anything else, etc. Want to use any of the derived metrics in their app? Sorry, you'll need to exclusively use Garmin devices for everything in order to have all that data in place.
The only thing that isn’t a complete shitshow in this entire ecosystem is Apple Health.
Garmin, Polar, and Strava existed before Apple Health/Watch were released. They had to have a solution in a non-Apple world, and I doubt they'd abandon existing users once Apple appeared (and stuck around).
Oura's first Ring was released the same year as the Watch, so I don't think that Oura was given early access.
Apple Health has been around over ten years. Oura could have figured out in the intervening time how to read heart rate data from Health.
All I’m asking for Strava, Garmin, and the rest is to just use Apple Health to import data from other sources and assume that it is the source of truth for externally-generated data rather than requiring direct app-to-app integration or simply ignoring anything their devices didn’t emit.
There’s a very easily-discovered button to export everything. It goes to some sort of XML format that I haven’t bothered to inspect but which I assume others have written extractors for.
I don’t think I really care all that much though. Other than older heart rate data from my watch and workouts recorded on my watch, all the data is already stored in the apps that created it: Strava, Oura, Garmin, Polar, etc. If I went elsewhere, those apps will still have all their own collected information.
I don’t mind that those apps are the source of truth for stuff collected from their own devices. I just want them all to share data with and communicate to one another through Apple Health instead of insisting they can only use data they directly collected (Garmin, Oura, Polar) or requiring direct integration between every pairwise set of apps (Polar, Strava).
Yes, with maps. The Apple Watch Strava app will record and upload directly or you can import workouts from Apple Health, both give you GPS, HR, etc.
If recorded elsewhere it can depend, but that’s due to Strava being irritating/changing/dropping integration features in the last couple of years and not an Apple ecosystem issue.
Or those people have maps uploaded but have chosen not to make them public?
They may be less gatekeeping than others, but they don't let you get data off the device without a cloud account, at which point all your biometrics are for sale.
Just plug in the Garmin watch to your computer, and its storage opens revealing sensibly named folders. You can open the folder named Activity and copy your sport files in FIT format. Everything else is JSON.
Are you talking about Garmin? If so, that's not my experience of the two watches I have had, which let you take data directly from the device over USB (as FIT files).
Genuinely curious, what do you need to change mid-run on your watch? I set an apple music playlist to start, open a run on WorkOutDoors, and go. I really am only interested in heart rate, distance traveled and pace. And if I need to stop for anything walking back to my apartment after a session I have apple pay.
Granted, I'm not a serious runner, I only do it as a supplement for my muay thai training (i.e. I'm only running 5-8k at like a 4'30" or so pace). So I guess I'm interested in what runners who are running as their primary sport like about the Garmin, as I often hear people say the Garmin is so much better.
FWIW there are a lot of features that are really great on a run, but you might have to switch screens or even manipulate the screen. For instance, zoom in and out on a map. Or instruct your watch to re-route you to the fastest way home, or start guiding you the reverse way you came so you end up doubling your distance when you get back home. You might have other sensors feeding info and the data doesn't all fit on one screen. Maybe you want to control music playback and find playlists subpar (you might want to change based on how you feel in the moment, or pick another podcast because you added time onto your run or the other one ended up being boring, etc.).
Play music and run is fine for lots of people, though, so I'm not surprised it works for you.
Ok yeah, the map stuff makes a lot of sense then, if I were out on trails or somewhere unfamiliar I can see that being very helpful. I'm always just running the bridges of NYC, so it's hard to get lost! Although I might get more serious this year so I can run the ridiculous williamsburg bridge marathon [1], so maybe I'll check out what I'm missing with Garmin.
I'm usually on the same main screen with time/distance/heart rate, but when I change screen that would mostly be for:
- Map/routing, useful for trail running or when running in an area you are unfamiliar with
- Elevation, vertical speed (useful for trail running too)
- Workouts (steps/next step/instructions/duration/etc.)
Besides the various metrics other have mentioned (and which you could in theory put all in one screen, unless you're interested in a lot of them), you might want to interact with the workout and e.g. set it to the next interval. If you planned a 15min warmup at low pace but already feel good after 10min, you might want to already go to the main part of your workout. On Garmin that's one button away, I'd be annoyed if I had to touch the screen for that.
I've been using a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch for years, and what I've found I like the most about it is actually the Garmin Connect app on my phone. I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop. Connect is a great application for tracking your workouts over time. A fair number of runners even use Garmin's workout plans from the app. Even compared to running apps exclusively for iOS and Android I think the Garmin app is one of the better ones around, and is free to use with no monthly fees. Combine that with the fact that I don't even have to take my phone with me, I just wear my watch and it syncs with my phone when I get home. Running with a phone sucks, I have yet to find a way to carry one that isn't annoying.
Well I have to set the record straight that I do find bugs regularly, both on the watch and the app. I'm still very happy with it (and I'm sure I prefer it over competitors), but not all of the features have been polished to the same extent nor do they seem to go through the same QA for every upgrade. The Garmin forum is a good witness to that.
I had been an Apple Watch user until it died after I was in a water park. It is supposed to be waterproof, but I guess Apple wants me to refresh after two years.
I switched to a Garmin Venu 3. It is better than AW in many aspects, but is also lacking in some. But the Connect app is a lot better than Apple Health.
I have the forerunner watch as well, and also the inReach personal gps. Both are quite rugged and the forerunner's metrics collection is great if you want to see your health progress ie. VO2 max and other key metrics. The inReach is for me a life insurance policy in case I twist an ankle out in the middle of nowhere and can flag an emergency responder. I would not part with either device and pay the monthly subscription to the inReach device for years now.
For all runs except races and interval sessions I carry my phone in a Naked band.
Works well for me and allows me to carry some other things like gels, tissues, keys, light...
I have tried a bunch of options and the Rabbit running shorts with a rear phone zipper pocket are the least annoying. They hold a large phone securely without bouncing around but but are still easy to access on the move.
People value things differently but the battery life is always interesting to me. Certainly if I was backwoods hiking I get it but for my day to day I only take it off post workout in the morning as I shower and get ready for the day. It’s charged so quickly that I throw it back on as soon as I am done.
Ultimately I charge my phone (almost) every day, so I'm sure I could charge my watch every day as well. But it's still another habit I have to build, another way I have to adjust my routine to accommodate the things that are supposed to make my life easier.
The other thing is, battery life degrades over time, which is relevant if you don't want to be buying new devices every couple of years. When I got my Garmin it probably held a charge for 6-7 days. After four years, that is probably closer to 4 days, which is still pretty good. If less than a day is the starting point, I can imagine that after 3+ years the battery life will be poor enough that you regularly end up wearing a paperweight on your wrist for some portion of the day.
With the newer Apple Watches you can just use fast charging. I basically just charge it when I shower and do my night time hygiene routine and it’s ready to go back on my wrist to track my sleep and act as a silent vibration alarm in the morning so that I don’t wake my wife up early. The only time I run into battery life issues is when I go on a weekend camping trip.
Likewise–I pop it on the charger in the shower and occasionally at work if I'm at my desk. The alarms, timers, and reminders access (via Siri) more than makes up for the inconvenience of frequent charging. Notifications for messages and e-mails is just a bonus that sometimes ends up being a double-edged sword. The only downsides for me come on long bike rides, and that it is ugly (and getting too big, coming from a Casio F91-W).
I’ve owned both and the truth is Garmin makes the best fitness tracker that can be a smartwatch and Apple makes the best smartwatch that can be a fitness tracker.
That means you're always showering at home, which might work for you but it's a big constraint. If you work out / shower in different places and at different times, it might be harder to find a suitable charging routine.
I'm also wondering how it evolves. Batteries don't get better over time, I'd be worried of having to end up charging it twice a day in one year, which for a device this expensive is not great.
Certainly but my point was more that the watch charges quite quickly when done so on a daily basis. Not to mention it’s surprising that someone can get by without giving their skin a breather for a small portion of the day. Given that it’s healthy to let the skin breath it’s always interesting to hear the daily charge constraint as an issue. Are people keeping a garmin on their wrist 24/7 for 7 days? Simply a strange constraint that is always mentioned.
Similar to your battery life concern. It’s valid but we are on what…evolution 11 now? My current two year old watch has more than enough battery. Prior to that I had one for 4 years I think. Same deal no issues in batteries.
My preferred alarm clock is the vibration from my fitness band. I wanted something extremely light with a long battery.
Unfortunately, no modern fitness bands target this functionality. The vibration is weak, band is heavier, and the use large display. The best ones I used are probably 6-10 years old now.
All the manufacturers today are trying to sell connected services, so devices are accumulating lots of features and heft. In addition, none of the manufacturers quantify the strength of vibration (what units would that be expressed in?). The lightest bands are the lowest end/value models and have the worst vibration mechanisms.
What I want is:
(1) see the current time
(2) get a buzz for a notification
(3) alarm clock
(4) ability to wear for multiple days without charging.
I understand the sentiment. But I have an old Garmin Forerunner 35 watch that charges in about 2 hours and the charge lasts for three weeks. So the cognitive load is less than you would think.
My Garmin watch asks me if I want to enable the battery saver mode whenever it reaches 20% or so (most likely configurable anyway), which is still more than a day's worth of battery. If you go for several days without a charger, you need to plan that in advance and charge it beforehand, but at least that's a possibility which you don't have with other watches that require daily charging.
The advantage of a watch that only needs to charge every few weeks is that it likely doesn't need a lot of time to top it off if you're charging it daily (unless it has a massive battery or only charges extremely slowly). When I wore Pebble watches, charging them while I was in the shower was plenty of time to last until I showered the next day. With my Apple watches, I've gotten into the habit of not wearing them for a while in the evening as well as my morning shower.
indeed, I try to do that when I remember with my Garmin Venu 2 (~11 day battery life). Otherwise, I charge it on weekends while I'm home doing nothing.
It's also nice because most trips I take are under 11 days so I don't need to remember to pack the charger.
It would be cool if digital watches could borrow the idea of harvesting power from movement from the mechanical watch world. I wonder how close to that we are?
Yeah but we can always just shift that goalpost of a tradeoff and act like our arbitrary choice is the only right way.
You need to charge that every week? Well this one lasts two weeks. Only two weeks, what a drag, this one lasts a month.
You need to actually charge it? A Citizen Eco Drive charges itself even with only indoor light. Or an automatic watch that self winds on regular wrist movements, never really needing a "charge" so long as you're actively wearing it.
It's all a trade off of what kind of features you want on your "watch". I'm not taking phone calls and doing NFC payments on an Eco Drive. People are going to value different things, to many charging a few minutes every day isn't an issue for what they seem to get from it.
Of course, I just want the activity and sleep tracking, and the occasional alert or notification, so the tradeoff is easy. If I wanted whatever the apple watch can do beyond that I might make a different choice
yeah, i've had a garmin and i've had an apple watch. both have their strong points, but the battery life of the apple watch was really just never an issue for me. it seems like it should be an obvious downsite, but it's pretty easy to get in the habit of charging it, and once it is habit its just really not an issue.
if anything, the garmin's battery life was a downside, because i wouldn't charge it daily, and then i'd go to start a bike ride and find it was at 10% battery.
Unless you're riding for 4-5 hours, 10% should still be more than enough to get through a workout though? And in my experience a 10 minute charge would have you north of 30%.
not in my experience. i had an edge 120 bike computer and a vivoactive watch, and the last 10% wasn't enough to get through anything. the 10% from 100 to 90% would be plenty, but the last 10% always drained really quick and charged slow.
Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their phone. Full stop.
Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note, though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
It's more like "Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their iPhone. Full stop."
Apple Watch is not smartphone agnostic (requiring iPhone for Apple Watch setup). That's Apple's choice. Apple Watch has done well targeting just iPhone users. It makes some stuff easier for devs.
> I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad.
The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering, getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked for me for years.
From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for.
They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same ball park.
My perspective is the exact opposite - I can't tell what "smart watch" features the Apple Watch is supposed to provide me over my "fitness" Garmin as a trade off for terrible battery life.
The Apple Watch actually provides worse functionality for notifications than my Garmin, since it wants to act as its own separate device, instead of simply mirroring my phone's notifications.
Interacting with the Apple Watch is usually so difficult and the app support is lacking (I believe it's actually gotten worse over time) that I generally take out my phone for anything beyond pressing the dismiss button, so it's no better than the Garmin.
A Garmin watch is absolutely designed for wearing all the time, even when sleeping. You might prefer not to for reasons of appearance or because there are features of some other smart watch that you like, but Garmin is fine for what I use it for and does notifications etc. The battery life was a game changer for me (as an Apple Watch switcher) since it's now something I just don't worry about whereas with Apple Watch it was a daily thing and it let me down on several runs too.
What things do you want from a smartwatch? For the basics, notifications+, music controls, fitness tracking, Garmin handles well. It does not have an extensive ecosystem of apps but what apps do you need?
And for fitness Garmin is very very good. Today was below -10 C on my run and my watch was 100% usable with gloves. Garmin actually tells me when I get a GPS lock and it works ANT+ devices.
I use the GPS all the time on my Fenix, it's 6 years old and I'm still charging roughly once a week. I think a 6 year old Apple Watch would struggle to get a day, if that.
Echoing a comment I left in a different thread: from my perspective as a Garmin watch owner, I can't find any reason why I'd want to switch to an Apple watch. (Admittedly my phone is an Android, so there's some inherent bias there. But the general point stands that I can't think of anything I'd want in a smart watch that's not a feature of my current Garmin.)
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch, which boils down to "show me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages and the contact name when I receive a phone call". Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not for text messages, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make attention-grabbing noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
If you just talk about notifications, the apple watch is better, in that you can reply without pulling out your phone, or even take the voice call, which you can't (at least afaik) on a Garmin.
If you look at Apple watch activity tracking, though, Garmin is playing a different ballgame.
Calorie counting on apple is off by 2-5x (compared to energy output measured on an erg, and running and biking are similarly _really_ incorrect on apple, and in my experience pretty spot-on with Garmin).
Reviewing an activity on apple fitness is really, _really_ coarse. You can't pick what metric is shown on the map. You can't plot a metric over time. Even something as simple as max speed? Who knows!
Apple's attempted copycat of body battery functionality in the new iOS 18 seems like it was designed by a PM that was handed 2-3 screenshots from a Garmin, shrugged, and went from that. It's wholly useless—but on Garmin, this is a valuable feature included 8 years ago in their cheapest running watches.
Some Garmin devices have a speaker and microphone so you can take a voice call using it as a Bluetooth device linked to your phone.
You can also reply to text messages with a limited set of canned responses on Android phones only. This doesn't work on iPhones because Apple has intentionally blocked third-party smart watches from being allowed to use that API in a particularly monopolistic and consumer-hostile move.
Sorry, hard disagree with everything you've said here.
I have a Fenix 6, I've worn it every day for the last 4.5 years. Its a brilliant smartwatch. I have multiple apps from Garmin's IQ store on it. Battery lasts between one and two weeks, thats including recording multiple activities each week, while using it to play music to my bluetooth headphones.
can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"?
I wear my Epix 2 every day and it does all I want from a smartwatch - see incoming texts and calls while it tracks my health stats day and night. Yes, apple watch or Samsung ones may have more features, but I am not missing anything.
The newer Fenixes are a lot more elegant looking. If you paired it with one of those steel-link straps I don't see why it wouldn't look great with a suit.
Ummm... and Apple Watches are the epitome of high fashion? I don't think this is a strong argument when directly comparing these two things. Fwiw, I have met quite a few watch enthusiasts who wear a mechanical watch on one wrist and an Apple Watch on the other. This seems natural, honestly, since the primary function of an Apple Watch is definitely not to tell time.
Oh man so many... inaccuracies to be polite in 1 post.
My wife uses GPS all the time, why else you would buy premium watch like Fenix for. Apple watch needs charging / daily/bi-daily. Garmins of my wife who even sleeps with them with monitoring on - every 5-6 days, after cca 4 years of ownership already with same battery. You can definitely wear them all the time, and if you can't, same goes for other watch as well. This is what these watches are for if you still have issues understanding their market proposition, long term usage, without battery anxiety and additional management of frequent charging.
They can have eSim, but I really don't see a reason and the price to pay in terms of battery drain is too steep. I don't know anybody around who is using it, everybody still have their phone with them.
If I want to be reachable, there is phone which I can put into any pocket, if I want some quiet peace time, I can just listen to the music streamed from watch. I would never rely on tiny watch with crappy battery and super tiny cellular antenna re safety ie in wilderness or mountains where signal is non-ideal.
With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.
That's funny, phone related features are the first things I turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out obnoxious.
I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are fantastic as well.
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it was to illustrate that the ability to receive these notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches' target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.
I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch. Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and Airplay music to soundbars.
It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.
The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a built in eSIM.
There is a separate number as far as billing. But the cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they were coming from your iPhone’s number. Whenever someone calls your phone - they both ring.
If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice communication is relayed through your phone to save battery life.
If your watch isn’t connected to your phone, the Watch uses cellular.
Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
As far as I know, the watch’s eSIM technically has its own phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone’s phone number.
We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things differently if you set it up in that way.
As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the watch; the other two are e-waste.
The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).
I have a Garmin Instinct 2 solar. I had g-shock watches before, because I liked how tough they were, and the instinct2 is pretty close. I wear it swimming, running, sleeping, showering, etc. I take it off about once a month when I charge it up. This summer, I went 6 weeks between charges.
The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my physical activity, and sleep).
I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing for a low level garmin.
My Garmin Forerunner 265 has pretty decent battery life, maybe 8 days. I think what was the value for many was how their Connect app processed and displayed stats, though a recent change to "be pretty" has undone much of the usefulness.
Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact, stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
Fwiw, I felt the same way about the Connect app changes last year, but that went away after a couple months once they released an update that lets you customize your main screen view. Now I appreciate the much richer widgets and the ability to swipe between several of the metrics that are most valuable to me.
Also, I've found that the current iteration of their wrist HR sensors are quite good [compared to a chest strap] for everything except outdoor cycling. I have an Epix 2 Pro and never wear a chest strap for anything but cycling anymore.
There's really only 2 features my garmin forerunner lacks that would make it pretty awesome.
1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send out live track notifications from my watch would be really fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that stuff.
2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not having them.
I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two features above are the only things it does that I'd want from it.
The first thing I do when I buy a Garmin watch (I have several) is turn off phone notifications. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would want them on. I tried for a decent amount of time but I just don't see the value in it, it's just aggravation I don't need. Not because of the implementation from Garmin, which is fine, but the whole concept.
Apple to me has clearly a goal of providing a tiny version of smart phone on your wrist. Garmin aims at as-smart-as-possible watch. Everything else comes from this philosophy, be it battery, design of not only display and it shape etc.
Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
Premium price, premium look, massively better battery, durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top, saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-device syndrome.
I just don't understand how Apple, supposed masters of design and aesthetics, ever thought it was a good idea to release a square watch. It just looks so dumb.
I have a Garmin Descent Mk2i which I use for scuba diving, and it's a fabulous all-purpose fitness and adventure watch. I've used to for hundreds of dives, navigation on multiple backpacking trips, cycling, and tons of other stuff. I even wear it daily, and it nicely supports notifications from my phone.
When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats. People love them.
Man, I wanted to get the garmin dive computer so bad. It's got so many awesome features, it's just priced out of my budget. Wound up going with the peregrine from shearwater, which was about half the price, but does way less than the garmin.
Another place they shine is for bikes. Their radar system that integrates with a bike computer is absolutely groundbreaking. It's so fantastic to be able to know when a car is coming up behind you without having to turn your head and possibly lose balance, it's such a great safety feature.
I have one of those as well and it's generally a good device but it has a few weird software defects which make me wonder whether Garmin employees do any real diving? Like in the Multi-Gas activity profile it will automatically prompt you to switch gases based on calculated PO2, but the message covers the entire screen so you can't see your depth! And there's no way to disable those alerts.
- sells an accurate blood pressure cuff with WiFi data sync (sans phone)
- is an active R&D contributor to OpenEmbedded Linux
- includes optional health data sync to vertically integrated cloud
- provides open FIT [1] protocol for local data sync
Yet I can't use my new Forerunner 55 watch without connecting it to Garmin servers. They make sure it takes about an hour to have a reliable GPS position unless your make it regularly connect to an active Garmin account, either via Garmin Express (dekstop) or Garmin Connect.
I switch to GadgetBridge but without updating the AGPS files, no reliable GPS.
> sure it takes about an hour to have a reliable GPS position
Any feedback from Garmin on this issue? It sounds like a bug, unless they have documented a non-technical policy dependency between GPS and cloud login.
(unassisted) GPS cold-start time is about 15 minutes to download the complete almanac and ephemeris data over the satellite link. That assumes everything is received correctly the first time. A watch's small antenna could increase that time significantly.
Garmin is undoubtedly already aware that you need cloud login for their devices to download almanac and ephemeris over the internet.
They also provide a lot of EFIS (Electric Flight Information System, or "Glass Cockpit") for small GA aircraft. I think AeroDyne and Honeywell are also in this market but I mainly see Garmin there. Like the G1000 (higher models are available on business jets I think).
It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
They have really become the gold standard in avionics, so much so that some airframes are preferred to others due to the fact that they've chosen to integrate a Garmin flight deck instead of Honeywell/Rockwell/etc. They have a very consistent and capable design methodology that extends from single engine piston avionics all the way up through relatively large GA jets.
They've also made advances with their Autoland product, which can take control of a small aircraft and safely land at an airfield while communicating with ATC.
The C172 with a G1000 setup was around $20/hr more at the local flight school than a C172 with a six pack. Def not needed for X-country but I always felt safer flying it through busy airspace. Garmin really does make fantastic avionics.
But the margins on that business are not exceptional. Operating income on "outdoor" segment of their business, the one that includes the epix and fenix series watches and so forth, is higher than aviation segment.
Margin isn't everything, it's a very stable business with a very wide technological and regulatory moat. Add to that fierce brand loyalty among pilots and it's a great business IMO.
Personal electronics (unless you are Apple basically) is a pretty fickle business and fortunes can change very rapidly. Aviation? Not so much, unless you chuck a Boeing.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One thing that surprised me has been seeing the affects of either alcohol or caffeine on the type and quality of the sleep I get.
Even if the absolute numbers aren't 100% accurate the watch definitely spots when I've had even 1 beer during the evening.
I also find heart rate variability interesting. I can't put much spin on the absolute numbers but after either heavy exercise or if I've been unwell I can see the variability rate really drop.
Sleeping heart rate is useful because it gives you a good "resting" value. Resting heart rate will tell you if you're getting sick, before you have any real symptoms.
Yeah, I first learned that from the "HOW TO SKATE A 10K" ebook[0] that was posted here[1] a while ago. He talks about how he tracked heart rate to figure out when he was going to get sick.
I then started looking back at my historical garmin data, pretty much everytime I was sick, my HRV would drop a few days before. I then started monitoring my HRV closer and taking it easy whenever it dropped. Anecdotal data from one person here, but I found that I get sick less and when I do get sick, it's usually not as bad.
Yeah HRV is especially good for that. Mine doesn't really expose HRV very well, I'm guessing because I'm a couple of generations back, so I have to make due. Works pretty well even so though.
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.
Yeah, plenty times I've got up during the night multiple times, sometimes out of bed entirely wand walking about and the watch hasn't realised this at all.
Similarly I've been in bed, awake, reading, unable to sleep and the watch has thought I was sleeping.
What makes one measurement "real" and the other one "not real", if you're mainly using it as a personal metric?
The reason that the traditional definition of resting heart rate exists is people didn't have 24/7 heart rate monitors, and doctors had to measure what they are able to measure. And they still can't measure it well, because patients often have white coat syndrome and there's not enough time during an appointment for people to relax fully.
The Apple Watch, which uses the traditional definition, has to use algorithms to guess which of its measurements counts as "resting" or not, which adds complexity. In contrast, lowest HR during sleep is a more reliable and consistent measurement.
What I mean is, you can be pretty unfit and still have a resting heart rate in the mid 30s when you are asleep. The same unfit person takes a resting heart rate just sitting in a chair doing nothing for a minute or two and it's probably not going to be anywhere near 30.
I've known people who have had resting hearts in the low 40s, but actual resting heart rate when awake is closer to 70!
I think Garmin uses resting heart rate when you are asleep as it makes it seem like you have a really low resting heart rate, where you might not. I think it's overly flattering.
You're saying that some devices are measuring "resting heart rate" when it's not using the traditional definition, and comparing that number to the traditional definition is wrong, and I would agree.
I'm saying that the traditional measurement of resting heart rate is bad for a variety of reasons, one of which is that taking it while sitting at your couch at home after 15 minutes and having a stranger take it in the weird doctor's office can have very different results. And if our smart devices consistently measure an RHR on a regular basis, that's probably a better measurement of progress.
I had a review copy of a separate sleep monitor band that you slept on top of from a company that I think Apple bought. Basically I thought it was mostly an interesting curiosity and (possibly) a reasonable first diagnostic step if you suspect you have sleep issues.
However, for me, the results looked reasonable most nights and for those nights when I didn't sleep well for whatever reason, I mostly knew that was the case without the device results.
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.
I know several people who own the Ultra, and while they are all 'outdoorsy' sort of people, none of them are even close to 'extreme'.
The market more likely is people that see themselves as "extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc", despite mostly doing half day rides at the nearest mountain biking trail, national park hikes where they spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort.
I'm hardly extreme, and the Ultra is bad enough for me. If I'm out in the cold trying to navigate, I don't want to take my gloves off. When I retire to my tent, I don't want to worry about recharging my watch.
> spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort
This should be enough to get people away from any watch without the features I mentioned - long battery life and button-operated.
This is a bit silly. I was gifted an Ultra, and as a climber/skiier/trail runner, it serves my purposes extremely well. The maps using WorkOutdoors are far superior to what I've seen from Garmin devices (although I haven't tried) and I can always get all-day battery and charge within 30-40 min before bed. Yes, I wish the battery lasted longer but it's a tradeoff I'd always take for a more responsive and usable interface.
One gripe is that the functionality with gloves is a little annoying since you can get false positive screen taps from sleeves/cuffs. A second is that the main button is pressed when doing a pushup or in some situations while climbing, which triggers the emergency alarm mode by default (but is configurable to turn off).
Most adventures are not many days long without sleeping (for me) and this watch works pretty well.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The title here on HN looks more like "negative $40B pivot" than the real "approximately $40B pivot", which was a fun whiplash. I was wondering was their original car GPS market really that profitable?!
Of course, the unmentioned elephant in the room here is that Apple watches don't work with Android phones (it's possible to use the "cellular" version with limited features without a phone, but you still need an iPhone to configure it), which means that ~70% of the market are up for grabs...
But the ~70% isn't in every region, it's an average over all regions.
Certain developed countries, Apple iPhone market share is 55%-65% (Norway, USA, Canada, Japan), UK is at 50% and starts dropping down in other Western European countries. South Korea is dominated by Samsung.
Sure, I didn't say Garmin had no competitors, just that the Apple Watch is limited to 30% of the smartphone market, while Garmin can address (a part of) the remaining 70% plus some of Apple's 30% as well.
It's an en dash which is supposed to denote ranges eg 2013–2024 basically meaning 'to' so it's still incorrect here even if it weren't extremely similar to - or negative and easy to confuse.
Typographically the latter character is not a minus sign, it’s an ASCII hyphen-minus, which is usually designed to look more like a hyphen than a minus sign. An actual minus sign typically looks more like a dash than like a hyphen-minus.
> But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers.
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
The article further down has a diagram (and a reference to the source the Economist) which shows how automotive was 70% of their revenue in 2008 and how outdoor and fitness is ~50% today.
they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they may develop there first. is that what you mean by core?
because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning and now is outdoors and fitness.
I think you are correct here. There seems to be a misunderstanding that Garmin's primary industry was automotive navigation devices due to that brief moment in time. Well before Garmin made automotive devices they were a Avionics and Marine equipment company. They didn't shift away from automotive GPS as much as they continued on their original path of R&D into all things GPS.
My Garmin has a flashlight, maps with navigation on device, altimeter, barometer, thermometer, GPS and other satellite navigation systems, it tracks pulse, sleep, etc. It's perfect for hiking and cycling, helps you find the right route, shows the altitude profile, etc. The form factor is perfect, the watch is light and comfortable.
I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use certain apps are advantages
Moreover, they have a great variety of other options that look and feel similar to what you already have. So if you want to go further with cycling (and have a budget to do that), you can buy Garmin Edge bike computer.
I looked at the Apple watch but choose Garmin as it has a physical button to start and stop my run. I don't know if this is still the case but with the Apple watch I think you have to tap the touch screen. Takes too long, especially when every second counts on a 400m lap round the track :-P
You can stop a workout by telling Siri "end workout".
I'd expect that you can also start one with Siri but have never actually tried, mainly because the idea of using Siri to start/stop workouts never occurred to me until reading this thread, which I happened to be doing this morning while doing a workout on my treadmill.
Article doesn't talk about a very important point -- hold of the market. I say that Garmin is first and foremost aviation and maritime company, being pretty monopolistic there. E.g. Garmin G1000 for small airplanes costs around $30k, and G5000 for private jets -- around $500,000.
And the most important -- no one there ever talks about alternatives. Except for non-certified experimental tools -- Garmin is pretty much the only game in town.
So I believe they operate as aviation/maritime company first, while all the consumer devices like watches/outdoor trackers are like a side-business for them. Yes, that side business happens to bring in more money than the main business, but they wisely don't rely on it.
Meta: For some reason, HN replaced the tilde in the title of the article with a dash, making it seem like Garmin did a negative 40B pivot, instead of approximately. Why is that?
I used to have an Android Wear watch, when it was still called that. I thought it was really cool, a small computer on my wrist, ready to use instantly. I looked for more things I could use it for. But after a while, I noticed that I almost always preferred to take my phone out of the pocket if I needed to interact with anything. So the watch mainly got used for notifications, changing songs, and logging run workouts. My current Garmin can do all that, and the battery lasts a long time so I never have to care about it, and it has buttons. A WearOS watch is slow and unusable with less than 1 GB of RAM, there's something very wrong with that.
I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I can see why others would want that.
I'm really glad Garmin exists and makes smartwatches. The broad approach they have to market segments has created really great products that serve markets other large tech manufacturers haven't really touched. I'm sure the Apple watch is a good product but I'm uninterested in a general notification device (what I take to be the function of a smartwatch). I've used my farming for hiking, paragliding, tracking sleep, connecting to my bike trainer, etc. It tracks all my activities and is my dedicated device for anything athletic. The athletic features, good battery life, and sleep tracking have made it so that I actually wear a watch all the time. Spent $700 4 years ago and it was totally worth it. Perhaps the only caveat for Garmin is that I don't need to upgrade. It does everything I want it to without issue.
Same on the continent. They were a dutch company, so i guess they didnt have time to really expand much in the US until they got killed by smartphones.
The ecosystem around these devices is amazing. The data is openly available in ideal formats for sharing.
When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
If only more of the software world would settle into this type of equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from so many other companies, it’d be a far better world for consumers and competition.
Garmin’s business model doesn’t depend on hoarding data. Hope it stays that way!
I think Garmin is a really good example of a company that benefits from Apple making the market so much bigger. I had an Apple Watch, got into running a lot, and eventually found the Watch too limiting (bad heart rate measurement, touch only UI were my main issues). I probably wouldn't have ended up a Garmin customer if I'd never got an Apple Watch though.
I do a lot of deep wilderness hiking. I have two Garmin products - an InReach Mini 2 and a Fenix 6X watch. There are a couple of big benefits over the Apple/Android ecosystem. 1) Battery life. 21 days (more with the newer models). 2) No dependence on cellular/wifi data availability (though they have been doing their damnedest to require it for syncing you watch to your Connect app). I'd love to see them merge the functionality of the two devices (provide satellite messaging direct from the watch). I have zero desire for some of the other stuff they've added (music player, payments, etc.), they're just battery drains.
I had an InReach for years, mostly just for the satellite messaging. I tried this feature recently out on the trail with my iPhone and it worked great. So, I got rid of my InReach, and now my iPhone and AllTrails subscription is all I need. Battery life hasn't been an issue for me on the trail - I usually just turn off my iPhone when I'm not using it.
I'm in the market for a watch. Turned 41, my weight has slowly crept up despite working out 4-5 times a week - not too bad, like not obese. My cholesterol is bad partially due to genetics but mostly due to diet. I also have a mild sleep apnea, especially when my weight is high. I'm focusing on dropping weight this year and would love to start tracking sleep, recovery, apnea, and any heart issues before/as they happen. I do not want another screen though and though I've looked at the Apple watch multiple times, I've not actually purchased it yet.
I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues at all unfortunately
It will alert you if your heart rate goes above a certain limit (that you've set) when you're not exercising. It tracks sleep too, but I don't know about sleep apnea signals. It does track pulse ox, so a low sleep quality report and low pulse ox might indicate sleep apnea? idk
I have an older relative who uses their Venu3 to take their own ECG and combine that with a Garmin Index BPM (~$150) to help monitor their heart function. The ECG is simple to use on the watch and the BPM syncs to Garmin Connect so that all that data is stored daily for their cardiac specialist to review when they go in for appointments. They had a diagnosis of A-Fib a while back that explained all their decrease in energy levels and since beginning treatment for it they have had no further issues. Now they have the ability to sit and take an ECG to transmit to their cardiologist if they start feeling bad. For them it provides peace of mind that their meds are working as designed. They regularly get in 5k - 10k steps daily which is pretty great for someone making a strong run at 90 y.o.
I don't think Garmin has a device that is able to track or identify sleep anea events but would not be surprised to see that functionality appear in the near future on some product.
I have an Instinct 2 Solar and it has been great for me. I told other relatives about it and they have picked their own models to suit their lifestyles.
I think that is Garmin's strength, the wide variety of fitness devices suited for almost any activity or personality.
I was in the same boat with genetics and cholesterol. It is all the diet.
At some point I realized I had to stop eating cheese completely. No pizza, no nachos, no tacos with cheese. I can stay in good shape with a once a week cheat night but I don't have the genetics to deal with the cholesterol like that.
It sucked at first but the things I do enjoy now, I enjoy them just as much.
Consuming cholesterol, like in cheese, has little effect on serum cholesterol levels. Almost all of the cholesterol in your body is endogenously produced.
one thing my first garmin from 2016 did for me was to make me more active, because its activity nags with minimum-enforced active time ensured that I wouldn't just keep sitting all day. Their newer models track hrv and offer ecg in some models/countries to help with heart health tracking.
I actually really like the fact that my Garmin Instinct is not really a smart watch, it makes connecting it to your phone optional. Mine has never connected to a phone because I don't like to run Google's spyware on my phone. Yet, I can use most of it's functions I care about (time & date, GPS, moon & sun, compass, steps, heart rate, temperature, sports-specific stuff) without giving up my soul to Big Tech.
There's a lesson to be learned here for small bootstrapped SaaS founders. You can still succeed (as a lifestyle business) even when Big Tech has a competing product. Who would pay for email when Gmail is free? And yet FastMail does well. There are many, many, smaller companies that may not be VC-scale, and yet manage to build profitable, sustainable, businesses on top of a good niche product, even when competing against VC funded giants.
I think the article brings up a great point about how they pivoted. So many companies start out strong then resort to "the original" to try and get sympathy? Nostalgia? Idk who falls for that or why. Or they sell out to someone that'll gut them. These guys knew that their first success wasn't a GPS locator. It was a PNT device that met an unserved market. In that regard they haven't pivoted at all. I respect that immensely.
As a somewhat proud owner of an Apple watch, I end up using my older lo-fi smart watch for long rides I do on cycle (anything 100+) cause its battery lasts just so much more.
I bought it when I did not have enough money to shell out for either an Apple Watch and did not even know what a Garmin was, but it does the job reasonably well though its GPS is a bit poor but I did last throughout the 12 hours I did my my BRM in July (a 208KM ride).
Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently people are being arrested for using it in my country.
I developed a proof of concept for a Garmin Watch (I forget which model, this was 6 years ago roughly), and it was interesting, they have their own programming language called MonkeyC, it wasn't complicated to get into, and I had a demo in under a week or two. I based my code off existing sample code, and made it do what was needed for demo purposes.
Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch, I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
Love my Forerunner. I have zero interest in general-purpose smart watches but for Marathon training a fitness watch that I only use for tracking runs and workouts is a godsend.
Kinda hate mine, now. My Forerunner 55 can't find a good GSP fix in less than one hour, even in wide open skies. And I've returned it so they sent me a new one, which has the exact same problem.
The reason is that they want me to regularly connect the watch to their app/software (which requires an account) to update AGPS files. And there's no workaround.
I'd just like to be able to use the watch I bought, without having it connect it to Garmin servers every now and then. Why isn't it possible?
We'll have to see over the next couple years how this pans out; early in 2024 they changed their Connect app to be significantly less usable, angering their core use base with many vowing to move to competitors. While some is handwaving, others are definitely not coming back due to how Garmin has handled it.
The Connect app was a big part of their watches' popularity.
For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+ reviews, so not an insignificant number
Another user said they may have since improved the changes, so I'll have to check it out again. But originally the main interface was a list-style of recent or relevant stats shown, clicking would bring you to more in-depth stats. Most of the time all you needed was the main screen. They swapped that out for a grid of small widgets that showed less data, and you could only choose a few. Clicking would bring you to a stats screen but with less info than before, and often requiring clicking even deeper to find common items.
So lack of customization, and lots of deep-navigation. Garmin's initial action was silence, eventually they said to get over it its not going back. Apparently it got poor feedback in Beta too, so this was just a change they decided chug through with despite a very large outcry on their forums.
Sorry to pick on this detail, but I don't understand why TFA uses 2008 as year of Google Maps release. My memory (and Wikipedia) say 2005. I think I figured it out : in October 2009 Google maps introduced turn by turn directions.
One of Garmin's big old (probably still made in small numbers though) product lines were stand alone turn by turn GPS units you'd attach to your windshield or dash so when Google Maps introduced turn by turn that's when it became relevant as a major competitor to that product line and a major threat to Garmin.
I used to own one Garmin GPS and replaced it with my cellphone plus a mount. Updating the map was a major pain point.
Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3 is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices. Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
I just got my first Garmin Watch (Venu 3) in December for Xmas. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm happy to see the company knows how to survive because my last few smart watches didn't fare so well, not exactly from market changes, but from acquisitions.
I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit.
I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did that and did the whole setup process again which included upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
I use a Garmin edge 830 for cycling and it feels like one of those devices where software engineers hated every minute developing the GUI for it. I can only imagine that the reason garmin is profitable is because they keep the same cheap hardware and custom OS they developed 10, 20 years ago for generations and just do occasional GUI refreshments. Definitely going to switch to an alternative for my next one.
I still use an Edge 130 because its lack of graphics abilities constrains the UI to something reasonable. All I want it to do is throw the time/speed/distance/pulse in my face. In fact if Garmin made an Edge-like product that was only a head unit for a smart watch, didn't have its own gps radios, that would be ideal for me.
Slightly offtopic but my girlfriend's smartwatch is falling apart and can't stand it anymore.
Her birthday is coming soon and was thinking about a Garmin smartwatch. She runs a lot, gym almost everyday. Loves tracking fitness data and workouts but she's petite.
Anyone with good recs on what to check?
forerunner 265 - I've used it for running triathlons and marathons and have had no issues. Garmin has great automated training plans where you can upload various races you're preparing for and Garmin will schedule your runs so that you can meet your time goals. Also highly recommend the vibrating metronome feature to improve your cadence. This feature has dramatically reduced the number of injuries I get. I don't use it to track gym workouts (e.g. lifting). There is a feature for that but I haven't tried it. If you want to really nerd out on your running the HRM Pro Plus provides amazing running dynamics information which again is very helpful for improving running form and reducing injuries.
For women you may want to look at the forerunner 265S which is identical to the forerunner 265 but is slightly smaller. The HRM-fit I believe gives the same data as the HRM Pro Plus but is designed to fit under a sports bra
If it's just running and gym she does, basically any watch will work capability-wise. Some specific lines have extra features geared towards other sports like diving, golf, etc. Other than that it will really come down to budget and aesthetic preferences. I would suggest just going on the website and having a look. The size of each model is also listed which is probably relevant if she is petite - some of them are pretty chunky. Forerunner and Vívoactive lines are both pretty suitable I would think.
Depends on what your budget is, if there's any additional features she wants, and how frequently she's OK charging it. Basically every Garmin watch will cover those initial use cases.
Try something like a Forerunner 265S. When you see an "S" suffix on model numbers that indicates it's a "small" size variant specifically designed for petite wearers.
I’m using a Garmin for bike navigation on long trips (Edge Explore 2). It works but all the software feels old and brittle. Syncing will fail frequently.
I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS. I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my daily driver (lol?).
I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone service for navigation on this trip.
Although the question often comes up: why not just use your phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
--------
Pros:
- You don't need a cellular connection for map data.
-- Counter Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is something extra that you need to remember to do.
- You don't need to waste your cellular data
-- Counter Point: Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
- A corporation isn't tracking your every move
-- Counter Point: Most people don't seem to care about this.
- Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data
-- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
- Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get one that is as large as a tablet
-- Counter Point: you could probably use a tablet and google maps
- Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
- A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as long as you can update the maps.
- Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of these in the trunk of your car as a back up
- Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
- I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
Neutral
- The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all GPSes including apple maps and google maps
Cons
- And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer feature
Fellow user of a physical Garmin car navigation GPS. The one I use is my dad's old Nuvi from about 2015.
In addition to several of the pros you listed, I'd add a few more:
- Stupid-simple interface. I was a Google Maps user for a while, and I was not a fan of various popups (from "Welcome to <state name>" to "Is this speed trap still here?"). I'm piloting a several-thousand-pound hunk of metal at highway speeds, do NOT interrupt me!
- Unchanging interface. I'd get used to the way Google Maps behaved, and then an update would change something and break muscle memory. Whereas my 2015 Garmin isn't getting updated with unnecessary animations and pointless button re-arranging. When updating maps, the firmware update is a separate download. Since it's not Internet-connected, I don't care if I'm running "outdated" software. As long as it still gives directions, that's all I want.
- It's not my phone. I don't want my text messages coming up across the top of the screen while I'm trying to read the next turn on my route. I don't want anything on the screen that's not directly related to navigation.
It's a great example of KISS in a hardware product. It does GPS navigation. It is literally incapable of distracting you with anything else. I consider that a killer feature.
I agree with the interface. It only does one thing and it does it really well: it tells you how to drive somewhere.
I also never considered the fact that the UI won't change randomly to be a feature lol.
In the latest model you can hook it up to the internet so when you get home it auto updates itself. You can also hook it up to your phone so text messages and Slack notifications pop up on the side of the screen. I would imagine these are features you would not want to use.
That's true, I was considering mentioning that but I wasn't sure if that feature is still enabled in the latest version. It is also not really dependable because you need to be in the right place in order to get the data, or at least that was my perception when using older GPS models.
One has to wonder about this kind of turnaround that happened simultaneously with Blackberry's corporate implosion which were mostly due to the same exogenous factors.
I don't know if their other product lines are better but the software and user experience of their Edge 1040 cycling computer is atrocious. It has every feature you could think of and some you couldn't but I swear it was designed by someone who has never ridden a bike.
Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
I remember using a Garmin Edge 1000 to navigate through a city I don't know. I could see the street I should be on running parallel to where I was but couldn't find the correct turn to take me there.
Then the Garmin popped a big modal dialogue over the top of the map to tell me I was on the wrong street. Worse still a few spots of rain meant the screen locked and I couldn't dismiss the modal.
I came to the same conclusion, that the UI wasn't designed by some one that rode a bike.
I have to say they've got better over time though. I've had a Garmin 530 for a few years and an Epix 2 watch that I like much better. I love that the Epix can be operated with just the buttons.
Agreed. I have 1040 as well and it serves me super well, largely because of its battery life (1 recharge on 7day bikepacking trip of ~6hr/day usage), consistency (no disconnects with other data points) and very solid gps (multi band enabled, no issues in forests etc)
UI takes a lot of time to get used to and even then there are many things I hate
I have been looking around on a number of separate occasions for reimplementation of Garmin connect. Sadly i haven’t found anything yet.
As great as the hardware is the app is frankly atrocious and doesn’t inspire confidence with a company that is storing a lot of very sensitive personal information.
I love my garmin, it just feels like the perfect fit for me. I have zero interest in the Apple Watch, mainly because I don’t want yet another device bombarding me with notifications. Plus, the Apple Watch just doesn’t seem like something I’d be comfortable getting sweaty and slathered in sunscreen every day. The rubber and somewhat industrial design of the Garmin feels like it's just made for running, not for juggling texts or emails mid-workout.
I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by month.
Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the iPhone’s GPS was unreliable—it added zigzags to my routes, inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches, and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
So I’ve had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using colored ranges—it’s what I used to pace myself during races. For example, I’d aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11 for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That’s when I hit an inflection point: I couldn’t improve further without serious training plans.
I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn’t run enough hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated—my half marathon slowed to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn’t improve. I also psyched myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or over-fatigued on race days.
Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap? Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments. Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it—and ironically, I've just started improving again.
I felt personally trolled when he said Google Maps launched after the iPhone lol.
If you’re not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005 a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-new technology “AJAX”).
Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
Meanwhile the Garmin UX is godawful with watch faces that crash and a deep forest of menus that requires you to push through mountains of youtube videos to understand. There are 2-4 ways to perform any function. Entire menu screens might be useless, but you can't delete any. The day Apple improves the Apple Watch Ultra battery life is the day I switch from Fenix and never look back.
Garmin recently entered the ballistic chronograph market with their Xero - it's the closest thing to actual magic I've experienced with a piece of technology. Chronographs are notoriously finicky, since you are trying to accurately measure the speed of a bullet in an uncontrolled environment.
Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping and misaligning the radar in the process.
Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better form factor, better battery life, superior app integration, impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price, which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the combined used prices of all the various chronographs this replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
I’ve wanted a Garmin for running but they are so expensive. I just buy a cheap old version of the Apple Watch for $30 on eBay and it works great. The crappy battery life doesn’t matter because the maximum length of my run is 1.5 hours.
I picked up an Epix Pro during the holiday sales. Aware that they'd had a data breach, I was dismayed to find there is no way to get the data off it without using an app and that app won't even start without an account. Despite the settings, wouldn't show up as a storage device when connected (on Linux).
I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
I did enable that setting. But it still didn't work for me. I remember seeing it was showing up and tried various tools related to MTP but none of them were able to access the files.
By and large Garmin devices can be accessed directly from a Linux system. I have a FR 965 and it connects just fine.
But in typical Garmin fashion, there may be a hard to find setting to enable this. My watch asks if I want to connect to a computer when I plug in the cable.
Garmin is expensive? Maybe, but I got my Vivoactive 5 for $190. For a watch that I need to charge every 7-10 days (vs every day like it is for many other brands) it's a good value, imo.
There are various models and generations of their watches at every price point. Them having more expensive options doesn't mean they don't have less expensive options as well.
I think everyone should be reminded that a few years ago Garmin let someone take down their whole network (globally) and then paid the ransom after a few days [1]. In my opinion, the company does not deserve your money.
Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't) but overall it didn't make sense to me as a product (or, evidently, to my partner, who now leaves it gathering dust).
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
The Apple Watch is also a terribly designed device for running. Too much of its functions rely on interacting with the touchscreen, something you are either unable to do with sweaty hands when running or don't want to do as it draws your attention away for a prolonged amount of time and hurts your form.
Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
> Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
Most people may be unaware that Garmin has a strong foothold in the stringently regulated avionics industry, in particular in flight instruments, displays, deck and others human-machine interface products. In turn, specific regulations informed by ergonomics research are unambiguous in prioritizing safety and unanimously contain minimum usability requirements.
As an example, an AC [1, Ch. 7] advises on (electronic display) control devices, and another AC [2] advises on design and evaluation of controls and displays. The software-defined counterparts have immensely harder requirements that must be satisfied, which, in my reading, is incompatible with pure touchscreen devices.
[1] https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/...
[2] https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/...
That was true with something like the G1000, but their newer avionics are very much touchscreen in favour of physical buttons. See the G3X or G3000 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21eOTAXdXLM&t=18s
Correct. Garmins GPS/NAVCOM flagship, the GTN series is 95% touch.
Yes, but you can perform the essential functions with buttons on the GTN650 or 750 (or xi). Frequency changes, direct to, etc are all still accessible on physical buttons, which makes a big difference in turbulence.
As a non-Appleista, what strikes me most is their "silo" mentality. Most of the iPhone /iWatch using fitness types I know log their stuff inside the Apple cloud, and do not crosspost to Garmin Connect or Strava so the non-Appleistas don't see their stuff. Whereas the Garmin/Strava world is relatively open. I can for example take the original Forerunner (pictured in the article) and upload stuff from it to the Garmin or Strava cloud, albeit slightly cumbersomely. I sometimes do with a later model, a Forerunner 305, even if it does take USB download to do it.
Physical buttons, though... I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
> I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not to be recording.
I've had that happen to me during yoga and boxing workouts I've recorded. There's a way to lock the physical buttons (at least on my Instinct watch), which requires multiple presses to stop/start a workout. IIRC, it's by holding the light button.
An example of how Strava is geek-compatible (so far! it may get ensh*ttified in the future). I found some old GPS logs from 22 years ago, when I first got a handheld GPS and geeked out with it, logging a whole bunch of rides and hikes.
It took a bit of work to get those converted to a modern format (load into ancient tool, which is still maintained, and write out as GPX files... one at a time). But then these GPX files can be uploaded to Strava and there they are! Activities older than Strava itself, fully integrated.
Also I've more than once had a "whoopsie" - app left recording during the drive home, for example. Download activity from Strava, edit the GPX file, delete the activity and re-upload from the file.
And when you download your stuff from Strava, you get a database dump. That's both good and bad; e.g. users are just numbers and you'd need to use the web Strava to translate them to names, but all your photos and all your traces and all your stats come down in standard formats (jpeg, gpx and csv respectively) and nothing is dumbed down; everything is in the best possible format for re-import to something else.
Strava has a built in feature to trim an activity if you accidentally keep recording on the drive home. Happens all the time. You can just select the time when you want to cut it off.
What strikes me is that I alread have a central authoritative store of health and fitness information on my Apple devices bundled directly into the operating system but every single app in that category wants me to use them as the single database of truth instead. Even when they have integration with Health!
Everything goes into Apple Health but individual apps can barely talk to one another. Oura won’t pull heart rate data from Apple Health, so when I track my lifting workouts on my watch (a ring is a no-go for barbell work) it’s not there. Same for my Polar chest strap which I use during judo and BJJ. Oura is completely blind to this despite the data being available and it having access through Health.
Strava only pulls in workouts for apps that have been directly connected to it. So I have to have n:m connections between apps with this model, and only get sync between apps that have explicit Strava integration. For Garmin cycling workouts this works okay. When I integrate with Polar workouts, Strava insists on reduplicating the data back into Apple Health a second time. I have yet to find a way to get the data into Strava but have it recorded once instead sold zero times or twice.
Garmin directly refuses to use anything not recorded from their own devices. It won’t import sleep from my Oura or Withings trackers, heart rate from anything else, etc. Want to use any of the derived metrics in their app? Sorry, you'll need to exclusively use Garmin devices for everything in order to have all that data in place.
The only thing that isn’t a complete shitshow in this entire ecosystem is Apple Health.
Garmin, Polar, and Strava existed before Apple Health/Watch were released. They had to have a solution in a non-Apple world, and I doubt they'd abandon existing users once Apple appeared (and stuck around).
Oura's first Ring was released the same year as the Watch, so I don't think that Oura was given early access.
I’m not asking them to abandon anything.
Apple Health has been around over ten years. Oura could have figured out in the intervening time how to read heart rate data from Health.
All I’m asking for Strava, Garmin, and the rest is to just use Apple Health to import data from other sources and assume that it is the source of truth for externally-generated data rather than requiring direct app-to-app integration or simply ignoring anything their devices didn’t emit.
What's it like getting data out of Apple Health?
There’s a very easily-discovered button to export everything. It goes to some sort of XML format that I haven’t bothered to inspect but which I assume others have written extractors for.
I don’t think I really care all that much though. Other than older heart rate data from my watch and workouts recorded on my watch, all the data is already stored in the apps that created it: Strava, Oura, Garmin, Polar, etc. If I went elsewhere, those apps will still have all their own collected information.
I don’t mind that those apps are the source of truth for stuff collected from their own devices. I just want them all to share data with and communicate to one another through Apple Health instead of insisting they can only use data they directly collected (Garmin, Oura, Polar) or requiring direct integration between every pairwise set of apps (Polar, Strava).
Not hard at all.
That might have changed in recent years - I can import workouts to Strava that are recorded by my Apple Watch
With maps? The only Appleista that I know that crossposts to Strava always ends up with stats, but no map trace.
Yes, with maps. The Apple Watch Strava app will record and upload directly or you can import workouts from Apple Health, both give you GPS, HR, etc.
If recorded elsewhere it can depend, but that’s due to Strava being irritating/changing/dropping integration features in the last couple of years and not an Apple ecosystem issue.
Or those people have maps uploaded but have chosen not to make them public?
It used to be a fairly unintuitive manual process but Strava enabled auto-import with full GPS and heart rate import recently.
They may be less gatekeeping than others, but they don't let you get data off the device without a cloud account, at which point all your biometrics are for sale.
Just plug in the Garmin watch to your computer, and its storage opens revealing sensibly named folders. You can open the folder named Activity and copy your sport files in FIT format. Everything else is JSON.
No cloud account needed!
Are you talking about Garmin? If so, that's not my experience of the two watches I have had, which let you take data directly from the device over USB (as FIT files).
On my Garmin Forerunner watch, under Settings/System/USB Mode - change to "Mass Storage" from "Garmin".
I connect the watch via USB cable and copy the FIT files over to the computer.
Looks like there's the same setting in a similar location on the Epix watch - https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-E5C62F3F-DCE3-4...
Genuinely curious, what do you need to change mid-run on your watch? I set an apple music playlist to start, open a run on WorkOutDoors, and go. I really am only interested in heart rate, distance traveled and pace. And if I need to stop for anything walking back to my apartment after a session I have apple pay.
Granted, I'm not a serious runner, I only do it as a supplement for my muay thai training (i.e. I'm only running 5-8k at like a 4'30" or so pace). So I guess I'm interested in what runners who are running as their primary sport like about the Garmin, as I often hear people say the Garmin is so much better.
FWIW there are a lot of features that are really great on a run, but you might have to switch screens or even manipulate the screen. For instance, zoom in and out on a map. Or instruct your watch to re-route you to the fastest way home, or start guiding you the reverse way you came so you end up doubling your distance when you get back home. You might have other sensors feeding info and the data doesn't all fit on one screen. Maybe you want to control music playback and find playlists subpar (you might want to change based on how you feel in the moment, or pick another podcast because you added time onto your run or the other one ended up being boring, etc.).
Play music and run is fine for lots of people, though, so I'm not surprised it works for you.
Ok yeah, the map stuff makes a lot of sense then, if I were out on trails or somewhere unfamiliar I can see that being very helpful. I'm always just running the bridges of NYC, so it's hard to get lost! Although I might get more serious this year so I can run the ridiculous williamsburg bridge marathon [1], so maybe I'll check out what I'm missing with Garmin.
[1] https://www.williamsburgbridgemarathon.com/
I'm usually on the same main screen with time/distance/heart rate, but when I change screen that would mostly be for: - Map/routing, useful for trail running or when running in an area you are unfamiliar with - Elevation, vertical speed (useful for trail running too) - Workouts (steps/next step/instructions/duration/etc.)
Besides the various metrics other have mentioned (and which you could in theory put all in one screen, unless you're interested in a lot of them), you might want to interact with the workout and e.g. set it to the next interval. If you planned a 15min warmup at low pace but already feel good after 10min, you might want to already go to the main part of your workout. On Garmin that's one button away, I'd be annoyed if I had to touch the screen for that.
Apple Watch Ultra has that functionality by default using the Action button. Most workout functionality is usable with just the buttons.
I've owned 2 Garmin running watches, and still find their UI non intuitive.
I've been using a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch for years, and what I've found I like the most about it is actually the Garmin Connect app on my phone. I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop. Connect is a great application for tracking your workouts over time. A fair number of runners even use Garmin's workout plans from the app. Even compared to running apps exclusively for iOS and Android I think the Garmin app is one of the better ones around, and is free to use with no monthly fees. Combine that with the fact that I don't even have to take my phone with me, I just wear my watch and it syncs with my phone when I get home. Running with a phone sucks, I have yet to find a way to carry one that isn't annoying.
What's more, Garmin has an API so you can pull your data and analyze it locally. It's pretty neat.
See garmindb: https://github.com/tamkaho/GarminDB
You can get a rolling average of your stress for example, or your sleep times.
> I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop.
They make avionics systems. They probably have a good culture of making well tested, reliable software.
Well I have to set the record straight that I do find bugs regularly, both on the watch and the app. I'm still very happy with it (and I'm sure I prefer it over competitors), but not all of the features have been polished to the same extent nor do they seem to go through the same QA for every upgrade. The Garmin forum is a good witness to that.
I had been an Apple Watch user until it died after I was in a water park. It is supposed to be waterproof, but I guess Apple wants me to refresh after two years.
I switched to a Garmin Venu 3. It is better than AW in many aspects, but is also lacking in some. But the Connect app is a lot better than Apple Health.
I have the forerunner watch as well, and also the inReach personal gps. Both are quite rugged and the forerunner's metrics collection is great if you want to see your health progress ie. VO2 max and other key metrics. The inReach is for me a life insurance policy in case I twist an ankle out in the middle of nowhere and can flag an emergency responder. I would not part with either device and pay the monthly subscription to the inReach device for years now.
For all runs except races and interval sessions I carry my phone in a Naked band. Works well for me and allows me to carry some other things like gels, tissues, keys, light...
I have tried a bunch of options and the Rabbit running shorts with a rear phone zipper pocket are the least annoying. They hold a large phone securely without bouncing around but but are still easy to access on the move.
https://www.runinrabbit.com/collections/mens-shorts
People value things differently but the battery life is always interesting to me. Certainly if I was backwoods hiking I get it but for my day to day I only take it off post workout in the morning as I shower and get ready for the day. It’s charged so quickly that I throw it back on as soon as I am done.
Ultimately I charge my phone (almost) every day, so I'm sure I could charge my watch every day as well. But it's still another habit I have to build, another way I have to adjust my routine to accommodate the things that are supposed to make my life easier.
The other thing is, battery life degrades over time, which is relevant if you don't want to be buying new devices every couple of years. When I got my Garmin it probably held a charge for 6-7 days. After four years, that is probably closer to 4 days, which is still pretty good. If less than a day is the starting point, I can imagine that after 3+ years the battery life will be poor enough that you regularly end up wearing a paperweight on your wrist for some portion of the day.
There's a difference: I wear my watch, and I expect it to always work, and be accessible even at night
With the newer Apple Watches you can just use fast charging. I basically just charge it when I shower and do my night time hygiene routine and it’s ready to go back on my wrist to track my sleep and act as a silent vibration alarm in the morning so that I don’t wake my wife up early. The only time I run into battery life issues is when I go on a weekend camping trip.
Likewise–I pop it on the charger in the shower and occasionally at work if I'm at my desk. The alarms, timers, and reminders access (via Siri) more than makes up for the inconvenience of frequent charging. Notifications for messages and e-mails is just a bonus that sometimes ends up being a double-edged sword. The only downsides for me come on long bike rides, and that it is ugly (and getting too big, coming from a Casio F91-W).
I’ve owned both and the truth is Garmin makes the best fitness tracker that can be a smartwatch and Apple makes the best smartwatch that can be a fitness tracker.
That means you're always showering at home, which might work for you but it's a big constraint. If you work out / shower in different places and at different times, it might be harder to find a suitable charging routine.
I'm also wondering how it evolves. Batteries don't get better over time, I'd be worried of having to end up charging it twice a day in one year, which for a device this expensive is not great.
Certainly but my point was more that the watch charges quite quickly when done so on a daily basis. Not to mention it’s surprising that someone can get by without giving their skin a breather for a small portion of the day. Given that it’s healthy to let the skin breath it’s always interesting to hear the daily charge constraint as an issue. Are people keeping a garmin on their wrist 24/7 for 7 days? Simply a strange constraint that is always mentioned.
Similar to your battery life concern. It’s valid but we are on what…evolution 11 now? My current two year old watch has more than enough battery. Prior to that I had one for 4 years I think. Same deal no issues in batteries.
My preferred alarm clock is the vibration from my fitness band. I wanted something extremely light with a long battery. Unfortunately, no modern fitness bands target this functionality. The vibration is weak, band is heavier, and the use large display. The best ones I used are probably 6-10 years old now.
The cheap Mi Band does it. The greatest annoyance is that if you forget it charging for too long the battery goes South.
Who makes the best (or at least very good) vibrating watch alarm today?
I am trying to figure that out.
All the manufacturers today are trying to sell connected services, so devices are accumulating lots of features and heft. In addition, none of the manufacturers quantify the strength of vibration (what units would that be expressed in?). The lightest bands are the lowest end/value models and have the worst vibration mechanisms.
What I want is: (1) see the current time (2) get a buzz for a notification (3) alarm clock (4) ability to wear for multiple days without charging.
It sounds like you have a good routine, but it's pretty nice to just have to charge once a week or something
The ideal charging cycles are either daily or never. With some non-daily cycle, I need to add “does my watch need recharging?” to my cognitive load.
I understand the sentiment. But I have an old Garmin Forerunner 35 watch that charges in about 2 hours and the charge lasts for three weeks. So the cognitive load is less than you would think.
My Garmin watch asks me if I want to enable the battery saver mode whenever it reaches 20% or so (most likely configurable anyway), which is still more than a day's worth of battery. If you go for several days without a charger, you need to plan that in advance and charge it beforehand, but at least that's a possibility which you don't have with other watches that require daily charging.
you can still charge it daily if you want...
The advantage of a watch that only needs to charge every few weeks is that it likely doesn't need a lot of time to top it off if you're charging it daily (unless it has a massive battery or only charges extremely slowly). When I wore Pebble watches, charging them while I was in the shower was plenty of time to last until I showered the next day. With my Apple watches, I've gotten into the habit of not wearing them for a while in the evening as well as my morning shower.
indeed, I try to do that when I remember with my Garmin Venu 2 (~11 day battery life). Otherwise, I charge it on weekends while I'm home doing nothing.
It's also nice because most trips I take are under 11 days so I don't need to remember to pack the charger.
It would be cool if digital watches could borrow the idea of harvesting power from movement from the mechanical watch world. I wonder how close to that we are?
Garmins went another way - the "Solar" models use sun to prolong battery life.
Yeah but we can always just shift that goalpost of a tradeoff and act like our arbitrary choice is the only right way.
You need to charge that every week? Well this one lasts two weeks. Only two weeks, what a drag, this one lasts a month.
You need to actually charge it? A Citizen Eco Drive charges itself even with only indoor light. Or an automatic watch that self winds on regular wrist movements, never really needing a "charge" so long as you're actively wearing it.
It's all a trade off of what kind of features you want on your "watch". I'm not taking phone calls and doing NFC payments on an Eco Drive. People are going to value different things, to many charging a few minutes every day isn't an issue for what they seem to get from it.
Of course, I just want the activity and sleep tracking, and the occasional alert or notification, so the tradeoff is easy. If I wanted whatever the apple watch can do beyond that I might make a different choice
yeah, i've had a garmin and i've had an apple watch. both have their strong points, but the battery life of the apple watch was really just never an issue for me. it seems like it should be an obvious downsite, but it's pretty easy to get in the habit of charging it, and once it is habit its just really not an issue.
if anything, the garmin's battery life was a downside, because i wouldn't charge it daily, and then i'd go to start a bike ride and find it was at 10% battery.
Unless you're riding for 4-5 hours, 10% should still be more than enough to get through a workout though? And in my experience a 10 minute charge would have you north of 30%.
not in my experience. i had an edge 120 bike computer and a vivoactive watch, and the last 10% wasn't enough to get through anything. the 10% from 100 to 90% would be plenty, but the last 10% always drained really quick and charged slow.
Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their phone. Full stop.
Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note, though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
It's more like "Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their iPhone. Full stop."
Apple Watch is not smartphone agnostic (requiring iPhone for Apple Watch setup). That's Apple's choice. Apple Watch has done well targeting just iPhone users. It makes some stuff easier for devs.
But South Korea has its own walled garden - https://www.gizchina.com/2023/11/13/korean-smartphone-market....
> I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad.
The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering, getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked for me for years.
Most smart watches (and even Xiaomi smart bands) are in similar ballpark of 200-ish mAh. All should in principle charge as quickly.
It's just that Apple Watch is power hungry.
From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for.
They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same ball park.
My perspective is the exact opposite - I can't tell what "smart watch" features the Apple Watch is supposed to provide me over my "fitness" Garmin as a trade off for terrible battery life.
The Apple Watch actually provides worse functionality for notifications than my Garmin, since it wants to act as its own separate device, instead of simply mirroring my phone's notifications.
Interacting with the Apple Watch is usually so difficult and the app support is lacking (I believe it's actually gotten worse over time) that I generally take out my phone for anything beyond pressing the dismiss button, so it's no better than the Garmin.
A Garmin watch is absolutely designed for wearing all the time, even when sleeping. You might prefer not to for reasons of appearance or because there are features of some other smart watch that you like, but Garmin is fine for what I use it for and does notifications etc. The battery life was a game changer for me (as an Apple Watch switcher) since it's now something I just don't worry about whereas with Apple Watch it was a daily thing and it let me down on several runs too.
What things do you want from a smartwatch? For the basics, notifications+, music controls, fitness tracking, Garmin handles well. It does not have an extensive ecosystem of apps but what apps do you need?
And for fitness Garmin is very very good. Today was below -10 C on my run and my watch was 100% usable with gloves. Garmin actually tells me when I get a GPS lock and it works ANT+ devices.
I use the GPS all the time on my Fenix, it's 6 years old and I'm still charging roughly once a week. I think a 6 year old Apple Watch would struggle to get a day, if that.
+On a non-Apple device.
Echoing a comment I left in a different thread: from my perspective as a Garmin watch owner, I can't find any reason why I'd want to switch to an Apple watch. (Admittedly my phone is an Android, so there's some inherent bias there. But the general point stands that I can't think of anything I'd want in a smart watch that's not a feature of my current Garmin.)
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch, which boils down to "show me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages and the contact name when I receive a phone call". Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not for text messages, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make attention-grabbing noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
If you just talk about notifications, the apple watch is better, in that you can reply without pulling out your phone, or even take the voice call, which you can't (at least afaik) on a Garmin.
If you look at Apple watch activity tracking, though, Garmin is playing a different ballgame.
Calorie counting on apple is off by 2-5x (compared to energy output measured on an erg, and running and biking are similarly _really_ incorrect on apple, and in my experience pretty spot-on with Garmin).
Reviewing an activity on apple fitness is really, _really_ coarse. You can't pick what metric is shown on the map. You can't plot a metric over time. Even something as simple as max speed? Who knows!
Apple's attempted copycat of body battery functionality in the new iOS 18 seems like it was designed by a PM that was handed 2-3 screenshots from a Garmin, shrugged, and went from that. It's wholly useless—but on Garmin, this is a valuable feature included 8 years ago in their cheapest running watches.
Some Garmin devices have a speaker and microphone so you can take a voice call using it as a Bluetooth device linked to your phone.
You can also reply to text messages with a limited set of canned responses on Android phones only. This doesn't work on iPhones because Apple has intentionally blocked third-party smart watches from being allowed to use that API in a particularly monopolistic and consumer-hostile move.
Sorry, hard disagree with everything you've said here.
I have a Fenix 6, I've worn it every day for the last 4.5 years. Its a brilliant smartwatch. I have multiple apps from Garmin's IQ store on it. Battery lasts between one and two weeks, thats including recording multiple activities each week, while using it to play music to my bluetooth headphones.
can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"?
I wear my Epix 2 every day and it does all I want from a smartwatch - see incoming texts and calls while it tracks my health stats day and night. Yes, apple watch or Samsung ones may have more features, but I am not missing anything.
> can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"?
Well, they look like sport watches.
People can choose the aesthetic they want, but you're sending a message with one that's that opinionated, which I don't particularly want to.
The newer Fenixes are a lot more elegant looking. If you paired it with one of those steel-link straps I don't see why it wouldn't look great with a suit.
The official straps are pricey but you can easily find cheaper aftermarket ones, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Titanium-strap-Garmin-AMOLED-titanium...
Ummm... and Apple Watches are the epitome of high fashion? I don't think this is a strong argument when directly comparing these two things. Fwiw, I have met quite a few watch enthusiasts who wear a mechanical watch on one wrist and an Apple Watch on the other. This seems natural, honestly, since the primary function of an Apple Watch is definitely not to tell time.
Oh man so many... inaccuracies to be polite in 1 post.
My wife uses GPS all the time, why else you would buy premium watch like Fenix for. Apple watch needs charging / daily/bi-daily. Garmins of my wife who even sleeps with them with monitoring on - every 5-6 days, after cca 4 years of ownership already with same battery. You can definitely wear them all the time, and if you can't, same goes for other watch as well. This is what these watches are for if you still have issues understanding their market proposition, long term usage, without battery anxiety and additional management of frequent charging.
They can have eSim, but I really don't see a reason and the price to pay in terms of battery drain is too steep. I don't know anybody around who is using it, everybody still have their phone with them.
If I want to be reachable, there is phone which I can put into any pocket, if I want some quiet peace time, I can just listen to the music streamed from watch. I would never rely on tiny watch with crappy battery and super tiny cellular antenna re safety ie in wilderness or mountains where signal is non-ideal.
With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.
That's funny, phone related features are the first things I turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out obnoxious.
I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are fantastic as well.
I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked out well in my particular case.
It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything else waits silently in the notification drawer until I choose to look at the phone.
There is a “Do not disturb” feature on the Apple Watch.
The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it was to illustrate that the ability to receive these notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches' target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
Yeah, I think that's part of the reason both the Apple Watch and Garmin's can thrive: because they have their own market.
I recently renewed my Garmin watch and I did the same: disable all the phone related features.
And one of the Reddit comments quoted in the article says the same:
> Apple Watch is a Smartwatch with fitness features, Garmin is a Fitness watch (with admittedly lacking) smartwatch features.
People still buy Garmin watches instead of Apple Watch because they don't want the "smart" stuff, they want the fitness stuff first.
And yeah, the battery life is also a big factor!
I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.
I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch. Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and Airplay music to soundbars.
Hotspot from the watch would kill the battery life.
It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.
not being able to connect to car bluetooth is painful, why can't they just let that work already!
How do you receive calls without a sim? Or does it have a dedicated sim with a different number to your regular phone?
The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a built in eSIM.
There is a separate number as far as billing. But the cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they were coming from your iPhone’s number. Whenever someone calls your phone - they both ring.
If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice communication is relayed through your phone to save battery life.
If your watch isn’t connected to your phone, the Watch uses cellular.
Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
Apple Watches have their own eSIM and they share a number with your phone.
As far as I know, the watch’s eSIM technically has its own phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone’s phone number.
We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things differently if you set it up in that way.
As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the watch; the other two are e-waste.
The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).
Pretty much all fitness trackers can do this, even really cheap ones.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2 solar. I had g-shock watches before, because I liked how tough they were, and the instinct2 is pretty close. I wear it swimming, running, sleeping, showering, etc. I take it off about once a month when I charge it up. This summer, I went 6 weeks between charges.
The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my physical activity, and sleep).
I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing for a low level garmin.
My Garmin Forerunner 265 has pretty decent battery life, maybe 8 days. I think what was the value for many was how their Connect app processed and displayed stats, though a recent change to "be pretty" has undone much of the usefulness.
Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact, stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
Fwiw, I felt the same way about the Connect app changes last year, but that went away after a couple months once they released an update that lets you customize your main screen view. Now I appreciate the much richer widgets and the ability to swipe between several of the metrics that are most valuable to me.
Also, I've found that the current iteration of their wrist HR sensors are quite good [compared to a chest strap] for everything except outdoor cycling. I have an Epix 2 Pro and never wear a chest strap for anything but cycling anymore.
There's really only 2 features my garmin forerunner lacks that would make it pretty awesome.
1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send out live track notifications from my watch would be really fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that stuff.
2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not having them.
I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two features above are the only things it does that I'd want from it.
I'm still convinced most of the feature list of the Ultra was primarily added to dress up why the larger battery version needed to cost so much more.
The first thing I do when I buy a Garmin watch (I have several) is turn off phone notifications. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would want them on. I tried for a decent amount of time but I just don't see the value in it, it's just aggravation I don't need. Not because of the implementation from Garmin, which is fine, but the whole concept.
Apple to me has clearly a goal of providing a tiny version of smart phone on your wrist. Garmin aims at as-smart-as-possible watch. Everything else comes from this philosophy, be it battery, design of not only display and it shape etc.
Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
Premium price, premium look, massively better battery, durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top, saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-device syndrome.
The latest series Apple Watch charges from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes.
I just don't understand how Apple, supposed masters of design and aesthetics, ever thought it was a good idea to release a square watch. It just looks so dumb.
[dead]
I bought a smartphone. I was shocked at the poor value proposition. Very expensive and the charge wouldn’t even last a day!!!
I have a Garmin Descent Mk2i which I use for scuba diving, and it's a fabulous all-purpose fitness and adventure watch. I've used to for hundreds of dives, navigation on multiple backpacking trips, cycling, and tons of other stuff. I even wear it daily, and it nicely supports notifications from my phone.
When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats. People love them.
Man, I wanted to get the garmin dive computer so bad. It's got so many awesome features, it's just priced out of my budget. Wound up going with the peregrine from shearwater, which was about half the price, but does way less than the garmin.
Another place they shine is for bikes. Their radar system that integrates with a bike computer is absolutely groundbreaking. It's so fantastic to be able to know when a car is coming up behind you without having to turn your head and possibly lose balance, it's such a great safety feature.
I have one of those as well and it's generally a good device but it has a few weird software defects which make me wonder whether Garmin employees do any real diving? Like in the Multi-Gas activity profile it will automatically prompt you to switch gases based on calculated PO2, but the message covers the entire screen so you can't see your depth! And there's no way to disable those alerts.
So, let's review:
1) build headquarters in (relatively) low COL city - in this case, Olathe KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City MO.
2) Have people who actually want to make a product instead of making analysts happy
3) Invest in R&D
4) Bring manufacturing in-house and tightly control processes
It's like everything the people actually doing the work at tech companies have been saying for years.
Can I have my $10mil/year pay package now?
They have some postings for jobs that I might actually enjoy working on also. Too bad they don't offer remote roles.
Garmin:
[1] https://developer.garmin.com/fit/protocolYet I can't use my new Forerunner 55 watch without connecting it to Garmin servers. They make sure it takes about an hour to have a reliable GPS position unless your make it regularly connect to an active Garmin account, either via Garmin Express (dekstop) or Garmin Connect.
I switch to GadgetBridge but without updating the AGPS files, no reliable GPS.
How open of them.
> sure it takes about an hour to have a reliable GPS position
Any feedback from Garmin on this issue? It sounds like a bug, unless they have documented a non-technical policy dependency between GPS and cloud login.
(unassisted) GPS cold-start time is about 15 minutes to download the complete almanac and ephemeris data over the satellite link. That assumes everything is received correctly the first time. A watch's small antenna could increase that time significantly.
Garmin is undoubtedly already aware that you need cloud login for their devices to download almanac and ephemeris over the internet.
Before my workout, I'll take my Garmin watch and switch to a workout mode that requires GPS and leave it by a window while the Garmin gets a GPS lock.
Go prep for workout.
Just before heading out, I'll go by the window and get the watch which has locked on to the nearby GPS satellites.
Start workout.
I was seriously looking at their Tactix 7 Pro Ballistics watch. But, yeah, that's a total no-go for me then too.
They also provide a lot of EFIS (Electric Flight Information System, or "Glass Cockpit") for small GA aircraft. I think AeroDyne and Honeywell are also in this market but I mainly see Garmin there. Like the G1000 (higher models are available on business jets I think).
It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
They have really become the gold standard in avionics, so much so that some airframes are preferred to others due to the fact that they've chosen to integrate a Garmin flight deck instead of Honeywell/Rockwell/etc. They have a very consistent and capable design methodology that extends from single engine piston avionics all the way up through relatively large GA jets.
They've also made advances with their Autoland product, which can take control of a small aircraft and safely land at an airfield while communicating with ATC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmdPZPWZKw8
They make awesome chart plotters and sonar systems for boats. I have a smallish one on my kayak that works very well.
The C172 with a G1000 setup was around $20/hr more at the local flight school than a C172 with a six pack. Def not needed for X-country but I always felt safer flying it through busy airspace. Garmin really does make fantastic avionics.
Wow $20 more, that's a lot.
At our place they were the same price (though the steam gauge one was a newer type). They still had to have it because some exams require it.
It was, but I spend a lot of time flying near DC, so it was nice to know exactly where airspace boundaries were. A luxury, for sure.
Marine instruments/sonars as well
But the margins on that business are not exceptional. Operating income on "outdoor" segment of their business, the one that includes the epix and fenix series watches and so forth, is higher than aviation segment.
Margin isn't everything, it's a very stable business with a very wide technological and regulatory moat. Add to that fierce brand loyalty among pilots and it's a great business IMO.
Personal electronics (unless you are Apple basically) is a pretty fickle business and fortunes can change very rapidly. Aviation? Not so much, unless you chuck a Boeing.
I just always thought that given what you said — it's a good product with a giant moat — the margins would be just about infinite.
Aviation also represents recurrent revenue through subscriptions for database updates which could be on the order of $1000/yr and upwards.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
[dead]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I find sleep tracking to be really useful.
One thing that surprised me has been seeing the affects of either alcohol or caffeine on the type and quality of the sleep I get.
Even if the absolute numbers aren't 100% accurate the watch definitely spots when I've had even 1 beer during the evening.
I also find heart rate variability interesting. I can't put much spin on the absolute numbers but after either heavy exercise or if I've been unwell I can see the variability rate really drop.
Sleeping heart rate is useful because it gives you a good "resting" value. Resting heart rate will tell you if you're getting sick, before you have any real symptoms.
Yeah, I first learned that from the "HOW TO SKATE A 10K" ebook[0] that was posted here[1] a while ago. He talks about how he tracked heart rate to figure out when he was going to get sick.
I then started looking back at my historical garmin data, pretty much everytime I was sick, my HRV would drop a few days before. I then started monitoring my HRV closer and taking it easy whenever it dropped. Anecdotal data from one person here, but I found that I get sick less and when I do get sick, it's usually not as bad.
[0] https://www.howtoskate.se/
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30320639
Yeah HRV is especially good for that. Mine doesn't really expose HRV very well, I'm guessing because I'm a couple of generations back, so I have to make due. Works pretty well even so though.
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.
> 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.
Yeah, plenty times I've got up during the night multiple times, sometimes out of bed entirely wand walking about and the watch hasn't realised this at all.
Similarly I've been in bed, awake, reading, unable to sleep and the watch has thought I was sleeping.
If I'm watching a film, yes... I know if I've fallen asleep and missed half of it!
> real resting heart rate in the 60s
What makes one measurement "real" and the other one "not real", if you're mainly using it as a personal metric?
The reason that the traditional definition of resting heart rate exists is people didn't have 24/7 heart rate monitors, and doctors had to measure what they are able to measure. And they still can't measure it well, because patients often have white coat syndrome and there's not enough time during an appointment for people to relax fully.
The Apple Watch, which uses the traditional definition, has to use algorithms to guess which of its measurements counts as "resting" or not, which adds complexity. In contrast, lowest HR during sleep is a more reliable and consistent measurement.
What I mean is, you can be pretty unfit and still have a resting heart rate in the mid 30s when you are asleep. The same unfit person takes a resting heart rate just sitting in a chair doing nothing for a minute or two and it's probably not going to be anywhere near 30.
I've known people who have had resting hearts in the low 40s, but actual resting heart rate when awake is closer to 70!
I think Garmin uses resting heart rate when you are asleep as it makes it seem like you have a really low resting heart rate, where you might not. I think it's overly flattering.
I think we're talking about two different things.
You're saying that some devices are measuring "resting heart rate" when it's not using the traditional definition, and comparing that number to the traditional definition is wrong, and I would agree.
I'm saying that the traditional measurement of resting heart rate is bad for a variety of reasons, one of which is that taking it while sitting at your couch at home after 15 minutes and having a stranger take it in the weird doctor's office can have very different results. And if our smart devices consistently measure an RHR on a regular basis, that's probably a better measurement of progress.
Citation needed. I'm not aware of anyone who is unfit and has a sleeping heart rate in the mid 30s. Let's see some hard data on that.
Garmin watches calculate resting heart rate as the lowest 30 minute average.
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=F8YKCB4CJd5PG0DR9ICV3A
I guess most metrics are pointless if looked at in absolute terms and isolation, but trends might still be interesting.
Also, the flashlight and silent alarm are superb features. I use the clock too if I wake up.
I had a review copy of a separate sleep monitor band that you slept on top of from a company that I think Apple bought. Basically I thought it was mostly an interesting curiosity and (possibly) a reasonable first diagnostic step if you suspect you have sleep issues.
However, for me, the results looked reasonable most nights and for those nights when I didn't sleep well for whatever reason, I mostly knew that was the case without the device results.
[dead]
> 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.
I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for this feature alone. Works great for that.
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.
I know several people who own the Ultra, and while they are all 'outdoorsy' sort of people, none of them are even close to 'extreme'.
The market more likely is people that see themselves as "extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc", despite mostly doing half day rides at the nearest mountain biking trail, national park hikes where they spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort.
I'm hardly extreme, and the Ultra is bad enough for me. If I'm out in the cold trying to navigate, I don't want to take my gloves off. When I retire to my tent, I don't want to worry about recharging my watch.
> spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort
This should be enough to get people away from any watch without the features I mentioned - long battery life and button-operated.
[dead]
This is a bit silly. I was gifted an Ultra, and as a climber/skiier/trail runner, it serves my purposes extremely well. The maps using WorkOutdoors are far superior to what I've seen from Garmin devices (although I haven't tried) and I can always get all-day battery and charge within 30-40 min before bed. Yes, I wish the battery lasted longer but it's a tradeoff I'd always take for a more responsive and usable interface.
One gripe is that the functionality with gloves is a little annoying since you can get false positive screen taps from sleeves/cuffs. A second is that the main button is pressed when doing a pushup or in some situations while climbing, which triggers the emergency alarm mode by default (but is configurable to turn off).
Most adventures are not many days long without sleeping (for me) and this watch works pretty well.
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.
> I wonder if you can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch)
You can use Siri to start a workout
plus, no support for ANT+ is a dealbreaker.
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-...
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The title here on HN looks more like "negative $40B pivot" than the real "approximately $40B pivot", which was a fun whiplash. I was wondering was their original car GPS market really that profitable?!
Of course, the unmentioned elephant in the room here is that Apple watches don't work with Android phones (it's possible to use the "cellular" version with limited features without a phone, but you still need an iPhone to configure it), which means that ~70% of the market are up for grabs...
But the ~70% isn't in every region, it's an average over all regions.
Certain developed countries, Apple iPhone market share is 55%-65% (Norway, USA, Canada, Japan), UK is at 50% and starts dropping down in other Western European countries. South Korea is dominated by Samsung.
Even then, Apple's ~55% of the USA market isn't across all age groups - iPhone is a monopoly for teens, 87%, - see https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/10/iphone-teen-survey-2023....
Reading your comment it sounds like Wear OS [0] is not a thing. But it is... So the market for watches paired with non-iOS phones is not empty.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_OS
Sure, I didn't say Garmin had no competitors, just that the Apple Watch is limited to 30% of the smartphone market, while Garmin can address (a part of) the remaining 70% plus some of Apple's 30% as well.
The title on HN got mangled. It’s ~$40B (APPROXIMATELY $40B), not minus.
Yeah, from the title I thought they lost $40B in market cap due to the pivot.
Sure it's mangled, but it's clearly a dash (–) and not a minus (-).
It's an en dash which is supposed to denote ranges eg 2013–2024 basically meaning 'to' so it's still incorrect here even if it weren't extremely similar to - or negative and easy to confuse.
Typographically the latter character is not a minus sign, it’s an ASCII hyphen-minus, which is usually designed to look more like a hyphen than a minus sign. An actual minus sign typically looks more like a dash than like a hyphen-minus.
- hyphen-minus
− minus sign (should have equal width to +)
– en dash
Oh, but that is not a minus. That’s a hyphen-minus. A proper minus (−) is almost the same width as an en dash.
Is this sarcasm
I think just a dash.
Thread winner.
I think to 99+% of people that's not "clear".
> But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers.
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
The article further down has a diagram (and a reference to the source the Economist) which shows how automotive was 70% of their revenue in 2008 and how outdoor and fitness is ~50% today.
they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they may develop there first. is that what you mean by core?
because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning and now is outdoors and fitness.
I think you are correct here. There seems to be a misunderstanding that Garmin's primary industry was automotive navigation devices due to that brief moment in time. Well before Garmin made automotive devices they were a Avionics and Marine equipment company. They didn't shift away from automotive GPS as much as they continued on their original path of R&D into all things GPS.
My Garmin has a flashlight, maps with navigation on device, altimeter, barometer, thermometer, GPS and other satellite navigation systems, it tracks pulse, sleep, etc. It's perfect for hiking and cycling, helps you find the right route, shows the altitude profile, etc. The form factor is perfect, the watch is light and comfortable.
I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use certain apps are advantages
Moreover, they have a great variety of other options that look and feel similar to what you already have. So if you want to go further with cycling (and have a budget to do that), you can buy Garmin Edge bike computer.
Apple doesn't make this sports ecosystem
I have an Ultra that I use for hiking. But I mostly don't wear it day to day because of the charging effort.
I looked at the Apple watch but choose Garmin as it has a physical button to start and stop my run. I don't know if this is still the case but with the Apple watch I think you have to tap the touch screen. Takes too long, especially when every second counts on a 400m lap round the track :-P
I discovered this recently, but can start/stop by clicking the crown and the side button at the same time.
You can stop a workout by telling Siri "end workout".
I'd expect that you can also start one with Siri but have never actually tried, mainly because the idea of using Siri to start/stop workouts never occurred to me until reading this thread, which I happened to be doing this morning while doing a workout on my treadmill.
How accurate is that speech detection when you’re trying to hold in being sick after running a spicy interval?
Article doesn't talk about a very important point -- hold of the market. I say that Garmin is first and foremost aviation and maritime company, being pretty monopolistic there. E.g. Garmin G1000 for small airplanes costs around $30k, and G5000 for private jets -- around $500,000.
And the most important -- no one there ever talks about alternatives. Except for non-certified experimental tools -- Garmin is pretty much the only game in town.
So I believe they operate as aviation/maritime company first, while all the consumer devices like watches/outdoor trackers are like a side-business for them. Yes, that side business happens to bring in more money than the main business, but they wisely don't rely on it.
Meta: For some reason, HN replaced the tilde in the title of the article with a dash, making it seem like Garmin did a negative 40B pivot, instead of approximately. Why is that?
I used to have an Android Wear watch, when it was still called that. I thought it was really cool, a small computer on my wrist, ready to use instantly. I looked for more things I could use it for. But after a while, I noticed that I almost always preferred to take my phone out of the pocket if I needed to interact with anything. So the watch mainly got used for notifications, changing songs, and logging run workouts. My current Garmin can do all that, and the battery lasts a long time so I never have to care about it, and it has buttons. A WearOS watch is slow and unusable with less than 1 GB of RAM, there's something very wrong with that.
I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I can see why others would want that.
I'm really glad Garmin exists and makes smartwatches. The broad approach they have to market segments has created really great products that serve markets other large tech manufacturers haven't really touched. I'm sure the Apple watch is a good product but I'm uninterested in a general notification device (what I take to be the function of a smartwatch). I've used my farming for hiking, paragliding, tracking sleep, connecting to my bike trainer, etc. It tracks all my activities and is my dedicated device for anything athletic. The athletic features, good battery life, and sleep tracking have made it so that I actually wear a watch all the time. Spent $700 4 years ago and it was totally worth it. Perhaps the only caveat for Garmin is that I don't need to upgrade. It does everything I want it to without issue.
I found it interesting that they mention Tomtom as being a footnote.
In the UK, TomTom was much bigger than Garmin for in-car GPS:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=g...
It guess they didn't have the same market penetration / dominance in the US market.
Same on the continent. They were a dutch company, so i guess they didnt have time to really expand much in the US until they got killed by smartphones.
TomTom is now an app on smartphones. I still use it I can't stand Google maps and their annoying ads.
The ecosystem around these devices is amazing. The data is openly available in ideal formats for sharing.
When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
If only more of the software world would settle into this type of equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from so many other companies, it’d be a far better world for consumers and competition.
Garmin’s business model doesn’t depend on hoarding data. Hope it stays that way!
I think Garmin is a really good example of a company that benefits from Apple making the market so much bigger. I had an Apple Watch, got into running a lot, and eventually found the Watch too limiting (bad heart rate measurement, touch only UI were my main issues). I probably wouldn't have ended up a Garmin customer if I'd never got an Apple Watch though.
I do a lot of deep wilderness hiking. I have two Garmin products - an InReach Mini 2 and a Fenix 6X watch. There are a couple of big benefits over the Apple/Android ecosystem. 1) Battery life. 21 days (more with the newer models). 2) No dependence on cellular/wifi data availability (though they have been doing their damnedest to require it for syncing you watch to your Connect app). I'd love to see them merge the functionality of the two devices (provide satellite messaging direct from the watch). I have zero desire for some of the other stuff they've added (music player, payments, etc.), they're just battery drains.
I had an InReach for years, mostly just for the satellite messaging. I tried this feature recently out on the trail with my iPhone and it worked great. So, I got rid of my InReach, and now my iPhone and AllTrails subscription is all I need. Battery life hasn't been an issue for me on the trail - I usually just turn off my iPhone when I'm not using it.
I'm in the market for a watch. Turned 41, my weight has slowly crept up despite working out 4-5 times a week - not too bad, like not obese. My cholesterol is bad partially due to genetics but mostly due to diet. I also have a mild sleep apnea, especially when my weight is high. I'm focusing on dropping weight this year and would love to start tracking sleep, recovery, apnea, and any heart issues before/as they happen. I do not want another screen though and though I've looked at the Apple watch multiple times, I've not actually purchased it yet.
I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues at all unfortunately
It will alert you if your heart rate goes above a certain limit (that you've set) when you're not exercising. It tracks sleep too, but I don't know about sleep apnea signals. It does track pulse ox, so a low sleep quality report and low pulse ox might indicate sleep apnea? idk
I have an older relative who uses their Venu3 to take their own ECG and combine that with a Garmin Index BPM (~$150) to help monitor their heart function. The ECG is simple to use on the watch and the BPM syncs to Garmin Connect so that all that data is stored daily for their cardiac specialist to review when they go in for appointments. They had a diagnosis of A-Fib a while back that explained all their decrease in energy levels and since beginning treatment for it they have had no further issues. Now they have the ability to sit and take an ECG to transmit to their cardiologist if they start feeling bad. For them it provides peace of mind that their meds are working as designed. They regularly get in 5k - 10k steps daily which is pretty great for someone making a strong run at 90 y.o.
I don't think Garmin has a device that is able to track or identify sleep anea events but would not be surprised to see that functionality appear in the near future on some product.
I have an Instinct 2 Solar and it has been great for me. I told other relatives about it and they have picked their own models to suit their lifestyles.
I think that is Garmin's strength, the wide variety of fitness devices suited for almost any activity or personality.
I was in the same boat with genetics and cholesterol. It is all the diet. At some point I realized I had to stop eating cheese completely. No pizza, no nachos, no tacos with cheese. I can stay in good shape with a once a week cheat night but I don't have the genetics to deal with the cholesterol like that.
It sucked at first but the things I do enjoy now, I enjoy them just as much.
Consuming cholesterol, like in cheese, has little effect on serum cholesterol levels. Almost all of the cholesterol in your body is endogenously produced.
Some models have an ECG monitoring app in some countries.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/health-scienc...
one thing my first garmin from 2016 did for me was to make me more active, because its activity nags with minimum-enforced active time ensured that I wouldn't just keep sitting all day. Their newer models track hrv and offer ecg in some models/countries to help with heart health tracking.
I actually really like the fact that my Garmin Instinct is not really a smart watch, it makes connecting it to your phone optional. Mine has never connected to a phone because I don't like to run Google's spyware on my phone. Yet, I can use most of it's functions I care about (time & date, GPS, moon & sun, compass, steps, heart rate, temperature, sports-specific stuff) without giving up my soul to Big Tech.
There's a lesson to be learned here for small bootstrapped SaaS founders. You can still succeed (as a lifestyle business) even when Big Tech has a competing product. Who would pay for email when Gmail is free? And yet FastMail does well. There are many, many, smaller companies that may not be VC-scale, and yet manage to build profitable, sustainable, businesses on top of a good niche product, even when competing against VC funded giants.
I think the article brings up a great point about how they pivoted. So many companies start out strong then resort to "the original" to try and get sympathy? Nostalgia? Idk who falls for that or why. Or they sell out to someone that'll gut them. These guys knew that their first success wasn't a GPS locator. It was a PNT device that met an unserved market. In that regard they haven't pivoted at all. I respect that immensely.
As a somewhat proud owner of an Apple watch, I end up using my older lo-fi smart watch for long rides I do on cycle (anything 100+) cause its battery lasts just so much more. I bought it when I did not have enough money to shell out for either an Apple Watch and did not even know what a Garmin was, but it does the job reasonably well though its GPS is a bit poor but I did last throughout the 12 hours I did my my BRM in July (a 208KM ride).
Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently people are being arrested for using it in my country.
I developed a proof of concept for a Garmin Watch (I forget which model, this was 6 years ago roughly), and it was interesting, they have their own programming language called MonkeyC, it wasn't complicated to get into, and I had a demo in under a week or two. I based my code off existing sample code, and made it do what was needed for demo purposes.
Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch, I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
Love my Forerunner. I have zero interest in general-purpose smart watches but for Marathon training a fitness watch that I only use for tracking runs and workouts is a godsend.
Kinda hate mine, now. My Forerunner 55 can't find a good GSP fix in less than one hour, even in wide open skies. And I've returned it so they sent me a new one, which has the exact same problem.
The reason is that they want me to regularly connect the watch to their app/software (which requires an account) to update AGPS files. And there's no workaround.
I'd just like to be able to use the watch I bought, without having it connect it to Garmin servers every now and then. Why isn't it possible?
We'll have to see over the next couple years how this pans out; early in 2024 they changed their Connect app to be significantly less usable, angering their core use base with many vowing to move to competitors. While some is handwaving, others are definitely not coming back due to how Garmin has handled it. The Connect app was a big part of their watches' popularity.
For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+ reviews, so not an insignificant number
I recently got into using the connect app. What were some notable changes that made the app less usable and upset their core user base?
Another user said they may have since improved the changes, so I'll have to check it out again. But originally the main interface was a list-style of recent or relevant stats shown, clicking would bring you to more in-depth stats. Most of the time all you needed was the main screen. They swapped that out for a grid of small widgets that showed less data, and you could only choose a few. Clicking would bring you to a stats screen but with less info than before, and often requiring clicking even deeper to find common items.
So lack of customization, and lots of deep-navigation. Garmin's initial action was silence, eventually they said to get over it its not going back. Apparently it got poor feedback in Beta too, so this was just a change they decided chug through with despite a very large outcry on their forums.
Sorry to pick on this detail, but I don't understand why TFA uses 2008 as year of Google Maps release. My memory (and Wikipedia) say 2005. I think I figured it out : in October 2009 Google maps introduced turn by turn directions.
One of Garmin's big old (probably still made in small numbers though) product lines were stand alone turn by turn GPS units you'd attach to your windshield or dash so when Google Maps introduced turn by turn that's when it became relevant as a major competitor to that product line and a major threat to Garmin.
A lot of people are not aware of the fact that there were mobile apps before the iPhone. First time I used gmaps was on a j2me platform.
I used to own one Garmin GPS and replaced it with my cellphone plus a mount. Updating the map was a major pain point.
Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3 is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices. Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
I just got my first Garmin Watch (Venu 3) in December for Xmas. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm happy to see the company knows how to survive because my last few smart watches didn't fare so well, not exactly from market changes, but from acquisitions.
I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit.
I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Closing_of_Pebb...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Rebble
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit#Google's_acquisition
The issues I was having with my Versa 3:
Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did that and did the whole setup process again which included upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
I use a Garmin edge 830 for cycling and it feels like one of those devices where software engineers hated every minute developing the GUI for it. I can only imagine that the reason garmin is profitable is because they keep the same cheap hardware and custom OS they developed 10, 20 years ago for generations and just do occasional GUI refreshments. Definitely going to switch to an alternative for my next one.
I still use an Edge 130 because its lack of graphics abilities constrains the UI to something reasonable. All I want it to do is throw the time/speed/distance/pulse in my face. In fact if Garmin made an Edge-like product that was only a head unit for a smart watch, didn't have its own gps radios, that would be ideal for me.
Slightly offtopic but my girlfriend's smartwatch is falling apart and can't stand it anymore. Her birthday is coming soon and was thinking about a Garmin smartwatch. She runs a lot, gym almost everyday. Loves tracking fitness data and workouts but she's petite. Anyone with good recs on what to check?
forerunner 265 - I've used it for running triathlons and marathons and have had no issues. Garmin has great automated training plans where you can upload various races you're preparing for and Garmin will schedule your runs so that you can meet your time goals. Also highly recommend the vibrating metronome feature to improve your cadence. This feature has dramatically reduced the number of injuries I get. I don't use it to track gym workouts (e.g. lifting). There is a feature for that but I haven't tried it. If you want to really nerd out on your running the HRM Pro Plus provides amazing running dynamics information which again is very helpful for improving running form and reducing injuries.
For women you may want to look at the forerunner 265S which is identical to the forerunner 265 but is slightly smaller. The HRM-fit I believe gives the same data as the HRM Pro Plus but is designed to fit under a sports bra
If it's just running and gym she does, basically any watch will work capability-wise. Some specific lines have extra features geared towards other sports like diving, golf, etc. Other than that it will really come down to budget and aesthetic preferences. I would suggest just going on the website and having a look. The size of each model is also listed which is probably relevant if she is petite - some of them are pretty chunky. Forerunner and Vívoactive lines are both pretty suitable I would think.
I'm using a Garmin Forerunner 55 -- it has a 2-week battery life, and is great for regular running.
Forerunner-series sounds like a perfect fit, take a look at Forerunner 265
Depends on what your budget is, if there's any additional features she wants, and how frequently she's OK charging it. Basically every Garmin watch will cover those initial use cases.
I would rather ask about her own wishes and thoughts (about watches), because it's can also be about some style or own preferences
Have also a look on Garmin 7s
Try something like a Forerunner 265S. When you see an "S" suffix on model numbers that indicates it's a "small" size variant specifically designed for petite wearers.
To be honest, that watch line-up with dozens of watches looks a bit like Nokia in 2007.
I have no deeper analysis than that, other than that I remember how proud they were to be able to launch 2 phones per month.
I am a Garmin user myself, but i have a basic $150 ForeRunner 45. I love it and use it every day, because it has all the features and no touch screen.
I’m using a Garmin for bike navigation on long trips (Edge Explore 2). It works but all the software feels old and brittle. Syncing will fail frequently.
Are the watches different?
A nice story similar to Nokia/Kodak/Netscape but with a happy ending.
> nice story similar to Nokia/Kodak/Netscape
Kodak in particular killed its novel R&D to protect its cash cow, instead of investing in R&D. So pretty much the opposite of Garmin.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Garmin.
I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS. I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my daily driver (lol?).
I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone service for navigation on this trip.
Although the question often comes up: why not just use your phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
--------
Pros:
- You don't need a cellular connection for map data. -- Counter Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is something extra that you need to remember to do.
- You don't need to waste your cellular data -- Counter Point: Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
- A corporation isn't tracking your every move -- Counter Point: Most people don't seem to care about this.
- Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
- Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get one that is as large as a tablet -- Counter Point: you could probably use a tablet and google maps
- Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
- A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as long as you can update the maps.
- Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of these in the trunk of your car as a back up
- Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
- I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
Neutral
- The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all GPSes including apple maps and google maps
Cons
- And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer feature
Fellow user of a physical Garmin car navigation GPS. The one I use is my dad's old Nuvi from about 2015.
In addition to several of the pros you listed, I'd add a few more:
- Stupid-simple interface. I was a Google Maps user for a while, and I was not a fan of various popups (from "Welcome to <state name>" to "Is this speed trap still here?"). I'm piloting a several-thousand-pound hunk of metal at highway speeds, do NOT interrupt me!
- Unchanging interface. I'd get used to the way Google Maps behaved, and then an update would change something and break muscle memory. Whereas my 2015 Garmin isn't getting updated with unnecessary animations and pointless button re-arranging. When updating maps, the firmware update is a separate download. Since it's not Internet-connected, I don't care if I'm running "outdated" software. As long as it still gives directions, that's all I want.
- It's not my phone. I don't want my text messages coming up across the top of the screen while I'm trying to read the next turn on my route. I don't want anything on the screen that's not directly related to navigation.
It's a great example of KISS in a hardware product. It does GPS navigation. It is literally incapable of distracting you with anything else. I consider that a killer feature.
I agree with the interface. It only does one thing and it does it really well: it tells you how to drive somewhere.
I also never considered the fact that the UI won't change randomly to be a feature lol.
In the latest model you can hook it up to the internet so when you get home it auto updates itself. You can also hook it up to your phone so text messages and Slack notifications pop up on the side of the screen. I would imagine these are features you would not want to use.
>> Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
They make versions that get the traffic data over FM radio, you don't need a phone with those. For example https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1240929.
That's true, I was considering mentioning that but I wasn't sure if that feature is still enabled in the latest version. It is also not really dependable because you need to be in the right place in order to get the data, or at least that was my perception when using older GPS models.
One has to wonder about this kind of turnaround that happened simultaneously with Blackberry's corporate implosion which were mostly due to the same exogenous factors.
I was expecting to see a mention of Garmin acquiring Dynastream Innovations, inventor of the ultra-low power (ULP) technology ANT Wireless protocol
Garmin Watch 30 days battery life
Fitbit 5-7 days
Apple 1 day
I don't know if their other product lines are better but the software and user experience of their Edge 1040 cycling computer is atrocious. It has every feature you could think of and some you couldn't but I swear it was designed by someone who has never ridden a bike.
Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
I remember using a Garmin Edge 1000 to navigate through a city I don't know. I could see the street I should be on running parallel to where I was but couldn't find the correct turn to take me there.
Then the Garmin popped a big modal dialogue over the top of the map to tell me I was on the wrong street. Worse still a few spots of rain meant the screen locked and I couldn't dismiss the modal.
I came to the same conclusion, that the UI wasn't designed by some one that rode a bike.
I have to say they've got better over time though. I've had a Garmin 530 for a few years and an Epix 2 watch that I like much better. I love that the Epix can be operated with just the buttons.
The hardware is great. The software has always been mediocre at best.
Agreed. I have 1040 as well and it serves me super well, largely because of its battery life (1 recharge on 7day bikepacking trip of ~6hr/day usage), consistency (no disconnects with other data points) and very solid gps (multi band enabled, no issues in forests etc)
UI takes a lot of time to get used to and even then there are many things I hate
There's a form to report map issues. I've seen a missing or backwards graph edge wreak havoc like that before.
I have been looking around on a number of separate occasions for reimplementation of Garmin connect. Sadly i haven’t found anything yet.
As great as the hardware is the app is frankly atrocious and doesn’t inspire confidence with a company that is storing a lot of very sensitive personal information.
I wonder what percentage of their current sales are their inReach satellite phone. It seems like almost every hiker has one.
The title made me think this was about a 'negative 40B pivot', when it actually means an 'approximately 40B pivot'.
Does hacker news not support Tildes or what?
I love my garmin, it just feels like the perfect fit for me. I have zero interest in the Apple Watch, mainly because I don’t want yet another device bombarding me with notifications. Plus, the Apple Watch just doesn’t seem like something I’d be comfortable getting sweaty and slathered in sunscreen every day. The rubber and somewhat industrial design of the Garmin feels like it's just made for running, not for juggling texts or emails mid-workout.
I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by month.
Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the iPhone’s GPS was unreliable—it added zigzags to my routes, inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches, and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
So I’ve had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using colored ranges—it’s what I used to pace myself during races. For example, I’d aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11 for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That’s when I hit an inflection point: I couldn’t improve further without serious training plans.
I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn’t run enough hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated—my half marathon slowed to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn’t improve. I also psyched myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or over-fatigued on race days.
Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap? Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments. Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it—and ironically, I've just started improving again.
I felt personally trolled when he said Google Maps launched after the iPhone lol.
If you’re not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005 a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-new technology “AJAX”).
Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
The original iPhone's maps app was Google Maps.
Meanwhile the Garmin UX is godawful with watch faces that crash and a deep forest of menus that requires you to push through mountains of youtube videos to understand. There are 2-4 ways to perform any function. Entire menu screens might be useless, but you can't delete any. The day Apple improves the Apple Watch Ultra battery life is the day I switch from Fenix and never look back.
Garmin recently entered the ballistic chronograph market with their Xero - it's the closest thing to actual magic I've experienced with a piece of technology. Chronographs are notoriously finicky, since you are trying to accurately measure the speed of a bullet in an uncontrolled environment.
Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping and misaligning the radar in the process.
Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better form factor, better battery life, superior app integration, impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price, which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the combined used prices of all the various chronographs this replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
0 - https://www.caldwellshooting.com/range-gear/chronographs-and...
1 - https://magnetospeed.com/v3-ballistic-chronograph
2 - https://mylabradar.com/product/chronograph/
3 - https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/771164
This is where Garmin shines - the niches.
They're also the Cadillac of dog tracking and training collars.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/outdoor-recreation/sporting-d...
I’ve wanted a Garmin for running but they are so expensive. I just buy a cheap old version of the Apple Watch for $30 on eBay and it works great. The crappy battery life doesn’t matter because the maximum length of my run is 1.5 hours.
Another example of a tech company that would not exist without the military
Because the military invented GPS?
The military (sort of) invented the Internet too, so no tech company would exist without the military.
I picked up an Epix Pro during the holiday sales. Aware that they'd had a data breach, I was dismayed to find there is no way to get the data off it without using an app and that app won't even start without an account. Despite the settings, wouldn't show up as a storage device when connected (on Linux).
I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
The Epix watches seem to have a setting to switch the watch to Mass Storage USB mode - see https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-E5C62F3F-DCE3-4...
Did you change this setting on the watch?
I did enable that setting. But it still didn't work for me. I remember seeing it was showing up and tried various tools related to MTP but none of them were able to access the files.
By and large Garmin devices can be accessed directly from a Linux system. I have a FR 965 and it connects just fine.
But in typical Garmin fashion, there may be a hard to find setting to enable this. My watch asks if I want to connect to a computer when I plug in the cable.
Way to expensive watches. Full stop
Garmin is expensive? Maybe, but I got my Vivoactive 5 for $190. For a watch that I need to charge every 7-10 days (vs every day like it is for many other brands) it's a good value, imo.
There are various models and generations of their watches at every price point. Them having more expensive options doesn't mean they don't have less expensive options as well.
I think everyone should be reminded that a few years ago Garmin let someone take down their whole network (globally) and then paid the ransom after a few days [1]. In my opinion, the company does not deserve your money.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/garma...