Apple - Watch Series 5
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Reddit Reviews:
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Based on 1 year's data from Jan 26, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
94
27
"It’s well known that Apple has the best optical hr in the business and has since the series 4."
"have a ridiculously good optical HR sensor (it parallels my chest HR belt even during weight lifting HR spikes.. it's *that* good!)"
"The later AW is best in class for non chest straps. ... For daily fitness, Apple Watch is just better IMO. ... It being the most accurate heart rate tracker not a chest strap makes it the best fitness tracker to me. ... Maybe I should say it's the best workout recorder because it records the most accurate heart rate data. ... I just really like the AW for every day fitness more so than what Coros or Garmin can provide. ... Executing a training plan I've set out for myself and recording the results. Results being the duration and heart rate data during the planned workouts. I then upload that data to Training Peaks and use Training Peaks to keep up with my training load over time. So the every day fitness part is executing and recording my workouts. ... Apple Watch is data recording. Together they are tracking my fitness."
100
61
"It’s also pretty well established that AW has the best motion tracking which shows up when you use the swim feature for distance. ... In swimming, it’s not even close. 100% of garmins worn during our pool swims are incorrect, regardless of swimmer level. ... Every single Garmin incorrectly reported swim distance vs manual counting. Freestyle 4000m in 25m pool."
"even detected kickboard sets, where on a Coros or Garmin those don’t register at all."
"I had an Apple Watch, replaced it with a garmin forerunner for 1 month it was the worst! So inaccurate and when I’d swim in pools it would so often double count my lengths… I went back to Apple Watch"
60
7
"I unlock my computer and phone with it."
"the fact that they integrate to the Apple Watch simply cannot be understated for me, I couldn’t go back to Garmin now, it is just so much part of my life now. ... Tracking weightlifting workouts, nutrition and other stuff, analysis of the data, send messages to HomePod, changing NC automatically, sending emails …."
"works very well as an iPhone extension ... your iPhone is in your pocket or nearby and the phone rings. Who cares, because you can take/make calls on your watch! ... Stuff like that is great."
9
1
"The watch definitely helps me. ... It tracks your progress each day (standing hours, exercise minutes, and active calories). ... You configure goals for yourself and the watch will periodically remind you. ... And if you don't make your goal, you have it forever marked against you on the calendar. ... This kind of pushes me to do the bare minimum to close my rings every day I can, lol. ... I definitely exercised more today than I wanted to (and more than I would have if I didn't have the watch) just to get the damn move ring closed. ... It works for me."
"pairing with iOS. ... If you like to complete your circles, get awards etc then yea the AW integration with Health and Fitness is unbeatable"
"The whole rings system is a good daily motivator and social aspect pushes one to achieve daily/weekly/monthly goals."
39
0
"Being able to run with my Watch only connected to cellular service is soooo freeing. ... I have music and podcasts available to keep me entertained and getting audio cues from Runna for my running plan is just perfection."
"especially being able to go out running with just the watch and headphones."
"With the cellular plan on my watch I don’t bring my phone with me."
Disliked most:
54
360
"Yeah the battery life on Apple Watch is pathetic. ... Like I have the 4G Apple watch which I wear when I am out of town just in case my iphone dies or gets broken and I am in an emergency. That happened to me a few months back. I had my watch and only my watch. I had 4G turned on for emergency services and GPS turned on so I can find my way home. Convienent and life saving right? Except the stupid thing died after an hour and after that I was stuck with no communication abilities at all in the middle of the night wandering the streets. What good is having all of those capabilities if they are just going to die on you after 10 minutes? ... other than as an emergency backup for my phone (which I have now proven is a joke in a real life emergency)"
"If I record for more than 14 minutes it will freeze and battery is already almost dead. This is at night night by the way so temperature isn't high."
"the battery now wears out very quickly - after about 1 hour of usage."
36
109
"sleep is a disaster ... I was watching TV and I was already asleep ... when I go to the bathroom in the evening, the venu didn't even notice that I was sleeping, or didn't even recognize that I went to the bathroom."
"Sleep tracking is great if you are an amazing sleeper who doesn’t have interrupted sleep or gets up in the night. I get up to pray and when I go back it doesn’t pick up that sleep again. It is an issue because sleep tracking was a major reason for me buying a fitness tracker."
"I also found the sleep tracking on the GW6 to be much more reliable. ... I have small kids so I wake up every now and then during the night and on the Garmin - it's so frustrating to be told in the morning that I had a great night of sleep with only 10 mins of time awake when I spent 40 mins trying to get my 2yo to fall back asleep."
3
135
"It misses key info and HR was clearly elevated compared to baseline even on the Ultra, but it doesn't count that. So a night of drinking and shit sleep, still give you a 95 score! ... But the vitals aren’t accounted by the sleep score as far as I can tell and my HR was higher though not abnormally high by Apple Watch standard but this could be because of sampling it does compared to the Garmin ... both HR and RR were elevated but not enough for Apple to flag but the sleep score doesn’t include those metrics, which I really think they should. ... The sleep scores doesn’t take into account vitals."
"Rep Counting, Diagram and Videos of Workouts, Lactate Threshold (even if not super accurate), and GPS Heatmaps for Team Sports are all super great and simply not present on AW."
"its actually pretty wild how much apple watch will overstate your calories burned, even after a clean on the sensor ... some workouts where the whoop tells me i burned 600 calories, watch tells me i did 900 calories. ... That is a significant difference, especially when you are trying to plan out nutrition goals/fitness goals. ... sometimes when i'm doing a light lift, apple watch will tell me i'm burning 300 - 400 calories, and I'm barley breaking a sweat, but then whoop will say i only burned around 120-150 calories during that session ... to me something just seems suspiciously off with how apple calculates BMR. ... In general if you are looking to lose weight/build fitness, a more conservative approach to what whoop is offering me probably makes more sense."
0
22
"The screen slowly died away ... eventually, the entire watch’s system died after a few months of swimming."
"That was a constant issue for me training in the UK, and I once missed the start of a race because I accidentally started recording a walk and couldn’t get my Apple Watch to stop that and start a run in time because the screen was wet."
"If you are in long sleeves in the rain, you need to lock the touchscreen to prevent accidental touches. But that prevents you from using the touchscreen without holding to unlock for a few seconds. So if you are doing intervals, it can be hard to end the interval quickly."
8
23
"notifications from my phone which was such a big distraction."
"hated feeling like my phone was strapped to me (disabling all notifications did not work!!)"
"I also hated having notifications and apps and stuff on my wrist. ... It was cool at first and then it was annoying and distracting. ... My big motivation away from Apple Watch was this."
Ace_Fun 1.0Used to have a watch series 2. That one sucked. Then went to a apple series 5. That one fell into a lake and seeing as the ground in the middle was over 10m, i doubt it survived Switched to a Garmin instinct 2 tactical solar about 3 years ago. I love not plugging it back to charge everyday (with gps its been lasting a solid 15-20 days a charge) Great with sports especially skiing (it uses about 3 different satelite technologies so i never lose connection and it detects skiing / lifts to get back up) I can control music from the watch - bit finnicky with the buttons but eh it is what it is I got 50% ish off through work so that was a bonus I do miss being able to send custom messages from it and controlling songs on spotify.... I also miss having the touchscreen, but this watch has remained on my wrist even diving hard into water from cliffs About 18 months after switching I binned my iphone 9 and got a google pixel so yeah, i never would turn back to apple products.... Depends on what you want to be honest. Just know, that most of these watches can survive in water for a few hours to a couple days, so swimming/diving in it isn't a problem but thats just my opinion Hope I helped
Adventurous-Yam-735 1.0I have a 5 that the battery doesn’t even last my workday. I can’t decide if I should get the 10 or 11. Either way, big upgrade for me.
a_train642 1.0It was a series 5. So basically no comparison
ausstieglinks 1.0I wore nothing from age 15 to when I got an Apple Watch Series 5. I wore it all the time for a couple years. Slowly a lot of apps for it which I liked (mfa, Google Maps) and it started to feel less useful to me. A friend of mine showed me what mechanical watches were (I thought they were all quartz) and I watches some watch repair videos and realized I loved the engineering involved. After that I picked up my first automatic, a 40mm blue prx. After wearing that for a year and getting a couple other watches in the meantime I realized I wasn’t wearing my Apple Watch at all I gave it to my sister for her to use working out. Since then, I’ve got a few really nice watches for me and wouldn’t ever go back outside of exercise tracking/music/phone. It would be nice to go for a run with only AirPods and an Apple Watch. I actually love not having the Apple Watch, I didn’t realize how annoying it was. It’s also less socially and professionally awkward to check a normal watch than it is to check a mini cellphone
awdonoho 1.0I also lift kettlebells and shed both my Watch and Oura ring during workouts in favor of my phone and a Polar H10 strap. I own both an AW5 and an AWU3. The AW5 is stylish and worn daily in polite company. The AWU3 is used for walks and sleep tracking. We also hike in parks but I haven’t yet used it in the wild. We used to be divers. Perhaps I’ll use it again in that context. The big screen is nice. The AW11 is likely sufficient for most people.
Barkley2019 1.0Let me preface this by saying that I already know that this is stupid, lol. I have 2 AW's, a 5 series, and a 6SE. They both only last for about 2hrs or so when I use them during my runs to listen to music. If i plan to run for about 3hrs, I take the 2nd watch with me and throw it on when the first watch dies.
bob-the-licious 1.0I would not know tbh. Personally I have an AW 5 that I put on theatre and DND mode. Does the trick.
Captaincadet 1.0I am also an Ultra 3 wearer (having a series 5) and a massive cyclist. I have the bike computer doing all my cycling and everything is exported to HealthKit. I do like that portability and how interoperable it is. However the default apps ain’t amazing for bard core work outs and it does leave a lot to be desired. I wish Apple focused on that more
csmobro 1.0My wife’s series 9 has a battery health of 84% and it barely makes it through the day. Usually it dies in the evening if she’s still at work. It’s one of the major reasons I got an AWU2. My series 2, 5 and 8 would all be fine for the first year or so, and then they’d struggle to make it thought the day. Having to charge every single day absolutely destroys the battery.
discoveringnature12 1.0Hey everyone, I’ve been using an Apple Watch Series 5 for a while now and I’m thinking about upgrading. I’m torn between getting the Series 11 now or holding out for the Series 12 in case it comes with some big new features. For those of you who follow Apple Watch releases closely, do you think it’s worth upgrading to the 11 right now, or would it be smarter to wait for the 12? I mostly use my watch for looking at the temperature, UV index, tracking my workouts and occasionally setting timers. I would love if the Siri support was better on the Apple watch.
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