Apple - Watch Series 8

I use an AW 8, 41 mm. I either charge it to full before bed & then for 15 min in morning or vice versa. Battery for me took a big hit with OS 11. Personally I don't like AW & I'm thinking of getting the basic Garmin 55 on Black Friday. Same griefs as others. Using a touchscreen is such a pain for segments & for fartleks that I've stopped doing them. Double tap registers 50% of time when out of breath & running hard. Especially bad with sweaty fingers or in winter when I have to take finger out of mitten. I've started to program workouts in so I don't have to record segments, but programming workouts is tedious. Every race I've run has shown to be short on my AW. I've found I don't use/need/want 85% of the features like oxygen, ECG, notifications, fall detection (set it off when I bang my fist on table at work, lol).

Apple is lacking coming from someone who uses apple products. I’d take a look at Fitbit or Garmin products, emphasis on the Garmin. They can get quite expensive but I think it would be worth it if you’re using it consistently. If you want an apple watch that’s good for working out, i’d look at the apple watch ultra 2, which is pricey but it’s more equipped for that kind of thing. The biggest issue i have with apple watches is the battery life, they die so fast. the ultra 2 i think has a better battery life but i have the 8 and i know people with the 9 and you can’t really track say a marathon on those because they just die (i’m not sure if you’re gonna run a marathon but im just saying, the battery life isn’t there).

I can't really compare, but figured I’d chime in anyway. For heart rate tracking, nothing beats a chest strap. I’m using an AW 8, but the battery life drives me crazy (I have to charge it every morning). So I’m probably switching to Garmin next. The only thing that bugs me there is having to switch to Spotify :( And honestly, it’s just more convenient when all your devices (phone, laptop, watch) are from the same brand. I’m not a serious athlete though, no marathons or triathlons in my life.

Hi! Yes, I swim with my Apple Watch and use it for all my workouts. However, I’m currently considering switching to Garmin for the longer battery life. In general, I’d say Apple Watches are very popular among people who aren’t super serious about training but still work out regularly.

I don’t really get the recommendation not to swim with the Apple Watch either. I used to swim with my old Series 4 for a year or two, before the battery got completely trashed. Now I’ve been swimming with the Series 8 for two years, and it’s been absolutely fine. I am considering switching to a Garmin for better battery life, but I hate the idea of having to give up Apple Music. Not that I need it for swimming (I swim with MP3), but if I ever get back into running, I’d definitely want to run with music on my watch.

I’ve been running with Apple Watch (currently aw 8) for about 5 years ~100km/wk. I used to use Stryd but I became aware that the values are incredibly inaccurate, every different type of shoe has to be recalibrated. I switched to the WorkOutDoors app it’s amazing. I use a polar hr monitor. I consider it superior to my old garmin watches of the past, even with the more frequent charging.

absolutely keep using your apple watch, i have to say i got tired of the battery life and couldn’t take it on longer distance swims as it just would run out of battery. I upgraded to a garmin FR 165 as i OW + pool swim, cycle and occasionally run a 5k - i absolutely adore it and think its so much better than my apple watch. Had i of slightly further looked into i probably would have gone for a different model of the FRs, just because you can’t use a chest strap when swimming but if that’s not your bag then the 165 is not as expensive and just a really good watch. I charge it maybe every 7-10 days depending on how many activities i’ve done in that week! Edited to say that maybe the garmin swim2 would work best for you as you said you just want to swim with it

I run 70-80mi/week using an S8 for marathon training. It’s mostly fine but the lack of lap button for intervals is maddening especially if you’re wearing gloves or it’s raining. Battery can be annoying, mines on deaths door around 7pm if I sleep, do a long run (2h+), and work a full day without charging but it’s easy enough to plop it on the charger after my run. I’m planning to upgrade to an ultra to fix the above issues.

I have no idea why you’re being told not to use your Apple Watch. Plenty of people do, and since you already have one it’s the obvious place to start. If you use it and after a while feel like you’re missing something, then look at other options at that time.

There’s no such thing as a totally waterproof watch, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard anybody say theirs got damaged by swimming with it. Apple say > Apple Watch Series 8 has a water resistance rating of 50 metres under ISO standard 22810:2010. This means that it may be used for shallow-water activities like swimming in a pool or ocean. The watch has pool swim and open water swim modes, and Apple have a page on their site dedicated to how to use it for a swim. And you would find all this in less than a minute if you just googled it. I mean, >.

I have a Apple Watch Series 8 and it works fine for counting the laps, the distance of each stroke, and even the distance of kickboard

Other than the Fennix 7, nothing Garmin has compares with the sensor quality Apple has in the latest models. It was around the 8 that Apple surpassed Garmin with fitness tracking accuracy and with the Ultra and 19 or 10 they surpassed it with location accuracy as well. Garmin will still win with battery life and I’ll rather keep my watch for the QOL benefits, for me it’s mainly unlocking my Mac, the odd payment and some other health metrics that I specifically use the watch for. I’ll answer a call if I’m too lazy to walk back to my phone. The eSIM support is handy for me to be able to leave my phone at home without the safety hit of being completely offline. I have tested the fall detection already, obviously not intentionally, not sure if Garmin has something like that, but it would the also require a phone to be of any real use in an emergency. I’ll be upgrading my ultra next year if the rumoured Blood pressure and sugar monitoring come out. I am hypertensive so that would be very useful to track if it gets worse

I use my Apple series 8 watch when I swim to count laps and distance. I upload post swim to Strava.

I’ve been using my Series 8 Apple Watch for swimming. I use the Apple workout app and up load my swim activities to Strava.

I had an Apple Watch Series 8. Jut made the switch to a Garmin Forerunner 265. Can’t wait to use it next week!! 😃

Just to add to this: AW8 owner non cellular. Doing 70mi a week during training and just did the Chicago marathon. Using a chest strap for a more accurate HR read. During said marathon never lost gps connection or Bluetooth connection. For me running without a phone is paramount so garmin is a no-go atm because Apple Music doesn’t work (I know it’s apple fault, but still…). Garmin will have more stats available at a glance for runners but with some external help (intervals.icu or runalyze) you can have them too. I am not interested in having a training plan so I can’t comment on that. My charging routine is 15minutes when I eat breakfast in the morning and 15 minutes when I shower in the evening. I also do a lot of hiking and if you don’t want to put it on power-save mode maybe you need to top it up with a power bank when you eat your lunch or something if you do a whole day hike. I also don’t like the bulk of a garmin. In fact I have the small AW so that it doesn’t bother me too much when I sleep but that’s me.

I don’t have the 10 but have used a few different Apple Watches since I started swimming. This one’s an 8. It counts laps and works well in the ocean and in lakes. I haven’t had a Garmin to compare but like my Apple Watch. Just a disclaimer it’s designed to be worn all the time.

I did a 10 hour bike ride with gps on the AW series 8 with low power mode

AW7(or 8?) user and wear it nearly 24/7 most days. Usually charge 15-20 while getting work ready and 30 min before bed while winding down. Can survive on several 15-20 min charges in middle of the day if I forget. Running with it is great, no issues doing 50-60 mpw. Non-cell so I also have my phone (annoying). Most annoying is STRAVA giving bad GPS distance/time at least 2-3 times per month.

I have swam quite a bit with both the garmin 965 and apple watches (3,5, and 8). They are both fantastic at casual lap tracking/ fitness. If you just want a good number both will give it to you. Apple watches however are so far ahead of anything else in swim tracking. It very accurately tracks laps and was spot on if not <50yd off for hundreds of 2h practices. The garmin however misses a lap about every 1000yd (especially if it has breaks) Apple watch also picked up what stroke i was doing 90% of the time and now detects kickboard laps (although i have not used an apple watch while that was available) The splits are also more reliable than garmin.

As someone who had every single Apple Watch between the series 3 and the Ultra 1....it's not a real sports watch, don't try to make it one. Get the best Garmin watch you can. It's the gold standard among runners and cyclists and its compatibility with a wide variety of apps, sensors, and devices is unparalleled.

Apple Watch any series.

I’ve had mine 4 years now. You can dive with it, swim, walk in the desert- only issue is actually the short battery life. You must charge daily.

Apple and Garmin are both known to be decent for pool swimming (you need to not make random arm movements). Garmin is a tiny bit better for GPS but open water tends to throw it a bit still. General fitness aren't too different Garmin is way cheaper and better battery Apple has better sleep tracking and notifications

For longer runs battery becomes critical. I have the GPS+WiFi version A 30 minute run with music (from the watch, phone at home) and tracking is around 25% battery. For longer runs I think I’d have to go for the Ultra.

Every single time. Calories, yards, time are pretty much all I use/ need

It didn’t always; the enhancement came a couple years ago.

I have an Apple Watch with LTE. I do receive calls while I’m swimming, though I must say I don’t ever take them!

I’ve been using it for swimming over the last six years, about 300 times a year, and it works well for me. I can count on one hand the number of times that it has glitched.

I’ve used a Garmin Fenix, Garmin Swim 2, and Apple Watch for swimming and by far the garmins were superior. My Apple Watch would die after about half an hour in open water, regardless of water temp, and was always inaccurate with my laps and interval times in the pool. The swim 2 and fenix work much better.

For a time i wore an apple watch with cell service and i got all my notifications as usual while doing a swim workout

I never use the autorest feature on garmin and my splits are spot on. I ditched the apple watch because there was no manual lap reset option.

IMHO Apple does fitness tracking better than Garmin. Esp. sleep tracking is more accurate, plus you get ECG on most Apple Watches. In the US, blood oxygen tracking is currently disabled for new Apple Watches. Btw. I am wearing both, Garmin and Apple (I like redundancy for marathons, plus my Apple Watch has LTE, while my Forerunner does not)

I’ve used an Apple Watch for a few years now. One of the selling points at the time was that it could (attempt to) track heart rate while swimming which not all garmins could at the time. It’s also fairly good at detecting swim strokes and detailing your workout in blocks. All you have to do is set the swimming pool length. It detects when you turn, whether flip turn or touch and go, and takes that as one full length. It can try to approximate fractional distances or open water swims with GPS, but I’ve gotten some “creative” routes recorded with just GPS data. Newer watches may be better. Also I went extra and got the cellular watch so that I could take just the watch while cycling and leave the phone at home. There are plenty of cellular watches available but this in conjunction with good swim features sold me. Not sure if attaching the cell device to your android is possible though. Cell-less versions should work just fine with an iPad though.

I use it for my workout. Its great, it has also greatly improved over new versions for tracking the meters better. I would never consider switching, most likely will get a new one in a year or 2. I also use it in open sea training.

I also went from apple, to garmin… then back to apple. I loved the body battery features and stress level features of the garmin in addition to the recovery estimates… but the garmin is really slow, its bulky, I missed being able to answer texts, change my music when working out, Apple Pay, etc. with the Apple Watch. I honestly regret buying the garmin but I do see how people would love it. It’s just not for me.

The expensive ones aren't any more accurate than the cheap ones, but they do last longer. I'm on my third Apple Watch and likely will never switch to anything else, so take my advice with all the weight of a single grain of salt.

Apple Watch every time. Allows me to control my iPhone on the floor or outside if I want to switch tracks or start stop my timer. No issues so far.

I can’t stand my Apple Watch. It always turns off during my workouts and counting “exercise minutes” is literally pointless. I bought an Ultra 2 because I wanted to have the best shot at success with it and that thing is a POS for health tracking. The whoop is so much more comfortable and consistent at tracking with better data analytics. I have the 5.0 and the band is fine. Idk what everyone is complaining about. Is it something you would wear to dress up an expensive outfit? No, but that’s not really what it is intended for. Personally, I would wear it with a suit without thinking twice because I don’t really care what other people think.

I'm on a Samsung smartwatch with my Pixel but I am also sorta eyeing switching to iOS. You can get used Galaxy or Pixel watches cheap or if you're just using it to track swimming Samsung makes a cheap fitness tracker for like $70 but that's compatible with only Android. Cross compatible trackers I think there's Amazon and Garmin but if you're planning on switching I think you'll get a better experience with an apple watch

I have an infrared sauna that goes to 170 degrees. I wear my Apple Watch in it all the time to track my heart rate, because I workout in the sauna

I compare my apple watch logs with my pedometer. Ultimately, the device that exists for that single function will be more accurate.

To be honest I just use my AW for structured running workouts and for cycling as well. If I need some data if you started a cycling workout your phone can display them so I use this method, I mount my phone on the bike. Garmin and other sport watches offer a wide variety of sports related features so you have to decide whether you need those. For me it was also important that I can use my watch as an everyday watch so I kept the AW.

there are third party data analysis options available. and yes, i agree, if you're a serious athlete, it's where AW falls short. actually, if you do lifting or climbing or, hell, even rowing, the oura is uncomfortable - and in some cases, actively dangerous (you sure as hell should not climb with a ring on)

Tried whoop, Fitbit, and now am on Apple Watch. I loved whoop but I couldn’t justify the monthly subscription. So if money isn’t an issue, I recommend whoop. Fitbit sucked. At least for me it did. Loving my Apple Watch the most. It’s easier to see how my heart rate is going and it keeps me motivated during the day outside of working out. Plus it has the find my phone feature which helps my flakey ass.

Apple Watch with the MySwimPro (https://www.myswimpro.com/) app. Super cool workouts with splits, super accurate for metrics.. Catches multiple stroke types, works for flipturns. Nothing more I could ask for tbh.

I just use an Apple Watch because I like it for out of the pool too. Does all I need it to do is

If you have an Apple Watch, you can program it to intervals for an outdoor run!

You can do repeats up to 99! It’s really easy. I do 90/30 and it took me less than two minutes to get it set up.

Apple Watch is fine if you have one. The modern apple watches are pretty good, and the GPS models will do everything you need, with great accuracy. You need to remember to lock them out (use the water button) to prevent errant screen taps by clothing or just sweat dripping. Battery life is fine on Apple Watch, unless it gets old and the battery needs to be replaced (which only the store can do), and should easily last you an 8 hour workout. But it won't last much longer than that. Without workouts battery life on Apple Watch is around 1 day, that's it. You have to charge every night. Garmin is better if you want a dedicated running or workout watch. Garmin will have much, much longer battery life (depending on model an usage, between a week and a month), a more focused interface, and physical buttons to perform certain activities.

Nice summary! I wish I could test the MG, but as it stands my order 12 days ago isn’t even worked on yet! I can only imagine how long it takes to even ship. However, I won’t extend my membership after this anyway, unless they cut down the yearly price *significantly* AND I end up being in love with the MG afterall. I am finally okay just using my Apple Watch and the PeakWatch app. I guess I kind of have to thank Whoop for cutting me loose from my whoop data addiction 😄🫶🏻

I find that the Apple Watch , or at least mine, often adds a length for kick sets.

My Apple Watch paused my work out 10 miles into a half marathon race. Went out that same day and got a garmin. I like the physical buttons the garmin has. Multi-week battery life is amazing. The only things I miss is the phone locator (the one on garmin isn’t that good) and replying to text messages from my watch.

If you're in the apple ecosystem, get an apple watch.

BUTTONS I had a 245 that broke a couple years back, and while I waited to get a new one I borrowed my wife's old apple watch, and hated every minute of using it due to the touch screen for everything interface. Now I've got a nice sleek 965 my dad gifted me last year and it's so nice. Love the AMOLED screen.

It's a good device for the price but if i has an iphone i would take an AW

I think AW has better GPS tracking than Garmin - I have Garmin and a friend I ran a HM had AW - I had to run an extra 300 meters to complete the same distance- Garmin was cutting off the corners on turns!!

I feel naked without it lmao. I swim long distance usually I start with half hour straight (I use the timer) and then I see how much yards I swam. It’s so helpful keeps track of my splits as well

I swim in a 25 yard pool and for me the Apple Watch is very accurate with freestyle and breastroke. The other strokes tho not so much. It also doesn’t record if u just do a kicking workout. Overall, I just do freestyle and breastroke so for me it’s great

Ooooh no way. I gotta get me one ty. That just changed the game for me

I have the third generation. Maybe it can do it I just never knew about the update

Tbh when I had an Apple Watch I’d just click strength training and do my workout.

It’s really unfortunate that WHOOP has decided to take this route — not updating devices for existing subscribers with active plans. For example, I cancelled my subscription yesterday and don’t plan to renew it. It’s disappointing to see this approach from WHOOP. And I especially feel bad for people who just subscribed. Like my boss, for instance — I recommended WHOOP to him, he purchased a yearly subscription, and received his new device only three weeks ago. Now, every time he opens the WHOOP app, he’ll get a reminder that a new device is available — but to get it, he’ll have to pay an extra fee. Sadly, this will be the case for all new users who joined at the last minute. They’ll constantly be getting follow-up prompts: “You’re not using WHOOP to its full potential,” or “Discover more – upgrade, subscribe, pay extra.” As for me, I’ll stick with Apple Watch, a one-time purchase, paired with an app like Athletic, which costs significantly less. I’m confident this combination will cover 90% of my needs. And if one day I feel that I’m missing something, I’ll just buy an Oura ring — and even then, it’ll still cost less than WHOOP.

The issue is that he is checking just the hardware accuracy, not the whole ecosystem (hardware+software). Whoop app is incredible. What is the alternative for AW?

On top of that, AW sensor actually works kind of funny. It measures your HR just 1 time per minute, while Whoop does it 100 times per second. Therefore, if you have a spike in heart rate you can derive much more related info about it, while AW could lose this whole event altogether.

Mine randomly adds laps, especially at the beginning of my swim. I’ve recalibrated and fiddled with the settings, but can’t find a consistent fix. It’s annoying

I have both. Apple Watch does not record VO2max data for my daily exercise, which is “Nordic Walking with poles”. The ring does record it although for some unknown reason that data is not copied over to the Apple health app! Another reason for having both is sleep tracking. The ring gives several days worth of battery life. The watch only a day and a half. (For data collection other than VO2max I take the Watch off overnight putting it into low power mode.) I have found that using the ring and its app my sleep have improved significantly.

I went through exactly the same scenario recently. Here's the brief version of what I found. Apple Watch Alone: Does an excellent job of recording sessions, but the data display during the workout is limited and doesn't include some fields I want. Personally I found the display slightly difficult to read. It was also quite frustrating that when transferred to Training Peaks the workout was broken up into 25yd pool lengths rather than the actual sets I swam. Apple + swim.com: This one works really well. I'm still not thrilled with the data display, but it is more useful than AW alone. Recording accuracy is excellent. The only issue that I had was the quality of the downloaded data into Training Peaks. No matter how I did it (and I took a number of different approaches) the HR data was wonky. Garmin (I'm using the 955, but they're all essentially the same): Data display is fully customizable so I can show exactly what I want and the rest timer display is useful. Note that the 955 has the older MIP display rather than the AMOLED that is all the rage now. The MIP is absolutely my preference as it is far easier to read in/at the pool and the rest timer screen is much clearer. Data transfer to Training Peaks is perfect. I don't use the auto-set feature on Garmin as it is far too sensitive of motion during rest, plus it's really unreliable if the rest interval is less than 20s (which most of mine are). I had one session where a descending set of 100s was recorded as one 800 since the rest was only about 15sec between. Now I have auto-lap off and hit the lap button when I push off at the start of a lap and again when I touch the wall at the end to start the rest timer. The watch does an excellent job of recording pool lengths and overall lap distance. I started out by trying to program the workout into the watch and then have the watch run it, but this proved to be cumbersome. First off, there's no truly clean way to get my coach's workout into the watch directly so there was always some manual intervention required. Second, if the watch mis-counted something or I needed to re-start a set the process was extremely frustrating in the pool. Now I just write the workout on a post-it with pencil and stick that to my water bottle. I just use the watch to record the workout. I'm currently using the Garmin to record swim workouts and it's working very well for me.

It’s OK, but the workout builder is kind of cumbersome to use. Lots of tapping, then turning dials, then tapping. Just a poorly conceived user interface. The issue I have with all of them is that you become a slave to the watch in the pool. Need an extra 10s rest? Well you had better hurry up and pause the watch because if you let it get into the next interval then it’s a total pain to back up. I had one workout where it was a series of 25yd sprints with short rest in between. The Apple Watch got totally confused and double-counted laps so it was having me finish the set in half the time. There was no easy way to get out of that so I ended up pausing the watch and finishing the set without recording. It’s so much easier just to write the workout down and let the watch record it. Plus I find that the act of writing it down commits it to memory. I’ve settled on Garmin as it just works better with Training Peaks and that’s a key feature for me. I do wish it was smarter about auto-lap but it has been 100% accurate hitting the lap button after every lap. To be clear when I say lap I don’t mean length of the pool I mean collection of lengths (eg 50s, 100s, etc)

Well Apple Watch has lumi health and rewards that you can earn back the cost of your watch and more.

It’s meant to motivate you. Cumulative over time. It’s not a lot but not little either. We are the only country that paired up with Apple on this, so make sure to take advantage. I didn’t even get a new Apple Watch tbh. Got a used one off Carousell. Just make sure it’s not tied to Apple ID by accident or stolen. The extension of the Apple watch if you’re an iPhone user is unmatched. Paying for public transport is way more convenient with an Apple Watch.

My Apple Watch works just fine

I personally like to track my workouts as well as my sleep. I wear an Apple Watch to bed, then workout first thing in the morning (after getting the kiddos off to school). After the gym/shower, I put the Apple Watch back on the charger and put on one of my Omegas and wear it throughout the day (work, etc). At the end of the day, I put my Omega in my watch winder box and put the Apple Watch back on before bed. Rinse and repeat…

Used apple watch. You might need to charge it every evening but it's your best bet. You really don't want to buy a cheap fitness watch.

Apple Watch, most precise health tracking. Garmin is better for sports as has better gps tracking and sports features

My Apple Watch is incredibly accurate for high-level training. I have started using the Phlex app, which gets it even more accurate. But I still just print out my workouts and slap them on a kick board with some water. I don’t like the idea of my watch guiding me through the workout because I might make changes on the fly or add some rest when I need it and I don’t want to have to fuss with the watch just to do that.

Garmin Forerunner does a great job. I like the Apple Watch, but the battery life kills me. With my Garmin, I can use it to track swims, runs, and bike ride and I still only need to charge it once a week.

I guess I'm the odd one out here- I tried using my Apple Watch when swimming, but found it doesn't sit tight enough on my wrist to be effective. I've since started using the Form 2 goggles & find them much more effective (and motivating!). I don't really track my activities, it's more important to me that I make it to the gym at least twice a week than that I keep track of what I'm doing once I get there, but I live a pretty active lifestyle.

Down voted but you're right. My partner tried an apple watch and couldn't even track his sleep because the battery died so quickly. I brought him a Garmin amd he's never looked back.

I use Apple Watch

Try the WorkOutDoors app on the Apple Watch. It’s pretty great. That’s what I used and just uploaded directly to Strava from there. I would recommend either an Apple Watch, a Garmin, or a Coros. You need a real fitness watch to do marathon training tracking.

G shock. I m considering getting one. A real watch with tracking features. Have an apple watch. Biggest cons - one more thing to charge everyday - whatever pros they have, I dont want another screen on my wrist. - notifications, sometimes useful but not worth it - looks and feel, the novelty fades very quickly. Doesn’t even compare to wearing an actual watch. Tldr. Be a man, get a real watch.

Another for Apple Watch.. works well for me once I fixed the wrist settings

Same. I think I’m in my 4th year and I don’t see the benefit of upgrading aside from the longer battery life and this age thing. Big deal. EKG I have with my Apple Watch and I don’t even use it. If they could get the step counter to work properly, I’d be happy.

I got my Apple Watch to track my swimming. I've found I love it for daily life but I think it's great for swimming. I love the splits feature.

Have a regular peloton bike (not a bike+). I tried an Apple Watch and an oura ring. Best thing I’ve done is buy a regular Garmin forerunner + hrm strap for the best output capture. The hrm can be synced to the device for real heart rate during exercises.

Do you use a branded smart phone, tablet or laptop is so google will already have your data. As to fitness trackers Fitbit are best but they are changing to google wear or something like that. And either Samsung watch or Apple Watch are far superior in build and use for health and fitness tracking in all fairness.

I second this, garmin seems like the best Although.. I use a Apple Watch

Calorie burning will never be accurate if the wheelchair user doesn’t have fully innervated muscles. The formulas are based on able bodied formulas. You might get an idea for how many “calories” are burned for you in a more abstract way, but I wouldn’t rely on it for calculating calories you want to then eat back, etc. The Apple Watch is great for not nagging you to walk more, you can change to the wheelchair mode (tells you to push instead of stand).

Fitbit is surprisingly good. Outstanding battery life. Apple watch, but get the app WorkOutdoors and use that.  It's less than 10 bucks.  No subscription.  Watch videos on YouTube about it. Here's one.  You don't need the ultra to use it. https://youtu.be/0CO4Nqn1PVQ Garmin is highly recommended for athletes but I've never used it so can't compare.

This is the same reason I've been considering Whoop for the longest time. But I just don't think I can commit to the lifetime subscription cost. Currently wearing a Charge6 and it's been fine for now. I came from Apple Watch, but found it too uncomfortable wearing that and a mechanical watch.

I have had the gen4 for a couple weeks and really like it. I wore a whoop for many years but got tired of wearing a strap. I have a specific need for data again so I went with the Oura. I wear it instead of my wedding ring and so far it’s great. I also use my apple watch with it for workout where I like to see data and zones easily without my phone. Anything in particular people are complaining about? I have had tons of wearables and it’s solid.

I use the Garmin Instinct 2 and really happy with the tracking and training guidance it provides. Being able to customize the screens I see during my swim is something that I really like. Previously, I used an Apple watch for track my swims, and that was pretty accurate too, but because it was all touch interface I would end up accidentally pausing or ending my workout without intending to. Also, I realise now that Apple’s insights don’t even come close to the detailed analysis and guidance I get with Garmin.

I do since yesterday. Its a gamechanger. Tracking training progress makes it so much easier to visualize your progress. (and i like numbers, they do funny things to my brain)

I wear an Apple Watch (I forget what model) and it works great for me! I track all the important things: time, distance/GPS, heart rate. Plus I can build interval workouts into it. Battery is fine if you turn off cellular, but that’s not a problem either because you still get GPS and can have your songs downloaded to the watch itself.

Playing devil's advocate, Garmin and Coros are much better sport watches, but AW is a better smartwatch. So if you're looking for text messages, Siri integration, emails, NFC payments, notifications etc..AW is going to do a better job. So how to make an AW more bearable to use as a sports watch; use apps like WorkOutdoors and HealthFit that sort of emulate Garmin features. You can build intervals, set routes, get HR or pace notifications. HealthFit gives you a better visual health data while bridging data over to Strava. Create workout shortcuts that plays your music, start your workout and puts you in a focus mode. The Apple fitness app is catching up...but at a molasses pace. The rate its going, its going to be years before you get the level of customization the third party apps provide. Even with third party apps, AW feels a bit clunky to juggle multiple apps to get the functionality of a Garmin. Personally I'd like a Garmin for Christmas for my running, but the rest of the day, I prefer an AW. Also another thing to note, AW sucks running in the rain. Physical buttons is something you really miss when you realize the screen doesn't work when you're soaked in water.

I’ll piggy-back on this excellent review, since I generally agree with it. Sleep: I have both the ring and pay for Sleepcycle on the watch and find the ring to be more accurate than the watch but also on the conservative side — I don’t feel like I’m getting credit for sleeping when I should but it’s hard to know since human memory is not accurate either. Data: You can download your data if you want and there’s a lot of it. Advice/coaching: turning data into things you can do differently is probably a lot of their R&D and it is annoying because it can’t be turned off, nor can you streamline what data you’re shown to reduce obsessive thinking but the language choices are surprisingly not off putting Vs Apple Watch: Agreed on it being okay for exercise but short of the watch, which seems more accurate and easier to use. If you just want a vague sense of your activity level it’s good. Ring best for sleep, watch best for exercise

Given that the AW doesn’t measure HRV often at all through the day, body battery is a total guess with all of them. I wouldnt bother focusing on that metric with the AW.

It’s not false. You’re expecting people to enable a function reserved for people diagnosed with afib. Apple even says that it’s for people diagnosed with afib. The average person won’t know to do this. This is a “hack”, not a normal feature. The Apple Watch doesn’t measure HRV all day long, it’s not a feature. Even with afib on it measures sporadically

Had a charge 5 for over 3 years. Battery was still lasting a week but felt the last half of the battery was dying a bit faster than before. The charge did pretty much everything I really cared about for just day to day stuff. I have an Apple Watch but the short battery life just kills it for me for every day but I will use it if I’m going somewhere. Was mostly happy with the charge 5 as a simple fitness tracker, biggest complaint was comparing the heart rate on it vs Apple Watch or polar monitor the charge way overestimated once I was at about 70% max heart rate. I had heard the 6 had a better algorithm for heart rate and they had a ok sale for Black Friday so I figured I’d grab one. So far so good, need to do a head to head with my old one and see if the heart rate is different. I didn’t abuse my 5 but didn’t baby it either. Wore it most every day for over 3 years and the biggest issue I had was having to reset it to get it to sync again but that seemed to have gotten better recently to. I know I see people saying theirs didn’t last a year but I can’t say that was my experience.

Me and my wife used to have Apple Watches but when we ran together we noticed a wide difference in distances on our watches for doing the same route. Like one watch would say 4 miles while the other would say 2.4 miles for doing an approximately 4 mile run. Additionally during summer months when I was doing workouts, I got tired of my watch face being sweaty and making it difficult to start/stop during intervals. Navigating the touch screen was less than ideal when sweaty so the Garmin has actual buttons to mark laps, start/stop runs, and so forth.

Everyone is going to say Garmin… if you already have an Apple Watch or really like the smart features of it, it will still work great and integrates with a lot of running apps

Apple Watch is great. Shows the swolf also which is useful for efficiency. Downside is it won’t actually stop the timer if you’re resting. So pause it by pressing both buttons simultaneously.

Can’t speak for 4 but I’ve really enjoyed 3. I can honestly say It’s really helped me improve my overall well-being over the last 3 years. I use my Apple Watch specially for tracking performance metrics during workouts (and for work notifications when I’m away from my computer).

Yes! It’s very likely. I had an Apple Watch several years ago and it would pause basically as soon as I started a workout. So frustrating. It was the worst of the three fitness trackers I’ve had.

The Apple Watch SE has been great for me. I did switch to a different watch, but if all I cared about was swimming the Apple Watch would always be my personal favorite.

Yep! I use it for every single activity and utilize its health features heavily.

I use it for counting laps which it is pretty good at, and I will admit that I feel sad when I don't close my activity circles (although I'm trying to not be so hard on myself). I recently received a set of Form googles, so I've added those to my daily data addiction. Notably, the calorie counts on the Form goggles are much lower than on the Apple Watch; I'm pretty skeptical about both of those anyway. (for reference, I'm 62, male, swim 3x/week averaging 1500-2000 m per session). Hope this information helps you

I use my Apple Watch for swimming - it’s great as the fitness app can track your pace and can tell what stroke you’re swimming. I also use ‘my swim pro’ which is a swimming workout app you can connect to your watch - creates sets, tracks pace, suggests improvements.

I’ve used mine for years. It’s not going to ruin it as it’s designed for swimming. I also use mine for day to day use.

I run the Apple Watch to pull a average heart rate for the session but use the finis goggles for timing sets etc, import the finis data into Strava and add the average HR data manually

My wife does marathons and ultras and switched both of us from apple to garmin. The Apple Watch is better for all the other stuff (music, home control, navigation). For anything sports related, the Garmin is far superior.

I dropped the whoop for : Apple Watch + Athlytic app.

I have an Apple Watch and it works very well. Usually accurate to within 0-150m over 2.5-3km practices. No trouble with it tracking kick sets for me. I wouldn’t count on it for tracking split times. I never find them accurate. Tbf it’s hard to figure that out depending on which arm moves first or touches first or when your feet hit the wall on a turn. Total practice time and total meters along with a breakdown of the total by stroke/kick is great though.

Apple Watch is a better activity tracker but oura is better for all around health. If you care about your streaming heart rate or monitoring your heart rate during your workout, the Apple Watch or Garmin is better than oura. I use my Apple Watch when I work out but I never really take off my ring so I can see metrics like resilience and HRV (and watch them improve as my fitness does!)

I used a Whoop for a while but went back to an Apple Watch. Whoop has a lot of metrics and I liked that it could go days without a charge, but I like all the other stuff the watch does - like show me the time. 😉 I also didn’t want to wear both. I know that’s an option some choose to go with. Edit to add: I don’t really *need* it for CF. I mostly like to keep an eye on my heart rate, primarily because I find it interesting to watch my perceived exertion vs. where my heart rate is at. I also get a kick out of seeing what the watch says vs. the C2 rower for calories - they usually are very close!

I have limited experience with both. Garmin (Swim) was not as good as AW for counting laps without flip turns. I killed an AW by swimming in a saltwater pool though.

I use my Apple Watch in the sauna up to 190F for 20 minutes top.

You will be paying for a whole bunch a shit you don’t use if you buy Garmin. Just get an Apple Watch or Samsung.

I use the Apple Watch and a bike computer and my apple watch is way more accurate and reliable

Apple Watches aren’t particularly crazy, and they’re state of the art for HR monitoring on the wrist. You can get them for dirt cheap and turn the other notifications off if that isn’t your jam.

I’ve had an Apple Watch and used it for lifting and running. Liked it very much but it died… don’t swim with it in salty water… Now a Garmin forerunner 265, also for the same sports. Like them both, different but they do the job. For the criteria you’re mentioning, I think the Apple Watch is a better choice since you’re already in that ecosystem (I’m too) and besides sports, it’s a great device.

Nope. My old Apple Watch for hikes (altimeter) and workouts. But the ring is better for everything else.

Apple Watch and strava. Used to use runkeeper way back in the day.

The Apple Watch is good enough for me. Over 2000 yards it might be 50 yards off. When I use the kickboard, I have to huge arm swings to make sure it registers. I don’t use any analyzing apps.

Apple Watch for daily usage and strava app on the watch for distance and HR when rowing m. Doesn’t do stroke rate and doesn’t pause when sitting still, so the split time for the workout is always off. Apple Watch just added native “outdoor rowing” to the workout app. I haven’t tried it yet. Native workout app “indoor rowing” is way low on calorie burn imo. That’s my experience so far.

As a few others also noted, the Apple Watch works really well.

Apple Watch is good only if you rely on 3rd party Apps (Hevy or Strong for example) or even if you pay a subscription to something like that, but just by itself (the Strenght workout on AW) it's worst than Garmin, as it will only give you the timer and heart rate, it won't count reps, track weight or give you the option to see and edit your workouts when you're done.

It’s particularly sensitive to being set to the correct wrist. Have you checked this? I swim with my Apple Watch all the time. It works great

If you have an iPhone, i suggest Apple Watch since it has many other uses. For my experience, also old models work very well to get path/time data.

AW + Stryd has been my setup for years - 100% worth it. I also have no desire for a Garmin because it just seems too unnecessarily complicated.

Yes, I always use my Apple Watch while swimming.

I'm an Apple Watch person, have been for years. I love it, and with the new sleep features, warnings, etc I like it even more. If being too connected is a concern, just remember, you can disable all the warnings and notifications you don't want. I only have messages come in from my wife and kids and most apps are shut off notifications so it's not vibrating my wrist all the time.

Umm I like mine. I had to use HOA dollars so I bought it. Here’s my take: I’m a poor sleeper and I already knew that. I wanted to see what the ring said about it for someone reason and of course it confirms but like so what. Now I am reminded about my poor sleep. It’s also a very poor fitness tracker so far. I’ve had an Apple Watch and a Fitbit and both were much much better I’m still wearing it but I for me I’ll just buy another fitness tracker. After a week of sleep results I’ve seen my patterns and that’s about all I wanted to know

I have an Apple Watch and use Nike Run Club app. Haven’t had any issues with my battery on any of my long runs or marathon

I've had mine since 2021 and I love it. It does have it's moments but overall it has helped me to provide data to my doctor. I do wear an apple watch on my opposite wrist primarily for day time activity tracking and I use the ring all day but primarily for the night time data.

That sucks. My Apple Watch tracks laps better than my garmin 965

Apple Watch. I use the direct connection to Apple Fitness on the bike+ and the Peloton App on the Tread. It automatically connects when it detects a workout.

Another vote for Apple Watch.

I like the Ultrahuman for just my sleep score. I use my Apple Watch for everything else, including fitness.

One more pro is that in this life full of distractions - Whoop doesn’t keep going off all day with notifications from apps and people. Really helps stay focus and does it job as effective. My apple watch keeps going off every now and them distracting me both during workouts as well as during office!

The Apple Watch rings keep me pretty motivated to do at least 60 minutes of walking a day. I’m pretty active but def have those days where I’m a couch potato and the watch minimizes that

Apple Watch is pretty good, sometimes misses kicking sets but is always within 50m of an average 3k workout. My coach sends my workouts via training peaks which integrates to the Apple Watch fitness app. I have used swim.com on the Apple Watch and it works great also

I had an Apple and switched to garmin, I like the garmin way better. More accurate for my bike rides and HR. The battery life is way better too

I use my Apple Watch

Fitbit and Apple Watch are def solid choices for casual fitness tracking. If battery life is a big deal, Fitbit wins. If you're deep in the Apple ecosystem, an Apple Watch might be more seamless, even with the shorter battery life. Garmin is kinda overkill if you're just starting out, lowkey like buying a Ferrari to learn how to drive. For good reviews and comparisons, check out [DC Rainmaker](https://www.dcrainmaker.com/), [Wareable](https://www.wareable.com/), and [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/). They've got hella info on all sorts of fitness trackers.

Yepp, done haemorrhaging money. Moving to the apple watch, quantifiedscientist on yt has proven accuracy is miles ahead anyway

I tend to mostly see Garmin and Apple Watches in my boat house. Garmins have a solid built-in support for on-water rowing workouts and a relatively long battery life. However, if you want to use your watch as a general smartwatch, I personally prefer the Apple Watch. While the built-in support for rowing workouts isn't ideal, there are several third-party apps that provide the same high-quality data as a speed coach would right on your wrist. As the developer of PocketCox, one such app for the Apple Watch, I must admit I'm biased. But if you have the chance to borrow someone else's watch and compare the data a Garmin provides to the data an Apple Watch provides, I suggest you see which one works best for you.

I’m loving it. It gives you understandable insights, analyzing your data., tips etc. other wearables provides similar info but not in the same user friendly way. Eg I have an Apple Watch that use to track my workouts but in terms of sleeping only tells the time you slept and the phases. Oura tells you if your sleep was repairing, if you had movement during your sleep, advise on the best time for you to go to sleep…

There’s a YouTube channel called ‘The Quantified Scientist’; he goes into depth on all trackers & their accuracy. I’m currently using an Apple Watch.

Apple Watch does count strokes. It’s the number after the / in your auto sets and splits. In your screenshot you can see 52 for the first 825, 53 for the next 125 and 57 for the last 950. You can see a lap by lap breakdown in the splits. It’s very obvious when you do a kick set as it is 0.

Check out Oura ring as well. I’d say it’s between that and the whoop as you’ve already pointed out. I’m that guy from time to time who wears both an Apple Watch and Seamaster.

I’ll start swimming without a coach and I need something to help me tracking distance, recording time and to show me the sets and reps. I swam with an Apple Watch of a friend, and it recorded my training session perfectly! **Even the laps when I just used the kickboard (no arm movement) was recorded correctly.** The downsides with the Apple devices for me are battery life (AW’s is horrible) and I would avoid being locked into Apples ecosystem. My budget allows me to get the Forerunner 255 or something cheaper. My Apple alternative is the Apple Watch SE 2. I saw some people complaining that the Garmin don’t track well the laps, but I question myself if the case is that these people are just very bad swimmers.

When I tried yesterday with the AW, it even counted some very bad simple turns correctly.

I love my Apple Watch for lap counting. I do 100 laps straight every morning and it used to be a nightmare to try to count it. Can’t say a garmin or another might not be just as good but I’m in the Apple ecosystem and it works great. I’ve been considering getting some water-proof audio like you. My big turnoff to that is that I believe there is some value in just turning off the world for 45 minutes. The other minor thing is that I would get into a groove and certainly slow down. The big pro is that I would love to just knock out 45 minutes or an hour and listen to my favorite podcasts and really bump up my distance because of the distraction as opposed to me just searching for how close I am to 100 laps.

Can’t speak to the Fitbit, but I’m generally happy with my Apple Watch

The HRV obsession of the recovery score was a key reason to not extend/renew. It makes no sense. Now trying Apple Watch + my gen 2 Oura .. and also not happy. I liked having everything in one place, only one device, without screen, that I can use for sports. Oura doesn't go well with weights/kettlebells, and I dont long rings that much. Close to going back, honestly.

Which version of the Apple Watch do you have? Mine does count kicking, and the last version I had did also. It was an update a few years (about 3 I think) ago.

I am on Apple Watch and actually considering changing to Venu 3. The thing is that Apple Watch resting heart rate, hrv and sleep tracking are atrocious. Sensors are the best for single measurements, but interpretation of the data is the worst.

I hated wearing a garmin all the time because it just felt aesthetically unpleasing. I sold mine and usually use an Apple Watch but I did buy a coros pace 3 for a relatively low price that I wear for long training and long races it my Apple Watch battery won’t last. Not for everyone but turns out I did need a smart watch and a sport watch.

I have an apple watch and it's phenomenal. A much higher price point, but the activity tracker and goals has made a big difference in my weight loss goals.

Same deal here - big Apple Watch user but wanted more insights on sleep. Looking at oura for sleep insights and analysis (health) vs that of fitness

I had Apple Watch and didn’t really like it and I think whoop is better. Never had a garmin so Can’t speak to that. My freind has an aura ring and it looked the same as whoop with all the same stats and if I was a girl I would prob just get that bc it’s lower profile😭😭 but I just don’t wanna wear a ring around Edit but also whoop is def more health and wellness focused then fitness and training. But if you do the same lifts every week and only change every 6 weeks like I do it’s easy and I log them each week and just change the numbers real quick and the workouts are already saved.

I recently got the FR265. My Apple Watch screen cracked and I was tired of having to charge every night. I gotta say, I’ll never look back - garmin has been legit for everything so far. I do a lot of running and biking. The stats they provide like lactate threshold and FTP outperforms the Apple Watch by miles. It suggests the next days workouts and tracks my body fatigue levels to let me know when I should ease off. With that said, I decided not to track gym/weight lifting sessions on it because I have to push a button after each set. Too much work. The Apple Watch was better for that because I could set it to weight training and it’d just record the entire 60 minute session. But overall the fr265 is great! I’m still learning all about the features. Edit: also, the Apple Watch just gives average pace whilst this one gives me my real time pace all the time. Game changer

Both are fine. I would put the Apple Watch as slightly more accurate given it has dual band GPS versus the single on the 165. Personally I think the metrics on many higher end Garmin watches are overboard so this 165 might be ideal for your needs. Apple metrics are very accurate, i’m just not so fond of the touchscreen and button arrangement for runners. And of course the battery isn’t as long as 165.

I can confirm my Apple Watch overheats and shuts down at any temps above 170. Fit Bit seems to handle it. I stopped wearing mine, I was doing it out of curiosity to see how high my HR would get based on temps.

I use my garmin edge for cycling and my Apple Watch’s built in workout app for everything else.

Thanks for the great write up! I am one that is also frustrated with WearOS in a sense none of them do well for fitness focused people :( . I want to like it but im always drawn back to Garmin. I also use apple phones so i have an apple watch as well which is pretty good at fitness. I love garmin for fitness but lacks anything smart really even their latest watches. (cant voice to text translate a reply to a message) Is there some reason WearOS doesnt allow HR straps to connect that would fix alot of the fitness data for me. I mean come on even apple allows my HR strap to pair with apple watch

I just use my Apple Watch and the Atlon app, it’s designed to track movements automatically

Apple Watch with Strava app is fine.

I use Apple Watch with data so I can listen to podcasts/ music. I use Apple workout to track my runs, Apple Health linked to Strava. I also use custom workouts for speed workouts. Set up warm up, speed repeat distances with pace range, recovery, etc. Battery doesn’t last as long as running watches but I enjoy the features and mine lasts through my long runs (although, I don’t listen to anything on those).

My Apple Watch seems to lock as if I’ve taken it off waaayyyyyyy more frequently now with my forearm/hand tattoo. I’ve been wondering if the ink could be part of that.

I was willing to live with the cost and all its issues - dealbreaker for me was lack of VO2 and continuous HRM and Afib. AW has everything and so do the rings etc.

I use my Apple Watch and My Swim Pro app to count laps, get splits, and stroke count. Plus design workouts, set intervals, etc.

That’s right. I’m using my Apple Watch at the gym for strength training because I feel it’s closer to accuracy comparatively and it’s much safer not to have something interfere your full hand grip. For work (&sleep) I prefer wearing the UH ring and rocking a mechanical watch

By work I meant I generally wear it for constant tracking of all the various parameters at work. I use the ring instead of an Apple Watch to track my HR, steps and walking I do at the office. Not just that, I prefer a normal watch on the outfits I wear to the office. A ring would work out in your case if you ask me if none of the calling, message notifications matter to you. Forgetting to charge is also an issue in the ring. I just make it a point to top up the battery every time I go to a shower so that bit of battery at least gets me through that day and night.

I just use the Apple Watch. I find this more usually the remaining 23 hours a day when I’m not working out. 

My Apple Watch is not great about recording kick board laps. Not sure if other watches are better.

I swim with my regular Apple Watch all the time in the gym pool and I can know when a call comes through. Answering it is sometimes a different story but I can tell who is calling, so if it were the school I can hop out of the water.

AW will automatically detect intervals you preset before the workout. If you have to manually do laps, Ultra has a new side button that can do it.

Agree with all but the auto detection. It’s very good.

I used my Apple Watch, but I used the IntervalTimer App. Worked really well.

Am I the only one where my Apple Watch (all 3 I’ve owned) call a length a lap? Drives me nuts.

I keep saying that and all those tied whoop users keep saying there's no need for an update technology and then it keeps being asked so its funny to watch that bipolarity 😆 regarding alternatives i would say garmin singe you going to use a band anyway to sleep then a watch dont make difference and is way better in general use and better in sports I would say if you have ios then apple watch If you dont like to sleep with eatch then you need to go to a ring or withings sleep matress or some really expensive 8sleep Those are the alternatives i remeber

I use it for every swim. I'm only doing 1500m of breaststroke but like to be able to compare time to previous swims. It's a great way to monitor progress.

I use the Apple Watch in my own 32ft outdoor pool and it’s absolute trash at tracking my laps even with the pool length set properly. It consistently tracks less than I do, I wouldn’t recommend.

Yep, I have swam with it about 8 miles a week for over a year and I love it. Zero issues.

I love my Apple Watch so much. I got it “renewed” (refurbished) for cheap on Amazon. It’s been great for a year now, zero issues.

I'd honestly rather not swim than go to the pool having forgotten my apple watch because if it's not recording my data I fear it doesn't count. Same for training at the gym. I'm dependent on this lil gadget that makes me feel like Kim Possible. I still count my lengths in my head but like the safety net of my watch to make sure I'm not losing track and it's fun to follow my data and changes over time.

I use it always!

I wore an Apple Watch while training for the Boston Marathon, running 60+ miles. Battery life is really a non-issue—the quick charge is very effective and so if you just drop it on a charger for 30-45 min while you get ready in the morning you’ll be fine. What was most annoying was lack of buttons. Wet clothing or raindrops triggering unintended touches is a major annoyance and the only option is to lock the touchscreen, which is annoying in its own way. Obviously you lose the Garmin training data side of things, which is a mixed bag. A lot of that stuff doesn’t really add much besides another thing to obsess over.

The bad review bias is strong because we happy customers don't have a need to spam reviews. I've had my 4 for couple of weeks now and I'm extremely happy with my product. I had the Gen 2 before this but the battery was so worn out after years of use that it was basically useless, so I decided to upgrade. The problem I had with the Gen 2 was that it was one size too large and it had hard time tracking my sleep reliably. With the 4 I decided to go with as small as possible. The first 4 days I was sceptical did I buy too small and I had to remove it from my finger time to time just because an unpleasant feeling. I did not had any actual physical symptoms. After I got used to it I don't feel it at all and it tracks everything perfectly. The battery in the 4 is simply amazing. I get like 6-7 days of battery. I have my charger at my desk so I just pop it in every once in a while when I remember. I think the battery size depends slightly on the ring size so just for the information I have size 10. I love the automatic activity tracking! It might not be as accurate in calories as my Apple Watch but it does detect all my activities correctly automatically and that's the most important thing for me. In Apple Watch I have to activate the activity in advance and with Oura I just simply confirm the activities afterwards when I remember. That's amazing feature! The stress meter is very eye opening for me and it gives me clues on what actually stresses me out and what helps me recover. I love my Oura 4 and I would buy it straight away again if it gets lost or breaks.

Well I've had my Apple Watch for 4 years and I still get solid 30 hours of battery. It means it still needs to be charged every night. To me 8 hours of battery in Apple Watch indicates that something is wrong with it.

I've had an Apple Watch and switched to the Coros Pace Pro. If you're only going to use the watch for crossfit and exclude any sort of running then I would say skip the pace pro. A lot of the stats is catered towards running/runners

Yes, wouldn’t be without it.

If you plan to wear it daily and you are inside apple’s ecosystem then it’s a no brainer for the apple watch

You can use strava I think to sync your swim workouts but it’s more focused for running and cycling, when I had the apple watch I just used the ios stock one and I think it does enough.

I use garmin and I love it. I used to have an Apple Watch for me it was the look. I can’t stand the square Apple Watch look but… Apple Watch is a smartwatch that can do some fitness tracking and garmin is a fitness tracker that can do some smartwatch

I use a sweatband over top of my Apple Watch. If I’m snatching I may turn it inside out as well. May not be perfect as I’ve definitely hit the face with the bell but so far so good.

I think the sleep tracking is pretty good. It usually makes me feel better about my sleep, actually. I often have a negative perception of my sleep, and sometimes the watch convinces me I slept longer\\better than I thought I did. lol It does provide some measures of cardio fitness measured in VO2 Max, lots of heartrate related measurements, respiratory rates, physical effort measured in METs, it does track calories and "active calories". I am not sure how accurate the measurements are, but I think they are accurate to themselves (ie if your trend is going up or down that is probably accurate). It also can count steps but that feature seems to not be emphasized. I had to use a third party app called Duffy to get a step complication on my watch face. This did allow me to replace my Fitbit. The steps counted were very close to the Fitbit's numbers when I was wearing them both. 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.

I go into the sauna with my apple watch so I can track my heart rate. My time in the sauna ends once my heart rate hits a certain level which I find to be much more helpful versus a set time. I'm guessing your watch will be fine in there as well.

I would add that apple measures heart rate continuously during all activities.

Apple Watch for sure. I used my whoop for a while and the HR was wildly inaccurate. I could be sweating and tired on a high resistance portion on the bike and my HR would only show zone1-2….. I find my HR accuracy with my Apple Watch.

Apple Watch will do fine for a long time - only got a Garmin last year. However once you go to only having to charge your watch once every two weeks you just can’t go back to Apple. I have a Garmin Fenix (on the $$$ side) but I wear it every day as my normal watch too and have had zero issues making the switch. However there’s heaps in the range, I love accuracy, maps, long battery and lots and lots of data so I can overthink every run - so Fenix it is! The forerunners are great and the vivoactives are a good mid range model. There’s other brands like Suunto, Polar etc. For true accuracy on any wrist watch you may need a chest monitor. But if you really like your Apple Watch I found it pretty good unless you’re somewhere with not much reception

I have had many Fitbits, an Apple Watch and a Garmin Venu 3. The Fitbits have gone downhill since Google bought them and they usually break right when the warranty is over. So I can no longer recommend although I have owned at least 10 Fitbits over the years. I own an Apple Watch and never use it. It shows my calorie burn insanely high (I am talking several hundred calories high each day). And it has to be charged every day which is a pain. I've had my Garmin Venu 3 about an a year and a half. I like it a lot. It is not super complex but does what I want. Like all fitness tracker/watches it tend to over estimate calories a bit as did all of them. But it is closest to accurate.

Ive tried a few and here’s my feedback. Apple watch: it’s a smart watch not a fitness watch. It has improved recently (the latest models should be significantly more accurate than the one I had 4+ years ago) however for me personally it’s the distraction element that I do not like. I do not need another screen. Fitbit; data is ok for a beginner, but definitely not great or accurate for someone training 5-6x a week and combining cardio, sports, weights etc. Whoops: no screen which is a major + for me. Can wear it on wrist, bicep or underwear. Really good measurement of sleep and calculation of sleep/down time based on your daily activity. That helps a lot plan your sleep and have better recovery and as a consequence, perform great in the following day. I am quite curious to try Oura and Garmin (even though I’d hate to go back to screen wearables) maybe i’ll get one of them next year but so far, Whoop is 100% the best Fitness tracker out there imo. In addition, I’ve realized that in all High End resorts that I’ve been in the past 3 years, people wear 2 things: a rolex or a whoop 😂 so as a Henry I guess that’s a good indicator.

Do you have any details on what isn't accurate on the Garmins compared to other products? I had an apple watch for years but switched to a Forerunner 965 and have been very happy; didn't notice any accuracy differences. I can't even name 10 competitors in the smart watch market so I'm not sure if that's an exaggeration?

Only thing keeping me on whoop at this point is I like sleep tracking, but don’t like sleeping with my Apple Watch on..

I use it every swim. I also stopped using the apple fitness app for swimming because it gives inaccurate pace times. I installed the Swim.com app and it’s great, EXCEPT, it doesn’t pick up any kicking sets. If you can mimic the swim.com app, but toss in kicking, it would be the best.

Thing that blows me way about my AW is it’s ability to know what stroke you’re doing. My watch is about 98.5% or better on tracking yardage.

Apple does track splits automatically but it’s not super accurate. If you’re resting more than 5 seconds between repeats the sets are reasonably accurate. Total yardage is in the 99% accurate range for me

Current version of Apple Watch does record kick sets

Stroke recognition is pretty amazing I think. I’ve noticed errors lately on butterfly more often. Maybe my stroke is degrading and Apple is telling me I can’t acknowledge that crap as butterfly…

It is slightly less accurate than when tracking freestyle, but Im happy to have the feature.

I’m not missing the point at all. My watch gives me a pretty good record of my workout. I don’t use it at all DURING workouts— the pace clock is the right tool then obviously. Ive never used a Garmin but Apple is designed to be locked out during the actual workout. But for a good sense of what I have done over the course of the week, my watch is more than accurate enough (and mine is pretty consistently 98-99% over any given time frame— agree that it’s most vulnerable to errors on kick sets and some of my coaches favorite drills really mess it up) I can’t recall ever being off my more than 25y in a workout of up to 3500y) It frankly never occurred to me that anyone would use it in lieu of a pace clock. That’s crazy

Garmin >>>> Apple. I tried on Apple and didn’t like app on watch and the constant talking. Also screen harder to read. Garmin was easier and more customizable data screens

Garmin or Apple, you can get a solid run tracking watching from China for 40-50$ I think the Xiaomi Smart band is what Dr Mike uses and they're like 40$ and do adequate work. If you love apple and don't mind charging your watch every night, get the apple watch. If not Garmin.

I have RingConn and an Apple Watch. I use both daily. The watch has the most data. I utilize the ring for sleep tracking (I don’t sleep with watch). Watch is used for more stuff. Apple Pay, weather, timers, messages and more. Both are beneficial.

I went from Apple Watch to FR265s. I didn’t love my Apple Watch, it on my gave basic tracking features and battery died quickly, but the communication/phone functionality was definitely better. I much prefer the 265s to get more in depth training stats and love that it’s not as easily connected to my phone so I don’t have a mini phone on my wrist and get a break lol

For me, I don’t like to be ripped of. I’m not a junkie that must have the product. I don’t like the feeling of getting played because I “must have a thing”. I get on fine without it and use an Apple watch, which has the added benefit of unlocking my devices, apple pay, gps and voice control of my house 🤷 But no judgement. Get what suits your life 🫶

Just to add, I still have my Apple Watch and use it for exercise tracking as I think that’s the main thing the Oura doesn’t do as well. It still has some functionality so you could manage it all through it, but my Apple Watch and Strava sync into it anyway so I still use those alongside

I have both Garmin 945 and Apple Watch and they both get really close. Have doublechecked them against a polar device on my temple and all three were comparable.

I did the same thing. Got the apple watch once I cancelled and I charge it before bed every night and it lasts the entire day. That's the only thing Whoop will now have on apple watch. The charging.

Absolutely, but having the screen isn't all that bad. It is useful. You can also set notifications to a minimum if you don't like distractions. You can also set focus's which is great. It's also a significantly less burden on the wallet over time.

But only slightly. Heart rate is much more accurate on Apple Watch. That may change with 5.0 hardware/software update. But Apple Watch isn't a bad product at all. When you factor in the cost, I believe you get more bang for your buck with Apple Watch.

Good news is you can program your watch by either (or both) focus's and notifications. The watch isn't the same as whoop. But it gives you all of the same features depending on which subscriptions you have. They are all significantly less than whoop though. I frequently golf and was drawn to whoop years ago and I loved it. I learned a ton on what is good and what is bad for me. I cancelled shortly after the 4.0 drop because I already learned everything there is to know. But I still wanted the data. I just couldn't fathom spending an annual subscription that was as much as the Apple Watch itself when I didn't see Whoop trending in the right direction. Whoop 3.0 was it's peak. Once they started selling eye masks and new bands at a rate of 300% more than it was in the blink of an eye, I was out. I use; Bevel = $50/year Heart Analyzer = $9/one time fee HeartWatch = $6/one time fee AutoSleep = $6/one time fee Heart Analyzer and HeartWatch both offer V02 Max, Bevel will probably offer this in the future. All of the above offer HRV. AutoSleep measures HRV during sleep and upon waking (Breathe app is recommended which is free) The others track HRV through SDNN and RMSSD. Whoop tracks it more often, however you still get multiple readings per day with the other apps and can manually trigger it using the Breathe app. Bevel is the highest cost but also provides you: * Recovery score * Stress score * Energy bank * Sleep score * Sleep recommendations * Strain score * Strength builder * Journal * Lifestyle impact analysis * Training zones * complication/widgets for the watch Autosleep: * Automatic sleep detection * Plethora of sleep metrics and analysis * Sleep bank * Smart alarm

I use my Apple Watch and Seconds Pro.

I use mine to count laps as well

Compared to my 4 year old Apple Watch it‘s really slow. And the UI is terrible.

I switched back to Apple Watch after a week 😜

Apple Watch is already in the post

I use the smartwod app on my phone to set the interval. Plays over my music + counts down to start/stop. I just use my Apple Watch to track distance but have been debating on switching back to Garmin for more accurate miles.

Mine stopped syncing last week, exactly 1 year and a week after I bought it.. Got a brand new Apple watch in the black friday sale..

Apple Watch is the obvious answer

My Apple watch closely matches the heart rate given by hospital equipment, but my skin is very pale, which makes optical sensors work much better. If you happen to also be pale, there's a good chance that a high quality Android-based watch will work similarly well. Not a very helpful suggestion if you're not on the pasty side, sorry! Best of luck with your recovery!

You'll get basically all the tracking (Apple will surely have blood pressure monitoring if Whoop does). And if you like the Whoop app's style of Strain, Sleep, journalling etc.. you can get an app like Bevel or Athlytic for a couple of bucks a month. Personally I'll be ditching my Whoop due to this pricing and using my Apple Watch with Bevel.

I like the simplicity of the coros pace pro. I dont get overloaded with notifications like my apple watch and the battery life is amazing.

The Apple Watch really just felt like a second phone on my wrist with a few fitness tracking features. I didn’t need to see that I got a Gmail notification on my wrist and my phone at the same time. The constant clearing of notifications from my phone and watch was really annoying. After turning off all of those features to make it more fitness focused, I thought why am I paying for this when I could spend around the same amount of money and get more features that I want with the garmin? So I am keeping the garmin over the Apple Watch.

Ugh - tried to use my Apple Watch to push heart rate to garmin for calculations / metrics - no go … third party apps can “display” but garmin cannot ingest the data to interpret/compute. What gets me is that Apple is so slow to make a viable alternative yet it’s got a stranglehold on the wearables market. Annoying.

Exactly this. When you use a Garmin you can tell it was clearly built for purpose (endurance sports), and Apple Watch is clearly not. Just different uses and different uses.

I have always used my Apple Watches to track sleep. The newer ones charge quickly so it’s never been a problem, plus the newer ones charge ultra last multiple days.

I did Apple Watch forever but got tired of being “so connected” Moved to whoop a few months ago. It’s ok… not sure I love it or really understand everything it’s telling me, but it does the trick

I’m just getting back into swimming after like 25yrs and have been using my Apple Watch paired with the swim.com app on it and my phone(free). I really like that it syncs with my Apple health. I can ideally load my workout onto it, it’s fairly accurate in knowing how much of a rest I take etc.

I switched from Garmin to AW. I found HealthFit, which is free. If you’re a runner, HealthFit is a must. Other than that, I rely on Apple for everything else.

I can run on trails without my phone and the GPS still gives me accurate distance/pace. It's just a better engineered product specific to athletes (runners, bikers, swimmers, etc). The Apple Watches spans across so many features that it doesn't do the core things a runner needs from a watch as good as a Garmin (coming from a 800-1500 middle distance runner). If your a sprinter I guess an apple watch will do bc all ya need is a timer.

I have Apple and it’s the worst thing ever. It locks itself into water mode restricting you from using stop watch etc.

That must have been a long time ago… I have used Apple Watches for about 6 years, and it’s always identified the stroke!

At the moment I’m comparing my Apple Watch with a Garmin Fenix 6x Pro that I bought recently. On most swims the Garmin will record a distance about 20-25% higher than the Apple Watch. There are a few swims that I do that I can easily verify the distance on a map (eg where we swim along a river from one bridge to another) and for those, the Apple Watch normally gets the distance about right, so I think generally the Garmin overestimates distance. I don’t see why the watches should give different distance though - like someone else commented, GPS is easily accurate enough to measure distances like this to within a few feet. Both watches might be trying to measure some kind of “effective distance”, eg swimming 1 mile upstream should count for more than 1 mile downstream, but I’ve never seen that written down anywhere. If you really care how far you’ve swum, record your swim with a watch, but then manually measure the GPS track on a real map.

I wear a whoop on a bicep band and swap out my SMP for an Apple Watch when I go to the gym

If you're already in the Apple ecosystem then an Apple Watch will be good choice that's pretty straightforward to use. A Garmin Instinct2 is also a good, relatively low cost option, but you'll need to use the free Garmin Connect app on your iPhone to view your exercise data. The Garmin is more complicated to set up.

PS, battery life is 1-2 days on the Apple Watch and up to 28 days on the Garmin

This! I had a Whoop and Apple Watch at the same time. I was out swimming and the Apple Watch screen came off and was flapping in the water. Never bothered to get a new one, I don’t need a watch, I want a fitness/health device and screens are just a failure point.

I just the Apple fitness app with my Apple watch. Does everything I want it to do and more.

I use my Apple Watch and the [Swim.com](http://Swim.com) app to count my laps every morning at the pool.

I have an Apple Watch but I’ve recently started working in the medical field and wearing a watch increases infection risks. I rather have slightly worse accuracy than catch an infection because gloves don’t cover watches well.

As a long time user, I may just upgrade my Apple Watch and cancel whoop . This is getting ridiculous and for that price + some extra cash get a new Apple Watch.

Fitbit is the least reliable. Apple Watch is ok. If it’s really important to you, get a real running watch. Even an entry level model will be better. Or stick with the Apple Watch. It’s not terrible, just not super accurate and the battery life leaves a lot to be desired.

Yes they are pretty rubbish for swimming. I just switched to a Garmin Fenix which hopefully will be better. The Apple Watch managed lap counting ok for me but open water was a disaster and the rest of its counting (calories etc) was also well off by the looks of it. Your does sound even more broken than just being rubbish though. It should be able to count laps fairly accurately, I think most of them can do that ok.

My Apple Watch adds a lap here and there.

I use my Apple Watch to track the run, and the RunIntervals app to give me run/walk alerts

I do really short intervals (:30/1:00) so programming that for a long run would be terrible. And I don’t always catch the haptic alerts from my watch. Audio alerts work better, and I run with my phone anyway.

I also have an AmazeFit and like it. It last a way long than my Apple Watch ever did. I have several pairs of Tozo headphones that are great, so I’d trust that brand. I’m not an audiophile though, just casual need to hear podcasts and music headphones user.

Same. I swim with it 3-4 times a week and take couple of saunas on those days. I usually mostly palm it while sitting in the sauna to shield it from some of the löyly.

Well. Yes and no. I swim multiple times a week and go from the pool to sauna and back without removing my Apple Watch. Obviously would not wear my watch if only for sauna.

I use it every time, mostly for counting laps.

I use my apple watch. I bought it for the heart rate monitor and afib detection before I started Chemotherapy since a lot of the chemo drugs really do a number on your heart. Now I use it mostly to track my burn throughout the day.

Try the Apple Watch you already have. You’ll like it enough or not.

If you’re an apple person, apple watch is the answer.

There’s an app called Work Outdoors on Apple Watch. Works well for me.

That’s what I did a few years ago. My Apple Watch +Athlytic. I was an early adopter of whoop 3.0 and a day 1 4.0 but spending hundreds a year wasn’t worth it anymore if I’m always wearing Apple Watch. It’s like $30 a year for Athlytic and tells me everything I need to know

I’ve run with AW for about 5 years including marathon blocks up to 60 mpw. No complaints. No battery issues…will easily last a full marathon and the rest of the day. Some HR accuracy issues early on, but seems to have been solved by playing with bands and placement. Personally I don’t mind double-tapping the screen to lap during track work.

I have an apple watch. When I flare, my resting heart rate is about 15 beats faster per minute than when I am healthy.

Only ever used an Apple Watch, had a Fitbit charge 2 before that but that always needed phone to be connected for GPS etc. I think the Apple Watch is very accurate

I found that the Apple Watch goes a bit funky if you pause the timer after intervals . Usually you get that Apple Watch kind of tacks on a “lap” that is blank in distance , with a time on it . Occasionally if I do a lap where I extend my dolphins quite a bit , it triggers the watch to say I was doing butterfly rather than freestyle . The other time it goes funky is when I start swimming at the start of a session without activating the watch at all (ie : I am just warming up ) . Once I try to start a timer it actually begins part way through an interval , and records the warm up as no distance .

I think by wanting text messaging, calls and voice assistant you’re limiting yourself to an Apple Watch or similar. Depends on how seriously you take your running as I’d always suggest a Garmin / Coros etc but those are running watches with some (minimal) smart watch features. It sounds like you’re wanting a smartwatch with some running features, so Apple Watch.

I can do this with the workout app in my Apple Watch, just set the activity to pacing or create a manual workout. If you’re not satisfied with that maybe NRC could work?

I depend on my watch for counting lengths and time for determining pace. Previously I used to swim without it, but having used it for more than a year I find it a great help in the pool.

I have both and have tried swimming with both  Apple is terrible for swimming. Doesn’t even have a rest timer. Get Garmin. The only reason I use the Apple is as a key for my Tesla when surfing and because I can call 911 when I’m surfing

Garmin isn’t always accurate, but Apple doesn’t even make an effort in my experience. It doesn’t detect rest intervals at all, and the yardage is off in the way that you described because it tries to be too precise. In comparison, the Garmin is smart enough to know that my distance is always gonna be a multiple of 25 yards. My swimming style is a slow graceful gliding so I can understand how it might not detect that I have stopped and thinks I’m still going sometimes.  Either way if I need a really precise number I wouldn’t use auto rest timer from any brand. I would manually do it. The Garmin is good enough to keep track of my weekly mileage though.

I have had my Oura 4 for about two weeks. I’ve only had to charge it twice! I haven’t had any issues with the physical quality either. I’ve used an Apple watch for tracking for about a year. All of my data from Oura is super comparable. I feel like the sleep is much more accurate, I love the temperature tracking / integration with Natural Cycles, and I LOVE how it adjusts your activity goal based on other data. For sizing, I chose an 8. It was the size that could fit on my index finger tightly, middle finger comfortably, and room to move to my ring finger if I was super swollen.

The Apple Watch probably is more accurate but has significantly less frequency when not in workout mode. Still, the Apple Watch can replace a Whoop but the Whoop can’t replace an Apple Watch.

I used to have an Apple Watch but got rid of it for accuracy reasons for running marathons. Had to buy a Garmin to get accurate km splits and accurate instant pace. I use my Garmin also for swimming now. If it’s a decision between Garmin and Apple and you want accurate and reliable data I would go with Garmin every time. Also consider if you ever want to do open water swimming as many watches do pool swimming only and that doesn’t work at all well in open water. Good luck with your whatever you decide.

I use mine every single time. What is your app idea? I mostly ask because I can’t think of anything I want my Apple Watch to do for swimming that it doesn’t already do.

If you have an iPhone I wouldn’t even consider anything but Apple Watch or gamin Apple Watch never fails at counting laps and has the best wrist based heart rate sensor, both in and out of water

Inversely, I never had more than more than one lap difference between Apple Watch and real measurement

If you got an iPhone : Apple Watch, or garmin as a second choice Otherwise : garmin all the way Apple Watch is the most accurate both for distance, heart rate, does automatic stroke detection, and you can upload your workouts to it which makes it easy to follow during your swim Garmin does all these too, but less accurately for swimming at least

What I do, just to have a weekly goal, is track all food in MacroFactor. And then, with my Apple Watch, I have a goal to burn 3500 workout calories, tracked in the streaks app. It really started helping me to keep the two separate worth the two different systems/apps, rather than combining them like other food tracker apps do. I can manage my calorie intake much more accurately this way and not feel the need to eat extra

All of my family have apple watches. The fall detect works well but can give false positives but you just tell it you didn’t fall and that you are ok - assuming that you are indeed ok. Also, you can just tell Siri to call 911. That is why I got them for my husband and in the first place. Also, I am a medic and moved to the ultra version because it will last thru a full shift and has a bit bigger face so easier to compute med doses on it and do other fx. It is more pricey but IMO, worth it.

How accurate is the GPS, especially when running through woods or on overcast days? I've found Apple watches and even lower end Garmins don't handle position tracking very well in those conditions. Sometimes they'll be as much as a half mile off for a several mile run. That's the only time I can't fault the Fenix series watches, the GPS is nearly flawless. The only thing I've found more accurate is a handheld.

I tried Whoop and Apple Watch. In general, I think it might just be around your WOD habits. I find myself more focused on the tasks and technique needed and/or strategy when not using a tracker. Plus, if you use any kind of grips or wrist wraps it’s not efficient to get all that together. My 2 cents: get a WOD tracker app like BTWB and log your reps, weights and workouts. It’s oddly not perfect but, if you want some sort of tracking going that’s good. TLDR: whoop is expensive and will tell you that you are exhausted when you are obviously exhausted (listen to your body). apple watch is expensive and I was sceptical of the durability when using various weight types.

Apple Watch. Works great for what I need

I use an Apple Watch. My last one cost $400 and lasted 4+ years. It was honestly still fine after 4 years, but the battery life was struggling a bit. I was able to trade it in for $70 credit when getting the new version.

Swimming is the one sport my Apple Watch was better at than my Coros. Never missed a lap, even detected kickboard sets, where on a Coros or Garmin those don’t register at all.

Hard disagree on the watch. The Apple Watch is essential to my day to day. I’ve been using it every day since it initially launched back in like 2015. I use it for keeping me off the phone because I get my notifications on my wrist, controlling my music and Podcasts, tracking my exercise, setting reminders, doing shopping lists, setting timers to keep my kids on track, keeping me focused, and of course telling the time. When I don’t have my Apple Watch, I definitely feel less productive. The Ring however, I have absolutely no idea what purpose it serves.

I have an Apple Watch but I wish I had a Garmin. 😥

Nike Run Club app and it’s training program on my Apple Watch. Sometimes it’s slow to update the phone app, but overall very happy with it.

Apple Watch. Works well for me

It’s never missed a lap for me, even though I’ve heard this reported for others. I always touch the wall with my hand wearing the watch though. Someone said to do that

I’ve swam maybe 100 times with Apple Watch. It’s been off maybe twice, by one lap. Dunno what to tell you though

Track your swim workouts using the built-in Apple Fitness app on Apple Watch, then analyze performance data with SwimNow.

TBH at this point it is much better investing it on a Garmin, apple watch or an aura ring and that's from my perspective only I am about 80% sure I wont resub and wont upgrade

apple watch was dying before i could finish 16 miles :/ garmin is the way to go!

I’ve had a couple of AW’s and 3 Garmins. They all tracked laps pretty well. The AW automatically detects kick sets whereas the Garmin needs you to log them in drill mode.

Sadly apple watch barely has battery for one day even the premium models

For swimming I find Apple Watch the best in tracking literally never missed a lap. For training load garmin is really good they have really good stats. Whoop is overhyped and expensive plus it’s a basically subscription every month till cancelled, no functionality if u stop paying, and it’s rubbish at tracking workouts basically any weighted workout u need to manually input and only good thing about it is sleep coach

Fake news! 😉 I charge mine when I shower every day. That’s all it needs to stay fully charged day-to-day. Yes, you caaaaan charge it during the night, but there’s no reason to. Edit: Mine is going on 4 years old and still only needs shower-time charging.

Apple watch in the gym only for me. Oura ring everywhere else. Good point on the degloving, absolute nightmare.

Yes! Same— well marathons. I need the insights Whoop provides. I will say however that the most accurate HR monitor I have is my Garmin HRM Pro but I’m not gonna wear that thing all day and night. Plus Whoop has a community, I am a part of a “team” that is very active on chat which motivates and inspires me. I have an Apple Watch which dies too quickly. I also have a Fenix 8 which is clunky as hell.

Apple Watch for tracking. Used to use WorkOutDoors as the tracking app, but after the new Training load feature I switched back to the native Workouts app. I also recently started using Tempo as a running log app to see run stats and see my weekly progress. And since I am a data nerd I also use HealthFit to see some additional stats about workouts. All the above apps are except Tempo are a single time payment. Tempo is $2 per month, so not expensive at all.

I had an Apple watch and different types of fitbit before but now i’m using the Garmin Lily and i like it. I chose it because it’s not too big or bulky and it does look a little bit more like a classic watch. It also depends on what type of infos you want to tracks. The app is also free to use.

I use Apple Watch. I'm doing recomp right now - I was using it to track my calorie exertion, but then I found it wasn't very accurate. I'm not sure any are for things outside of like, a walk. Apple Watch overestimates weight training. The only thing I'd use tracking for is set amounts and type of lift, and I'm doing that in an Apple Note. I'm not really sure if a fitness tracker is worth it outside of heart rate. For calorie and exertion, using a scale and tracking what I eat seems to be the most accurate. Anyone got a counter argument?

Apple Watch is great for strength training, just with the obvious issues of battery life.

My AW was reliable but my 965 counts extra laps and confused itself on strokes.

I tried using my apple watch at an indoor 25 yard pool and it did extremely poorly. It was off by about 100 yards at the 1000 yard mark.

I haven’t used a Garmin in ages but I am planning to switch back. I really like the “track” feature on Apple which identifies when you’re at a track and massively improves the accuracy by locking you into a lane. Does Garmin have this now?

I have an oura ring, it’s brilliant for telling me when I’m starting to shown signs of a flare or another illness. I also have an Apple Watch but the oura has rendered it pretty much redundant now

I find the Apple Watch tracking pretty good, tbh. That said, I autoimport all my workouts into Strava, and I generally use that to review.

If you use an iPhone, Apple Watch is an excellent choice as it integrates nicely into the Apple ecosystem. Price will exceed your budget, but you can earn back the money spent through LumiHealth, which gives you HPB eVouchers you can use at various places including Fairprice. I’ve made >$500 to date with LumiHealth.

I use my Apple Watch but that’s obviously a different tier of electronics than most Fitbits.

I do swim with it but I don't believe their calorie count, is it even close to being accurate?

Thats great to hear since I just grabbed an apple watch on discount for prime day

My Apple Watch only overcounts my steps by about 2000 per day in a tractor. Oddly enough, it always thinks I'm doing an elliptical workout when I'm driving on one particular road with a grain cart.

I have only had experience with the Apple watch, but I would recommend it with the use of a rowing-specific app. I don't find the built-in rowing workout activity to be that great. I have used the PocketCox app for a few months now, pretty happy with it. The only thing I'm missing is calories burned but it does grab HR, stroke count, avg stroke rate, split rate, distance, and will track the time when I'm rowing vs setting the boat. ETA: activity and calories do make their way over to Apple Fitness though via this workout. I just don't get a nice summation of the estimated calories burned during my workout. Also can import into the C2 Log.

Cheap, plastic, good sport watch which is max 200$ worth. Source: I have it and I also have an Apple watch

In my experience with the Apple Watch, it’s not super accurate. I posted on this a little while ago, but for example, in my 8x100s set, there are many times where it will only register 75 out of the 100. It’s not super accurate to the point where you can use it to register splits. I reckon this is why it’s not used for practice in a competitive setting. If you want to know how you’re doing during a set, you still need feedback from a coach or the clock on the pool deck.

Apple watch has better sleep tracking than WHOOP

Apple Watch linked to HealthFit/ Strava.

I enjoy my Apple watch tracking my swims so much I will turn around and go back home if I forget it.

I have one but still use my Garmin after not enjoying the interface on the Apple Watch about 18 months ago. I understand the UX has gotten better and doesn’t require using a 3rd party app any longer. Is this true? Do y’all use a 3rd party app? Thanks

Whoop isn’t the best from any standpoint, except arguably charging. I would argue Apple Watch is the best for the gym if for no other reason than the diversity of apps available - the default workout app is great but you also have Strong, FitBod, and countless others with a huge variety of features and user experiences.

Rings aren't really designed for this so they'll be quite off. Watches aren't perfect either but they are much better suited for exercise. Apple and pixel watch in particular are really good at monitoring your heart rate

Indeed. If OP has an iPhone it’s hard to not recommend AW.

Apple Watch has a wheelchair mode https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102253 Scroll down to the Physical and Motor skills section

Stryd pod, goes directly on the shoe. It’s a little expensive but extremely accurate and reliable. Remember to cancel the subscription! It makes you purchase a subscription when buying. I use it indoors and outdoors, it’s the most accurate one I’ve found. I tried Apple Watch, garmin watch and garmin hrm, they all either under estimate or severely over estimate my pace. The Stryd stays within .1 of what I’m doing.

I just use my Apple Watch and don’t do anything fancy.

Apple Watch in sauna for years.

I constantly use my AW. I haven’t tried the others, so I can’t comment which is best.

There's a setting on the apple watch so that if you press the crown and the side button at the same time it will pause the run. I typically use healthfit to export apple workouts to other apps like strava. I've never had a problem with battery (unless running for over 4 hours maybe), but switched to the ultra last year which could probably last for a much much longer run.

It’s great for running. It’s great for cycling. It’s great for general cardio. It’s great for battery life. Sleep tracking. Training readiness. Training plans/programs/suggested workouts. It’s kinda trash for weightlifting. My method is to turn off the rep counting (not accurate anyway and a pain to adjust). Start a “strength — free” workout. And let it just run without touching it. I use the Hevy app for tracking my actual workouts—exercise, sets, reps. When you finish the workout you can either leave your garmin workout as it is, or you can manually input your exercises via the app or website in connect (which is a pain, especially since garmin doesn’t have a large database of machines or exercises so you can’t always put everything you did accurately). I don’t think whoever designed the strength training aspect of the software has ever been in a gym. All that being said, I still prefer it over my Apple Watch because it does everything else so much better.

Yep that’s all the Garmin one does UNLESS you pre-make a weight program in connect and send it to your watch to do. And I ain’t got time for all that. It does track my heart rate and active calories etc which is enough for me. I used Hevy when I had Apple Watch and I still use it now with Garmin and it’s nice to have all that data history regardless of what I’m wearing.

I started with an Apple Watch, then an Ultra, then switched to Garmin. The main reason was the sports I was involved in. It was much easier to gather all the data with a number of equipment such as heart rate monitors, power meters, etc. In terms of data, if you don’t intend to use anything apart from what the Apple Watch offers, then I think that’s fine. I kinda miss the Apple watch for its quasi-phone feel, but I learned to move on already. Garmin is a sports watch first device. If you intend to use other devices on top of Apple Watch, you may find your data all over the place.

Yep I always use it for swimming and paddling. Would really love a paddle app

Hi! I use and like the Garmins. I'm also an athlete all my life, was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 3 years ago, have had covid twice. Garmin's do track sleep, deep and restless and hours. So, if you're trying different stuff, (routines, drugs, supplements, exercise, etc.) the garmin will give you feedback over time about length and quality of sleep so you can see what works. Garmin also tracks pulseOX. I used this when I had covid ... and watched it go down, from high 90s, to 90s, then high 80s. At 83 I was short of breath and felt like my lungs were full .... go to the hospital if you get into the 70s, I didn't get that low. So, ya, an "acute" use case but, I could use it to tell when to go to the hospital or not. Other folks use the cheap finger pulse ox, but, I could do continuous monitoring with the Garmin. You can also track your pulse ox and other levels in general, and see, again over months of time, if your training is making you "fitter" or not. Are your recovery times from hard workouts getting shorter. Garmin has a "body battery" that can tell you if you're ready for another workout. Garmin also tracks resting heart rate. Folks can often tell if they're "getting sick" before they feel symptoms from changes in resting heart rate and monitoring over time. Garmin connect can also track weight (if you have a compatible wifi smart scale) as well as blood pleasure (if you have the garmin brand blood pressure cuff) In the past, I have also used apple watch and apple health. Apple can also track sleep and pulse ox and resting heart rate. I prefer the Garmin system, and feel they have a wider range of metrics, and the battery life of their watches are far superior to anything else. I hates with apple watch having to recharge once ever day or so, vs ever few weeks with the garmin.

Apple Watch. it's not perfect, but a ballpark lap count is good enough for me.

I got an Apple Watch from CEX for £50 and it’s been working just fine if you don’t want to spend too much.

apple watch works well. It counts the laps, detects breaks and stroke automatically. You have to set the lane length manually though (default is 25m). It also counts the strokes and SWOLF value. The apple watch SE is fully sufficient for swimming.

My Apple Watch tracks kickers sets with breast kick, but never recognizes the other kicks. Maybe my kick is too slow? Well regardless, my kick is too slow.

My Apple Watch connected to Strava

I recon I see about 20% of people wearing watches in there. I bought a 'super tough' watch to take in but it broke anyway. Apple watches seem to be okay but it's a risk. It is pretty cool to use the timer and also to see your heart rate change.

Sleep data is great with the right tools - SleepWatch on AppleWatch is fantastic for seeing deviations from the usual baseline. Giving insights and recommendations and ideal bedtimes. It’s great to see how a good a workout improves sleep metrics whilst alcohol absolutely destroys it. Once you see this it’s hard to ignore. All of that said, AppleWatch now has an onboard app called ‘vitals’ which basically does the above and shows things in a nice simple format. I’ve had a Whoop and felt it best for those who train a lot of cardio and utilise the rest/recovery feature.

‘Value for money’ is very much a subjective measure. The impact having a whoop band has had on my sleep and recovery is easily worth the cost. I used an Apple Watch and a sleep app before this, but the results were nothing like as good.

Sounds like the 165 fits with what you’re looking for. If you change your goals and habits in the future you can always upgrade. I rocked an Apple Watch for years and finally got tired of it running out of battery, especially on longer races. The forerunner 265 is what I got and it’s been a game changer now. 

I hope you like your Garmin, I felt like the heart rate monitor was absolutely terrible on x2 tactical, no where near any of my Apple Watch’s or whoops. I’m excited To have ecg on a whoop.

I use Coros Pace 2 after trying Apple Watch and finding the GPS was not accurate enough. I've had my Pace 2 for two years now and it's great. It measures distance and relevant body metrics accurately in my opinion. I think it is mainly for running, and does running great, and I don't need it for anything else, so it's perfect for me. I hear Garmins are also great but I think they have extra features that I don't particularly need and therefore don't have to pay for. One caveat - in the past few weeks I've wondered if the (always stellar) battery life on my Coros is flagging. It's a two-year-old watch and not the latest model. Up until the past few weeks, it keeps a charge for like two weeks at a time, and I run 6 days a week.

I use my Apple Watch exclusively for swimming, and yeah, the “water mode” can be tricky at first—it definitely makes stopping a workout slower for new users. The best method I’ve found is to pause the workout first (press the crown and side button together). Then, once I’m out of the water, I disable water mode (hold the crown so it ejects water) and stop the workout. Works like a charm and keeps everything accurate! Would love to see a comparison next time you use both watches—same workout, same duration, but with more data!

I train only with my Apple Watch—mainly for counting laps and analyzing pace via the auto-sets. It’s not perfect, but out of all swim watch options, I’ve found it to be the best. If you’re planning to create an app, it would have to be **significantly better than the native workout app** to be worth switching. Ideally, it should count laps, strokes, and time more accurately—but I’m not sure if that still fits under “simple.”

Probably the opposite to you. I used to wear my Apple watch for everything but got sick of the notifications and this “always on” feeling so have gone back to an omega for my daily and then smart watch for workouts 😅

I use my watch, but use the "swim.com app" to track my laps in the pool. Only downside is it doesn't track if if I do kick sets.

I have Oura and Apple Watch. For years, AW passively fed me data and I made no lifestyle changes. After a month of Oura grading me every morning, I started taking sleep seriously. Two years later, I've gone from 5 hours to 7-7.5. Life changing stuff. My RHR is down 25%, HRV is up. Oura's daily score keeps me honest. AW is better activity tracker. Oura is better at sleep, recovery, nudging you towards change. If you're susceptible to being graded and interested in recovery and sleep metrics, Oura is for you. For activity tracking, I'd skip it.

Apple Watch ftw. I killed 4 fitbits in a year and upgraded to an Apple Watch 6 years ago. I’m now on my second Apple Watch which I only upgraded because I wanted the new features. My daughter in law has my old watch and it still works! I do use TachyMon though, it helps me to know when I’m overdoing it.

Apple Watch is hot garbage for swimming indoors. It’s like they designed a swim profile without ever consulting people who actually swim. I throw on my 8 year old Garmin 935 for pool swims.

Used to do Apple Watch and switched to Garmin, but not for daily tracking. I did it specifically because of the data it gives me for workouts, and the training plans. It’s a training watch. I think all the stuff you mentioned for me I don’t really need a lot of frills around, really. A simple line chart showing me VO2 max over time is fine. My Garmin Fenix shows me my current estimated VO2 max right on the face. I do like how Garmin charts HRV, but neither Apple or Garmin should be considered best for this if you really care. Wrist is just not an ideal location for it, even if Whoop had done well. I use Oura for sleep tracking. Apple and Garmin BOTH are kinda weak here. What Garmin does do well is show me trends of HRV, and from that it can be useful in terms of telling me recovery impact to training. Ultimately I view Garmin as a training device and Apple Watch as a lifestyle device. Both are about the same for daily tracking of activities and Garmin can feed Apple Health. If you like Apple nudging you to “close the rings” you’re maybe more of an Apple Watch candidate than Garmin. If you like Garmin telling you that today you should run intervals or ride a long zone 2 ride then you’re a Garmin candidate. 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. First I stopped wearing it at all. Since my goal is training data I was doing activity tracking from my phone and it was unwieldy. I looked at trackers like Fitbits and Whoops and stuff and settled on Garmin. Admittedly I kinda needed out on the data and the maps of the Fenix. I do some remote canoeing and hiking and thought the maps would be really useful. I think the only thing I really want from my watch is some ability to control audio from it. Admittedly Garmin isn’t strong here: they do have Spotify but no way to do Apple Music or Audible or anything, and what you can do is limited. So if I want to run or ride with music or a book my phone always comes with me. I remember when Apple Watch first let you do music from the Watch back in like 2016 and it was really cool at first, then I didn’t care and was bringing my phone on runs anyway. Since you asked about badges and motivation and whatnot: as mentioned Apple has really nice stuff, but I view it as more pedestrian oriented. Ultimately I didn’t ever feel motivated by it. Garmin seems to have tried to get into the social game, too, but I don’t know many people that use this and do gamification. They have a great badge system built more around training than anything else. That said… As another poster mentioned, I also use Strava and Strava as a social media platform is far more motivating for me. If you’re into training at all, look into it. Strava tells you about your previous times on a segment, for instance, and whether you’re getting a PR. It does Q/KOM (Queen or King of the Mountain). It can show you routes and segments in your area. It has a great interface for breaking down training data as well. Garmin is better for like overlaying cycling power with heart rate and elevation, but Strava gives you a lot of this data as well. You can feed Strava with either Apple or Garmin. At the end of the day my opinion on why to chose Garmin is if you want the training planning and tracking. If you have a goal like a race then it’s a pretty cool coach. If you have a program you’re already following and just want to track against it then it matters a lot less. The only other winning thing is depending on model you can get Garmins with incredible battery life. My Fenix 7 gets almost a month on a charge. My wife charges her Apple Watch daily. I’d probably go without a smart watch before going back to an Apple Watch because all of the cool features of an Apple Watch are lost on me.

+1 for Apple Watch. It does all the things you’re asking and has a plethora of workout options. As far as accuracy, they’re pretty much all the same according to my research and googling. And obviously it pairs really well with an iPhone if your husband uses one.

Apple Watch or coros pace 3 are both good. Both can recognise which stroke you are doing

Switching from FitBit to Apple for this exact reason.

Not sure about this. Counts fine for me doing tumbles. But lacks ability to manually add drill like kick which it doesn’t count.

Tbh… nothing but disappointment from the Apple Watch I had. Ended up dying a month after warranty. Despite the fact that I took it in before warranty ended and said it was having trouble charging, they said too bad. Went to a garmin 745 worked flawlessly for the last 5 years. I’ll Never buy an Apple Watch again.

Swim.com app on the Apple Watch shows rest time. It’s a free app and at this point I have years and years of data to compare.

Oh yeah exactly. I don’t think it even shows proper times. It appears sometimes to evenly split my session into equal increments when I know my first 50 is faster than my midway 50.

I track my workouts with my Apple Watch and automatically upload the stats to Strava.

I've had an Apple Watch for a long time and there are some things to be aware of. Where the Apple Watch shines is if you have an iPhone, it's integrated very well. You can leave your phone behind and have your music, calls, Facebook messenger, calendar alerts. It's more of a smartwatch with a tracker in it secondary. A lot of the measurements are generally accurate, to not at all depending on the type of data you give it. When I switched to more zone 2 cardio it gave me the vo2 max of an old man, which an actual study showed was far from the truth. They aren't super accurate for running including on a team and there's no adjustment after, where I believe you can with a Garmin. After testing as close as I can from a track to a trail mine varies from 10% margin minimum. My sleep doc doesn't look at any watch sleep tracking, not sure if that's standard. I used it for Crossfit for years, it was fine. not great.

Just signed up - all I really want is better vo2 max calcs than my Apple Watch (Garmin was 11 pts higher) and lactate threshold calculations so I can dial in my zones. None of that needs to be on the watch.  A metronome on the watch would be cool, though 

I have an Apple Watch and it works for every except sleep since you got to charge it. For sleep I use the Oura Ring, that is really good. And for calories and macro tracking I use Cal AI

Apple Watches are 5ATM but I'm a bit paranoid, so I bought a watch cover for some extra protection. Maybe find out if you can buy a watch cover for any smartwatch you go for. For non-Apple watches.. I've heard Galaxy watch 5 is pretty good for swimming and it has eSim. The water is the issue though. Water is very bad with RF signals. It's going to be much easier for a message or a notification to come through, taking the watch in and out of water when swimming. I recommend to get any watch you like, a good case for it for some extra water protection and ask the school to prefer sending a message before calling.

In case you didn't know, Apple Watch can also do the intervals without any additional apps. The built-in workout app has the capability

The only two issues are battery and lack of ultra sport software of Garmin. Otherwhile, all the metrics work extremely well on the Apple watch

You can program intervals into an Apple Watch or Garmin. No external app needed.

I just wear my Apple Watch when I run or work out. Don’t need it all the time tbh.

I’ve had mine for 6 months and still love it! Upgraded from the Ionic which lasted 5 years and leave my bulky, expensive, short battery life Apple Watch in my drawer.

Apple Watch is amazing. Shockingly accurate for distances and heart rate

Just finished my first 70.3 with an AW. It’s amazing. Contrary to what most people think, garmins are just not that accurate. Not even in the top 10. Shocking but true.

I love my Apple Watch. Had it for 6 years now. It's great at keeping me accountable too.

I used some, and they are really useful (lost already 20 kg, tracking my progress with an Apple watch). Rn i switched to android, and I miss the tracking thing, and the various automations i did with it (for both fitness, home and work), impossible with both of them

Yeah but it can't be connected with android, so the data held only in the watch is pretty useless... and the battery is a bit dead

Steps, sleep, mindfulness, water cups (optional), workouts synced with strava/hevy for metrics

I do, but the HR measurements underwater are quite a hit and miss. I typically have to do 2 - 3 laps in the workout mode (before starting) and adjust my watch band so it is snug and further down my arm to get a good measurement and the algorithms to calibrate. Otherwise, I tend to lose measurements mid-swim. After that it's reliable only 80% of the time. I don't have these issues with a Polar Verity or a Garmin watch. Apple Watch just kinda sucks for it presumably - I think - because it is not very hydrodynamic and the bands are not very sturdy. And this is only for the less hectic swim styles. Good luck getting reliable measurements doing breaststroke, for example, lol.

I would find a sports medicine doctor and get a full work up. It couldn’t hurt to track your recovery. I use an Apple Watch and Athlytic for this purpose and to track my sleep. I think it’s a good idea for everyone. And I doubt I’ll give you much insight about why you’re not gaining muscle. Good luck!

Same. Never had an issue.

Mine had been exposed to 190 range :)

Yeah it’s ridiculous that Apple can sense a kick board set and garmin can’t.

I'm a convert from Apple, but I have to admit this is a weaker side of Garmin. Easily overcounts pools, while Apple Watch was rock solid for this :/.

I’m using an Apple Watch and in free trial with whoop at the moment. Really tempted to keep it because it seems much smarter than the Apple Watch but a lot of that is reliable sleep tracking? The AW battery isn’t fit for purpose with that unless maybe getting the ultra but it’s v bulky

Yeah I second Apple Watch. It misses a lap while I’m swimming but I count on my head anyway

I’ve had an Apple Watch since it came out, but if you’re an android user, you’ll probably prefer something like a Fitbit. My Apple Watch tracks everything from my O2 and breathing to heat rate and body temperature. Since the latest update, it also tells me when I’m over-training - which I have a huge tendency to do. I also have Apple Fitness Plus and I find their yoga classes are as good or better than most of the live classes I’ve gone to.

My Apple Watch is terribly inaccurate. Misses laps and seems to only count part of a lap at times which in a pool is odd. I’m a former college swimmer and from talking to others who are efficient and take few strokes per lap it seems to be off as well for them

Doesn’t work at all for me. Constantly misses counting laps. Doesn’t like when I kick in streamline either. I used to swim competitively and get about 10 yards off each wall and only take about 4-6 strokes of the watch arm, so not sure if that’s what’s doing it in, but I find it hilariously inaccurate

Aren’t the pros you mentioned already there in Apple Watch? I have detailed sleep tracking and vitals available on my Apple Watch

My Apple Watch sometimes miscounts my lengths by missing 25m here and there. But by the end of my workout, it’s 300m off and it’s usually showing less than I actually did

My Apple Watch is so inaccurate.

If you have an Apple watch just get Athlytic app, save you a fortune and has all of whoops functionality

+1 for Applewatch. Love the data I get from mine.

The apple watch is quite inaccurate with the things important for running like heart rate and even distance. My friend and I even tested the distance stuff. We ran a route that we have marked with one of those wheel distance trackers to be 5 miles. I tracked with a Garmin and a GPS app on my phone she tracked with an apple watch and a different GPS app on her phone. The apple watch said 5.3 miles my watch said 5.01 my GPS app said 5.08 and hers was 5.05. also her heart rate was all over the place according to her watch which she's on very good shape and for an easy run should have a relatively even heart rate the whole time

I like it too but it does not stay on if I push off really hard (my Speedo and Arena racing goggles do), let alone start off the block. I have to push off slowly when using those goggles. Still, much more accurate than Garmin or Apple watch.

If your pool is under 25 y, and you are on Apple ecosystem, Apple Watch. If your pool is longer than 25 y, go with Apple Watch (if on Apple), or Garmin. Garmin is worse at tracking swim in a shorter pool than Apple, hence my comment.

I do, although I mainly use it to count laps because I am too lazy to do that myself. For endurance swim, I use it to guide my workload by heart rate. What is lacking in its native app is an auto-rest timer on display.

If your pool is shorter than aground 20 m, I find Apple Watch to be more accurate than Garmin for lap time (in auto rest mode). Calories, I do take too much notice of either of them as I know roughly what I burn in exercise, but they are around 20% off from each other for me, which is not that big in the big picture of things as I do not track calories (more of a technical interest than anything else). Major differences: Garmin shows you the rest time during your swim. Apple Watch offers no option to do that even in the latest version, unless I missed something. With Garmin, kickboard sets need manual recording with Drill Mode. Apple Watch does it automatically in most cases.

Personally, I was always using a Fitbit for the past 4 years or so, but recently was able to switch to an Apple Watch and I love it. It is accurate. I don’t use tachymon or any constant monitoring most days and still find benefits from the watch for monitoring my heart rate (I can’t have constant monitoring due to anxiety issues). If you have an Apple product already, having an Apple Watch is a great way to have everything connected properly.

Not a serious runner but I’ve done a few half’s, a marathon and all my marathon training with an Apple Watch, no complaints.

The thing is, you forgot to mention the AW only has a maximum 16-hour battery life. This means if you wear it during the day, you won't wear it at night because it needs charging for the next day. That is the purpose of the ring: to get your health data and leave battery percentage as an afterthought.

If you have an Apple Watch you don’t need the ring.