Apple - Watch Series 8
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Reddit Reviews:
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Based on 1 year's data from Jan 26, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
375
56
"I unlock my computer and phone with it."
"the fact that they integrate to the Apple Watch simply cannot be understated for me, I couldn’t go back to Garmin now, it is just so much part of my life now. ... Tracking weightlifting workouts, nutrition and other stuff, analysis of the data, send messages to HomePod, changing NC automatically, sending emails …."
"On the Apple Watch you can be listening to Spotify at your desk, phone, livingroom, car, etc and then hit the device button on the watch and select the watch and Spotify Connect will transfer playback to the watch without missing a beat. ... You don't have to fumble around on a tiny touch screen to locate the playlist you were listening to on your phone so you can continue on the watch. You simply transfer playback and go. ... Mid run if you want to listen to something else, you simply ask Siri and it will play what ever you ask for, no presyncing or phone is necessary."
30
7
"never thought apple would let any 3rd party access the data their devices collect. ... That is a game changer"
"I use it every swim. ... I installed the Swim.com app and it’s great"
"authentication apps ... doorbell camera where you can actually talk through your watch ... various email/chat apps ... todo list software"
16
1
"my AW alerted me to heart irregularities that sent me to the ER and findings of a small heart attack and a secondary artery in my heart with 99% blockage. I am AW for life now."
"I’ve had flu it’s detected high heart rate during the day which I believe was de hydration and every night it logs that I have a temperature high rest rate etc …you can see these values go down as you get better."
"needed a bit more like the ECG to make sure I’m not relapsing. ... It was cardiologist that pushed me in this direction as well. ... the AW just gives me a bit more insight and monitoring moving forward now."
Disliked most:
54
360
"Yeah the battery life on Apple Watch is pathetic. ... Like I have the 4G Apple watch which I wear when I am out of town just in case my iphone dies or gets broken and I am in an emergency. That happened to me a few months back. I had my watch and only my watch. I had 4G turned on for emergency services and GPS turned on so I can find my way home. Convienent and life saving right? Except the stupid thing died after an hour and after that I was stuck with no communication abilities at all in the middle of the night wandering the streets. What good is having all of those capabilities if they are just going to die on you after 10 minutes? ... other than as an emergency backup for my phone (which I have now proven is a joke in a real life emergency)"
"If I record for more than 14 minutes it will freeze and battery is already almost dead. This is at night night by the way so temperature isn't high."
"the battery now wears out very quickly - after about 1 hour of usage."
0
26
"If you are in long sleeves in the rain, you need to lock the touchscreen to prevent accidental touches. But that prevents you from using the touchscreen without holding to unlock for a few seconds. So if you are doing intervals, it can be hard to end the interval quickly."
"the Apple interface being badly interfered with by water/and clothing contact in heavy rain. ... I lost a trail marathon stats and mapping etc mid run. ... It was frankly infuriating"
"I already got sick and tired of touch screens with my Apple Watch ... Dripping sweat, rain and sleeves really screw with touch screens ... where I live we have like 6 months worth of snow so needing to take off my gloves and disable a screen lock before being able to pause my workout is an annoying PITA."
36
109
"sleep is a disaster ... I was watching TV and I was already asleep ... when I go to the bathroom in the evening, the venu didn't even notice that I was sleeping, or didn't even recognize that I went to the bathroom."
"Sleep tracking is great if you are an amazing sleeper who doesn’t have interrupted sleep or gets up in the night. I get up to pray and when I go back it doesn’t pick up that sleep again. It is an issue because sleep tracking was a major reason for me buying a fitness tracker."
"I also found the sleep tracking on the GW6 to be much more reliable. ... I have small kids so I wake up every now and then during the night and on the Garmin - it's so frustrating to be told in the morning that I had a great night of sleep with only 10 mins of time awake when I spent 40 mins trying to get my 2yo to fall back asleep."
5
14
"I rolled with all notifications on at one point and it was super annoying."
"I dont get overloaded with notifications like my apple watch"
"The constant notifications on the AW were too distracting, I feel more zen now."
0ricohet0 1.0Any Series 8 owners thinking of upgrading? I have the series 8 with 87% battery health. Before the announcement of the Series 11 I was dead set to upgrade because I wanted the slimmer design, assumed better battery and faster chip. When I workout I use the timer to time my rest periods so I find it lags when using both workout and timer. Also my battery at the end of a day is down to around 20%. But now that the announcement is out the chip and battery appear to be the same as the Series 10 so I don’t think I can justify the upgrade to the Series 11. I am considering an upgrade to the Series 10 or to just wait until next year for the series 12. Anyone else in a similar boat and want to bounce ideas?
I’m leaning towards this too. I just hope that my battery can still last all day for another year as I presume watch os 26 will be more power hungry 😖
1Ohrs 1.0currently use aw s8 and whoop. i love the setup, i know ill always have sleep data cause the chances of me letting both die are very small and i know i have the constant metrics from whoop and use aw for daily stuff and workouts
yea i wear both aw on the left whoop on the right. they are both good for different things and having the whoop gives me some peace of mind about my apple watch charge like i don’t stress about if it dies cause ik the whoop is running
Academic-Yellow-7381 1.0For example : - metronome - Pace Pro: pace monitoring with the possibility of automatically adapting the target pace according to the elevation or with a negative or positive split - adaptive maps: you can ask the watch to create a loop route of a defined distance; if we decide to change the route, the Fenix 8 recalculates a new loop, - maps: turn-by-turn audio guidance. With enough battery to last a hike of 12 hours or more - maps (always): whole world included so no need for data (practical if you get lost in the mountains) - I find the instantaneous look more reliable than on my old AppleWatch series 8. You can include refueling locations, or a hydration reminder - structured training: the pace or heart rate gauge is practical, the displays are generally much better when running - the Garmin coach adapts to our state of form based on sleep, HRV and training load - the flashing flashlight allows you to be better seen when running at night (it does not replace a headlamp except in an emergency) - with a cardio belt the watch can be attached over the jacket in winter There are certainly many other things. Well I just ordered an AWU3, I hope I won't miss all that...
The Apple Watch is the choice of compromise between daily life and running. I find it very inferior to the Garmins for running and hiking, but it is still acceptable considering the advantages for everything else.
Accurate_Lab3771 1.0I switched from an Apple Watch Series 8 to Venu 4. I miss certain aspects of the Apple Watch but I have grown to really appreciate the garmin. Things I miss: - Apple Pay (Garmin pay doesn’t work well in Canada) - answering quick texts from my wrist - ping my phone feature (garmin has this but doesn’t work all the time) - fitness rings - integration with peloton app Things I love about the garmin: - golf gps built into watch (need separate app for AW) I am an avid golfer and any app thru AW would kill battery incredibly fast - battery life - looks far better - health metrics are amazing - sleep metrics are amazing For me the positive outweigh the negatives. I can see why people hate the garmin ecosystem, but after switching for past 2 months I am truly happy with my choice. I wore Apple Watch daily for previous 3 years and never wore it at night due to needing to charge it. -
AdamMc90 1.0I ran Paris marathon last year and my AW8 ran out of battery at 38k so I took the first opportunity to upgrade to AWU2. Runna saved the run up to that point but I’ve never ran a marathon according to Strava which is annoying 😂
adventure_pup 1.0Just did this. From the series 8 once the battery couldn’t last a day. Ended up going higher to the forerunner (thanks REI 90 day returns) bc the trade offs of losing some of the apple integrations wasn’t enough gained on the venu The activities list is really limited. And its integration with Strava sucked a bit more than the Apple Watch. I could at least pick specific activities through Strava app on my watch if they didn’t come built in on apple activities, but you can’t edit the data fields on that. I wanted both. I only got about 4 days of battery, not super worth it IMO. Just enough I wouldn’t have ti charge it daily but not enough that I wasn’t frequently like “oh, I’m kinda low on battery” No unlocking each other, (phone and watch) or my MacBook for work. I miss it auto doing that the most Media players kinda suck Biggest is custom notifications on my watch vs my phone. I had to basically go in and do an overhaul so it wasn’t constantly pinging me with useless notifications I had silenced on my watch but not my phone Activities pages were limited. They were limited on the Apple Watch too but I was hoping for an upgrade here. I upgraded to the forerunner 970. Big jump. But it has a LOT more data points readily available. It’s more of what I was looking for.
AlexMarc0706 1.0Six more hours of battery life does it for me. My S8 has been lagging…
They said 24 hours overall. Before (for all previous models) they said 18 hours.
andybarnes102 1.0I use Apple Watch Series 8. Works fine. But the pacing thing is infuriating. Always laggy enough to be pointless. So if I just start going uphill and slowed down, it might still tell me to slow down, due to my pace a good few seconds ago. It just becomes annoying after a while. Their devs seem to suggest it’s just depending on GPS strength and suggested newer devices are better.
Apprehensive-Race715 1.0Just switched from a AW Series 8 to a 970. I can get over the fact that the Garmin did not calculate active calories on my 10k steps yesterday. My AW for sure overestimated active calories, but the Garmin has to be underestimating. Am i right?
beerandglitter 1.0Apple 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).
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