Garmin
Forerunner 255 Series
Long battery; but wrist HR tracking is inconsistent.
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Upgrading my Series 5 which I've worn almost 24/7 since I bought it in Nov 2021. Looking to get either a Series 10 or Series 9. Looking at a secondhand AW from Cex, they have the S9 for £160 and S10 for £205. Is the extra £45 worth it for a Series 10? The battery will be 1 year older on the S9, so there's that. And I guess you get at least an extra year of updates. But main thing I want are the temperature and oxygen sensors, more responsiveness, and just getting updates since the S5 is no longer supported. So an S9 would already be a big upgrade.
Garmin users are built different. Apple Watch users just try to fit into society, and the watch itself isn’t great. I owned a Series 9: it basically only checks your oxygen level (always 98%, so the feature is useless), the heart-rate tracking is nice, and a few sports features are okay but most of the other features are disappointing Apart from providing the distance metrics, that's all.. The Apple Watch is mostly a style accessory to say “I have an Apple product.” I also don’t like the watchOS UI. Garmin keep skeuomorphism and love it Garmin have a lot of features and capacity and look nicer
If you dont have an iphone dont get an apple watch. You need an iphone to use an apple watch. (To clarify: the apple watch works with surfr pro without the iphone being with you on the water. But separate to surfr apple watches cannot be setup without someone activating it with an iphone, and all data is tied back to that iphone) That being said, you don’t need the latest apple watch for Surfr. So buying new old model or used is an option. Bear in mind surfer uses a lot of power. I have a 2 year old apple watch 9. It still lasts 2 days of use, i turn it off at night and i have the display turn off automatically. But surfr+always on display, 4hrs will use 50%+ battery. So used id make sure its got decent battery health 90%+. Else id get Garmin.
I have an Apple Watch 9, but I picked up a Garmin Forerunner recently with the recent sales (still contemplating sending it back to get the Vivoactive 6 now that it has also dropped in price, but maybe will wait until we get close to Black Friday). Anyways, thus far I am kinda digging Garmin more (yes of course it's a honeymoon phase). I love Glances - why the hell did Apple not implement something like this ? I can see everything on my wrist without going to my iPhone all the time. The Garmin challenges are so much fun and motivating: Apple feels so clinically boring (as expected, I love Apple, but they truly are the people who like the smell of their own farts company). I mean here is shiny award for closing your ring - Jesus the rings are so fucking horrible. I love navigating with buttons: I could never operate my AW in a pool swimming laps or outside in the rain. The metrics seems solid, sleep tracking seems fine so far (with so much more detail, I love seeing my restless moments having sleep apnea). Love the battery life, and love having watch faces I can pick from and customize with real time complications ! I am still learning this watch, but I feel this might be a better tool for my fitness and health journey, as much as Apple Watch does, it just doesn't do health and fitness enough for me personally to really guide me.
Yeah I use AutoSleep, Bevel, Athlytic, Sleep Cycle - you name it I have it. I do like the apps, they are fun, full of metrics, but for me personally I don't find them accurate. The core issue is Apple doesn't take enough samples overnight to provide any good metrics. My Apple Watch takes anywhere from 3-5 HRV samples during sleep. Apple makes a good watch, but due to battery issues it takes less samples. If Apple was smart, they would split AW into two divisions: One focused solely on Health and Fitness with real time metrics, and one for folks who want to text and play with the smart watch stuff. Apple will never be able to do both cause of how heavy Watch OS is.
76 almost 77. I wear an Apple watch any time I am not in bed. It is the first thing I put on before I get up and the last thing I take off before I turn off my light. I even wear it in the shower. I like that it has fall protection. If I would go down and be unconscious, my watch will call 911 for me. Occasionally I'll have to get up at night, I grab my phone off its charger and take it into the bathroom with me. It makes me feel very safe since I live alone and my cat just doesn't have it to make a call for me. Up until August I would blue tooth my watch to my phone. My cat had a vet visit and just getting her into her carrier was a battle. Once she was in, I headed out and forgot my phone. I decided right then I would add a line though my carrier for my watch. Now I don't have to worry if my phone isn't in my pocket when I take out the trash. I am connected and can call 911 wherever I am.
Oh my it sounds like you were hurt badly. I am glad you ended up all right. I love living alone but I feel much safer with both my phone and my watch on my nightstand at when I am sleeping. The watch stays on my wrist until I turn off my light. Best of luck with your brother. I can't convince my older sister who could really use one either. My younger sister bought her first Apple watch before I got one. Stay healthy and do all you can to stay safe.
My wrist is small and I am fine boned. I have the smallest Apple watch that just came out recently. Even that looks a bit big on me, but I like what it does. My watch doesn't have the batter power to wear 24 hours a day. I am 77 and feel much safer having it on my wrist when I am up and moving around. I've never bothered with the sleep cycle. I do fine unless my cat gets the zoomies in the middle of the night and wants me to join in. A watch won't do anything about that. If I have to get up during the night, my phone is by my bedside. I grab that the few times I've needed to. It is easier than dealing with my watch half asleep. I just want to be sure I don't have any issues contacting someone if something should happen. There are no problems in water of any kind unless you scuba. I've worn mine snorkeling. I do not know what the latest watch is certified for depth wise, but I don't go that deep. Press the side button and scroll through the functions. There is a water drop. Touch that. A water drop will appear at the top of your watch face. above the 12. It protects the face from reacting from shower water hitting it. When you get out depress the stem and you will hear chimes and it is opening the watch again. The drop on the face will disappear. All of the watch is still working with the water drop depressed. I've been known to forget to updo the function and hours later I have accrued walking and exercise information. I do not know if the fall notification is still working but since everything else is I am not worried about it. Also I figure if I do go down in the shower I can use my watch to call 911. I will be able to give the operator my door code so first responders don't have to break down my door when it has a coded lock on it. I have switched to the Niki watchband with all the holes in it. It is much more comfortable if my arm gets wet and I don't worry about skin damage or have to take off my watch to dry my wrist after bathing. Good luck.
Went from a Series 9 to a Forerunner 255. * Like you my biggest complaint was the lack of physical buttons. I was doing a lot of paced club runs and some of our routes are along pretty dense streets with traffic lights. If you get stuck at the light you pause your watch, otherwise you're going to push way harder the next couple blocks just to make up time. (And to think all Apple has to do to fix this is bring some version of the AW Ultra control scheme to the normal AW.) * Garmin's notification system (trying to hook into your actual phone notifications) kind of sucks and I would rather it not even be there. (Yes, I turned it "off" but they still show up in the actual menu.) * I realize that I'm not the biggest fan of the memory-in-pixel screen. The available colors if you stick to the more default watch faces feel like going from a modern display back to one of the old 16- or 64-bit color ones from the old Windows 95/98 era. But for the battery life trade off where I can use this for almost two weeks without charging I will gladly take it. (Comparing it to Apple, there are still some vitals I never got a good baseline reading on cause I always charged the watch at night.) Given the spat these companies recently had/are having/could have again in the future, it might also be worthwhile if you don't need a new watch right this minute to just wait and see what changes.
Garmin
Forerunner 255 Series
Long battery; but wrist HR tracking is inconsistent.

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