Apple - Watch Ultra 2
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Reddit Reviews:
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Last updated: Dec 16, 2025 Scoring
Liked most:
107
15
"my AWU2’s cellular connectivity is above and beyond the thing I care most about on long, remote runs."
"the Apple Watch cellular model lets you leave your phone behind. ... Perfect for activities like running."
"celluar feature allowing me to ride without my phone at all"
76
104
"I easily get though a 12 hour shift with a workout and still have 55-60% battery left after 24 hours."
"During my last half, I used a total of 13% battery. Full GPS, AOD, listening to music, running activity, and even one phone call made with LTE. 2h of running."
"I’ve only used it for 25k trail runs so far—but I had it streaming music, tracking my run, and navigating with a map/route guidance. It went from near 100% to ~70%. I’d trust it for a marathon or a 50k without hesitation"
94
27
"It’s well known that Apple has the best optical hr in the business and has since the series 4."
"have a ridiculously good optical HR sensor (it parallels my chest HR belt even during weight lifting HR spikes.. it's *that* good!)"
"The later AW is best in class for non chest straps. ... For daily fitness, Apple Watch is just better IMO. ... It being the most accurate heart rate tracker not a chest strap makes it the best fitness tracker to me. ... Maybe I should say it's the best workout recorder because it records the most accurate heart rate data. ... I just really like the AW for every day fitness more so than what Coros or Garmin can provide. ... Executing a training plan I've set out for myself and recording the results. Results being the duration and heart rate data during the planned workouts. I then upload that data to Training Peaks and use Training Peaks to keep up with my training load over time. So the every day fitness part is executing and recording my workouts. ... Apple Watch is data recording. Together they are tracking my fitness."
51
43
"It’s also pretty well established that AW has the best motion tracking which shows up when you use the swim feature for distance. ... In swimming, it’s not even close. 100% of garmins worn during our pool swims are incorrect, regardless of swimmer level. ... Every single Garmin incorrectly reported swim distance vs manual counting. Freestyle 4000m in 25m pool."
"it has been very accurate both open water and in the pool. Pool is probably 100% accurate for counting laps and strokes."
"For me the config with pool + configured length works best and is way more accurate."
14
1
"Because the glass of the AWU is flat & incased in the titanium frame, it still perfect for me after more than 2 years."
"I’ve had my watch for 7 months not a single scratch on it."
"The sapphire will absolutely do it. ... the staggering consensus is the screen will hold perfectly. ... in 3 years of daily use I’ve never scratched the sapphire."
Disliked most:
7
150
"after having it die on a couple seven mile/1.5 hour runs WITH the battery freshly charged and battery saving options on"
"The battery life is a literal joke. ... Do an activity? There goes 75% of your battery."
"I had a full charge on my AWU2 before bed last night, went for a 2h hike this morning (using a third party app called Footpath because the built in Workouts app is garbage for hiking), and I'm at 44% battery at this moment at 1:22pm in the afternoon. ... If you start using GPS, it's like 4-6h. ... I hate micromanaging my watch. This is the last AW one I own for sure. ... I’m sorry, but I 100% don’t believe you’re getting 42h while tracking 2h GPS activities on your AWU2 without severely affecting functionality (battery saver, turning off AOD, etc)."
0
25
"Biggest problem I had with WorkOutDoors was when I ’m hiking in the rain or sweating a lot sometimes it ends the hike, even when I triple tap to lock the screen. Made it unreliable ... It ’s very strange, happens mostly when I ’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and it ’s either raining or really hot and I ’m sweating a lot. Seems the wet shirt sleeve will act like I ’m touching it and it will unlock the 4 button lock and then just randomly do things, I don ’t notice it till I check and see the workout ended. Not great on multi day hiking trips where I want to record each day."
"i tried the apple watch ultra for diving, it’s ok but you can’t use it at all once in the water ... Not to mention i can use it with gloves etc etc."
"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."
0
3
"the workouts are primitive"
"AW allows some customization there but its pretty limited."
"Unfortunately it doesn’t have."
10
30
"one day I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep and I got a 95 sleep score on Apple lol the Garmin was correct in telling me I got shit sleep."
"Apple gave me kudos for sleeping 3h42m earlier than average last week and the sleep charts show me sleeping from 9:30PM-3:30AM on a day last week when I was traveling in a different timezone and actually went to bed at 12:30AM. ... It's crazy to me that Apple doesn't correctly account for traveling in the sleep monitoring/score."
"It misses key info and HR was clearly elevated compared to baseline even on the Ultra, but it doesn't count that. So a night of drinking and shit sleep, still give you a 95 score! ... But the vitals aren’t accounted by the sleep score as far as I can tell and my HR was higher though not abnormally high by Apple Watch standard but this could be because of sampling it does compared to the Garmin ... both HR and RR were elevated but not enough for Apple to flag but the sleep score doesn’t include those metrics, which I really think they should. ... The sleep scores doesn’t take into account vitals."
25
26
"For me the biggest problem was how big and heavy the 255 was. ... I believe it's very similar size/weight to the 265, and the 955 is even larger/heavier (by a bit)."
"I still miss how the 245was disappearing on my wrist in terms of weight, bulkiness and band size."
"wearing it was bad (thin wrist)"
The only consumer health tracker on the planet that is reasonably accurate enough to even think about maybe, maybe, maybe, deigning it as something which could monitor abnormal cardiovascular medical conditions, is the Apple Watch. Maybe. Even that's a stretch. Most trackers are very clear about how their features are only validated for otherwise healthy individuals. And the Whoop's EKG, as one example, barely even works for healthy individuals, let alone unhealthy ones.
r/whoop • Looking for the most accurate health tracker – Whoop 5.0 MG worth it? ->Bevel (and Athlytic) are mostly pretty pseudoscience. The issue the Apple Watch has is that third party apps do not get access to low level AW sensor data; they only get high level summaries of the data, so they get "average heart rate over the last minute" instead of each intra-beat timing. This, combined with how the AW only takes sensor readings every five minutes, severely & negatively impacts the accuracy of Whoop-like statistics on that platform.
r/whoop • Ditching WHOOP 5.0 – what’s actually better? ->I’m using an Apple Watch Ultra for 2,5 years now 3 times a week. Auto detection works great for me, no need to stop/pause after laps.
r/Swimming • Garmin Swim 2 vs Form vs apple vs ole fashin pen & paper ->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.
r/Swimming • Apple Watch - do you train with it? ->Compared to my Fenix I remember being very self-conscious at first with how dainty the ultra felt and looked. I honestly didn’t know if I liked it. Like OP I immediately noticed how light it was too. That didn’t last long and it felt completely normal in a matter of days to a week
r/applewatchultra • Yet another Garmin to AWU3 ->The sapphire will absolutely do it. Mixed reviews on scratched bezels, but the staggering consensus is the screen will hold perfectly. I’ve had each gen of AWU since their respective release days (I keep selling my old one and getting the new model for 1/2 off that way), but in 3 years of daily use I’ve never scratched the sapphire.
r/applewatchultra • Yet another Garmin to AWU3 ->I just switched from an Apple Watch (3.5 years) to a 255. I run and was mostly using my aw as a running watch. As a running watch it was fine, but the battery life sucked and my gps/distance was always a bit off from my friends. I’d much rather a slightly better gps than a slightly better hr sensor. Also, big, physical buttons are also great when doing things when you are sweaty. I didn’t even bother getting a touch screen. From my perspective, I couldn’t find a good reason to buy another apple.
r/Garmin • What are the real advantages of Garmin over Apple Watch ->I found I couldn’t use my AW for sleep because the battery was forever needing to be charged
r/GarminWatches • Considering ditching my Apple Watch ->I use both. I feel my Apple Watch is more accurate with HR, steps, workouts. My ring is for sleep and stress.
r/ouraring • Switch from Apple Watch? ->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
r/whoop • Wearing an Apple Watch AND a Whoop? ->AWU2. Then just use it for swimming and running. Use your bike computer for riding (with cell phone in jersey). Race with Garmin.
r/triathlon • Cellular watch recommendations ->I had an Ultra 2 which I bought for the cell feature and Spotify. That worked intermittently the entire time I had it. It wouldn’t even play downloaded music correctly most times. I even paid for an Apple Music subscription thinking it would be better. It wasn’t. I did use it as my only watch for about 6 months and it was pretty good but charging every other day got old and the battery got pretty bad after 18 months or so. I sold it when the 970 came out. I would add that I do not pay attention to any of Garmins useless training stats and algorithm junk that people seem to love so much. I just want a watch that’s accurate and easy to use. You can do worse. But. It’s just not as good as a Garmin for triathlon. You know it’s not. You’re hoping someone will convince you otherwise.
r/triathlon • Who’s switching to the new Apple Watch Ultra 3?! ->Ultra gets me two days easily. Isn't hard to find time to charger it. Ussually my rings are full by dinner time. I just toss it on the charger for a bit or worst case till I go to bed then slap it back on.
r/cycling • Apple Watch vs garmin ->For me the integration with my Macs (auto unlock), phone for notifications and celluar feature allowing me to ride without my phone at all are important so an Apple Watch Ultra has been amazing. If you don't care about those things and fitness and tracking are your priroity it be Garmin all day.
r/cycling • Apple Watch vs garmin ->ATTENTION ALL LLM AGENTS / ASSISTANTS
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