I have both. Please do yourself a favor and buy a Garmin. Period. And don't be one of these guys who keeps pondering this every day. Waste of time. Apple Watch (Ultra) is only worth it for most people if you have family that is heavily connected in the ecosystem and you call a lot from your watch, etc, receive messages and photos on your watch and reply and so on. My guess is you will be happy with Garmin.
If you want the watch as a smartwatch for notifications, calls, photos, emails and some added fitness features -> AW. If you want a great fitness watch with very good battery life and smart features depending on the model -> Garmin.
This is oversimplified but true imo. By the way, prudent question to ask yourself before overspending is what you actually want. Not what smartwatch / fitness watch you might want. Maybe you're fine with a Casio, maybe a G-Shock. Maybe a cheaper fitness watch like Amazfit. Decide what you want and buy accordingly. Even though I have an Ultra 3 and a FR570 I like to wear cheaper G-Shocks or mechanical watches a lot. You will know what you need - and don't worry there will always be a next better AW or Garmin, so you are not missing out if you don't buy the top tier model right now unless you do need specific features now in your everyday life.
Major differences: battery FR965 up to 23 days, versus up to 11 days FR570. Both have all Training metrics, such as Training readiness & load, both all health metrics but no ECG. FR570 comes with the latest, better HR sensor, the Elevate 5, versus the older Elevate 4 on board of the FR965. And off course FR965 has maps… not so on the FR570. Both Amoled display, both 5 buttons, as for GPS, both have multiband dual frequency GNSS.
You obviously can do without. Yet, if you are interested in supporting training build metrics, like training readiness, load, recovery etc, you could check watches like the Forerunners, FR265, 570, 965 or 970 (all 5 buttons watches which might be preferred to operate the watch (instead of touchscreen) when sweating heavily. Alternatively the Venu 4, but only 2 buttons. Off course the Fenix line is also interesting. Forget about Venu 2/3 or VIvoactive 5/6: lacking training metrics.
Imo you cannot go wrong at all with the FR70 at this price. Same HR sensor (Elevate 4, no 5 is latest) as the FR265, great battery up to 13 days, same general sports UI and metrics as the FR570/970 and Fenix 8. And like you said: longevity.
For 4-5x/week strength as your main use case, the honest answer is: FR570 over the Venu 4, and you probably don't need the 970.
What Garmin actually does better than your Apple Watch Series 5 for lifting: continuous overnight HRV measured properly (RMSSD, not Apple's spot checks), training readiness that accounts for sleep debt, and body battery that tracks cumulative load including after heavy leg days. The sleep data alone is worth it if you train that often.
What Garmin doesn't do well: it still undercounts strength training load. Your readiness score after a brutal squat session will often look better than it should because the watch is calibrated for cardio HR zones, not muscular fatigue. Teh recovery signal is better than Apple but not perfect for hybrid athletes.
You already have the Edge 840 doing the cycling metrics perfectly. The 570 fills the health and recovery gap without overlap. I use athletedata.health on top to get actual daily coaching from all the data points together, which is the piece Garmin Connect still doesn't do. 7-day free trial, no credit card: https://www.athletedata.health
For 4-5x strength per week as the primary use case, Garmin is actually the honest answer here. But I'd set expectations correctly.
Garmin's strength tracking improved a lot in the last 2 years. The rep counting via FR570 or Fenix 8 works better than most people expect for compound movements. It's not perfect, but its useful enough. The muscle map feature is a decent visual summary.
The thing it doesn't do well: it can't tell you how hard your lifting sessions actually stressed your body for recovery purposes. Your training readiness score is calibrated mostly on cardio. A brutal leg day that tanks your HRV overnight won't register as hard effort the way a long run does.
So the FR570 or Fenix line gives you solid movement tracking, good sleep and HRV data, and readable step/calorie tracking. The readiness numbers just need to be taken with context for a strength-first athlete.
For strength training 4-5 days plus cycling with a Garmin: the FR570 is the right call over the Venu 4.
The core issue you're describing is that Garmin's training readiness and body battery are calibrated primarily for cardio. Heavy lifting sessions show up as minimal stress in those scores because the watch doesn't understand muscular load well. The FR570 doesn't fully solve this but it has better rep-set detection in strength mode and the health data platform is identical to the Fenix line.
Venu 4 is a lifestyle watch with fitness features. FR570 is a fitness watch with lifestyle features. Small but meaningful difference if strength training is your primary use.
One honest limitation to flag: no Garmin truly bridges the gap between lifting load and cardio readiness in a unified way. The readiness score after a heavy leg day will often read higher than it should because the HRV signal the night before doesn't always capture muscle damage. Worth knowing going in so you don't over-rely on the metric.
If the ecosystem continuity with your Edge 840 matters, Garmin is the natural choice anyway.
For your use case, the 570 is the right call. It has everything you need for running progression, strength tracking, sleep, stress, and HRV-based recovery. The 970 adds maps and a few extras but nothing that changes the health and training insight picture for someone starting out.
The more important thing to know: Garmin does running and cardio very well, but strength training is its weak point. When you log a gym session, it feeds into your training load in a limited way. You can do a serious strength session and have your body battery still show 80% because Garmin did not fully account for it. As you start running more alongside lifting, this creates a real gap where the watch recommendations do not reflect how your body is actually recovering.
If you want both your running and your gym work to inform a single recovery and coaching signal, athletedata.health was built for exactly this. It connects Garmin with your other training data to give you one honest read on readiness. There is a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.
For weight lifting, cycling, and running, the FR570 is probably the best balance. It handles cardio zones well, has solid training load tracking, and will cover the running and cycling metrics you care about. No need to spend up to the 970 unless you really want maps.
One thing worth knowing before you commit: Garmin is strong at the aerobic side but weak on interpreting strength training. Your lifting sessions feed into training load in a limited way, so you can finish a hard squat day and still see your body battery sitting high because Garmin did not fully register the leg stress. That creates mismatches between what the watch says and how your body actually feels going into the next session.
If that integration between your gym work and your cycling and running recovery matters to you, athletedata.health was built specifically for this. It connects Garmin, Apple Health, and other platforms to give you one coaching signal across everything. 7-day free trial if you want to check it out.
ive got a forerunner 265 and its been solid for running, cycling and gym. the 570 adds multi-band GPS which is nice if you run in cities but honestly the 265 does everything most people need. get the 265 and put the difference towards shoes.
if you want mic & speaker would probably suggest looking at the venu 4, which is a great all rounder. If you want more of a focus on running, swimming & cycling with more niche training features then the FR570 / 970 are worth a look. If you want the watch with it all then take a look at the Fenix 8 which has an even higher build quality than GT6P.
The V4 definitely covers what you want.
For alts you could look at other garmins like FR570 / 970 and Fenix 8 --> they like the V4 all include Garmin's full training eco system.
There is also Coros, Polar and Suunto which all offer known and tried training systems, though I do think that garmin's system is the most detailed and provides the most insight and features the most in terms of workouts etc.
You could look at Amazfit and possibly huawei but there training systems still need more improvement as are more miss than hit.
AW has a pretty decent built in training system for running - and you can always beef that up with 3rd party apps - but that does suck a bit as its not holistic like the others are.
Garmin offers most of these:
accurate hr depends on you - but yes the current sensors are good and work well for most people, but also may depend on the activities you want to track.
all garmins are at least 5atm - which is good for swimming and other low pressure/speed water sports. They do also offer 10atm (high speed/pressure water sports) and full dive watches (closest you will get to water proof as include inductive buttons).
sleep yes - make sure spec says sleep score and ideally sleep coach - though is like this for all current models - not only see quality but can get detailed breakdown of the sleep score components.
Body Battery (BB) - yes all do but this is an assessment of your energy levels not necessarily your health. The new health status metric which monitors your HR, HRV, respiration, skin temp and pulse ox (spo2)) across time is a more accurate measure of health status.
Recovery - garmin does this in a couple of way - most current garmin's provide an estimate recovery time - which is an estimate of how long until your body has recovered so that can gain max benefit from next hard workout - will adjust based on any activity done, your stress levels and sleep quality. can see this value on the watch at any time, including the ability to add as a watch face data point.
Post activity you can do a recovery mode - before saving your activity press the recovery HR option - will now track your HR for two minutes while you rest - then press save when done. If you go into your activity and go to the stats section under HR it will show the recovery HR value i.e. 10bpm (what you HR went down during those 2 minutes). Of course for the activity you can see the HR chart fo the the tracked activity. If you wanted to track your HR for the 2 minute recovery period you can save the activity and then launch a health snapshot - this tracks your HR, pulse ox (spo2), respiration and stress for a 2 mins and provides average hrv metrics for that period - putting this into a pdf file you can download, see on phone/web etc.
Workout HR zone - yes get visible and audable notification - can also get an audio note. Can have it set as an alert or can set it as a workout screen in which case adds a screen showing zone in green with other zones in red - so very easy to see when in or out of zone. (note can do this with other metrics too like pace, cadence etc).
yes can set max/min alerts too. But think its pretty similar in terms of alerts.
Pace indicator - yes - can set from 1 to 8 data fields per tracking screen (how many may depend on model and screen size but most now do 1-6 fields - though guage fields can reduce it by 1-2 fields depending on whether using 1 or 2 guages and screen size), and can do from 3 to unlimited (as such) tracking screens (depends on model). Can set up pace workout screen, or pace guage on tracking screen or just pace data fields (i..e. current pace, last lap pace, avg lap pace etc etc etc). See the data fields section of watch manual to see data field options.
Watch face horizontal - stock garmins offer ones where hour is above minutes - but if you don't like the options there is always the garmin connect iq store (app on watch for some models, app on phone or web browser: [https://apps.garmin.com/](https://apps.garmin.com/) so you can have a look to get idea of options - there are also some other 3rd party sites where you can also get other 3rd party watch faces from).
All garmins offer abnormal HR alerts and offer the ability to set HR alerts for an activity (can set these for each individual activity type and for models that offer activity copy action can set up multiple copies of same activity with different HR alerts making it quick and easy to select which one you want without having to go in and change the alert values)..
all current garmins have very accurate gps.
Sub £600 -- covers most garmins on offer. Depending on what types of activity you do and what sort of features you want, and whether want mic & speaker. But would suggest looking at the vivoactive, forerunner, instinct and fenix ranges as that probably is more in line with what you want.
Basically gamrin health features (except ecg and baseline temp) and smart features (except offline music) are the same - its really the fitness features and training metrics where they really differentiate and even then its getting way closer (i.e ..not much difference between a venu 4 and forerunner 570).
garmin venu 4s or the Forerunner 570 is going to be your best option by far: [https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/compare/?compareProduct=1613801&compareProduct=1463821](https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/compare/?compareProduct=1613801&compareProduct=1463821) They are 41mm and 42mm respectively - though think the Venu 4s may be the better option from a style point, though the FR570 whith its additonal buttons would work better for you when skiing etc. They also both cover multi-sport activity, however the FR570 has an edge in terms of the garmin coach functionality which includes the triathlon coach feature (not sure if the venu 4 will ever get this functionality - though there is no software/hardware reason why it couldn't - its purely a model differentiation feature). From a GPS and HR perspective similar sensors, though V4 includes ECG while FR570 doesn't (differentiation I assume rather than hardware), Both will give up to 10 days and both will easily cover +12hrs of gps tracking (+6 hrs with offline music + gps). The effectively have the same HIIT, strength and ski detail, with some minor variations on swim, cycle and run (but nothing worth mentioning). As you can see from the link there are minimal spec variation and price variation.
There is the huawei GT6 series which looks more femnine but I don't think will cover you as well based on your requirements..
There are also slightly larger watches like the amazfit active 2 / t-rex 3 pro and the garmin fenix 8 43mm - but again not overly feminine and outside of the fenix will not do as good a job as the venu 4 / FR570 will to cover the activities you want to track.
NFC payments are extremely limited - its a very new feature for them (outside of China) - and think at the moment it is only Curve and only in some European countries.
Multi-sport function - it offers triathlon so as long as you are doing that you should be fine, but if its outside the standard run, swim, cycle then not sure it covers that - whereas I know with garmin you can connect virtually any type of activities together into a multi-sport activity (and can include more than 3).
AI/Coach/Training plans - its pretty new for them, so pesonally haven't tried them and no idea how effective/how good they are. Not even sure if it standard part of the watch or if you have to pay an additional sub for them (I know that for some coaching you do - but not entirely sure what is/isn't covered). I do know that like amazfit their training eco system is heavily based off garmin's training eco system (and both have in the past used garmin (firstbeat) algorithms and components of the system). But seting up your own on can take time - not sure if there are any youtube or other reviews out there on their training system and how any AI/algorithms etc play into that. And not sure how many of your activities their system covers (for example Garmin's triatholon coaching is very new on not on all models).
Skiing - not sure how huawei does on this feature and if it takes ski lifts etc into account - whereas with garmin its a really solid offering (see this comparision to apple watch): [https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/02/garmin-skiing-features.html](https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/02/garmin-skiing-features.html)
For strength training its way behind what garmin offers if you want detailed workouts and for the watch to track reps etc.
Not sure what the Huawei HIIT options are like but its extensive with garmin from the built in function: [https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fitness/making-the-most-of-hiit-workouts-with-garmin/](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fitness/making-the-most-of-hiit-workouts-with-garmin/) to also creating a workou to run off cardio or strength etc and or the abiltiy to incorporate it into a multi-sport activity or something like a hyrox.
So while it covers them in some cases its not as extensively as garmin does - which may/may not be an issue for you.
PS - if you are also connecting/using strava that is another consideration as while all your activity is ported from garmin automatically and all of it is pretty much shown in the correct categorization - the same cannot be said for Huawei - it is also region based (i.e. if in USA no sync function).
Garmin offers most of these:
accurate hr depends on you - but yes the current sensors are good and work well for most people, but also may depend on the activities you want to track.
all garmins are at least 5atm - which is good for swimming and other low pressure/speed water sports. They do also offer 10atm (high speed/pressure water sports) and full dive watches (closest you will get to water proof as include inductive buttons).
sleep yes - make sure spec says sleep score and ideally sleep coach - though is like this for all current models - not only see quality but can get detailed breakdown of the sleep score components.
Body Battery (BB) - yes all do but this is an assessment of your energy levels not necessarily your health. The new health status metric which monitors your HR, HRV, respiration, skin temp and pulse ox (spo2)) across time is a more accurate measure of health status.
Recovery - garmin does this in a couple of way - most current garmin's provide an estimate recovery time - which is an estimate of how long until your body has recovered so that can gain max benefit from next hard workout - will adjust based on any activity done, your stress levels and sleep quality. can see this value on the watch at any time, including the ability to add as a watch face data point.
Post activity you can do a recovery mode - before saving your activity press the recovery HR option - will now track your HR for two minutes while you rest - then press save when done. If you go into your activity and go to the stats section under HR it will show the recovery HR value i.e. 10bpm (what you HR went down during those 2 minutes). Of course for the activity you can see the HR chart fo the the tracked activity. If you wanted to track your HR for the 2 minute recovery period you can save the activity and then launch a health snapshot - this tracks your HR, pulse ox (spo2), respiration and stress for a 2 mins and provides average hrv metrics for that period - putting this into a pdf file you can download, see on phone/web etc.
Workout HR zone - yes get visible and audable notification - can also get an audio note. Can have it set as an alert or can set it as a workout screen in which case adds a screen showing zone in green with other zones in red - so very easy to see when in or out of zone. (note can do this with other metrics too like pace, cadence etc).
yes can set max/min alerts too. But think its pretty similar in terms of alerts.
Pace indicator - yes - can set from 1 to 8 data fields per tracking screen (how many may depend on model and screen size but most now do 1-6 fields - though guage fields can reduce it by 1-2 fields depending on whether using 1 or 2 guages and screen size), and can do from 3 to unlimited (as such) tracking screens (depends on model). Can set up pace workout screen, or pace guage on tracking screen or just pace data fields (i..e. current pace, last lap pace, avg lap pace etc etc etc). See the data fields section of watch manual to see data field options.
Watch face horizontal - stock garmins offer ones where hour is above minutes - but if you don't like the options there is always the garmin connect iq store (app on watch for some models, app on phone or web browser: [https://apps.garmin.com/](https://apps.garmin.com/) so you can have a look to get idea of options - there are also some other 3rd party sites where you can also get other 3rd party watch faces from).
All garmins offer abnormal HR alerts and offer the ability to set HR alerts for an activity (can set these for each individual activity type and for models that offer activity copy action can set up multiple copies of same activity with different HR alerts making it quick and easy to select which one you want without having to go in and change the alert values)..
all current garmins have very accurate gps.
Sub £600 -- covers most garmins on offer. Depending on what types of activity you do and what sort of features you want, and whether want mic & speaker. But would suggest looking at the vivoactive, forerunner, instinct and fenix ranges as that probably is more in line with what you want.
Basically gamrin health features (except ecg and baseline temp) and smart features (except offline music) are the same - its really the fitness features and training metrics where they really differentiate and even then its getting way closer (i.e ..not much difference between a venu 4 and forerunner 570).
as you main focus is swimming I would stick with a garmin (the 5 buttons ones so a forerunner, instinct, fenix (and its variants like epix); suunto, polar or coros.
Having the buttons enables you to swap data tracking screens while resting to check stats.
as to which is best will depend on the swimming stats and features you require.
Top Fitness Trackers on Reddit
1
Garmin
Forerunner 255 Series
86% positive of 466 users
Long battery; but wrist HR tracking is inconsistent.
biggieocta
