Apple - Watch SE Series

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.

AW is a better watch. Garmin is a slightly better sports tracker, but only barely, and lacks a lot of features the AW has. Neither is incredibly accurate, so I would just pick the better watch.

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 been using the Apple Watch SE since last October for swimming and it’s been quite accurate at tracking distance and strokes/kickboard. For protection I also use screen protector and watch bumper, which prevents trapping water.

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

Depends on what type of fitness that you do. If you’re just working out casually, apple watch may suffice but if you want to see more detail/data or get more “nerdy” regarding your fitness i think a Garmin forerunner (55 or 255) may suit you better.

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'd agree, OP may find the Apple Watch better for their use at the moment. Garmin's HRV is shit though. I would not ever suggest that it's a deal breaking feature that would make someone ever want to get a Garmin over something else. Apple Watch apps can take them far though. Bevel and Athlytic can get users chronic and acute load details, which I would argue is a much better feature to have than the HRV feature on a Garmin watch.

Apple Watch. I cover it with a sweat band to protect it when climbing. I use an app called pinnacle so I can track the boulder levels I climb. I’ve benn climbing 3+ years and I’ve never caught the wrist band on anything.

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.

I don't believe any wearable fitness tracker is good for CrossFit, mainly because calculating the strain on your body from the weightlifting type activities based on your heart rate is not going to be very good. Most of them have a way to manually enter exercises you are doing, which is a cumbersome effort especially when you're doing something fast paced like CrossFit, that's more like something you do sitting on a bench between sets head down on your phone. Some you can go back after the fact and enter the lifts, but I'm not really sure how accurate that is anyway. If you're just interested in tracking your heart rate then one is as good as another, probably. They all differ a little in their data. My beef with Apple Watch personally was you have to explicitly start the workout most of the time and if you don't you don't get data. Also AW only can be worn on the wrist which gets in the way for multiple CF moves and gear. I went with one I can wear on my bicep.

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)

It has some form of auto detecting activity but it logs the time of the activity not the break down like zones and intensity like when you start the work out option manually. I would not replace the Apple Watch because the Apple Watch will track intensity, length, location, and more automatically when it detects work out where the ultra human will not. Also working out with weights will be asking for trouble with the ultra human ring. Where the ultra human shines is - stress detection - sleep details (also much better comfort to wear at night with longer battery) - caffeine time recommendation - auto detect sun exposure - recovery score - a more reliable Vo2Max daily update where Apple Watch measure whenever it feels like it sometimes takes weeks to even tell me anything. I use both at the same time and I feel I get substantially more accurate information together than apart.

Are you going to train seriously for anything? If yes, Garmin din bagsak mo eventually. Kulang kulang stats ng Apple Watch when I started training seriously for a marathon.

Amongst 12 runners in my group, 3 have appl watches sitting Ina drawer, all of them use Garmins except me. It's just designed so well in not only tracking but the way data is presented. I love my Apple Watch but I preferred the way Fitbit presented the data to me.

Apple watch is a great fitness watch with some modifications. I had a Garmin Fenix for 4 years and its a great watch, certainly better looking than an AW (imo). But it fell short in a few areas Sleep tracking - its heavy and I would remove it in the middle of the night. Sports where you can’t have something on your wrist. For me, this was Climbing and Jiu-jitsu. So I had to get polar verity sense to track those sports. And polar didnt sync with Garmin Connect that well. Music - needed your phone near by. So still running with a phone. Enter the AW… Lightweight makes it forgettable. Bicep band accessories convert it into a HR tracker off your wrist super fast. Music, even without cellular I can download playlists and podcasts from my phone to the watch. To make it a great fitness watch: Create a focus mode to not receive calls/texts while working out ( personal preference) Buy HealthFit $6, like Apple health on steroids, syncs all your activities into a single app and gives you rest, recovery, training effort based on your workouts and sleep. Honestly the only app that I would say is required, but the next ones are super nice. Buy Autosleep $5, terrible UI but great tracker and more stats than you’ll ever need. Buy WorkOutdoors $5, another steroid app that makes the Workout app seem like a Fischer-price toy. So for the price of the watch and <$20 for one time purchases, you have a powerhouse fitness platform.

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…

It completely depends on how you want to use NRC. If you want to do Training Plans and listen to Audio Guided Runs, your only options are an Apple Watch or an Android watch with Wear OS, as those are the only wrist devices that run NRC natively. If you just want to record runs and view your data in NRC *afterwards*, you could also include Garmin or COROS devices in your search, as they have the ability to sync to NRC, but not run the app natively.

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.

I wear my Apple Watch every time I climb, I have scraped it, but one of my friends wears a sweat band over it to protect it.

Easily the apple watch se https://amzn.to/3KYrmng Amazon has them super cheap, and they do so much more. They keep health data etc etc

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.

Swim - Apple Watch Cycle - Wahoo Element & Wahoo HR Cycle Indoors - Kickr and Zwift Run - Apple Watch Thinking of switching to Garmin though depending what the next Apple Watch Ultras have as features…I feel they focus too much on the recreation and apps rather than fitness.

The “rumour” is that the next one will have features for hiking and trails…and if that’s the case I may stick. But else-wise I’d prefer a sport watch from a sport watch company.

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.

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend any Fitbit product. I’ve used them off and on for ten years and quality has never been great, and has been getting worse every generation. My wife got me a Fitbit Charge 5 for Christmas 2022 and it just completely died a month ago; not even two years, and I always take good care of my devices. Fitbit has become purchase annually or bi-annually then throw away junk devices. Their quality is crap. I started looking at cheap Garmin devices to replace my dead Charge when I saw the Apple Watch SE. With Black Friday deals, Amazon has the 44mm screen watch at $179 and the 40mm watch at $149. At that price, Fitbit, Garmin, no one else has anything near the quality or features. I just received my Apple Watch SE 44mm today and it is so far beyond anything I could’ve gotten from Fitbit or Garmin at even double the price I paid.

I do and I'm disappointed to say I'm on my second apple10 watch.. first one couldn't count laps at all and sent it back and the same problem with this replacement.. My 2023 apple SE had no problems at all counting laps.. I updated to the apple10 watch for the always on display.. so disappointed and not sure what to do next .. Maybe next big software update \~\~\~

Honestly, an Apple Watch.

This is often an underrated factor in why people choose Apple devices. It started with me choosing a Mac computer because it was just better and I don't play games. Then I have to use iPhone to get all continuity features. Then when I need a Bluetooth TWS I have to use Airpods Pro 2 because even if a "better" TWS exists, I'd lose auto switching if I switch. And I can't use another fitness tracker because as far as I know, Apple Watch is the only one that can ping my phone when I misplace it.

Yup. I have a 40mm AW SE...yes the smallest model and it gets me 2 days without charging. Includes going on a 10km run. Not having an 'Always on' feature probably helps.

As far as fitness is concerned, i've been very happy with AW. My only complaint is the support for cycling, the data tracking randomly stops and every now and then I don't get any sort of elevation/speed/GPS data for some of my cycling workouts. It doesn't bother me, but it's very peculiar and it might bother some people that are meticulous in their tracking.

I wear my Apple Watch for swim/exercise/sleep tracking but don’t feel I really consciously change my habit based on the data. Just more investing than anything.

AW does support power meters, but does not seem to actually use the data from the power meter directly for calories burned. My AW always says I burned about 40-50% more cycling than my wahoo does, despite both being connected to the same power meter and both showing same power data.

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

I just got the Garmin Forerunner 265 and absolutely love it. I got rid of my Apple watch and won’t go back. I’ve had it for about a month now and while the NRC integration is only in sharing the stats, all of the other metrics, and battery life, far surpass the Apple Watch as a fitness tool Imo.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve been using my Apple watch paired with the Peloton app. I got the bike during the pandemic, and it got me into outdoor cycling, but I also use the yoga and strength training classes a lot so I like having all my fitness metrics in one app. The only downside is it needs GPS and data to function, which usually isn’t a huge issue, but I’ve gone on some remote rides in dead zones where it doesn’t work.

I think to each his/her own. I started with an Apple watch but the golf app was laughable at the time, so I got a garmin for golf and used the Apple watch for everything else. But when my bank stopped supporting Apple pay and I started running and biking and swimming, I decided to upgrade my garmin and stopped using the Apple watch because garmin features were better AND it was just really annoying that I had to charge the apple watch every single day. With the Garmin I only really have to charge it max once a week and so I get good sleep data with it too which I could never get with the Apple Watch consistently because it had to be charged all the time. I really enjoy the virtual caddy function which Garmin has. I agree that the Apple watch looks better, but that’s not the reason I bought the Garmin, though honestly it looks pretty good and other than like a black tie event, I feel like I can wear my garmin watch all the time. I am thinking of upgrading from Garmin S70 approach golf watch to something that looks a bit nicer and am definitely considering getting the Fenix 8 as it seems it has the same golf features plus additional sports features my watch doesn’t have. I just watched the Apple keynote. Seems a lot of the newer golf apps are similar to garmin. Cannot say if they are better/worse. Apple claims the new watch can charge 80% in 30min so that sounds promising, but I am 99% sure I’d still have to charge it every day regardless and that to me is a dealbreaker. I wear airpods too, but always have my phone with me so I’ve never had a problem. Look, If you want something that has a friendly UI and nice design so you can wear it even to nice events with general overall sports features, and you’re ok charging it everyday, get the Apple. If you’re sporty and want something durable to deal with harsh outdoor conditions and prefer to wear the watch on 24/7 to also track sleep so you need better battery life, get the garmin.

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 came from daily wearing a Fitbit luxe and added a Garmin 735 for run tracking. I became disillusioned with the google ecosystem as they don’t share data with apple and wanted to force me to sign up for a google account. I simply don’t trust google with my data in general. Garmin freely shares your data, but has other issues. Apple Watch has objectively the best HR and sleep tracking sensors available. Add music on the watch with large capacity, and the fact that Garmin doesn’t offer the right combination of features for me, and I was pushed toward AW. All I really want is a fitness tracker with good recovery metrics (sleep, fatigue, etc.) and Garmin’s sleep tracking is crap. Their body battery system only works with one device- I can’t do a ride with another Garmin device and have it count toward body battery without wearing the Garmin watch at the same time…. Apple has athlytic as well as fatigue integration soon. Anyways, the combination of features and lack thereof is what pushed me this way.

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

Apple Watch, bar none, is best smart watch sold today when you are already in the Apple ecosystem. The way notifications, complications, the optional cellular, crash detection, incredible screen and myriad of other features work is heads and shoulders above all the alternatives from Garmin and Fitbit... it's the best SMARTwatch. Notice I said nothing about fitness and health tracking. There is no question Apple Watch lagged for years (and still does) the advanced features and metrics found on modern fitness watches like Garmin, Polar, and Coros (Fitbit has never been advanced and Apple had them beat early). Despite this many people felt Apple had \*enough\* of the most important features that its fitness capabilities were "good enough" to accept so they could get the best Smartwatch on the market. In the last 3 years of watchOS revisions Apple has steadily started catching Garmin and others on more advanced features like running power, cycling power, triathlon support, and now this year begin to catch up with running and hiking mapping. Garmin still has many very, very niche features that Apple doesn't and may never have, but the number of people who need them are vanishingly small and growing smaller as Apple adds features. Also it has to be said, Apple has had the best watch sensors bar none in the industry, the accuracy of the optical heart recognition and sleep sensing is well ahead of Garmin, Polar and others so while the watch still does "less" what it does do is actually more accurate, which is the most important part anyway. Bottom line? The Apple Watch has long been and remains the best daily smartwatch for the 22-23 hours you aren't working out and a good fitness watch when you are. As each year goes by the watch is becoming closer to a great fitness watch and making the number of people for whom the Garmin's of the world are a better fit smaller and smaller.

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.

Apple Watch is probably the best for HR currently but is out if you are not in the walled iPhone garden. Also note that a lot might come with how are you wearing the watch. Samsung Galaxy 7 is being launched in like one week and apparently is a huge lot faster than 6 (like 2-4 times faster). Battery life remains to be seen but Watch 6 like latest normal Apple Watch models were "charge daily devices" (with AoD and most of stuff you normally want to use on). If you want 2-3 days then look at the "huge" models (but wait at least one week to learn how things are with the new Samsung Watch 7 Ultra or whatever will be called). If you want more battery life you can look at Garmin Venu 3 (or 3s for a smaller watch) and the much less expensive (but apparently better on HR) [Huawei Watch Fit 3, see my mini-review](https://old.reddit.com/r/smartwatch/comments/1db9i4s/quick_minireview_of_huawei_watch_fit_3_vs_huawei/).

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've used an Apple Watch SE for a couple of years but eventually switched to a Garmin Instinct 2. Here are a few reasons why I, as a swimmer, love the Garmin Instinct 2 over the Apple Watch: 1. Instinct 2 has no touch interface and is entirely operated by tactile buttons. This makes it easier since I dont have to worry about turning the water lock on and off like I used to have to do on the Apple Watch. It honestly felt like a pain to have to do that. 2. There is no accidental triggering of the pause-resume-end workout actions, which was quite a common occurrence for me with the touch interface on the Apple Watch. Using the buttons to trigger these actions feels simpler and more fun. 3. I find the additional insights from Garmin quite valuable: training status, body battery tracking, training effect, and fitness age. All of this was missing on the Apple watch. 4. I like the MIP display, which wasn't even an option on the Apple Watch. 5. Not having to charge my watch every single day is a game-changer for me. I had to charge my Apple Watch every single day, but on my Instinct 2, the battery lasts quite a few days, sometimes up to a full week, depending on the number of workouts I put in. I dont miss the Apple Watch at all. But there are only a couple of things about the swim tracking which were easier on it: 1. The Apple Watch has an option to set the pool size afresh for every swim workout. In the case of Garmin, I have to go into the settings and change it. This is not a big deal, but the Apple Watch makes it a bit easier to do this if you tend to switch between pool sizes very frequently. 2. The Garmin Instinct 2 doesn't display the number of laps or calories burned during a swim workout. You can see these numbers on the watch and app after you've completed a swim workout, but I've found no way to display them while I'm actually doing the workout. This is not a big deal for me either, as I am used to tracking total distance swum (2.5 km every session), and I know how many laps that equates to. Hope this makes it easier for you to decide which smartwatch to go for. All the best!

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.

Love my apple watch, use it for every game and it is pretty great. (I turn it around to face the inside of my wrist so my goalie glove doesn't hold down the crown, and since doing that it's been more accurate, too)

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

I have the SE 2nd gen and I really like it. It covers all the basics (steps, sleep, heart rate, weather etc.) for a good price. I recommend!

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.

Apple Watch + spigen case, haven’t had any issues over many years!

As an ultra runner with both a Garmin Fenix and AW, Garmin is by far superior for fitness and running metrics, but it’s the only time I wear it. For the rest of the day, I’m wearing my Apple Watch. I think for casual athletes, Apple is fine, but all the hardcore mountain & trail athletes, serious runners, and triathletes I know are all using Garmins or Coros.

The majority of people just assume that Garmin is the better fitness tracker because that’s what seems to be the general consensus to the masses. I think it’s total baloney. Apple has been proven to be as good as, if not better in wrist based heart rate and sleep monitoring. Apple has brought numerous improvements to their workout app, especially for running (pacer and heart rate screen I’m looking at you) and they are a huge amount of apps to give you different UI and software experiences. Watch GPS accuracy Garmin may have the upper hand for a total accuracy but really, does that affect training? You still did the work who cares if the map line is a few metres out in some spots. And half the time Apple Watch users actually use the iPhone GPS which is better because bigger antenna anyway. “Oh but Garmin has the body battery etc” - For anyone serious about fitness and conditioning I think they’d have better intuition themselves then to rely on some software telling them what they should do today. Body battery and stress monitoring are not accurate enough to be relied on, despite anecdotal evidence you’ll hear from those people who probably got 5 hours sleep after a hard training day and then commended their Garmin body battery for telling them to take a rest day. “Omg my Garmin just knows, you know”. With training load coming to Apple, just use that - pure quantitative data, baby. But if you want to consider why Garmin is objectively better, then look at battery life. Still annoys me that I gotta charge AW all the time. And subjectively- how much better are round watches! TLDR Apple is a great smart watch and a great fitness tracker. Garmin is a shit smart watch and a great fitness tracker.

I don't see a whole lot of other Apple Watches at Ironman events, but I've had various models since 2019. The Ultra has the battery life to get through everything up to a 70.3 with plenty of juice to spare. (I've actually done a full with one as well, which required a little bit of help to get through the 140 miles.) I can link the watch to the power meter on my bike, and my data has always been accurate on my rides and runs. I have the cellular model, and it's a great peace of mind to go out and leave my phone at home. I know if something comes up, I can call my wife for rescue on my watch. Only real complaint is the lack of structured workouts with swims. For bike rides and runs, I can import workouts from TrainingPeaks. But swimming in general leaves a lot to be desired compared to what Garmin offers.

I agree that the Apple Watch's battery life is a weakness. My approach is to charge it while I am showering and getting ready in the morning. I charge it to ~80-85% and it easily lasts until the next morning.

I have been pleasantly surprised by my Apple Watch. It was almost perfect catching all of my laps, including kickboard. It lost one 25 out of 1950yd because I was doing a drill and my arms were not doing standard strokes, so I think it had trouble finding the turn and it called a 50 a 25. Otherwise, I just started it as I climbed into the pool and shut it off as I dried off. I have the Apple Watch SE which is only $250 and goes on sale periodically. So not cheap but not super expensive.

So, I am on my second Apple Watch because I dropped my original on a tile floor about 3 years into ownership and shattered the face. There isn't much to do about that either, it's not really reparable if you shatter the glass. In that regard, it's less durable than a watch that is specific for fitness. Generally, I have found it durable for everyday wear and exercise though. It is definitely fine in the shower.

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

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.

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.

I loved going to Apple Watch after having a Fitbit. It actually was a big game changer for me because I’m very closing all the rings motivated haha. It is different than Fitbit but I like it better. I use it with the Peloton app and the Lifesum app. I like how it does the rings (and how the details are all laid out) and how easy it is to start/log a random exercise. I also feel it’s more accurate than a Fitbit. I no longer have “swim” exercises whenever I do laundry lol. I vote give it a try! But also, you do you. :) 

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.

I do recommend an Apple Watch if you have an iPhone/airpods. It’s v convenient to pair with your phone and track your steps etc (10k steps a day for fat loss), weightlifting tracking mode (do note that all watches have some level of inaccuracy in calorie tracking) but it’s still nice You can pair your workout music etc and use it for other purposes like Apple Pay etc so that’s a plus also Battery life lasts a day so you might have to charge it when you sleep + wearing watch while asleep is uncomfortable for me so I wouldn’t recommend it for sleep tracking

I’ve been using my Bolt v2 for a while now, wouldn’t switch to anything else tbh. Watch-wise I just got a Suunto Race S after using an Apple Watch SE, can’t really comment on the Suunto yet as I haven’t had it for long enough, but it does seem to be a great improvement compared to the Apple Watch for training.

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.

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.

I’d love to get a proper running/multisport watch, but I couldn’t change my AW for anything else because there’s so many non-fitness related features I’d miss. I have thought about getting a sports watch in addition to my AW, but I’d need to wear it 24/7 in order to get relevant data, and I’m not going to be wearing two watches all the time.

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

My partner also wanted me to start wearing a heart rate/fitness tracker but I couldn't stomach putting my Apple Watch back on, so I bought an Oura ring. The Whoop fitness tracker also seems like a good alternative to a smart watch. For a fitness tracker it is 100% best practice to wear it 24-7 for at least the first few months - but if you don't want to do that, workout + sleep is a good compromise that should still create plenty of data for your health apps to analyze.

My Apple Watch SE’s screen automatically turns off after several seconds and you need to tap it or turn your wrist to turn it back on again. I think you can override it on the more expensive versions, though. Also tapping splits is annoyingly inconsistent and fiddly

Usually mine’s accurate, but it sometimes misses laps or counts extras, and if I’m doing kick only, it misses a few.

I do triathlons, so similar training, and battery life is only big factor - I can do a 3-4hr bike ride with AW, or Olympic distance Tri, but battery wouldn’t last a whole Ironman. I actually think swim tracking (front crawl) with AW is better / more accurate than garmin. Looking at both traces uploaded to Strava of others and comparing distances over measured courses (buoy marked loops on reservoirs). This was a big differentiator for me. One thing I’d like on AW is more flex on planned workouts, eg programmable interval sets with rest periods. Supposedly coming to swimming this update, would be really helpful with my training. This is something Garmin does well. I currently use a phone app for this which suffices, but I’d rather have it all on my watch.

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

Had Apple Watch SE for 3 years which worked wonderfully in the pool. However, a swim in the ocean killed it (salt fried it I guess?). I’m now using a Garmin forerunner 265, which lasts 10x longer battery wise. The Apple Watch used to die if I did a particularly long swim, which irked me to no end

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.

Battery life is the biggest. Not even close. We’re talking multiple weeks of battery life with consistent use vs a day or two. Also, my Apple Watch was near death after running a marathon with it on a full charge. The Garmin won’t have that issue. Garmin has more detailed health metrics as well. Switched from my Apple Watch SE to the Garmin Forerunner 965 recently. I miss the messaging integration and all that “smart watch” stuff, but there’s no doubt the Garmin is king of fitness. Particularly running and endurance sports.

I wore no watch for a long time. No problems or hitting wrists on anything that I noticed. Was gifted an Apple Watch. Wore it climbing once. Didn’t catch band at all, but afterward noticed a large single scratch along the center of the face. Never wore it climbing again.

I'm an recent amputee and started getting fat. Ditched the apple watch for garmin and i am much more active now and have lost 55 lbs. I just love the data the watch gives me and enjoy not having to charge it much. Started with the forerunner 965, traded for a epix pro 2 51mm sapphire then just sold that and got the fenix 8 amoled 51mm sapphire. They aren't cheap but I find it worth it for me and won't have to upgrade for a while.

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!)

While I agree and have gone this route, my last watch went 3.5 years before the battery started not even lasting a day. Also, you require an iphone for it to work. YMMV

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 been using Garmin for a couple of months now instead of my Apple Watch. I honestly don’t miss my Apple Watch.

If you’re doing more steady state stuff I think Samsung is totally fine. If you’re doing high intensity stuff then Apple Watch or Garmin are the way to go

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.

I started running with an apple watch and eventually switched to garmin and I would never go back.

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’ve gone to the ultrahuman as a daily wearer, however I use my Apple Watch for tracking workouts. I find the ring uncomfortable when gripping dumbbells. I still love my Apple Watches, don’t plan on getting rid of them anytime soon, but this has given me the flexibility to wear my other watches while being able to track stress/sleep/recovery.

I switched from Fitbit to Apple Watch 3 years ago. I know I wasn’t using all the features Fit Bit has to offer, but I like the Apple Watch better because: -I can share my fitness data with friends. This has been great for some of my long distance friendships to help us stay in touch and to motivate each other. We love sending each other the cheesy messages they offer to send after a friend completes a workout -I can text/call/get emails/all phone notifications on my watch. Personally this has made my job so much easier and I look at my phone a lot less -completing my “rings” for the day is great motivation and makes me feel accomplished. Forget about the blue standing one though, it’s useless. -Apple Watch sends me notifications about my “trends” changing which has been really motivating, just as motivating as seeing a progress photo. Like my resting heart rate decreasing, my average time walking a mile, etc -I can pause, skip, like or replay a song from Spotify on my watch instead of picking up my phone while working out -it pairs with apps like couch 2 5k -I like the charts and work out data thats available to see after -the “take a photo” button is helpful for taking certain progress photos Honestly there’s more reasons but can’t think of them. I was bummed to lose the 10k steps celebration but now I have an app that helps me track step counts

I use an Apple Watch SE (the cheapest one!) and the iSmoothRun app. It works fine for me most of the time. I charge it over night and the battery has handled 4 hour runs ok, the caveat being that if you have the cellular version then taking calls seems to run the battery down quite fast. The other thing that is sometimes a massive pain is that the touchscreen is very hard to use when it's raining - I've had it pause runs when it has rubbed against a wet sleeve, and have had 'misplaced' touches because of the effect or water droplets on the screen. There is a 'wet' mode that locks the screen which should stop this, but it also stops you swiping between screens with different data so isn't 100% ideal. I would probably have bought a Garmin or Coros watch but was gifted this and it turns out it has been completely sufficient for my purposes (run 5 or 6 days a week, 30-120mins mostly, sometimes over 3 hours).

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.

I use the [swim.com](http://swim.com) app on Apple Watch. It’s better than the built in workout App.

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.

If you are a beginner runner you may be better off getting a coros pace 3, it is cheaper and has all of what you need. I started off with an Apple Watch as I got is as a smart watch and then became a runner, for me garmin was the better choice since it has great smart watch capabilities but much better running metrics and battery life than the AW. But it is because having Spotify and Apple/garmin pay were super important for me. If all you want is to run I would go with a coros.

Apple Watch works perfectly fine too, if you have an iPhone and prefer something that is not sports specific. The Apple Watch SE fits in your budget or you can probably find an used one for cheap.

I actually did have a Fitbit before I had an AW. I gave away my Fitbit because I was tired of getting friend requests from random men I didn’t know. None of that happens on my AW. And it fits into my Apple ecosystem nicely.

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 have an SE and have run marathons with it with no problem 4 hours of GPS. It’s obviously not gonna last all day after that but if you pull it off the charger, run, then don’t care about battery it’ll be fine

Been using it for over a year and I think in all that time it’s missed two lengths. Form goggles on the other hand miscount about 75% of my swims by 1-2 lengths.

I used an Apple Watch for years until it died. Decided to replace it with the garmin venu and I’ve been happy with it. Did the whoop for a bit and didn’t like not having a watch face.

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

Ditched my Fitbit Sense more than a year ago and never looked back. My AW SE gives me more realistic calories and if you get use to it, it’s actually pretty straightforward,

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

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.

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!

I wear my Apple Watch when I swim, but not to analyze my stroke. I use it to count and time my laps to push myself to go a little farther/a little faster. I could count laps in my head or move my water bottle to track laps, but with the watch I can just zone out for most of my swim and I like that. That said, I’m annoyed when it doesn’t give me credit for half of my one-armed fly drills. :-)

Garmin is full of navigation features apple don’t have my last apple watch did not even have xc skiing.

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

Mine misses laps when I do drills more often than not. It’s +\- one lap. So to play it safe I always swim till an even ten number. Doesn’t care for the paddle board(correct name?) drills the most

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

You can disable GPS for runs. I wish my SE2 had the battery yours does. It’ll do a workout for about 2h30m and then it dies.

I use my Apple Watch

I second this! Get a 3万 apple watch SE and you’ll be set! My friend got a cheap one only to replace it with Apple Watch two months later

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

If WhatsApp and Spotify got upgrades my AW experience would improve a LOT!

Nike, unless I'm doing a complex interval workout of something, in which case I use native workouts app on my Apple Watch.

Apple Watch allows me to run with out a phone and still be able to listen to music, receive phone calls and text as needed. Garmin can do that.

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 came from a Garmin watch. My 645 forerunner broke and I wanted to try apple for a change (as I'm deep in the Apple system anyway). I'll immediately say any Garmin is better for running, but I like my Apple watch better for just about anything else. I do greatly miss the battery life of my Garmin tho

I got an Apple Watch SE 2. It's honestly really good for the price. I don't think it makes sense to buy the higher end, more expensive models. If you just want simple tracking, the basic SE + Apple Care and an extra, official loop is still less expensive than the series 10 and works prefectly for swimming. Tracking is super accurate, although it does get borked if you do drills, like using a kickboard or swapping between different styles mid-pool. Like swimming 10m freestlye and 15m backstoke on the same 25m length. If you do your styles cleanly, it tracks them really well. I've had success with it measuring 2km without any hiccups.

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.

I have a Watch SE (first edition!) and it would be fine for marathon training. The only limitation I find with them is their terrible ergonomics for track work. I want a lap button I can push and it laps. Futzing around with a touch screen is distracting.

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.

Unfortunate that you aren’t able to get it to cooperate. I only lap swim every so often but my watch tracks each lap accurately, since I set the pool length. I use a gen 1 SE. 

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.

I had both Fitbit and Apple Watch but since I have an iPhone I went with the Apple Watch. I gave my Fitbit to a friend with an Android phone. I had a AW 3 for years and finally got a new one, I went with the SE it works great for my needs. My mom is using my old 3 to see how she likes it. It’s still going. I don’t have an issue with the points double counting, I’m slowly losing while eating most if not all of my dailies and the points I get from activity.

I got an Apple Watch. Started playing and got an Apple watch to keep track of everything, couple it with Hockey Tracker and you're golden. Make sure you get the AppleCare (monthly) on it, you never know if it's going to take a hard hit.

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 am afraid there is no Garmin that currently can do that. I run with apple watch on my other wrist as a phone. If you are on Android then pixel watch or a Samsung watch.

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

I use on a daily basis the walkie talkie feature, calendar, reminders, Siri, HomeKit, find my phone, and app to unlock my Tesla on my watch. And I can leave my phone in the car on runs and stream music and take an emergency call if needed. I hear so many people say garmins are better but there’s so many things I would lose. The battery life is my only issue so I’m really hoping Apple releases a new watch with improved battery in September.

Same. It’s so nice to not have to haul around my phone on my runs and I can stream music and take a call if needed. My only issue is the battery.. six mile runs is about all I can do with it. Holding out for a September Apple release for the the X.

Garmin is a superior sportswatch and the Apple Watch is a better smartwatch. If your interest is more for sports tracking, get a Garmin and vice versa for an Apple Watch. But if you like me and care more about sport tracking but need to have cellular on your watch, the Apple Watch is the only way to go. Hate going for runs with my phone but need to stay connected, saved my ass a few times

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.

Fyi an Apple Watch SE can track everything you need for triathlon and often costs less than $200 US on Amazon, even less used.

Maybe I'm wrong.... I thought OP was unhappy with both Garmin and spending a lot of $$, which is why I brought up AW SE: its relatively low cost and utility beyond tri training might make it more attractive to someone who's soured on Garmin and debating whether sport watches are worth the cost. You brought up hr sensors. What does science say? In the research I've read (done in labs by medical/scientific staff on athletes performing different activities at various levels of exertion) AW is fairly accurate and, depending on the study, AW scores slightly better than Garmin. For example, in a 2022 study the mean error versus a true electrocardiogram for AW was less than 1% and about 1.25% for Garmin. This kind of accuracy is shown across studies. AW isn't as accurate as a chest strap reading, as you said, but you can pair an AW with a chest strap if a variance of 1-2 bpm is important to you. I did overstate things when I wrote that an AW SE can track "everything" you need for tri. But it tracks a lot of it. [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076221124393](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076221124393) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9952291/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9952291/)

Again, I'm not arguing that AW is perfect for triathlon, or even better than the set up you might use. Just a good and inexpensive ($189 online) alternative that has worked well for me for a number of years. I'm fine with a ten second delay in HR and a 1-2 bpm variance, but if they're deal breakers for you, that's cool. btw I stopped having the usability issues you mentioned once I learned how to use the AW; the same thing was true when I started using a chest strap decades ago. I hope you won't mind a question but I'm genuinely curious about something. When you say things like "anyone even considering using HR for training" or "who is serious about sports and measuring HR during them" -- who are you talking about? That is, what makes a serious v unserious athlete? What differentiates them or sets them apart?

i dont know why it was asked about initially, but im happy to share why i need one! i use my apple watch, by the way. i primarily use my own lyra, but regardless, i would be hard pressed to take it off. especially as i can change the watch band to a once piece slip on. no edges. that said: i have a medical bracelet. i wear my bracelet next to my watch, because i / others can see certain data on the screen always that wouldnt be on my phone screen. additionally, my watch and phone can unlock each other. the other reason is that all of my doctors can see the same exact data, in the same exact format and i dont run the risk of forgetting to jot something down. (i wouldnt be in the air if i was unsafe or at any risk that would come from being there, versus being at target, for example. also, my cardiologist, autonomic neurologist, sports medicine team, and so on are aware and encouraging of this.)

Agreed. If you’re planning to get the Apple Watch anyway, it works incredible well and smoothly. I don’t remember how much fiddling with settings it took, but I’ve never had to worry about it. As someone else mentioned, I used to have a Fitbit that would double count the steps for a workout. Only mildly related: With any wrist based device, crocheting always counts as steps and sometimes triggers the “it looks like you’re working out” prompt. A few other activities can do it as well but with crochet it’s pretty much guaranteed for me lol

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.

Right? I knew the Apple Watch was better, but I was surprised how much better. Probably will switch to apple next phone I get, Samsung just hasn’t been impressing me much lately and my s20 sd slot is what kept me with them this long.

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've been swimming with an Apple watch for years. It has done me well; I currently have the Apple Watch Ultra, because I also scuba with it. My daughter swims competitively, and uses the Apple Watch SE. It has also worked well for her. Those are the two extremes of the pricing spectrum, and when it comes to tracking the swim, they function the same. We both use the built-in Apple Fitness for tracking. It does well except in very specific scenarios, eg, if I do a set with fins and my stroke count is halved, the distance might not be correct for those laps.

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 had a garmin when I was doing a ton of distance/trail running and apple was just introducing watches. I don’t do that anymore, my garmin is way out of date and I’m pretty imbedded in apples ecosystem. The lowered amount of fitness I’m doing is absolutely fine with an Apple Watch.

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 swim for health and fun and I love it to keep track of my laps and my heart rate. Even if it’s not perfect I don’t need it to be. I have an Apple Watch and it fits into my everyday life so it’s not something that’s single purpose. I like Apple Pay since don’t really carry my wallet on me but in my backpack and I also don’t have my phone on me so I can still play music on my runs or workouts.

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

I think the battery life is the main issue of the AW. Fitness features are constantly improving but the fact that it’s also a “mini” iPhone means a high battery consumption. The Ultra is only a bit better in that department but is bulky and expensive

I’m running into this too with first gen AW SE; what model do you have?

Mine’s pretty accurate but it doesn’t pick up lengths I do with a kick board.

I've got an AW and 955. As others have said, AW is a smart watch Garmin is a fitness watch. Do you need battery life for long runs/rides? Garmin Do you need cell service/text/calls? Apple I wear my AW most of the time because its got my work calendar on it plus I get texts etc. I also use it for swimming, surfing, and sports where I don't want to bring my phone because I need cell service. I had an emergency surfing about 5 yrs ago and got an apple watch with cell service immediately after. This is one area garmin fails. I wear my 955 for my runs and workouts. I find it track HR much better - no drops. If you are wearing a chest strap then they would both be the same for that. I prefer garmin for sleep tracking as well. Pretty sure bike power meters wont play nice with AW either. As far as health stats, I actually use healthfit for both AW and Garmin which gives me more than either of them.

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.

Agreed, the health measurements of apple watch are just too good.

When I first started climbing I wore my Apple Watch with the hope of tracking overall fitness, took it off pretty much immediately and never wore it again. Too much risk of scraping it /banging it on the wall

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.

Apple Watch will pair with an android for a lot of things, and for his tracking swimming you don’t need it paired anyway. I LOVE my “renewed” (refurbished) $160 Apple Watch SE I got off Amazon a year ago. I swim with it 8 miles a week with zero issues. Once it’s calibrated it counts laps perfectly and even knows what stroke style for which laps, etc. love love love it.

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.

Love my Apple Watch: perfectly tracks lap count, splits, stroke style, heart rate, etc. I don’t have to do anything but select “pool swim” as my workout, and go. It’s amazing. Love love love it.

I love my SE! I got it refurbished on Amazon for like $150 and it’s fantastic.

Apple Watch is very accurate once calibrated over a few weeks of use. It is waterproof for swimming, and uses water lock. No reason to get something else “water proof” unless you plan to dive deep.

Buy an Apple Watch instead. You'll get a smartwatch AND a training device. The Garmin is only good for training and looks clunky and ugly the rest of the day.

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.

Unless you need the battery life for long events like Ironman or ultras, Apple Watches are better fitness watches than garmins are smartwatches. If you really value the smartwatch portion, you could easily get a used, low ish end garmin or coros for <$200 and use it for your couple of big events a year, and use the Apple Watch the other 360 days.

I love my Apple Watch SE! I’ve had an Apple Watch for several years now. I recommend watching some YouTube videos that show you tricks and shortcuts, as well as some other things. I am always teaching my friends stuff about their Apple watches because I love the technology. I hear about people using the Oura ring too, but I honestly have no idea what its capabilities are in comparison.

I use it always!

I shake my head at the fact that in 2024 garmin can make a smartwatch that has anywhere from a two week to 4 weeks battery life and with more bells and whistles than Apple. But all Apple can only give you 2 days battery life max. What a damn shame. Apple is robbing people blind. Hell, I would be happy with one week of battery life.

Garmin has watches with amoled display that give you 16 days battery life. Room for everything? Garmin watches give you way more options than Apple Watches and make room for everything. All that with 16 days of battery life. Apple Watches are suppose me to have these better processors that are power efficient. Yet year after year, it’s still the same 1-2 days max of battery life

I have both watches. I wouldn’t say the Apple watches ‘clearly’ does more. Sure with other apple devices ices it integrates better. But that’s pretty much it.

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.

Same about me. I get the hype about AW and I\`m very comfortable with them as Iphone extension, but garmin with it\`s battery life and training programs get training expirience so much forward. I fucked up so much with forgetting to charge my AW and missing my swim/run session.

Apple Watch right now but eventually I’ll go back to the Garmin life

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

The swim workout on apple watch kind of sucks. I use the swim.com app instead. It kind of sucks too, but I feel it tracks my laps in the pool a little more accurately. I use the apple open water swim for open water swims. It just does a gps track. Nothing extra.

Had a Fitbit. It didn’t have heart rate alarms or integration with Apple Health. Had a heart attack. Received the Apple Watch after that and have been wearing one ever since.

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.

I personally only wanted 1 watch and didn’t want to exercise with my phone. Apple Watch was a no-brainer. While limited compared to non-Apple fitness devices, its heart rate and gps are excellent. For long-distance endurance sports, the most sophisticated fitness watch is worthless if I can’t call, text, or share my location with others. In addition, i believe many amateur athletes begin relying on technology long before they understand their bodies’ rhythms and limits.

I literally leave my phone at home because the watch can call and text. No illusions.

I prefer the cool 'tech' style of the apple device, the Garmin products are way better but they look like a Texas Instruments calculator on your wrist and they feel a bit cheap - despite being anything but.

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.

I’ve been using Apple Watches for almost 5 years, 3-4 hours a week in the pool. Waterproofing is flawless Accuracy: The delta in my self reported yards (on the USMS tracking app) vs my watch is like 1.15% this year. Occasionally the watch misses one kicking lap in a 300 yard set or maybe if I’m swimming with fins or doing drills. Rarely misses anything w/ straight freestyle or other strokes My biggest beef with the watch is how it refers to kick sets as “kickboard”. Did Apple ask a single swimmer what to call this???

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 have an Apple Watch and it doesn’t do everything I need. I’ve heard good things about garmin, but i don’t think any watch will do what we need straight out of the box. That’s why visible has a market. The trick is to make sure that whatever watch you choose can be compatible with other apps. I have symptom shark as well and it tells my HR but it says “oh yeah your HR went to XX ten mins ago”…no, I need something that will alert me now. TBH, no matter what app you choose there aren’t a ton that do exactly what we need for an illness like ours. Maybe one day they’ll create a wearable just for ME/CFS and other energy limiting illnesses like long covid. There’s millions of people with this so there’s a market for sure.

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

The Apple Watch uses Apple Health, so that’s exactly what you want. I have no issues at all with the WW app syncing to the activity my Apple Watch measures.

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

Same as you. My charge 6 just died on me one fine day. Considered Garmin Lily and Apple Watch, finally went with Apple simple because there’s more support where I live. The biggest learning curve was how frequently Apple Watches need to be charged.

I use my Apple Watch and Seconds Pro.

I use mine to count laps as well

I started with Fitbit but switched to an Apple Watch and I love it. I have a friend who has a Samsung watch and loved it but she switched to Apple Watch also and loves it. I think it also depends on preference and what your are looking for in a fitness tracker. I would think it’s a toss up between Apple Watch and Samsung Watch.

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 wanted the most accurate sleep tracking and, according to the Quantified Scientist, Apple watches are the best.

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..

I bought an Apple Watch hoping it would serve as a smart and sports watch. Not satisfied with the sports function. All my friends have Garmin or something else and their km/h measuring and battery life is much better. Not familiar with the Apple Watch Ultra though.

If Apple Watch could last a 70.3 and moreso a full IM, I'd actually prefer it over Garmin. The UI is better and easier to understand, plus I get to wear it whole day as a normal watch since it kinda suits what I wear at work. The functionality which is also customizable is also exceptional and the resulting data (HR, distance, etc.) is the same with Garmin. Plus, I do use an iPhone and airpods. I used to run using the apple watch and then pair it with my airpods - i loved that I get to listen to music without bringing my phone, and a voice which says if im over HR target range or if my run/rest interval is done.

I first got an Apple Watch SE and after a few months switched to the Garmin Vivoactive 5. I really enjoyed the Apple Watch and it has everything you need for running, but the battery life is terrible. I could not do any sleep tracking cuz I would need to charge the watch every evening. The Garmin visually also looks nicer (I never really liked the rectangle look of the Apple Watch). In the beginning I did not find the Garmin super intuitive (in comparison to the Apple Watch) and I found all the functions a bit overwhelming, but you get used to it fairly quickly. I definitely think the Garmin is truly worth the money and the Apple Watch less so.

I’m using a Apple Watch and I love using the function to use spotify offline so I can listen to music without my phone. Is this also possible with a Garmin Watch?

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.

Apple Watch does not collect 24/7 second by second hr and Hrv data which Garmin does That’s a main flaw for me on the Apple Watch + battery life is a pain in the ass :/

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.

I can make a series watch last for an Olympic distance on low power mode. Even then I still need to charge to get through the rest of the day. My Garmin 955 will last for a complete Ironman with 65% of the battery left. I still sometimes use my Apple Watch for shorter runs or bike rides if I forget to change it out, but the Garmin is my go to training watch.

Both my partner and I love our Apple Watches but they are horrendously bad at tracking accuracy and would terminally underestimate distance by around 5-10%. For some reason my partner’s would only record her heart rate for around 20% of a workout. Tried all the usual (tightening wrist band, re-pairing etc) but they just don’t work as a fitness tool. It’s a real shame because as a smart watch they are amazing (especially leaving your phone at home with the cellular models), but as a training tool, my 8 year old Forerunner 235 is a better option than my 1 year old Apple Watch.

I have used Apple Watch for a year and have been very happy with it. Prior to that I had a Fitbit, which was brilliant tracking workouts but not so much climbing. I use my Apple to track all my workouts in the gym and indoor and outdoor climbing. It’s accurate and easy to use.

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.

I wear my Apple watch every time. It has normal wear and tear, nothing crazy. I don’t do dynos (yet) which is the only thing I can think of that is not currently contributing to my watch condition.

Wow thank you for such a comprehensive review! I tried both Apple Watch SE and garmin venu, for me garmin venu 2 was more comfortable in daily use as the battery needs to be charged every 5 days or sth, not everyday like Apple Watch, the draw back was the less fancy options on the display, and that sometimes you had to click a lot of options to get the information you need from garmin! I unfortunately don’t have any of them anymore but I have a nice smart watch for daily use and no swimming, I was thinking if it’s worth it to spend some money on a new garmin, or since I have another smart watch, I just buy a swim tracker on its on! I was hoping the built in workout helps you follow it up step by step in smart watches as I haven’t tried this feature before, at the moment I also use the pencil paper approach like you said!

The Apple Watch SE (2nd gen) is probably your best fit. It handles step tracking, swimming laps and calories, and cycling on multiple bikes, including things like Lime or spin classes. It's waterproof, works smoothly with iPhone and Mac, and offers decent tennis tracking through third-party apps if needed. At around £100 secondhand, it’s a solid all-around option without overcomplicating things.

A year ago I test drove an Apple Watch SE and ultimately went with a Fitbit Charge 6 over cost, battery life, and feeling that keeping it charged while also getting sleep tracking was going to be a challenge (previously I used sleep tracking on a Fitbit Luxe and quite liked it— the Luxe's screen died after just under two years). That said, having now had the Fitbit for a year, I will probably go Apple Watch the next time. The deciding factors are: * Build quality. The Charge 6's screen is increasingly unresponsive and internet research backs up a significant population who seem to have them die around the 18mo mark, which I consider unacceptable. * I'm not tracking my sleep as much these days. Between that and how the band shreds the skin on my wrist, switching to a usage model where I take it off at night would be fine. * Native "find my". Being able to reliably locate my iPhone from my wrist is a feature I really liked during my trial and I've had a number of instances over the year where I've wished the Fitbit could do that (its find-phone feature is far more limited and depends on the app having been recently open on the phone). * Rich notifications. That Apple Watch can stream through anything the phone shows is great, especially with smart reply. * Media control, maps. Technically Fitbit has these too, but they suck— the media control is YouTube Music only and walking directions on maps are barebones and sometimes don't work at all.

I agree... I'm using an Apple Watch SE 2 right now, but daily charging is a pain for some people. I have found that I'm the type of person who would probably be happy with no display at all, so most of the notification settings are disabled on my AW. The battery life is decent, but nowhere near the 10+ days my Inspire 3 gets. I was interested in comparing the health data metrics and also optical HR sensor, and in general, the daily HR, HRV and sleep cycle readings are basically identical between AW SE 2 and Inspire 3 for me- which isn't a huge surprise. I have slightly more REM sleep being detected by the Apple Watch, but in general the quality differences here are negligible. The optical HR sensor in the AW devices is magical for fitness, though. It has done a fantastic job in comparison with my chest strap, to the point where doing intervals and weight training, I am confident without the chest strap. I believe this is in part because of the physical design, in how the AW sits on the arm, and how the sensor makes contact with the skin. During weight training sessions, it isn't flopping or sliding on my arm, it's making constant contact due to the convex shape. I absolutely detest the Apple software. The apps are a pain in the ass to navigate, whether it be Apple Health or Fitness, or Athlytic, which is basically a must-have if you are tracking fitness activities (at least at this point). I am also dismayed that the chest strap support with the Apple Watch is basically negligible. It's not really a step up from a Fitbit device which offers no connectivity... the AW can connect via Bluetooth, however it continues to use the optical HR sensor. Apple told me the Watch is seen as an accessory to the iPhone, so you're essentially pairing a chest strap accessory to another accessory. Garmin does this a lot better, in that the Garmin devices will prioritize a chest strap over the built-in optical HR sensors... now arguably the AW sensors are better quality, but that's another discussion. Garmin wins a hell of a lot of points for GPS/mapping, and for training load/readiness/suggested training for runs. Garmin loses points on their expensive pricing, the fact that their optical HR sensors are still V4 for their expensive FR series, and that their sleep cycle algorithm is less than precise. It's a shame because their morning report and watch software itself is really gorgeous. I would pay very good money for Apple Watch data quality with Garmin watch software!! This is the dream. For what it's worth, I think the Fitbit devices are fantastic value for their pricing, even with shorter lifespans. If you truly care about details, and geek out on data, the other devices are worth exploring, however the Fitbit devices do a solid job of giving health metrics and tracking fitness at a basic level.

I got a refurbished Apple Watch SE for about $165 and it works well!

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.

My AW se2 still fills my exercise and active calorie rings whenever I have trip on a bus. This is why I can't take AW seriously. https://preview.redd.it/ijcdoztxt5pd1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7cf2514d8194c1e8838d90b47022713b25e3265

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 use Apple Watch to play music on left wrist, and Suunto Race S on right wrist for run. It was supposed to be a transition period thing from AW to Suunto, but I am kinda getting used to two watches now lol.

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.

Depends on your phone and budget. The Apple watch will still be the best casual smartwatch for iPhone users. If you're a hard-core runner/outdoors person, go for Garmin. Apple watch price ranges from 16K to 55K. Samsung users will best benefit from Galaxy Watch. Prices range from 16K to 41K.

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

I've had Fitbit, Galaxy Watch, and Apple Watch. Of the three, Apple Watch has been the best and most accurate. It was also the easiest to connect and synch. Apple Fitness seamlessly integrates with Apple Health, and Apple Health easily integrates with WW. The only issue I've had, I've had with all three, is I get points for activity AND steps...and the activity is what created the steps. Not a big deal since I don't use the points. YO!!! WW Devs!!! Please turn the ability to stop tracking activity points back on, THANK YOU!

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.

Apple Watch. I bought a very cheap screen cover that cracks almost immediately, but I can usually keep it on for a few months before replacing it. I like having the watch to track heart rate and calorie burn. However inaccurate these might be, I find them useful to gauge my sessions in the gym. I do not wear my watch when I climb outside.

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.

No offense to the other comments, but I'm not *quite* sure they're answering the question you seem to be asking. First I'll say: unless you're actively planning to track your fitness data...frankly, I would not recommend an Apple Watch, given you don't want to use the smartwatch features. But if you ARE into fitness tracking...I would get the cheapest one that fits your needs. Without deep diving, I would highly recommend an [SE2 GPS model](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch-se). Why? Cuts out the unnecessary tech (including cellular) but still gives you workout tracking, sleep tracking, etc. Even if you get the larger 44mm model, you should still get out for *around* $300 after tax. Everything else - adding cellular, getting a better model (think S10 or Ultra) - is just going to add costs (very rapidly) that it sounds like you don't need. **One note: with a GPS-only model, you may want to triple check it will give you what you need if you plan to ONLY take the watch hiking without your phone.** Hope that's a bit more helpful!

I wear my Apple Watch with Strava running. It’s a bit scratched up, my strap would come off very easily in the case of a snag, I’d be wary which straps I use especially outdoor climbing to reduce degloving risk 🤢

Apple Watch with the sleep watch app on it. Pure gold!

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.

This. People act like AW can’t offer all the same data and more

Althugh you can get an app for all those features if you want on AW

Apple Watch with screen protector and it works great for me.

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.

This. Much to my dismay; no Garmin around has this offering so I literally look like an ass with a watch on each arm but it serves two purposes: 1. Apple Watch - able to call / text during long runs. More useful than you could ever imagine. Especially for emergencies / time overruns etc 2. My Garmin - my preferred device for my running metrics.

Apple Watch SE with Cellular.

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 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 have Apple Watch and whoop. I recommend Apple Watch all the way!!

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.

Same here. Literally the same story. Apple Watch shat the bed, bought a Fenix 7X and it’s been a life changing upgrade. 8 months in, dropped about 12/13kg, ran a few half marathons, gym 5/6 days a week. Good stuff!!

I started with Apple Watch. Once I got serious about running I switched to garmin. Garmin syncs up with NRC so all runs get uploaded there.

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.

I have a 2nd gen SE, not a 10, but I swim in it regularly. What are your specific questions?

Oh it holds up. I in an aquatics center and I have multiple employees who have been using theirs regularly in the pool for well over a year, 3+ hours at a time multiple days a week. Not one has failed.

My SE 2 counts my kicking drills

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

Pairing a Bluetooth heart rate strap with the Apple Watch will improve its battery life during workouts since it can turn off the optical hear rate sensor. Disabling the always on display can make a noticeable difference as well.

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.

I have an Apple Watch. It syncs with your Apple health app very well. I’ve been extremely happy with it. It even can accurately assess that I am doing a workout. I had a Fitbit, garmin and now Apple Watch and so far apple watch has been the best

Personally I turned off most of the “smart” features of my Apple Watch last year. I found 95% of it was just some garbage spam notification from a social platform or some other app vying for my attention, like having a 2 year old with me everywhere I go grabbing at my wrist. Once I disabled them all, at that point my watch just became a health tracker with the ability to pay for things (and occasionally tell me the time). Garmin watches are superior to apple in that regard, so it made sense to switch. Also, and this is purely subjective, I think the garmin epix and Fenix line look infinitely better than apple stuff. The chunky bezels and circular shape make it look like an actually fashionable watch instead of a toy screen on my wrist

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've only had my ring for a week, but I've been using it for fitness tracking and the results are very similar to apple watch with pedometer++ app. I'm delighted so far. As to battery, I was having to charge my 3 year old apple watch twice a day. So compared to that, the battery is fine. I charge it at night, it uses about 10% overnight; I tracked a 1.5 hour walk followed by a 10 minute workout and a 30 minute "stretching" session and it's now on 54%. Good luck!

A Garmin watch is going to be your best bet. I have an Apple Watch as well, but Apple fitness isn’t as detailed as Garmin Connect. I wear my Apple Watch on the bike now just to avoid carrying my actual phone with me.

Well, if you’re not really a data nerd, the Apple Watch might be fine. The only other difference is battery life. I have the SE and have to charge it every day. Even a several hour ride with gps tracking will drain the battery to scary level. When I used the Garmin watch to track all my workouts, I think I had to charge it every few days. The battery lasts forever. The only thing it can’t do otherwise is act like a phone separate from your actual phone.

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.

My main gripe about Apple Watch and multisport training is the lack of structured swim training support (and given the fact that pool swimming is quite monotonous, it's the area where I find the structured training on your wrist to be the most useful). When I'm swimming with my Garmin, I get into the pool, open Swimming activity, accept the workout that pops up automatically (because it was pushed there from the training calendar), start the activity and simply switch off my mind - the watch will buzz when the interval is done and it's time to either do the next interval or take a break and recover (and show it on my wrist as well). With Apple Watch I need to be constantly aware of my workout, mentally count how much is left in the interval and what I need to do next.

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.

I’ve had regular Apple Watch and decided to come back to running. It was decent for that, had all the data, but didn’t have extras like recovery times, hrv and quite a lite others, including daily training recommendations and health summaries. Probably achievable with 3rd party apps, but I grew out of it quickly because of battery life. 15k run with audio streaming was almost killing battery, while Garmin uses like 10-11% for the same thing, with AOD on. On AW I didn’t used AOD because of battery. So it might be fine at the beginning but when you switch to longer distances you will face the wall because of battery life. Also Garmin has a top notch portal Garmin connect accessible via website as well where you can go through your workouts and health summaries easily

Apple Watch is quite suboptimal for OWS - it doesn’t track distance accurately whenever you’re not doing a freestyle strike (eg, breast) - this is actually confirmed on the Apple Support site - and it’s wildly inconsistent on distance when swimming the same route. Additionally, the touch screen often doesn’t work when coming out of the water. I’m looking for a replacement for my own Apple Watch for my OWS swimming in SF Bay…

I trust my Apple Watch for counting laps far more than I trust myself to count.

if you are an ios user; apple watch is a no brainer but if you want a long lasting fitness watch go for garmin

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’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.

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

Love my Apple Watch for tracking. It is waterproof and has survived the many many hot yoga classes I have practiced in and taught over the last couple of years. I like that I can track different types of workouts in the same gym visit(sometimes I’ll start with some yoga and then move on to some strength training and then finish with some type of cardio) and see the overall accumulation of the workout benefits. Lots of other cool features on it but I’m not trying to sell you on it.. just saying it’s a great option for tracking those yoga sessions 🥰

Yes for metrics, but not sensors, Garmin & Coros aren’t even close in that regard. The new update will also include training load & structured swim workouts, which historically you could just fill the gap with 3rd party apps. Don’t get me wrong, I have both a Garmin and AWU, I prefer my Apple Watch though.

Apple Watch vs Polar H10 carries an R score of .99-1 during most outdoor activities, so no actually it’s not BS. Blood oxygen sensor is much better as well. Apple Watch allows you to stream music without your phone, dual band GPS, structured workouts, running power. But yeah, god forbid it doesn’t give you a body battery score

I often do multi day hiking so having watch tracking gps and navigating all time is really big plus when i do not need to take care of charging it. Also a LED is very handy outdoors. As for fitness i know on apple watch i can have multitude of apps but that’s the part of the problem because then I miss consistent ux and data for all my activities and trainings presented in same way on. AW is definitely better as smart watch but i have no use of using sophisticated apps on my watch. The only stuff i do is to control my home automation which i can on Garmin as well.

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

If I needed optimum training I’d use a garmin. My Apple watch does a lot of generally useful stuff for me and so I tolerate its less-than-ideal running features. NRC is fussy and glitchy, but I can usually coerce it to work w the watch. Spotify is similarly cranky on the watch, but I blame Apple for that

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

What if you get used Apple Watch they all a good condition in the stores like cex and you can do all the tracking of swimming and running and any sort of activity. Like even series SE or series 5/6 are cheap now. If he’s an android user maybe better idea be getting some swimming accessories like a pair of fins, board or pullboy, backpack or fast drying towel to motivate and he can invest his own money in a good smartwatch not some uses less and cheap piece of band or something I don’t think they even track accurately I used to have a xiaiomi band and it was way off even in steps and heart rate

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

I have an Apple Watch with Hockey Tracker, but as other people have commented I’m pretty sure it’s not accurate as it tells me I’m skating at NHL speed in low tier beer league. The watch has a hockey exercise setting which tracks all the metrics I care about just fine

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.

at the same time.....if doing something like continuous hr/hrv tanks battery, apple watch battery already isnt great.

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 with Redpoint app. Syncs to your Apple health same way as normal workouts. I use the free version and way more accurate for boulding and has all types of climbing styles instead of just one broad climbing category which the stock Apple workout app has. Tracks distance climbed number of climbs and more if you want to input the grades your climbing also. They have a paid version with even more features but I’m happy with the free one and no adds.

I had a Garmin before and I wanted the fall and a-fib detection. To be honest, I wasn't even aware in 2021 when I decided to buy the watch that these features had become available on other brands. I had been wanting the Apple Watch for a while and I just went ahead and bought it without researching alternatives. I still really have no idea how they all compare. No regrets. I bought it for the health features but I love so much more about it.

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 agree with your assessment of the AW. Lots of people don’t know what you can get with an AW if you use some additional apps. However you do have to pay a subscription for the best of them, so it’s an additional cost.

I'm about to finish my 2nd season with my Apple Watch and it's working well.

I like my Oura ring for sleep & recovery. And I use an Apple Watch to see my heart rate during workouts.

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.

Charging an Apple watch daily is a chore. Garmin has days/weeks of battery life.

The Forerunner 165 has preformed so much better than my Apple Watches ever could. I’ve had the AW 3, 6, then SE2. Battery life doesn’t begin to compare. Only bummer is Garmin doesn’t really do battery swaps. Once the battery dies it’s time for a new watch.  My only gripes is I want the 265 for the extra training features but the curved screen makes screen protectors difficult. I’m a clumsy oaf and watch faces get wrecked at my job. Even the gorilla glass ones.  Also the sleep tracking is trash. I’ve been awake at midnight and it registered as light sleep. I was watching YouTube or chilling to music. Some walking around the apartment. Def not sleep. My AW would have logged it as awake. 

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.

You can use a Fitbit, Apple watch, or Garmin to track your laps and have that data sent to Strava. With Garmin, for example, I tell it how long the pool is and then it counts how many laps and what distance I swam. The app, Garmin Connect, will interface with any other fitness app and send data.

This is the video you should check out, I’d be honestly surprised if most people in the sub have not heard of this guy. He is a data scientist and tests so many different devices against the gold standard for whatever is being tested, sleep, HRV, temperature etc. according to his sleep tests the best Garmin watch is the Vivo love sport and it performs worse at then most Apple Watches, worse than whoop 3 and is basically as accurate as the Oura ring 3. It really depends on what you’re looking to track, but overall Apple watch is best of the best, specifically se2 and maybe Ultra or series 9. https://youtu.be/YVhmzxpw5Gg?si=1x1RkpTwQy2OxlbA

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.

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)

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.

For me, Garmin watches were one of the best investments in my life. I was never a sporty person, but with age, having regular activities becomes a pleasure and necessity. I started running more than fifteen years ago, and an old Forerunner 305 (not even a "smart" watch) was a better companion than a smartphone. Then I switched to Forerunner 235, a good watch that just worked and didn't require charging more often than once every few weeks. Five years ago, I bought an Apple Watch, and I was negatively surprised how it sucks for running and fitness tracking in general - a one-hour run drains half of a day's battery, sleep tracking doesn't work automagically - you need to have a sleep schedule, and if you fall asleep during the day, the watch doesn't catch it. Also, I had to charge this watch daily. In general, maybe it's stupid to stop running because of the watch, but I stopped because there were too many inconveniences with the Apple Watch to continue. As for the smartness, the Apple Watch was not as smart as I expected—yes, it had good integration with the iPhone and Mac and some nice features, but even these integrations have gotten worse over the last few years. So when this year, the battery of my Apple Watch finally died, it became the best event for my health in many years because I bought a Forerunner 255 (which is 5x cheaper than the Apple Watch, BTW) and started to run again. The results since April: VO2 max—from 41 to 45, lactate threshold—from 6:23min/km to 5:40min/km, and overall better quality of life.

I have Vivoactive 5 and my girlfriend has an Apple watch. She has to drag her phone with her to listen to music and use the GPS. I'm just running with just my watch and earbuds. If you're planning to bring a phone anyway it may not matter to you, but for me it's very important not to bring it.

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

Yep I find it much more motivational than the ape watch 3 rings jokery. (I'm leaving the typo.) Left AW7 for FR265 and couldn't be happier.

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

Apple Watch is the best if you are willing to spend a bit more!

I have a cellular Apple Iwatch and swim 80 laps at least 3 times a week. Never had any issues and also use it for running every day. Planning to upgrade to latest Iwatch next month.

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’ve gone thru 2 different fitbits- both burnt my wrist Same happened to others I know. Apple Watch for the win!!

I just hit fitness > yoga when I begin and stop when I’m done on my Apple Watch.

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

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 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.

Short answer is probably just yes. Longer answer is the fitness features on AW are good enough for most people but the battery life is the 100% deal breaker every time for me. The sleep tracking without having to find a charger every day is extremely important to me. Being able to travel for a week+ and track all my workouts and sleep is more important(for me) than the smartwatch features I lose. I don't even bring my charger on trips(5-7 days). I used Garmin with my Iphone and strongly preferred it, but I really just wanted a watch with notifications and fitness tracking.

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.

I wear my Apple Watch and use a sweatband to protect it from scratches🥲learnt it the hard way

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.

Apple Watch being the best smart fitness tracker & notification relay and all multi-platform app being built with Apple first in mind are the two main reasons I stay.

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

One thing I noticed about my Apple Watch is it depended when I started my workout. If I started it right before entering the pool, then my length was the entire length of the pool and my lap count accurate. If I started it after entering the pool, well then I needed to add an extra yard or two to show my lap. So it looked like it was missing it, but it really wasn’t because my distance and my lap were off but just that little bit. But the overall count was still very close, as it matched the mental tally I had going.

Absolutely. I entered the wrong pool length the first time and my number of laps was very different! But yes, Apple uses pool length for lap and distance.

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.

Thirding the apple watch. I have a preowned SE I got off either Mercari or Poshmark (can’t remember which), and it’s been great. On top of the heart rate monitor, I love being able to check/respond to messages, ping my other devices if I lose them, change tracks on spotify, it shows my map when I’m walking or driving plus it vibrates gently when you need to turn/take an exit… I should’ve gotten one yeeeears ago lmao. Plus you can order soooo many cute bands from Amazon & Etsy!

I tried so many generic bluetooth watches and they were fine I guess but an actual Apple Watch had been well worth the $150 I spent on it, especially being able to change the watchbands essentially whenever I want

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.

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.

I also have an Apple Watch SE without cellular. I still can use it for Apple Pay, even when my phone is not around. And my phone is always around unless I’m doing sports (then it’s “sometimes“ around). I can’t think of a situation in which I would want to receive a call while running or swimming. I think the world has gone crazy to expect people to answer their phones 24/7.

AW cannot offer the same without third party apps that require extra payment. Not sure how this third party element is so easily overlooked.

The problem with Apple and Galaxy watches are they're more than just a fitness watch/tracker, they can do a lot more than your typical fitness watch. They're like a tiny smartphone, you can even install apps on them so it drains the battery much faster too. If you decide to go for an Apple watch, expect that you have to charge them almost everyday.

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

Non-ultra AW is fine for more casual runners, but will be annoying for a serious runner because it will constantly need to be recharged. It isn't that the watch can't last for a half marathon with a full battery, the problem is that plus the other 22h of the day. You would esentially need to charge twice a day.

Yes, intra-day charging. Maybe not every day, but honestly, just having to think about it at all is annoying enough, and then one day you forget and it dies mid workout, which isn't the end of the world, but plenty annoying. If you plan to keep your old watch, you can just swap watches for workouts.

Yes. I usually shower with my watch, since that lets me clean the watch at the same time. If you charge it instead, then that issue is solved (but you should still clean your watch)

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.

Use 2 watches. I do that with an Apple Watch with cellular on one and Garmin on the other, the phone stays at home.

Unfortunately, only the Apple watch is the way to go (or the Google Pixel watch if you use Android). I love almost everything about Garmin watches (design, battery life(!!!), ability to use watch with iOS or Android), but from a weightlifting perspective Garmin watches suck badly. Apple/Google have WAY more accurate heart rate sensors, steps, sleep tracking and stuff like that. Even the UI is much better on Apple/Google watches.

I like Apple watch

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 had a normal Apple Watch with Athlytics ~2 years ago to see if I was done w/ Whoop and it just did not cut the mustard. I actually really like Whoop and I’m gonna stick with it because it just works. It’s less finicky, unobtrusive, and it just does almost everything without my input. I don’t need to do any breathing exercises in order to clock my data for a proper score, battery lasts 5 days, etc. That might not be the case anymore, but, I just want my fitness tracker to do one thing. Like many, I didn’t buy the WHOOP for the subscription model and free device. I bought it to keep it simple while getting insights. Maybe I should be upset that I had to pay $75 for their top o’ da line device, but I also kinda don’t give a shit because it fits so seamlessly into my life in a way that nothing else really has. Glad you’re enjoying the ultra.

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.

The Ecosystem and the quality of the software. My gf's got a Fitbit and it's okay but it'll never come close to an Apple Watch. Funny thing is, you can't even sync with Apple Health (without third party apps)

So that I don’t need to carry my phone when running to receive critical calls from my family. It’s good enough for any long run (50mi+). While Garmin is hands down a better fitness watch, I don’t miss any fancy Garmin features for 95% of my exercising.

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.

my apple watch survived about 200 top rop sessions and daily activity for 6 years but died bouldering. I had a big dynamic sideways move and cracked the corner in the wall. Hopefully my brand new Ultra holds up better.

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.

I had a Fitbit and decided to “upgrade” for the Apple Watch . After having it a day I knew I needed to return it. The rings don’t help and the thing that I hated the most is that they only show you the total extra calories per day that you burn, not your TOTAL for the day including your passive/ existing calories. I try to match my food intake with the calories I burn for the entire day (I’m eating at maintenance) and that was enough for me to return it. I love my other Apple products, don’t get me wrong, but I felt relieved when I put it in the mail for a refund and got back my simple Fitbit that gives me the exact information I need!

I had a Fitbit and the location of the battery terminals caused me to break out in a metal allergy rash. Switched to an Apple Watch never had a problem… can only use Apple bands tho, some of the cheap ones have cheap metals in them too.

I'm actually on the other side of this, I prefer an apple watch to a garmin. This is mostly because I have a cell line for my watch so I don't have to take a phone at all for runs and can still make calls if something happens. That's not an option for garmin. I also don't use the built in app, I use WorkOutDoors which makes the interface more like a garmin and customizable with different screens and stats. I auto upload everything to strava and intervals.icu for post run analysis. Also, WorkOutDoors lets you set an action to pressing both the side button and crown and the same time which I have set to making a manual interval. It honestly seems quite good, matches the features of the higher end garmin watches. My apple watch se feels like it's probably equal to between a 265 and 965. Only issue is battery life but I don't wear mine to sleep so doesn't affect 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.

my apple watch uses something else too because if i don’t finish a length (e.g., can’t tell how close i am to the wall doing backstroke and stand up) it’ll log 23 yards or something instead of 25 yards

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.

Have you put your pool length in correctly? Mines been pretty decent for coming up the 2 years I’ve been seriously now. I’ve only got the base SE as well and just used the in built swim tracking. If you go really hard at straight arm freestyle it sometimes thinks you’re doing fly. But it rarely if ever miss counts lengths. I’ve also managed to trick it out a few times doing drills like minimal stroke breast stroke glide lengths. But if I’m swimming strokes in a vaguely normal envelope it rarely gets it wrong. I’m a formal apple skeptic. Replaced my dying Garmin watch with an Apple Watch after I got really sick with long term effects and couldn’t run much anymore a few years ago. If I ever start ultra running again I might switch to Garmin again (if nothing else I don’t think the battery life on the base AWs can cover GPS for an ultra). But for the reasonably high volume running (getting there slowly again) and swimming I do the Apple Watch has been plenty fine. You’ll know if/when you need something more tailored to your needs than the Apple Watch, but distance tracking isn’t an issue I’ve found it to have. If it’s genuinely getting this wrong after troubleshooting you might have an issue with your watch.

Yep. Had a Garmin I ran in to the ground. Was formal apple skeptic. Base SE watch does all I need now, if I ever get back in to ultra running (got sick a few years ago so rarely need gps for more than 3 hours now) I’d be looking at a Garmin. If you are hardcore enough at your sport to need a Garmin, you will know.

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.

I’ve been using the same Apple Watch SE for swimming and everything else for 4+ years without any problems. I’m surprised to read so many experiences where they’ve broke. The only AW I owned that broke was the original 1st gen AW, but that one wasn’t meant for the water. If my current watch died I’d buy another AW SE.

Fitbit Charge 5 still going strong. I tried the Apple Watch and despised the experience. So redundant with all the apps already on my iPhone in a much more accessible way; it’s not like I don’t carry my phone with me. And I have absolutely zero patience digging up an app from the app-dump that is the iwatch screen. I thrive on efficiency so this was already a dealbreaker. Then the metal under the iwatch gave me an allergic reaction. And you already know about the shitty battery life on the Apple Watch. And the sleep analysis on iOS is lame, to put it mildly. Hard pass on all accounts.

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

Rule 1 went you want real opinions, don't ask in a biased echo chamber! That said, having had FitBit's, Amazfit's, Garmins multiple times, and one bad mistake once, an Apple Watch. Yes, they're worth it if it's a real fitness that's actually geared towards real fitness junkies that you want, that really tries to deep dive into fitness, analysis and recovery from every angle, and not some generic smartwatch, or a wrist mounted phone. They're not perfect, but no watch/tracker is. Garmin is who they are, for a reason.

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.

Clarification from OP makes this not solid advice for them, but for anyone else looking at swim watches with an iPhone I’ll chime in that Apple Watch is solid. My only real issue with it is that not everything translates great to Strava, but it is good enough for me and the fitness app on iOS itself gives me the details I’m looking for.

So I have owned and used both Apple and Garmin extensively. Let me tell you some negatives about each. Apple Watches always seem to short me on GPS distance. Garmin might be a bit over but if I’m running a 10k race and my Garmin shows me at 10.03km and the Apple Watch shows me at 9.97km, I know which one is more upsetting. Apple Watches are a great smart watch at some things but a terrible smartwatch at other things. It almost appears Apple has their act together IF you keep a cellular connection when it comes to having music and podcasts pre downloaded on the watch. You have to remember that it only downloads them when you are charging and that means without a cellular connection that when you head out claiming you get three days of battery and your favorite podcast updated one or two days ago, it’s not going to be on your watch. Also Apple Watches really seem to be having a rough time sorting out what is playing to what and what headphones are attached to what. When I first head off on a run I’ll have several skips and gaps as the headphones realize I need them on the watch or that they music should be streamed from the watch and not the phone and so on. It sorts it self out MOST of the time but not all the time. Audible as an app to listen to books on the watch is a fire dumpster of a terrible app and whoever is associated should be sent to a special prison for bad apps. It still tries to download books via Bluetooth and the workaround is turn off Bluetooth to get it to use Wi-Fi. That’s great until you forget to turn it back on and now your AirPods won’t connect when you head out the door and so on. Raise to wake for Siri and Siri being activated when you don’t need it is a major bit of fussiness that can be a big problem when you’re trying to do something athletic. I want to know my last split, I don’t need to see Siri is recording my yelling at the watch because I raised my wrist to see that split and it thinks I want to tell it to do something. People think Apple HRM is more accurate and they’re right it is when it REPORTS because when it can’t get a good lock it just gives you NO DATA for however long it wants to sit there and figure it out. I’ve had it drop out REPEATEDLY on runs and rides for 1-10 minutes for goodness knows what reason. Apple Watches take very few HRV measurements and many no longer are taking blood oxygen in the U.S. The new training metrics are vague line graphs with zero numbers. You can’t tell when sensors are actually connecting when starting a workout on your Apple Watch. For folks not using an external HRM or bike power meter this isn’t a big deal but for those of us that are, it’s a huge deal. Likewise Apple Watch and the data it will send to your iPhone to display does not work with bike radar. This is a massive deal for those of us that use radar to know what sort of behavior cars are doing behind us. I don’t need my watch to unlock my car. I need my watch or bike computer to let me know a car is racing up on me at 50 mph in a 25 mph zone and alert me. Apple Watches are great at paying with multiple cards. They are great at answering phone calls, replying to texts, having multiple timers at the same time and using Siri. Garmin is an absolutely great training watch. It’s got every metric under the sun and you can easily arrange them on all the faces you want with full maps and navigation on the vast majority of their watches. Garmin does require some deep menu dives and digging for some services and is not very discoverable in that regard. It looks like the latest OS on Fenix 8 is really starting to fix that. I have a hot key combo bring up my Garmin Pay and use it all the time. The percentage of my fellow Garmin users who have discovered or use this is very low. You don’t stumble across it or figure it out by accident. Garmin can play media but you have to download it when charging. Subscription services like Amazon and Spotify are best . The battery cost of music playback is too high and is so bad it practically turns a Garmin into an Apple Watch with regard to battery life. Garmin native podcasts require use of a computer to load and is poor. It mangles metadata and they haven’t fixed it for years. There is a decent third party app that is free but it also requires using a website to manage what you want your watch to do. That’s bad form. Garmin audiobooks must be loaded manually and do not recognize chapters, do not allow bookmarks and basically that makes it useless. Garmin’s use of microphones and speakers on watches so far have been suboptimal and certainly not worth the premium being charged. Garmin’s voice assistant and use of phone assistant appear to be subpar and especially when coupled with subpar microphone and speaker are next to useless. Garmin is great at displaying notifications but it’s like a firehose. It’s either on or off with no middle ground for the most part. You can choose only calls and texts but so many other notifications are no longer just a text or call and you cannot manage that for the most part. In summary, many people cannot imagine what Garmin can add at this stage to make their watches better fitness trackers. Many will admit they can’t use a decent chunk of what is available now with regard to metrics. There is hope that Garmin will add AI inspired training plans that would save more people money that they use for plans, coaching and so on now. However they’re working hard to make their fitness features and smart features more discoverable but I’d argue they haven’t made their current smart features any better for several years. Apple has a similar dilemma. People are begging for battery life, not thinner and double tap. Many smart and fitness features have stagnated on Apple for years. Siri is a running joke. Third party apps and their subscriptions are trying to fill gaps that Apple has had a decade to address themselves. On the fitness side the training cards along with race yourself card and other suggestions is confusing and they’ve still never added proper navigation of any sort. We know they have the time, personnel and resources to do so but just haven’t done it. For me the Garmin is a better fitness tracker and with regard to smart watch it is good enough. Even when I run all my latest run shorts have liners for a phone. The phone just rests against my leg and I can control it through my watch and also with my headphones. So it is my choice for now. Apple will need to fix audiobooks, and decouple better from my phone along with Apple strong arming cell companies into not demanding $13-20 a month for a watch plan that hardly uses any data or service to get my dollars back in that area. $13-20 a month for cell service and a couple $40-80 app subscriptions a year really add up quickly. Garmin is exploiting that for now by having more expensive hardware but likely a lower overall cost to own over the lifetime of the watch. My very long two cents.