Ridiculous overengineering to a "simple" problem – beefy operating systems do not need to run on smartwatches, having them is a huge waste. My Garmin is 5 years old and still lasts 15 days with an AOD and constant bluetooth connection
There is room for multiple watch types out there. A beefy feature filled watch may not be worth the tradeoff in battery life for you, but for others it's perhaps better. As long as you buy the watch model that fits your preferences, the existence of the models that you don't like shouldn't affect you. It's not like they have sucked up all the energy in the space preventing folks from making watches with longer battery life.
Sure, I just think the gap between "beefy feature filled watch"s and Garmins. I mean, obviously the fitness features of garmin are actually more beefier, and Garmin watches have the ability to read notifications, control music, pick up calls, find your phone, see your calendar, and do basically every single thing I can think of wanting in a smart watch.
What features are you referring to specifically? The only thing I can think of is voice control.
Touche. Almost all of these I can concede a smartwatch might do better. I do just want to mention that: Garmin has offline maps of your whole region (eg NA) and the ability to provide directions. Obviously not as good as RT traffic data, but also offline has been helpful occasionally. My garmin can control podcasts as well. Remote shutter is unfortunately a limit of phone APIs, I tried making an app for this. My garmin has synced well to 3rd party apps, and I can't think of many reasons I'd want 3rd party fitness apps like AllTrails on it?
More relevant to my original point, however, is none of these things you mentioned require a beefy processor – they could all easily be implemented in a context like Garmin.
That's fair, a lot of these features do not require a beefy processor. I think the value lies in the AW being a full-featured platform. Its processor is overkill for the lightest use-cases like remote shutter, but for others it's nice having a smartphone-like experience.
Case in point: Maps are full featured, it's not just about traffic, it's also about points of interest, supporting different modalities (crucially, public transit), and generally feeling like the full maps experience.
Like any other platform, 3rd party apps are nice for niches that the manufacturers do not serve, or do not serve well. For example, lifting apps make it super easy to log sets, reps, rest, etc; useful data the core experience does not offer.
As mentioned earlier, I think there's room for both. I'm actually not opposed to sporting a Garmin for endurance sports, where battery life is king :)
Actually my Garmin does do points of interest, and supports either driving, walking or cycling directions, all fully offline. For two entire continents! All on device.
I concede that the experience looks a bit less polished than the nice UI of an Apple Watch, but it’s genuinely impressive the level of features in this thing.
The only one I miss is voice recognition, where it would be nice to just say “navigate home” and have it go. And I’m not sure if that’s possible on the weak processors
Yeah. It's surely rough around the edges UX wise, but people consistently underestimate what you can do with such a low powered processor. If Garmin hired UI designers & worked on getting more companies to make apps for it, it could easily be the best smartwatch.
Garmin will also log weight training bouts and auto-detect reps and sets. You can program the entire bout into the phone app and track it as you go with the watch.
It feels a bit like saying the built in car media console can show maps, answer phone calls, read notifications, etc. That all may be true, but I prefer the experience you get from Android Auto.
Yeah, my Garmin (an Instinct 2 Solar) has ruined me for other smartwatches. I appreciate not having to think about charging it in the summer and only monthly in the winter. I appreciate the reliability of an always-on screen rather than one that usually turns on when I turn my wrist. I appreciate the consistency of buttons that I have learned by feel rather than fiddly touch/voice controls that usually work the way I want.
I'd consider upgrading it someday so that I don't need to bring a phone for podcasts or ad-hoc navigation, but only if those do not come at the expense of battery life, always-on screen, and physical buttons.
(Edit: I'm glad other devices with different tradeoffs exist for different kinds of people though!)
The biggest benefit of a smartwatch with a fuller OS is that it can give you more data. On my watch face, I have the weather, the AQI air quality rating, and the UV index. I'm outside a lot, so this is real-time data that I find very helpful to have be glanceable.
I have the weather on my watch face as well, though I do have to drill into the weather widget/glance to see the air quality index and UV index. Skimming the Garmin Connect IQ Store it looks like I could add those metrics to my watch face if I install a 3rd party data field or widget.
I will admit that I haven't installed very many 3rd party apps and my subjective impression is that many Garmin users never end up using 3rd party apps. The apps also look a bit utilitarian compared to Apple Watch apps. Still, having tried various kinds of smartwatches I definitely prefer a wearable that acts more like an appliance than a wrist-mounted computer.
You can have all that with the Garmin watches as well. They keep constant Bluetooth connection with your phone and can display realtime weather/ air quality/ etc on the always-on display.
What do you use it for? I'm trying to determine where my line between "makes your life better" and "is a new toy" is. I like my Garmin because it does what I want it to and last forever, but I'm wondering if there's actually killer features I'm missing.
It seems that my smartphone bridges a lot of that gap (including listening for my voice commands) and I don't know how much more convenient something being on my wrist is, but I'm genuinely curious.
As someone who previously used an Apple Watch and now uses a Garmin, my takeaway is that the Garmin is significantly better for sports, and enough so that I'll keep the Garmin, but there are a lot of things that I really miss about the Apple Watch:
- Easy volume/media control of whatever happens to be playing on my HomePods
- Instant access to Siri for setting timers, conversions, etc, without having to pick up my phone
- Feeling like I don't have to constantly carry my phone around the house with me, because I can send/receive texts and even calls on the watch
- Interactive HomeAssistant notifications - e.g. receive a notification on the watch when arriving home and being able to unlock my door with a tap.
- Better notification support in general
Yes, you can make/receive phone calls using the built-in speaker/mic on the watch. It’s not the best, but it works. Alternatively you can use AirPods or a Bluetooth headset.
Oh, another nice one is Apple Pay on the wrist. Convenient being able to pay without pulling your phone out, or even if you don’t have your phone with you.
I think the overall takeaway is that before I had an Apple Watch I thought that it would increase my level of distraction, but it actually did the opposite and decreased my dependence on my phone.
I setteled on fitband watch with 2 weeks battery life as well.
Voice assistant is frequently convenient once you get use to it. Then I remember 90% of that functionality I already have with google assistant pod in kitchen or phone in car. I do have a few friends who can only talk to their watches for some reason, maybe it feels cooler.
Even better, my COROS is priced at $200 and lasts three weeks. (I mention this because I started to question Garmin a few years ago because they paid a ransom after they got hacked, and then I realized that COROS undercuts them on price by a lot. It's a fantastic smartwatch.)
I wonder who these numbers (100 hours for this, 72 hours for Apple's "ultra" watch) are intended to impress. They are not up to par.
COROS wasn't as much of a thing when I bought my watch, but I personally intend to stick with Garmin when I need a new watch. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with transmitting my activity data to China, I'm not confident COROS will have longitivtiy, and my Garmin support experience has kept me as a loyal customer (had a nasty injury that scratched the screen of my watch – replaced for 45$. Silicon band was giving my rashes – Nylon band sent for free)
I agree. I have a Withings Steel HR - it cost $90 in 2020 (early pandemic purchase). The battery takes 10 minutes to charge from 20% to full, and lasts 4 months of constant wearing.
It's what I call a dumb smartwatch. It uses your phone for GPS, and notifications, and things like that. It keeps time on its own, and heart rate monitoring every 5 minutes unless you are in workout mode.
On the other hand... beefy operations is what makes smart watches truely smart. Otherwise they're bluetooth censor pods, which is fine. But it would be nice if Google had better ways to offload heavier processes on phone and have watch on lighter OS with long battery life.
Some of the new Suunto watches are bragging with 60 days battery life (with solar probably), but still. I only managed to get a little over two weeks out of mine.
I will only use a watch that can viably replace a phone. That basically means a small smartphone, including LTE. With this package, I don't need my phone most of the time (leave it at home, or in a bag or coat). I can make payments, take calls and messages, and check my email. No need to carry a big hunk around in my pocket.
Current gen smartphones are basically there, with just a few improvements to UI and battery life. But even now, I don't mind charging every day. I just put the phone on the charger before going to bed, it's not a big deal.
