The FR945 that was released this year has far more features than the apple watch (including the emergency features). Even comparing the Apple Watch 4 to my FR935 (released in 2017), the Apple watch would be a huge step down for my purposes. That's all without mentioning the fact that I'd probably break the apple watch on my first outing.
The Apple watch might be a better smart watch for day-to-day use, but next to a Garmin it's pretty obvious which is the toy.
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/product-comparison-calculator?ty...
I get a yearly physical just to be safe, but honestly running is my favorite way to decompress and I'd need some kind of diagnosis before giving it up.
I'd venture to say they live far longer.
From the introduction of Vina & al 2016:
In longitudinal studies, physically active men and women have an approximately 30% lower risk of death compared with inactive people (Schnohr et al. 2015). No upper threshold for physical activity has ever been recommended (Pate et al. 1995). In fact, in studies performed on top‐level athletes, participation in endurance competitive sports increases life expectancy (Hartley & Llewellyn, 1939; Prout, 1972). Moreover, Karvonen and co‐workers found that Finnish champion skiers lived 2.8–4.3 years longer than the general male population in Finland (Karvonen et al. 1974). We tested the effect of strenuous exercise, performed by well‐trained humans, on their longevity. We measured average and maximal lifespan in cyclists who had taken part in the Tour de France between the years 1932 and 1964 and compared them with those of the average population in those years. Only cyclists born in Belgium, France and Italy were included in our study. The results were striking: we found an 11% increase in average longevity in Tour de France participants when compared with the general population (Sanchis‐Gomar et al. 2011). These results have been confirmed recently with the observation of a significant 41% lower mortality rate among French elite cyclists from the Tour de France, compared with the general male population (Marijon et al. 2013). Evidence from human studies supports the notion that regular, vigorous aerobic exercise might be a useful tool, with a dose–response effect, to improve the overall health status and longevity of the general population (Ruiz et al. 2010; Teramoto & Bungum, 2010). However, the controversy regarding the potential adverse effects of regular strenuous physical exercise continues (Benito et al. 2011; Schnohr et al. 2013). Schnohr and co‐workers have found that moderate‐intensity joggers have lower mortality rates that sedentary people or high intensity joggers. In other words the relationship between intensity of jogging and mortality follows a U‐shaped curve (Schnohr et al. 2015). Thus, the ideal ‘dose’ of exercise needed to improve longevity is not a simple linear relationship. Genetic aspects as well as lifestyle factors (smoking, diet and alcohol consumption) may be important in interpreting studies aimed at determining the effect of exercise training on longevity.
I also suspect lifting weights (and a bunch of other things) is important for long term health, how does that relate?
The AW might be a huge step down for your purposes, but I was fine recording 5+ hour bike rides and my 4+ hour (yeah, yeah) first marathon. I really disliked using a touch screen on the AW for recording runs, particularly intervals. I love the feature set of the 945 and haven't looked back.
THAT SAID, I would trust the Apple Watch over the Garmin any day of the week for 'lifesaving' type tech. Garmin's software is spotty, to say the least. First off, I can trigger the Garmin crash detection at will by jolting to a sudden stop on my bike and hopping off. Not all that aggressively -- it happens in my normal dismount process with some regularity. I have to tell it to cancel the emergency call.
Right now it's setup to text my wife. Looking at the config, it says "Select up to 3 people to be notified via text message and email if an incident occurs or assistance is needed". I don't know how I could set it up to call 911 if I wanted to.
And that would all assume it even works. Multiple times a week, my watch says it doesn't have connection with my iPhone X, and I have to reboot the watch for it to find my phone again. My wife's FR235+iPhone 7 setup seems more reliable, but at least once a month for the past 3-4 years, it's decided to stop syncing and we need to reboot the watch again.
IME, the Apple Watch <-> iPhone BT connection just works. All the time.
Not a fan of apple, but this is some cool tech.
Edit: Saw that some garmin's have crash detection too. Neither are "just" toys.
I had the Apple Watch track me during my hour long bike tours, GPS and heart rate sensor on and all, without any problems and with battery left to spare at the end of the day.
Seven to eight hours is probably the critical mark, but anything below that is no problem at all.
I have a Garmin Fenix 5X and it does not make the Apple Watch look like a toy. The Apple Watch integration is seamless, the Garmin Connect integration is a joke.
Moreover the Fenix has a clunky user interface, and is bulky and ugly.
The Apple Watch absolutely trounces the Garmin in every aspect, functional and aesthetic, except for two:
1) Water resistance: it's hard to argue with the Garmin's 100M water resistance.
2) Battery life, but it only does better here by being massive (ref. previous comment about bulkiness).
Seriously, unless you're spending a lot of time in the water, and if you're able to put the watch on charge every night, buy the Apple.
If you're not a cyclist then it doesn't matter but there's definitely lots of stuff the Garmin can do that the Apple Watch can't.
I have 8.5 inch wrists, and even though that's relatively chunky, the Garmin looks absolutely ridiculous.
The thing about fitness and sleep tracking is it's only useful if you're wearing the device pretty much all the time, particularly for things like daily calorie burn.
Whereas I found that there are so many contexts where it either wasn't appropriate, or I didn't want to, wear a gigantic activity watch. I slugged it out for a few months, but in the end gave up on it because it wasn't really practical or stylish.
The maps are something of a wash as well, because the screen is so tiny.
My other arguments stand, to the point where I wouldn't even recommend buying one of the smaller ones unless you really need the water resistance. I imagine even the smaller models still have better battery life than the Apple Watch, so that's another consideration.
This is not the case with the Apple Watch - your Health data lives and dies on your phone unless you back it up or choose to share it with other apps.
I believe most people, if given a discrete choice, would sacrifice 2% of battery life and "forgot your password?" features for the privacy of such information.
The new Fenix 6 series is awesome, but they're a little bulky for my wrist.
Just checked them out and my jaw dropped when I saw the +600 Euro price-tag.
Since I'm not made of money, I hope some core tech from those quickly trickles down to some cheaper sports trackers from Xiaomi for example.
If you just want a smart watch for training then a Forerunner 235 would work fine.
[0]: https://www.rei.com/product/140950/salomon-slab-shift-mnc-sk...
Though even as someone who spends 40+ days/year in the backcountry skiing around the PNW, the 645m is plenty for me. That, combined with an inReach Mini incase shit hits the fan and I feel pretty well covered.
As a side note, those bindings are incredible. Easily one of the biggest innovation in skiing since shaped skis. I put 30 days on mine last season and didn't have a single issue; really impressive for a lightweight, finicky, and brand-new piece of gear.
It's £105 delivered from amazon in the UK. I expect a similar price in your country https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07CRPSJJX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_...