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Garmin trades off battery life for smart watch features. If your primary variable for deciding which watch to buy is battery life, buy a Garmin. If the primary variable is 'smartness,' buy an Apple Watch.
My Watch Ultra is great. If were an avid hiker (i.e. 2-3 day hikes each weekend), I'd buy a Garmin.
I agree! I'd say that an Ultra can suffices for many athletes, including elite athletes in the running field. It may not suffice for super ultramarathoners but then we're talking about a very small segment of the population. Go with a Garmin. And also, yeah, buy what suits you. I'm not an ultramarathoner and I didn't care to be one even when I was a competitive runner.
 
If someone is in a situation where low power would negatively impact them then they should not use it. If you are hiking in the middle of nowhere you should start with a 100% charge, have a backup power supply to charge available at camp, and decide when to use or disable low power mode.
and one should REALLY have an iphone GEN 14 or more as well, even off. It's funny how many ppl still think the Ultra has some actual TO satellite communications capability.
 
I think the Garmin vs Apple Watch comparison is odd. They are for two different things but similar in that they both offer activity tracking and smart features. I realize they are compared since Ultra is advertised as an ultra sport version of the standard watch and in comparison to the standard watch I think it's doing a lot to support that. Garmin vs Apple in this case should not be a versus but more of an OR. You pick Gramin for one purpose OR you pick Apple. I go to the gym several days of the week for about an hour or so and track the workout. I sleep with the watch on for sleep tracking, take phone calls, send/receive messages and email, check bank account, watch heart rate, weather, set timers, etc. All things the ultra does well and get 2 days easy. It's not that hard to remove my watch for an hour and top off a battery every 48. It's not as if Garmin makes a phone that lasts for a month but my watch does a lot of what my phone does in a compact package and allows me to leave my phone at home or in the car at times when I dont feel like having it in my pocket. I cycle without a phone most of the time because the watch offers what I need having cellular on the watch.

Anyhow, I appreciate the point of the article. If I want to extend my battery to the claimed 60 hours I can follow the plan but honestly with the settings off I get 60 hours. Power save I bet would get me 3 days or more currently.
 
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This makes no sense at all. This Ultra low battery life is basically turning all the features off. It would be something new if we could gain 60 hours without turniing features off.
Yeah, I would much prefer if there's a low power mode to quickly turn off all non-sports mode functions. This would include: no cellular, no wifi, no background running of any apps except Workout and the Music app you're using. Not a fan of intermittent GSP and heart rate sensing.

This does make me wonder: if I just turn off cell and wifi on my Ultra, would that also stop applications from trying to get notifications? Or, are the applications so dumb as to constantly powering up to check for notifications?
 
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That’s true, but it’s the ‘reality distortion’ of marketing a product that bears no resemblance to its actual ability when placed against the companies marketing of it.
Don't think thats reality distortion. They were clear before AWU went for sale that the lower power setting will reduce sampling. Garmin does something similar, but push it even further. They completely reduce other functionality. They just call it "Expedition GPS".
 
Life is too short. Just buy it and catch up with the finances later. September was a very expensive month for all of us. I'm glad, Apple is not going to release the M2 MacBook Pro. Gives us time to save money. Life is too short. Money comes money goes but precious time doesn't. I think you should totally get it. Treat yourself!

Good luck with your IT Certification exam.
If we are giving free financial advice I will take the contra…waiting and buying it when you have earned and saves makes it so much better. And it teaches you discipline and habits that are going to pay dividends for years of our short lives. Which will make you richer long term and less likely to need to wait as long the next time.
 
This is implemented in a sloppy way, making it annoying for users and fomenting discontent amongst the users here. As mentioned above, this is a specific feature for a specific use case (ultra long hikes/multi day excursions etc). There should be a super low power mode toggle either system wide or in the workout session.

Without that, it’s confusing to turn on (when you want the feature you need an easy to tell you’ve done it right) and it should be clear to everyone else that it’s a special mode meant for specific circumstances that probably doesn’t apply to them.

P. S. Imagine being two days into a backpacking trip, noticing your battery draining quickly and wondering if you got all of the three toggles set correctly…too late to start over or pull up the Macrumors guide to check…
 
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P. S. Imagine being two days into a backpacking trip, noticing your battery draining quickly and wondering if you got all of the three toggles set correctly…too late to start over or pull up the Macrumors guide to check…
There are plenty of small, cheap ($15-25) light battery powered AW chargers in the 8-10 oz range with 1000-2000 mah that will charge an AWU 2-4 times which would work well to alleve that concern. Slightly larger models would charge the watch 10-15 times.
 
As none of my posts have done that, and from my limited observations, Garmin are not comparing themselves, I assume you refer to its users. In the sweeping statement, I hope you have excluded those who 'watch comparisons' are part of their jobs. There are an awful lot of AW Ultra vs Garmin 'insert watch model', articles and videos, and the response from the watch testers, and the Garmin community has been fierce, this AW Ultra is not 'out of the box' a sports watch, nor with it's pathetic battery life, a Ultra watch. Sadly the fanboi aspect of Apple, leads to those who have tunnel vision around its products. Apple make great products, but don't own all of the spaces within them.
Where current cellular and battery tech sits now is clearly the bottleneck and your blindness to that is astonishing. A cellular connected device is obviously a battery hog as is every other cellular device known to man so quit talking so much about known limitations. You look silly.
 
Lol wow a full 60 hours do you mean it? This is light years away from my garmin Fenix which I only charge once every 2 weeks. Apple is still a LOOONG way away. The last thing I need is to worry about charging a watch daily on top of a cell phone. Must be frustrating when you want to track a walk or exercise and be stuck when you realize your watch doesn’t have enough battery life to make it through the activity you want to track 😕
I don't know how others use their watch but my wrist likes to get a break from having a watch on all the time. This was true even when I wasn't using a smart watch. So, when I take it off the wrist, I can put it on a charger.

This is implemented in a sloppy way, making it annoying for users and fomenting discontent amongst the users here. As mentioned above, this is a specific feature for a specific use case (ultra long hikes/multi day excursions etc). There should be a super low power mode toggle either system wide or in the workout session.

Without that, it’s confusing to turn on (when you want the feature you need an easy to tell you’ve done it right) and it should be clear to everyone else that it’s a special mode meant for specific circumstances that probably doesn’t apply to them.

P. S. Imagine being two days into a backpacking trip, noticing your battery draining quickly and wondering if you got all of the three toggles set correctly…too late to start over or pull up the Macrumors guide to check…
Totally agree. I don't like the way they implemented this low power mode for workouts. They need a setting that can be used systemically, and another way for when it is done on a per workout basis.

It is very rare that I'd want to go on low power mode during my workouts. But, it is conceivable that on a long bike ride that I take once in a while, maybe I want that particular bike ride to be recorded with a low power mode workout. Actually, given the excellent battery life of the Ultra, I can't imagine that for scenarios I'm in right now, but it's not to say we shouldn't have individuals options for low power mode.
 
I feel very lucky to have one, so I can understand why. I also would never consider a Garmin because their owners are all very insecure.
The award for the absolute dumbest post is awarded to you. Garmin watch users aren’t insecure. Your post shows how myopic and your fanboydom. Garmin watches are not sold as a sports watch in the same genre as an AW. Clue up dude.
 
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I was wondering how to enable the 60 hr mode. Why can’t they add this as another battery toggle in the battery control center area?

I went on a weekend trip and used regular low power mode. I didn’t work out just did sleep tracking got home with 40% of battery left after 48 hrs. Didn’t need to bring a charger. Very cool. I’ll try ultra low power mode next time.
 
Other than the always on display, what other features are turned off?
It checks gps and heart rate less frequently. Same with cellular. Less frequency poling cell towers. No big deal imho just need the basics sometimes. Alerts for text still go through, reminders, etc. it’s very functional. Just less use of power hungry feature when trying to eke out battery life when leaving the charger home.
 
I was wondering how to enable the 60 hr mode. Why can’t they add this as another battery toggle in the battery control center area?

I went on a weekend trip and used regular low power mode. I didn’t work out just did sleep tracking got home with 40% of battery left after 48 hrs. Didn’t need to bring a charger. Very cool. I’ll try ultra low power mode next time.
If you’re not doing a workout, the ULPM isn’t really going to have a significant effect compared to regular LPM.
 
I don't know how others use their watch but my wrist likes to get a break from having a watch on all the time. This was true even when I wasn't using a smart watch. So, when I take it off the wrist, I can put it on a charger.


Totally agree. I don't like the way they implemented this low power mode for workouts. They need a setting that can be used systemically, and another way for when it is done on a per workout basis.

It is very rare that I'd want to go on low power mode during my workouts. But, it is conceivable that on a long bike ride that I take once in a while, maybe I want that particular bike ride to be recorded with a low power mode workout. Actually, given the excellent battery life of the Ultra, I can't imagine that for scenarios I'm in right now, but it's not to say we shouldn't have individuals options for low power mode.
Without trying it, I think this Super Low Power mode would work better as a separate type of workout. Especially as I don’t think splits and segments are supported.
 
Then buy one.

See:

I cannnnnnn't. I burned so much money already this year. A 14 inch Macbook Pro, a Steam Deck, a Quest 2, an Apple Pencil and Logitech Combo Touch, over $350 worth of games during the Steam Summer Sale, several games day one at full price like Persona 5 Royal/Splatoon 3/ Spider-Man Remastered, and this month I got Christmas gifts to buy and a new monitor. Not to mention I'm gonna be taking the Apple IT Certification exam in a couple months.

If I didn't get the Quest 2 I would've, but I needed a new VR headset to replace the WMR headset that I just got sick of as it was just causing issues.
 
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