Interesting thread.
I owned the original Apple Watch for a few versions and then went to a Garmin Fenix 5x, it was a nice upgrade. I was more into the fitness data than having a tiny iPhone on my wrist. Then I got the Epix Pro gen 2 and it's a great watch. The sensor is fantastic, though it never matches what I get at the doctor's officer with their finger pulse device, it's good enough to know which way I'm heading. I also like the HRV, stress, body battery, training readiness, etc. I like how, depending on how I"m ebbing and flowing with fitness, I can get varied workouts based on my recovery and current stats.
I also have an edge 1050 (+ speed / cadence sensors), HRM Pro+, HRM 600, Index scale, Index blood pressure, Index sleep (though its a giant POS), and sadly Connect+ (I thought it would be way different than it is, its useless).
I've had a couple of issues with the Epix and Garmin support used to be helpful but not so much anymore, so I decided to 'upgrade' to the Fenix 8 Pro and that watch sucks. Its ambient light sensor for auto dimming means if you're in a lowly lit room, like with a TV and a lamp on, but its dark near the watch, the watch will be so lowly lit you won't be able to see anything. Also, the complication data (HR, body battery, weather, steps, etc.) is smaller than it was on the Epix Pro gen 2, even though the screen is the same physical size and has a higher resolution. Plus the watch faces aren't nearly as customizable - on the Epix you can customize hands, dials, data, etc, on the Fenix 8 Pro you can only customize data and colors.
Garmin makes a watch you can't read what's on the screen - what kind of user experience is that?
So I grabbed an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and an Oura ring, to kind of cover the bases that Garmin was giving me all those years.
They left A LOT to be desired when you're used to glancing at your wrist and seeing your step count / HR, like sometimes I'll go for casual walks and like to see my HR as it relates to what I'm doing that day, I've been thinking about how my HR is impacted by being in a fasting state vs not with low zone 2 stuff (its always lower when fasted) and other things like that.
The Apple Watch even with the oura complications were slow to update, there's no complication to get the number of steps, you have to keep tapping into stuff if you want your current step count or live heart rate.
So I returned the Ultra 3, Oura ring and Fenix 8 Pro and went back to my somewhat faulty Epix. Garmin released an update for it that bricked some of the complication data so I'm waiting until that's fixed and then doing a hard reset to see if it fixes any of my accelerometer issues, if not and Garmin support won't help me still, I'll just buy a new Epix Pro gen 2 and wait out the next Fenix. Apple Ultra watch or check out SUUNTO or Cronos or whatever else is out there.
IMO Garmin has been going down hill lately though and I think they're coasting on their reputation, Connect+, Index Sleep Monitor and Fenix 8 / 8 Pro, all have substantial value prop issues and their customer support is not close to what it used to be, I think they're 'better' today but can't see myself continuing to invest in their ecosystem if the next generation of products don't turn it around.
