Being totally objective here on AW vs Garmin...

[akidokraja]

I don’t need the processor to do more. I need it to do less. They should have added a mode now where it has a couple super low power cores that would allow the Watch to last for days on end.

Yes, exactly this. Add some ultra low power cores and put a note that it will slow don the system but at least give us an option. This would probably put it on par with Epic 2 with 6-16 days of battery. The reason Garmin has stellar battery life is that they use super low computing power processor.

 

[solq]

I charge my AWU when I jump in the shower 2-3x per day depending on workouts, and it's SOC recovers >90% every time. I used this same pattern with all my Garmin's, albeit every 2-3 days instead of daily, so I have never once had "battery anxiety" and the charging never interrupts my day.

This way, I can be sure that I have sufficient battery to last through those unexpected events as well as allow 24/7 monitoring including sleep.

I love how people say 'Not enough battery for me' though (looking at some of the other comments in this thread). I recall some analysis from Strava data showing the typical Garmin Fenix user does an average run of 35mins, cycle of around 90mins. Less than 4% of Fenix owners did triathlons and of those that did, less than 0.2% did a half Ironman or longer. The AWU seems to be able to cover 99% of the use cases of the average Garmin user. It's interesting how most Garmin users I come across put themselves in the top 1% of users needing battery life in days 🤷🏼

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, you shower 2-3 times per day and you charge your watch while you shower? Presumably at home, or you carry your charger to the gym and you can plug it in?

If you were to step back for a second, you'd realize this is a very unusual, almost unbelievable behaviour pattern which certainly doesn't apply to almost anyone but presumably yourself.

I shower at the gym/pool generally, and I cannot charge my watch there.

The reason I like the battery life on my Epix is not because I do week-long workouts. It's because I can wear it all the time. I generally charge it once a week on Sunday, when I watch a movie.

Do you know when a wearable is not a wearable? When it's being charged. That's when you can't wear it.

I had this type of short battery life devices (lots of them). I look at how my wife is using her Fitbit, which also needs frequent charging. Often when she goes to the gym the watch needs to be charged, so it's not available, or it is being forgotten in the charger, so it's not available.

I also used to forget my daily charging device so many times that the only good equilibrium was to charge it overnight with my phone, so it's available when I go to the gym or whatever. But then no sleep tracking.

My Epix is stress free from this point of view. I cannot imagine going back to daily charging.

 

[NME42]

The reason I like the battery life on my Epix is not because I do week-long workouts. It's because I can wear it all the time. I generally charge it once a week on Sunday, when I watch a movie.

Out of interest, as all my friends with Epix watches have to charge them every 2-3 days: you do not do any GPS based workouts and have always on switched off?

The data Garmin and DC Rainmaker published about battery life, puts the Epix and AWU - when not comparing apples and oranges - almost in the same ballpark.

 

[Fthree]

I charge my AWU when I jump in the shower 2-3x per day depending on workouts, and it's SOC recovers >90% every time. I used this same pattern with all my Garmin's, albeit every 2-3 days instead of daily, so I have never once had "battery anxiety" and the charging never interrupts my day.

This way, I can be sure that I have sufficient battery to last through those unexpected events as well as allow 24/7 monitoring including sleep.

I love how people say 'Not enough battery for me' though (looking at some of the other comments in this thread). I recall some analysis from Strava data showing the typical Garmin Fenix user does an average run of 35mins, cycle of around 90mins. Less than 4% of Fenix owners did triathlons and of those that did, less than 0.2% did a half Ironman or longer. The AWU seems to be able to cover 99% of the use cases of the average Garmin user. It's interesting how most Garmin users I come across put themselves in the top 1% of users needing battery life in days 🤷🏼

While I do not typically do activities that last longer than 2 hours what having days and days of battery life mean to me is not being on GPS for 30 hours one time its being on gps 5,6,7,8 times before I have to recharge the device. I think that is were alot of people are getting confused.

 

[Mo 1959]

Out of interest, as all my friends with Epix watches have to charge them every 2-3 days: you do not do any GPS based workouts and have always on switched off?

The data Garmin and DC Rainmaker published about battery life, puts the Epix and AWU - when not comparing apples and oranges - almost in the same ballpark.

I certainly turned off the AOD but I am averaging a solid week of wearing my Epix 24/7 and a minimum of 2 hours gps use a day, often more.

 

[PatrickNSF]

Out of interest, as all my friends with Epix watches have to charge them every 2-3 days: you do not do any GPS based workouts and have always on switched off?

The data Garmin and DC Rainmaker published about battery life, puts the Epix and AWU - when not comparing apples and oranges - almost in the same ballpark.

I no longer have an Epix, but only 2-3 days of battery life seems low. I was getting 4-5 days using AOD and at least an hour of GPS activity (without music streaming) each day. That being said, I was getting under 48 hours with the Ultra, again using AOD and about and hour of daily GPS activity (but with music playing, stored on the watch).

 

[NME42]

I no longer have an Epix, but only 2-3 days of battery life seems low. I was getting 4-5 days using AOD and at least an hour of GPS activity (without music streaming) each day. That being said, I was getting under 48 hours with the Ultra, again using AOD and about and hour of daily GPS activity (but with music playing, stored on the watch).

Ok, understand. Playing music on Garmin watches seems to be a big issue battery wise still. My Epix owning friends are all podcast addicts (like me). No idea what Garmin is doing wrong on this topic, but I also had to charge my 945 every 3-4 days. And this while having to attach the 945 2-3 times to the computer and charging a little while manually putting podcasts on them (what I loathed).

 

[PatrickNSF]

Ok, understand. Playing music on Garmin watches seems to be a big issue battery wise still. My Epix owning friends are all podcast addicts (like me). No idea what Garmin is doing wrong on this topic, but I also had to charge my 945 every 3-4 days. And this while having to attach the 945 2-3 times to the computer and charging a little while manually putting podcasts on them (what I loathed).

I prefer AW’s music playback to Garmin’s, so when I run with my 955 I usually drop my AW in my pocket for music and LTE. I keep a couple of playlists on the Garmin just in case, but I don’t find it very reliable.

 

[NME42]

I prefer AW’s music playback to Garmin’s, so when I run with my 955 I usually drop my AW in my pocket for music and LTE. I keep a couple of playlists on the Garmin just in case, but I don’t find it very reliable.

As I did not want to subscribe Spotify to listen to podcasts on my Garmin (so much wrong with this) I had to plug my Garmin into my Mac and manually copy the files. Some of them did not play at all. This is so year 2003ish.
(Not even speaking about missing seamless sync of listening position between iPhone and Garmin).

 

[solq]

Out of interest, as all my friends with Epix watches have to charge them every 2-3 days: you do not do any GPS based workouts and have always on switched off?

The data Garmin and DC Rainmaker published about battery life, puts the Epix and AWU - when not comparing apples and oranges - almost in the same ballpark.

I personally have everything turned on with the exception of "always on display". Everything else is maxed out - GPS accuracy, pulse Ox is set to all day etc.

I have a daily activity (work out, swim, martial arts) and at least one GPS activity per week which lasts several hours.

With this, the watch estimates 11 days of use. I generally charge it every Sunday afternoon.

With always on display, for the same usage, it lasts 6 to 7 days.

I don't know who DC Rainmaker is but there's no way the Apple Watch Ultra is anywhere near the ballpark of the Epix 2.

I hope this helps.

 

[NME42]

I personally have everything turned on with the exception of "always on display". Everything else is maxed out - GPS accuracy, pulse Ox is set to all day etc.

I have a daily activity (work out, swim, martial arts) and at least one GPS activity per week which lasts several hours.

With this, the watch estimates 11 days of use. I generally charge it every Sunday afternoon.

With always on display, for the same usage, it lasts 6 to 7 days.

I don't know who DC Rainmaker is but there's no way the Apple Watch Ultra is anywhere near the ballpark of the Epix 2.

I hope this helps.

Ok, great. Fits to the numbers Garmin has specified and DC Rainmaker reported.

As said, my friends do listen to music/podcasts while training outdoors with GPS usage. That seems to make the big difference.

 

[solq]

Ok, great. Fits to the numbers Garmin has specified and DC Rainmaker reported.

As said, my friends do listen to music/podcasts while training outdoors with GPS usage. That seems to make the big difference.

My understanding is that the Epix 2 has 20-30 hours of GPS time. I found "up to 12 hours" for the Ultra, so if that's true then the Epix 2 will do that, plus a couple of extra hours, and then have about 2 days of smartwatch left in it.

 

[NME42]

My understanding is that the Epix 2 has 20-30 hours of GPS time. I found "up to 12 hours" for the Ultra, so if that's true then the Epix 2 will do that, plus a couple of extra hours, and then have about 2 days of smartwatch left in it.

Epix 2 has 9 to 30 hours of GPS time depending on AOD on/off, music yes/no and which GPS quality is used.

epix (Gen 2) Standard/Pro Series Owner's Manual - Battery Information

www8.garmin.com

DC Rainmaker got 17 hours battery life out of recording a GPS activity of the AWU:

Apple Watch Ultra In-Depth Review: It’s a Start!

The Apple Watch Ultra is...

www.dcrainmaker.com

It was in Low Power Mode: meaning AOD off, full GPS quality.

Garmin spec says for a comparable mode:

All satellite systems plus multi-band mode		Up to 20 hr.

This is not dramatically much more. But well, some guys need this, ok.

 

[solq]

Epix 2 has 9 to 30 hours of GPS time depending on AOD on/off, music yes/no and which GPS quality is used.

epix (Gen 2) Standard/Pro Series Owner's Manual - Battery Information

www8.garmin.com

DC Rainmaker got 17 hours battery life out of recording a GPS activity of the AWU:

Apple Watch Ultra In-Depth Review: It’s a Start!

The Apple Watch Ultra is...

www.dcrainmaker.com

It was in Low Power Mode: meaning AOD off, full GPS quality.

Garmin spec says for a comparable mode:

All satellite systems plus multi-band mode		Up to 20 hr.

This is not dramatically much more. But well, some guys need this, ok.

I suspect few people "need" this, the key benefit is being able to use GPS for some activity without worrying about it and without immediately needing to charge the watch.

Like I said, I use GPS for a few hours every week, and I still get more than a week out of the watch, on top of daily workouts, sleep tracking etc. With the Garmins, you can just get on with it. It will probably do whatever you throw at it and last until it's convenient for you to charge it. Rather than micromanage its battery life and run to the wall as soon as possible.

It's true I don't use it for music, podcasts, controlling my drone, booking restaurants etc.

My position is always to use the most comfortable device for the job and for these tasks, if on the move, my phone is by far the best. Plus, I don't even stream music and I could never be bothered to upload music to a watch. It's plenty just doing it with a phone, iTunes is awful enough.

 

[Zelegorm]

The Fenix 7 is only a little better than the AWU. If I turn the normal features on (oxygen...), with a daily workout of 1h 30h it was empty in 5-6 days usually.
I am putting the AWU on a charger every 2nd day. The charging is very fast. It doesn't matter. It's a workflow.
Before showering: Charger. After 30 minutes it's usually full.

But for the "a little better" battery life you are losing a lot.
Especially I am out without my phone. No chance with the Garmin. I think the Garmin will be empty in a few hours with LTE on

 

[NME42]

. I think the Garmin will be empty in a few hours with LTE on

Only the 945LTE has LTE support. No idea about battery life. But feature wise only very limited and can not fairly be compared to an AWU.
Interesting that the high end lineup did not get LTE support.

Edit: Garmin says 7 hours with GPS, music and this limited LTE thing.

Forerunner 945 LTE Battery Life Assumptions | Garmin Customer Support

Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.

support.garmin.com

 

[Zelegorm]

There you can see how huge the AWU battery is when you are comparing the real stuff 😂

 

[NME42]

There you can see how huge the AWU battery is when you are comparing the real stuff 😂

Yes. It also shows that Garmin has no magic trick to save battery.

A big and bright always on display, a strong CPU, large memory, dualband GPS, cellular all come to the expense of battery usage.

 

[trumptman]

As I did not want to subscribe Spotify to listen to podcasts on my Garmin (so much wrong with this) I had to plug my Garmin into my Mac and manually copy the files. Some of them did not play at all. This is so year 2003ish.
(Not even speaking about missing seamless sync of listening position between iPhone and Garmin).

I’d recommend looking at PlayRun in the Connect IQ store. It is free and I very much enjoy using it for podcasts.

 

[NME42]

I’d recommend looking at PlayRun in the Connect IQ store. It is free and I very much enjoy using it for podcasts.

Thanks. But too late. Changed to Apple Watch and entirely happy.

Remember that I tried a subscription based podcast app two years ago (can’t remember the name) and it was crap.

 

[zerozoneice]

remember there are 2 versions of Epix2: stainless steel and titanium/sapphire.
the steel one does not have dualband GPS, while the sapphire one does. Dualband is a battery destroyer....
both versions have multi-satellite, but that's another thing.

so when comparing AW Ultra GPS performance, should be looked at Epix2 Titanium/Sapphire version.
apples to apples 😀

 

[PaladinGuy]

PS: not sure how many can read the WSJ but they have an article on the Garmins and their popularity with athletes in today’s edition: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cu...martwatches-over-apple-or-samsung-11667088984

This has been my experience as well, having done crossfit for a long time. Almost everyone who tracks workouts has a Garmin. Apple Watch is actually less common than Whoop.

Some of the Garmin stats would be awesome, but they require outdoor running or cycling to use them. If someone only does CrossFit, they won’t be getting all the data that a runner or cyclist will get. I think even the new Training Readiness score requires outdoor runs or cycling because that’s the only way to generate a VO2 Max estimate.

I could be wrong but that’s what I seem to recall from what I’ve read and past use.

 

[solq]

Some of the Garmin stats would be awesome, but they require outdoor running or cycling to use them. If someone only does CrossFit, they won’t be getting all the data that a runner or cyclist will get. I think even the new Training Readiness score requires outdoor runs or cycling because that’s the only way to generate a VO2 Max estimate.

I could be wrong but that’s what I seem to recall from what I’ve read and past use.

No, you get training readiness without running or cycling. It doesn't need the VO2Max, which mine for example doesn't know. So you can happily do only CrossFit with a Garmin, and indeed, by far most CrossFiteers in the boxes I've been to do just that.

 

[DontGetTheCheese]

Can you elaborate a bit, where you see Garmin upgrading their games during the last few years?

Not meant as a trolling question, I am really interested in your viewpoint.

I was a heavy Garmin user with all their high end products during the last ten years or so and did see no further improvement after things like maps, music and Garmin Pay. All three of them mediocre at maximum and smartwatch capabilities of their watches are very basic.
Stability of their platform got worse with every feature they added.

I agree on stability but that's kind of where this one got better. They improved a lot of the stability problems that affected me.

• OLED Display + 7 day battery life
• Touch screen
• Device management better integrated with Garmin Connect / phone.
• Far few problems with basic functionality.
  • GPS better
  • HRM better, much better than some prior models.
  • No headphone dropouts (although reading about issues with the new Air Pods Pro 2)

Agree on Garmin Pay, it's not up to the Apple Pay standard.

Still, like I said, wearing an Ultra these days.

 

[usmaak]

I agree on stability but that's kind of where this one got better. They improved a lot of the stability problems that affected me.

• OLED Display + 7 day battery life
• Touch screen
• Device management better integrated with Garmin Connect / phone.
• Far few problems with basic functionality.
  • GPS better
  • HRM better, much better than some prior models.
  • No headphone dropouts (although reading about issues with the new Air Pods Pro 2)

Agree on Garmin Pay, it's not up to the Apple Pay standard.

Still, like I said, wearing an Ultra these days.

The only thing about GARMIN Pay that I miss is that I could use it at Albertsons stores. Apple Pay does not work there and I have had to start carrying my credit cards again when I go there. Samsung Pay works there too.