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I just migrated from Fitbit to Apple Watch. They're really quite different.

Do you plan to "compete" with your friends? If so, are they using Fitbit or AW?
Are you ok charging the device every day?
Do you need advanced features? Or just step counting?
Do you use an iPhone?
 
Well, there are fitbit fitness trackers, and there are fitbit smartwatches.
If you just want a fitness tracker to track steps, runs, etc, a fitbit tracker is low cost, slim, long battery life, and is a good choice.
If you want a smartwatch, which has a lot more capabilities, and I see from your username you have an iPhone, the Apple Watch is no question the better choice over a Fitbit smartwatch as it integrates really well with the iPhone.
 
I just migrated from Fitbit to Apple Watch. They're really quite different.

Do you plan to "compete" with your friends? If so, are they using Fitbit or AW?
Are you ok charging the device every day?
Do you need advanced features? Or just step counting?
Do you use an iPhone?

I would hope so given her user name.
 
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I just migrated from Fitbit to Apple Watch. They're really quite different.

Do you plan to "compete" with your friends? If so, are they using Fitbit or AW?
Are you ok charging the device every day?
Do you need advanced features? Or just step counting?
Do you use an iPhone?
yes i have an iphone 8 and a fitbit and i charge my phone every night so i don't mind i just wanted to know if an apple watch is better than a fitbit
 
yes i have an iphone 8 and a fitbit and i charge my phone every night so i don't mind i just wanted to know if an apple watch is better than a fitbit


If your friends have Fitbit and you compete with them, then no, the AW is useless in that regard.

It really depends how you use your Fitbit and how you will use your AW. The AW is a far more capable device with a heftier price tag. Whether it's better or not depends how you use it. I'm happy with the transition but only because I don't have many friends with Fitbit any longer. I resisted moving to AW for that reason for quite some time.
 
Apple Watch is to Fitbit as an iPhone is to a rotary dial landline.
I had a client that almost died because he had a fitbit. He asked his heart surgeon why his fitbit didn't tell him about his heart issues, and his surgeon laughed and pointed at a nearby trash can and told him to throw the fitbit away. The next day he came in to see me and bought a MBP, iPhone and a Apple watch 😁
 
I had a Fitbit Charge before owning an Apple Watch. I liked it but it’s inferior to an Apple Watch in every way except for needing to charged every 5-7 days as opposed to every 1-2 for an AW.
 
My wife and I migrated from a FitBit and another fitness tracker because we killed 3of them in 2 years. The Apple Watches have had much better reliability and many more functions. I could not see going back to a FitBit. The ability to quickly and easily change bands allows different looks or functionality depending on needs. I have a leather band for general wear but switch to a plastic band when doing messy stuff. She switches bands for mood, color coordination, or seasons.
 
I really liked my Charge 3 but I had to replace 2 units due to screen damage (none of that was my fault). The third unit started deteriorating one month after I received it, and I was done with it. That said, I prefer Fitbit's app interface to Apple's because it's cleaner and more user-friendly.
 
The Fit bit started the fitness thing, but they are so far behind. I just returned on. Their hardware is cheap, and their back end non existent. I just couldn't get it to update to get the basic advertised features.. Just stay away..
 
I was an owner of multiple Fitbit products before making the switch to an Apple Watch back in 2018 and I won’t go won’t go back to Fitbit. Product quality of the Apple Watch is far superior to Fitbit trackers IMO. As others have already pointed out, Fitbit products do feel cheaper and I also had my fair share of warranty claims (either because the bands broke at the connector or the actual Fitbit itself had an issue with screen, etc.) Not saying anyone wouldn’t have hardware or QC issues with an Apple Watch, but I had far more with Fitbit over multiple products than I have had with my one Apple Watch.
 
I'm probably late in responding and I've never used a Fitbit. My wife has a pretty high end Garmin and simply as a watch to track physical activity I think it's better than my Apple watch. The Apple watch is a lifestyle watch with lots of activity tracking capabilities. But I think the Garmin is better for someone who is doing some serious training.
 
I'm probably late in responding and I've never used a Fitbit. My wife has a pretty high end Garmin and simply as a watch to track physical activity I think it's better than my Apple watch. The Apple watch is a lifestyle watch with lots of activity tracking capabilities. But I think the Garmin is better for someone who is doing some serious training.
I chose an Apple watch over a Garmin because Apple’s sensors are more accurate than Garmin’s. Out of curiosity though, and because I love fitness and health data, which stuff can be found on Garmins that are not on Apple watches?
 
I chose an Apple watch over a Garmin because Apple’s sensors are more accurate than Garmin’s. Out of curiosity though, and because I love fitness and health data, which stuff can be found on Garmins that are not on Apple watches?
Which sensors are better on AW than Garmin?
 
I went a different direction. After having the bulky big GPS Fitbit several years back, I went with a Garmin Vivo 3/4. Perhaps lacks some of the high end features of AW or higher end Garmins, but tracks almost everything, does a solid job of syncing with Health app ( and thus everything else), and was decently priced. With the ability to load music pretty painlessly, the vivo 4 is a very good “middle class athlete’s” AW stand-in. Aside from features and style, I was also turned off by Google buying FitBit.
 
Which sensors are better on AW than Garmin?
Heart rate and blood oxygen. I did some research as I wanted a garmin watch for the health and workout monitoring. But I found too much complaints about the heart rate tracking. If you need a separate 120 dollar chest strap on top of your 600 dollar watch to accurately track heart rate during workout, it's kinda silly. Blood oxygen, while not perfect on the apple watch, was found to be better in accuracy than garmins in several comparisons.
So that made me choose the apple watch, which was also much cheaper than the higher end garmin watches. Biggest downside is battery life, but I get 55 hours out of it which is good enough.
 
I chose an Apple watch over a Garmin because Apple’s sensors are more accurate than Garmin’s. Out of curiosity though, and because I love fitness and health data, which stuff can be found on Garmins that are not on Apple watches?
It certainly comes down to individual needs and uses. My wife has a high end Garmin. It looks like you could drive a tank over it. It's rated to withstand greater under water depths. The battery life is vastly better than my Apple watch; not in the same ballpark. For someone doing something like multi-day hiking battery life might be a make it or break it feature. The sleep app on the Garmin provides much more detail than the app that comes on the Apple watch, The built in ski tracking app on the Garmin kills the Apple version. She could look at plots of skiing in great detail, we could even see where the took a hard fall. In general the built in fitness apps in the Garmin just provide more detail than the built in Apple apps. 3rd party apps for the Apple watch might close the gap. Her Garmin can support all kinds of external sensors. My wife had data on heart rate all over the mountain that tracked with skiing. So she could see speed, heart rate, altitude, etc. all mapped out. She took a pretty hard fall you could see the spike in heart rate. I think for someone really looking for a really rugged watch for monitoring physical activity, the Garmin presents a strong case. Now, for folks with iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc., the Apple watch offers lots more lifestyle functionality.
 
Depends on use, but no way for me. I started with them, like so many do but grew beyond it almost instantly.

I had one that calculated me as burning 300 calories for a 1/2 mile walk. Completely insane, and customer service over there, not exactly top notch.
 
It certainly comes down to individual needs and uses. My wife has a high end Garmin. It looks like you could drive a tank over it. It's rated to withstand greater under water depths. The battery life is vastly better than my Apple watch; not in the same ballpark. For someone doing something like multi-day hiking battery life might be a make it or break it feature. The sleep app on the Garmin provides much more detail than the app that comes on the Apple watch, The built in ski tracking app on the Garmin kills the Apple version. She could look at plots of skiing in great detail, we could even see where the took a hard fall. In general the built in fitness apps in the Garmin just provide more detail than the built in Apple apps. 3rd party apps for the Apple watch might close the gap. Her Garmin can support all kinds of external sensors. My wife had data on heart rate all over the mountain that tracked with skiing. So she could see speed, heart rate, altitude, etc. all mapped out. She took a pretty hard fall you could see the spike in heart rate. I think for someone really looking for a really rugged watch for monitoring physical activity, the Garmin presents a strong case. Now, for folks with iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc., the Apple watch offers lots more lifestyle functionality.
That’s very interesting to read! Did she notice any heart rate tracking issues like capped off tops or slow tracking at the beginning of a workout?
 
Fitbits are garbage. I’ve owned two of them in the past and they both broke within a year. The Apple Watch is much more refined and way better quality. Also has way more features and tight integration with the iPhone.
 
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