Fitbit Surge to Apple Watch

[maflynn]

I can understand why apple chose to not include a GPS but still its a bit of a bummer.
The Surge has a battery rated for a up to 7 day (key word up too). The GPS will suck the battery dry in 5 hours, so for apple having a battery life of under 24 hours, adding a GPS would kill the meager battery life as it stands.

 

[gsmornot]

I can understand why apple chose to not include a GPS but still its a bit of a bummer.
The Surge has a battery rated for a up to 7 day (key word up too). The GPS will suck the battery dry in 5 hours, so for apple having a battery life of under 24 hours, adding a GPS would kill the meager battery life as it stands.

Agree and to be honest until the watch becomes a phone on my wrist (likely never) I will always have my phone with me anyhow. Might as well have GPS on the phone. I could see for a short run close to the house not wanting the phone but I myself still take mine. You never know when you might want/need it.

 

[exxxviii]

The activity app will show splits. I'm running the iOS 9 beta but I think splits are in 8.4 too but not 100% sure.

Not that I have found anywhere. I am running iOS 8.4 on my phone, and I have not found workout splits.

 

[Bob190]

I can understand why apple chose to not include a GPS but still its a bit of a bummer.
The Surge has a battery rated for a up to 7 day (key word up too). The GPS will suck the battery dry in 5 hours, so for apple having a battery life of under 24 hours, adding a GPS would kill the meager battery life as it stands.

Even if the AW got only 3 or 4 hours of battery life with a GPS chip, I would be fine with that. I am sure that it could be turned off in settings, so it wouldn't cause any battery drain unless you used it.

Personally, I hate running with my phone, especially given the mammoth like size of phones these days. I will hold on to my iPhone 5S until Apple comes out with one that size or smaller.

As far as battery drain on the AW using GPS (if it had it), the watch is pretty much the easiest device I own to charge. I am probably in the minority, but I would have no problem with charging it more often if it had GPS. With GPS, it would have the three things most runners who don't want to run with their phone would like to see in a watch (GPS, Music, and Heart Rate). Right now no device on the market has more than two of three.

Right now I run with my AW on one wrist, and my Garmin on the other.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Even if the AW got only 3 or 4 hours of battery life with a GPS chip, I would be fine with that. I am sure that it could be turned off in settings, so it wouldn't cause any battery drain unless you used it.

Personally, I hate running with my phone, especially given the mammoth like size of phones these days. I will hold on to my iPhone 5S until Apple comes out with one that size or smaller.

As far as battery drain on the AW using GPS (if it had it), the watch is pretty much the easiest device I own to charge. I am probably in the minority, but I would have no problem with charging it more often if it had GPS. With GPS, it would have the three things most runners who don't want to run with their phone would like to see in a watch (GPS, Music, and Heart Rate). Right now no device on the market has more than two of three.

Right now I run with my AW on one wrist, and my Garmin on the other.

Yep, for now I am double wristing for my workouts, too.

 

[gsmornot]

Not that I have found anywhere. I am running iOS 8.4 on my phone, and I have not found workout splits.

Cool. Its due to me having iOS 9 then. You get splits for each of the activities so there is that at least.

 

[maflynn]

I think at this point, I've largely made up my mind to get one. I have my replacement Surge in hand, and since its the complete package (not just a watch), I can sell it as NIB which should hopefully mean I can get more $$ for it.

I've also done some research and I'm leaning towards the sport model, the aluminum is lighter and less prone to show scratches. While the ion glass is not as resistant to scratches, it is less reflective so it performs better outside and to be honest, using it and working out in the outdoors is a major factor.

 

[gemnilocs]

I had the Fitbit charge HR...ease of use was great...just purchased the AW and went for a 3 mile run and it was nice to use and I like the interface but still think there are some much needed tweaks....or maybe I will get more used to how to navigate through the watch the more I use it. I'm looking forward to wearing it in the gym with my wireless headphones

I only had the Fitbit charge HR for 2 weeks before getting the AW...so I'm gifting it to my s/o.

"That is as soon as you start using it, you're at the pinnacle of its usefulness - it will not get any better over time, where as the  Watch is so extensible and thanks to apps, it will have more features and functions.

and this is why I went on and purchased the AW.

 

[zhenya]

I had an experience yesterday that would affect my choice of getting an Apple Watch to use as my primary running device. As I think I mentioned here earlier, my Nike Watch fell apart and is being sent back to Nike for hopeful replacement. In the meantime, I've been using the Nike app on the iPhone to track my runs. I've done this plenty before, but yesterday I had a very long run in one of the state parks nearby, with the phone carried on my hip where I usually have it. The tracking was abysmal - very inaccurate with long sections where it seemed to lose the signal altogether and otherwise just not that close to the actual track. Maybe this was an abnormality, but I've done hundreds of other runs at this location or others very similar with my Nike watch, and never seen that before. It would make me pause before relying on the phone as my primary tracking method.

At this point, if I decide to do something other than Nike I think I'll be looking at either the new Garmin with heart rate or the Fitbit.

 

[exxxviii]

I had an experience yesterday that would affect my choice of getting an Apple Watch to use as my primary running device. As I think I mentioned here earlier, my Nike Watch fell apart and is being sent back to Nike for hopeful replacement. In the meantime, I've been using the Nike app on the iPhone to track my runs. I've done this plenty before, but yesterday I had a very long run in one of the state parks nearby, with the phone carried on my hip where I usually have it. The tracking was abysmal - very inaccurate with long sections where it seemed to lose the signal altogether and otherwise just not that close to the actual track. Maybe this was an abnormality, but I've done hundreds of other runs at this location or others very similar with my Nike watch, and never seen that before. It would make me pause before relying on the phone as my primary tracking method.

At this point, if I decide to do something other than Nike I think I'll be looking at either the new Garmin with heart rate or the Fitbit.

My phone GPS has never been as precise or as reliable as GPS in my Garmin running watches. In good conditions, the two will be within a few hundredths of mile, but the phone with Runkeeper is always a little less accurate, and in a few instances (sounds like yours), the phone will get totally sideways and be grossly off. This has only happened with a Garmin one or two times in hundreds of runs. My iPhone 6 is better, but still misses the mark. If distance precision is important for your workouts, stick with the Garmin.

 

[zhenya]

Yep, I'm now thinking I'm going to go with the Garmin Forerunner 225 and like Mike here, hopefully sell my replacement Nike watch NIB. I like the extra features of the Fitbit and Apple watches, but the Forerunner looks like the most complete and reliable solution for those of us who run a lot.

 

[rockyroad55]

Yep, I'm now thinking I'm going to go with the Garmin Forerunner 225 and like Mike here, hopefully sell my replacement Nike watch NIB. I like the extra features of the Fitbit and Apple watches, but the Forerunner looks like the most complete and reliable solution for those of us who run a lot.

That "zone" based heart rate tracking is such a cool feature on the 225.

 

[zhenya]

Yes, I'm seeing that. At the risk of hijacking the thread, I picked up the 225 yesterday and have been on a couple of runs with it. So far I really like it. It's very powerful, while simultaneously being very easy to use. I figured out all the basics just from clicking through the menus and without checking the manual. The pace seems much more consistent than my Nike watch ever was, even on trails in heavy woods, it seems to be pretty much spot on what I estimate my pace to be. That's a huge plus. The heart-rate is great too - seems to be accurate and it's nice how easy it is to switch to the full-color HR screen on the fly. I haven't trained with a HR monitor in years, but I can see that it will be a big help and way easier to do with this than with my old strap based system that reported a number on the screen and that's all. It's also more comfortable than the Nike watch.

Only negatives, and they are minor, is that there is no way to put the HR on the main screen when running (ie. I would personally substitute heart rate for the total mileage metric) and it doesn't do heart rate except on a run (so not during regular fitness tracking or sleep).

 

[maflynn]

Yes, I'm seeing that. At the risk of hijacking the thread, I picked up the 225 yesterday

Garmin makes some nice sports watches that appear to be very accurate. Other then training for an occasional half marathon, 10k or what not, I'm pretty satisfied by the GPS in the products I've used.

The Surge is decent, though as I've mentioned (here or elsewhere), running the same route produced different distances. The Microsoft Band was a bit worse, the variance was much greater, we're talking a difference of several 10ths of a mile, plus the GPS had trouble locking on. I've not updated the firmware and its one of the older versions of the firmware so I suspect things have improved.

I've been happy with my iPhone's GPS.