Garmin Reacts to Apple Watch Ultra: 'We Measure Battery Life in Months. Not Hours.'

[solq]

Sorry, this is an $800 product. Very few people are buying it to show off, as very few people know enough about the Apple Watch market to know the price points.

I prefer Wahoo for my bike products (switched from Garmin many years ago) and Withings for my smart scale.

Well, it sort of works with an iPhone. Cannot send or reply to iMessages, cannot support ApplePay, HomeKey, Car Key, etc., however you are right, if one wants to be able to move between Android and iOS more than once, the Apple Watch (and Apple’s tightly integrated ecosystem) is not for you.

Hmmm. What seems more likely, Garmin finally figuring out UI/UX after all these years, or Apple adding enough features in its incremental development (now that it has turned its attention in that direction), to take an increasingly large share of Garmin’s users. Garmin’s problem long term is that Apple (and Google) take enough of the market to make it hard for them to continue investing in it.

I'd take Garmin UX over Apple's Watch any day and at 10x price difference in Apple's favour. It's quick, clean, functional, I suspect you have no idea what Garmin has actually accomplished as of September 2022.

I think Apple Watch UX is generally fussy and more eye-catching than meant to effectively solve your use case, and most things you mentioned (such as replying to messages) are an unnecessary gimmick on the watch, and poorly done on Apple Watch - along with every other implementation that tried to do this kind of activity which is simply unsuitable to a watch, where you cannot really edit or type, dictation is unreliable, it's an unholy frustrating mess that looks good only in a carefully directed presentation and is basically unusable in normal life.

I mean, at least half the time Siri messes up voice search with the actual iPhone, doing it on the watch is a joke...

 

[Alan Wynn]

This is just admitting defeat to the competitors battery though...?

No. It would just be pointing out that battery life for the sake of battery life is not something that drives most users to get a watch.

Not as effective as you think. 'Because we have more customers, battery life doesn't matter'?

You have it backwards, we have more customers because they have decided that battery life is less important to them than features and ecosystem integration. If battery life were the driving feature for people, Garmin would already be number one in the market. Garmin’s problem is that the Ultra now targets another chunk of Garmin’s market and while it does not meet all the requirements for all users, it does mean that Apple is now focused on it and that is not good.

It wouldn't be wrong though - Apple customers who aren't extreme sports enthusiasts will eat up the Ultra. Just the extreme sport enthusiasts that won't. It'll be the pretenders watch.

Most of Garmin’s customers are not extreme sports enthusiasts either, but, as you would say “pretenders” (or more accurately, “aspirational users”). This product takes a chunk of those users and makes it possible for them to move out of the Garmin family. Each time Apple does that it makes it makes Garmin recover its R&D from a smaller market. Eventually that becomes a problem for them.

 

[solq]

I’m also in Switzerland and know many people wearing an Apple Watch. The sports crowd will adopt the Apple Watch Ultra as an alternative to Garmin, though they currently lead.

I very much doubt it. I've been for years heavily involved in gyms, sports and hiking and Apple Watch is a definite small minority. Having a new more expensive one with more pretenses but equally poor functionality and battery life won't fool enough people to make it successful.

 

[msackey]

For a person that’s seriously into the outdoors and climbing, mountaineering, etc, Ultra won’t compare to the usefulness of a garmin device for soooo many reasons.

I’m curious to know. What additional capabilities do those into outdoors sports use these days that the Ultra wouldn’t fulfill? For one I can imagine if you do multi-day events where you have no access to charging your electronics, maybe the Ultra won’t be enough. However, don’t many carry battery charging devices in such cases?

 

[solq]

Sure if one wants to forego the things that make an Apple Watch an Apple Watch and are the elite of the elite get the garmin. That’s doesn’t seem to be apples’ target.

Apples seeming target are those who do extreme sports but still want an Apple Watch at the heart of it.

Garmins battery life is great until you actually use it and try to get the functionality of an Apple Watch.

Extreme sports and one day battery life with a bit of GPS just doesn't mesh. I giggled at the ads with the people wearing the Ultra seemingly in the Everest, like you'd actually want an Apple Watch there. No wonder they all needed rescuing lol.

Plus, it doesn't actually have the features, it's a bit of a joke, not a serious proposal.

 

[Fthree]

can anyone show me a serious endurance athlete that uses an apple watch to train for their upcoming events? Im being serious not joking really want to know one.

 

[Fthree]

I’m curious to know. What additional capabilities do those into outdoors sports use these days that the Ultra wouldn’t fulfill? For one I can imagine if you do multi-day events where you have no access to charging your electronics, maybe the Ultra won’t be enough. However, don’t many carry battery charging devices in such cases?

Maybe knowing more about how much battery you could get with gps + Music would be the best to know. I know the AW 7 couldn't get me through a marathon (not too fast but a 4Hr time) with music on and still be able to use it after for the rest of the day.

 

[Fthree]

Awesome! Apple Watch Ultra stole the thunder!

This is an Apple Watch we are talking about. Garmin doesn't do more than half of the things Apple Watch can do.

that's why we have our phones.. to do the other half of the things that the watch can do and still have battery life for our sports.

 

[TVreporter]

Garmin, don’t go down Samsung’s path. Stick to what you do and keep the competitive juices and innovation flowing - good for you and Apple!

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Extreme sports and one day battery life with a bit of GPS just doesn't mesh. I giggled at the ads with the people wearing the Ultra seemingly in the Everest, like you'd actually want an Apple Watch there. No wonder they all needed rescuing lol.

Plus, it doesn't actually have the features, it's a bit of a joke, not a serious proposal.

Same!

Hope this guy packed his MagSafe Duo Charger

 

[solq]

I’m curious to know. What additional capabilities do those into outdoors sports use these days that the Ultra wouldn’t fulfill? For one I can imagine if you do multi-day events where you have no access to charging your electronics, maybe the Ultra won’t be enough. However, don’t many carry battery charging devices in such cases?

Surely you'd want at least a day of GPS tracking, on top of offline maps?

Never mind multiple days, we were on holidays recently and hiked Port Isaac to Polzeath Beach and back, on the coast, it took a few good hours, how are you going to do it with the crappy battery life of the Ultra? It's not like we carried Qi chargers with us, and we didn't go back to the hotel to charge the watch either.

If you cannot even do a mild activity without worrying about the watch, it's simply not a sports watch. And this Ultra is not, it's another mediocre lifestyle product dressed up like a sports watch, to fool people and part them from their cash.

 

[Alan Wynn]

If Garmin wants to mock Apple, they should focus on two factual and drastic benefits they have:

• Ant+)

Ant+ is still an advantage for some sports, but it is becoming less and less of one. Bluetooth (The Next Version Solves That Problem™️) gets closer all the time.

• Offline maps

Not everyone will care about ant+, but having an adventure watch without a map is mind-boggling. Even Apple acknowledges this:

Given that you pointed out that Apple acknowledges this in the video, do you think that a software issue will be hard for a company that owns its own maps to solve?

 

[webkit]

Reminds me of this video from Steve Ballmer

Ballmer was actually right in that situation, at least about the price. In less than three months, the iPhone price was dropped $200 and dropped again the following year. The 8GB iPhone went from $599 to $199 in one year. Had that not happened, it may have been a very different story for the iPhone. Had it launched at $199, Ballmer's reaction would have likely been different.

Time will tell how the AW Ultra does but I'm not expecting any major price reductions like what happened with the iPhone in its early years.

 

[Valve1138]

The Ultra wasn’t that much more than the 8 I was getting anyways.

This tweet just makes Garmin look butt hurt.

Let the products speak for themselves.

 

[msackey]

For exercise a Polar or Garmin are actually much better than Apple Watch.
I have both and for real good tracking and useful info (like heart rate zones), are much better.
Also they don’t get to stop working after a couple of years.
Why do you need a titanium case when the screen is not protected at all????. The screen durability is more important than a titanium case.
Go to the mountains 1 week. Will you take the “ultra”?.
Want durability? Get a G-shock.
Want a device that works out of the box to start tracking your excerise?. Don’t get an Apple Watch.
Even can’t remind you to stand up every hour!
Apple Watch is a little more than “notifications on the wrist”.
Can’t track show your exercises stats on the watch even!!!.
And on the iPhone the stats are sooooooo Poor vs a real sports “watch”.
Ultra is the new “Marlboro man” spirit.
Still I love mine on wrist and a mechanical watch on the other!.

I agree that for exercise purposes, at least the Garmin is better. The last time I used Polar watches, they only did HRM and not GPS, though I know that’s no longer the case.

I think if Apple updated their native workout app, the Apple Watch can be at least as good as the Garmin Forerunners (the watches Garmin makes for runners). The problem with Apple‘s native workout app is that it’s a bit simplistic for more complicated running workouts. Even more crazy is why Apple Watch can’t display the tracks of one’s recorded route after running. Why do I have to go to the iPhone to see the details?

All of these are software problems (as far as running issues are concerned).

It’s true too that the iPhone‘s native Activity apps leaves one wanting if you are a serious athlete. But again, these are software problems. There are existing third party apps for both the Watch and iPhone that solve most of these problems.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Surely you'd want at least a day of GPS tracking, on top of offline maps?

Guess that would depend on what one was doing. As someone else pointed out, until we have some idea as to how long the battery lasts in real world use, we will not really know. Apple’s mix of activities in their sample 36 hours may be very different from what people doing more off road do, and so it may last longer or shorter once there are real tests (see Ray Maker’s DCRainmaker.com tests when they come out).

Never mind multiple days, we were on holidays recently and hiked Port Isaac to Polzeath Beach and back, on the coast, it took a few good hours, how are you going to do it with the crappy battery life of the Ultra?

You did not have your phone with you? If you did, your Ultra would have been just fine. The new phones support the dual frequency GPS and so would offload that.

It's not like we carried Qi chargers with us, and we didn't go back to the hotel to charge the watch either.

I have done several hour hikes with my Series 6 Apple Watch without a problem. I expect that will be even less of an issue with an Ultra and an iPhone 14 Pro.

If you cannot even do a mild activity without worrying about the watch, it's simply not a sports watch. And this Ultra is not, it's another mediocre lifestyle product dressed up like a sports watch, to fool people and part them from their cash.

Sorry, people do “mild activity“ and even more serious activity all the time with the current Apple Watch lineup, the Ultra just expands the market for more activities. Every time I see people make claims like Apple is just trying to “fool people” and “hoodwink” people, I laugh. Do you not think that people who care about this functionality would do any research before they purchased these products? If they were not meeting their needs do you think that Apple would still be selling hundreds of millions of them? You are just like those Blackberry users who said “no real business person can live without a physical keyboard and Blackberry Messanger.” Time will tell, but I will bet that the number of people who care about what you seem to care about will be very, very small.

 

[msackey]

I'm in no way married to Garmin and generally have little brand loyalty. But workouts, offline maps, seamless chest band monitor integration, cycling integration, sleep monitoring, ease of use... I can start my most frequent workout without looking at it, by pressing one button. The wealth of training and health information is quite something.

I agree with you there. For pure exercise purposes, the Garmin has mostly a leg up there from the Apple Watch. Many of these issues are deficiencies in software.

I’ll say that when I use my AW4 for exercise, I don’t rely on its built-in HRM. There have been so many times when its HRM cannot detect my HR when I run (probably because my wrists are small and often cold, which are challenging for an optical HRM). I wear a bluetooth Polar HRM for that purpose and I don’t have to manually connect it to the AW4 each time. I just put it on, start recording my workout and it’s good to go. When using the bluetooth HRM, the AW4 records many more HR datapoints than it does using its optical HRM and the AW4 uses less battery life too!

 

[msackey]

You did not have your phone with you? If you did, your Ultra would have been just fine. The new phones support the dual frequency GPS and so would offload that.

Oh wow! Did not know the iPhone 14 Pro does the dual frequency GPS. Looked it up and it’s true!

 

[I7guy]

Extreme sports and one day battery life with a bit of GPS just doesn't mesh.

You can’t get into the mindset of who is buying and why they are buying.

I giggled at the ads with the people wearing the Ultra seemingly in the Everest, like you'd actually want an Apple Watch there. No wonder they all needed rescuing lol.

Who needs rescuing? Citation? Unless there’s an attempt at sarcasm.

Plus, it doesn't actually have the features, it's a bit of a joke, not a serious proposal.

But you don’t know who will be buying or why. Stay tuned. You as others make the mistake of looking at a spec sheet.

 

[iPhoneFan5349]

I often go out jogging with just my Apple Watch and without my iPhone. Being able to buy water at various of the ApplePay equipped Coke machines is something I really like. In the same way, being able to select my music or podcast just using my voice and my Air Pods Pro is also a benefit. Finally, unless everyone who buys a Garmin watch only cares about the sports functionality and does not use it in any other way, all the other features of the ecosystem matter. I am do not do extreme sports, but I plan to get an Ultra because the improvements make it better for the sports and workouts I do, while the rest of the user experience - what I do with my watch 80% of the time - is so well integrated with my ecosystem of choice that Garmin just is not a consideration for me.

That’s not the point. You were never going to buy a Garmin because you don’t need one. The people that do buy Garmins because they need one are it going to suddenly buy an Apple Watch

 

[msackey]

Ant+ is still an advantage for some sports, but it is becoming less and less of one. Bluetooth (The Next Version Solves That Problem™️) gets closer all the time.

Ant+ is just a communication protocol. I think the latest version of the low energy Bluetooth communication protocols are on par with Ant+, no? Latest Bluetooth version can connect with multiple devices AT ONCE just like Ant+ has been able to.

 

[mozz2020]

Apple is a mass market company. The Apple Watch Ultra is meant to be aspirational. The Apple Watch has always been marketed as such.

 

[I7guy]

That’s not the point. You were never going to buy a Garmin because you don’t need one. The people that do buy Garmins because they need one are it going to suddenly buy an Apple Watch

The people who think they need a garmin now have an alternative.

 

[solq]

Guess that would depend on what one was doing. As someone else pointed out, until we have some idea as to how long the battery lasts in real world use, we will not really know. Apple’s mix of activities in their sample 36 hours may be very different from what people doing more off road do, and so it may last longer or shorter once there are real tests (see Ray Maker’s DCRainmaker.com tests when they come out).

You did not have your phone with you? If you did, your Ultra would have been just fine. The new phones support the dual frequency GPS and so would offload that.

I have done several hour hikes with my Series 6 Apple Watch without a problem. I expect that will be even less of an issue with an Ultra and an iPhone 14 Pro.

Sorry, people do “mild activity“ and even more serious activity all the time with the current Apple Watch lineup, they Ultra just expands the market for more activities. Every time I see people make claims like Apple is just trying to “fool people” and “hoodwink” people, I laugh. Do you not think that people who care about this functionality would do any research before they purchased these products? If they were not meeting their needs do you think that Apple would still be selling hundreds of millions of them? You are just like those Blackberry users who said “no real business person can live without a physical keyboard and Blackberry Messanger.” Time will tell, but I will bet that the number of people who care about what you seem to care about will be very, very small.

The whole point of having my smartwatch is NOT to offload GPS functionality to the phone. This is what my Epix does.

My phone (11 Pro) has poor battery life and I don't want it on GPS duty, at all. It's more important to have some juice in the phone left.

As for the estimated battery life and Apple's mix of activities - I have a variety of Apple products, phone, iPads, Macbooks etc. Nothing Apple with a battery has a *good* battery life and nowhere near what Apple advertised, so I wouldn't have high hopes for this watch either.

Yes I absolutely think that people get hoodwinked, en masse, all the time. It's an essential feature of modern commerce. Too much money, too much desire to impress.

 

[solq]

The people who think they need a garmin now have an alternative.

They always had alternatives - Polar, Suunto. They have decent sports focused products. Garmin has just more and especially at the top end of features/battery life, but also more expensive.

If you want a good sports watch with good sleep tracking, Apple offers no alternative, just a headache with smooth animations that needs daily charging.