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Garmin Reacts to Apple Watch Ultra: 'We Measure Battery Life in Months. Not Hours.'
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I realize that what you are trying to say is more sales = a better product but that is not necessarily true in all circumstances. The aw6,7 sold many many more millions of units than the garmins have however they haven’t yet been able to match the quality data
also as a person who is so connected to my phone and MacBook all day sometimes its just nice to disconnect and go for a run or workout. I noticed when I had my AW it really took my mind away from the quality time I could have had not worrying about notifications. Even shutting notifications off and doing those activities id still get that anxiety looking down at the watch.
It’s silly to think that *this* watch will be what brings about Garmin’s demise when the “lower-end” Apple Watches massively outsells/ will outsell both every Garmin watch and the Ultra (probably combined).
Also, I’m sure that a few higher-end Garmin purchases will be converted to AWU purchases, but I’d be willing to bet that far more, maybe even as much as 80% of AWU sales, will be people choosing this over a AWS8.
If the Apple Watch hasn’t killed Garmin yet, I think they’ll be all right.
(And for the record, I traded my series 3 for a Forerunner mainly because of battery life)
Also, I’m sure that a few higher-end Garmin purchases will be converted to AWU purchases, but I’d be willing to bet that far more, maybe even as much as 80% of AWU sales, will be people choosing this over a AWS8.
If the Apple Watch hasn’t killed Garmin yet, I think they’ll be all right.
(And for the record, I traded my series 3 for a Forerunner mainly because of battery life)
If you need to be able to go without charging you watch for days, you are right, the Apple Watch (now and for the next few years - or maybe ever) is not the product for you. No question about that. I charge my watch before I go to sleep and if I have a heavy workout morning, while I am in the shower.
I have a few questions for those Garmin users talking about the over a month long battery life:
- how often do you charge your watch, and how do you have a habit to make sure you do it?
- How long does it take to charge from empty to full?
- How long do you get with live track running on LTE using a Forerunner 945 LTE?
Not likely in real world use, I expect it will still be a day (simply because it is unlikely that most people will turn enough other things off to make that work). While many of the Garmin folks here cannot understand why anyone would ever want things like LTE for calls, etc., many Watch users just expect it to be there and want the larger battery to make it work better.
The two most apps that most people talk about for adding missing functionality are WorkOutDoors and HealthFit. I think the are both $4.99 with out a subscription. One's data for for most of the workout apps I have used gets stored in Apple Health, meaning that I will never have to pay to get access to it, nor can anyone not in possession of my iPhone have access to it (unless I chose to use HealthFit or similar and uploaded it to some other service).
Given that both of those apps have been around for a long time, I think their current amortized cost for me for both of them is $2 a year. I will note that both support Family Sharing and if one includes my BF and the others on my account that have watches it drops the cost down to under $0.40 per person per year.
Do you have any examples of applications that you actually used (or considered) that duplicated functionality of the built in Garmin Apps that as a group would cost over $500 a year (even $250 a year), or is this just "it could be"?
What percentage of Garmin customers do you think use 75% of the stats that Garmin's watches collect? What about 50%?
By "occasional athletes" do you really mean "anyone who does not mind a routine that includes charging one's watch every day, and does not do extreme sports"? I jog/run/walk several miles every day. I do a HIIT workout every day (using another one time purchase app called Streaks Work Out) and done over 1,400 consecutive days. I have been doing a Daily Yoga practice every day over over 1,400 days. I also do other sports activities, but not as regularly. I have happily been using my Apple Watch as my only tracker for many years.
Are there things I wish Apple would add? Of course. Would I consider giving up all the things like Apple Pay (and transit cards), real LTE connectivity, voice control, Home Key, having my boarding bass on my watch, etc. to switch ecosystem primarily to get better battery life? Not at all.
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You say that you switched because of battery life. This doubles that battery life which will be enough for a lot of users that had their watches dying before the end of the day. It won’t fill all gaps. No watch can do that, but this fills a lot of holes.
I don’t see this putting Garmin out of business... Android users don’t have the AW as an option and most aren’t switching for a watch, so that insures some of the market, even those that could get by with the new AW, will end up with Garmins.
I do not think that this watch will kill Garmin, but the Ultra should be of serious concern for Garmin for the simple reason that it shows Apple has now started to focus some energy on Garmin's market. If Apple iterates the way they have, they will begin to chip away at the larger and lower end components of Garmin's market. Keeping people from entering the ecosystem is the biggest risk to Garmin's future in the space.
I have no idea how many Ultra sales will be to former Garmin customers, but I am sure that many Ultras will be sold to existing Apple Watch users, and many who have not yet tried the watch because they were concerned about making it though a day on a charge.
That was what Blackberry said. Apple took some time to establish a market for itself and now it is targeting a chunk of Garmin's market (the lower end for sure). History shows us that Apple will continue to iterate and thanks to its size will continue to be able to offer things that Garmin is unlikely to be able to do (read Ray Maker's discussion about adding full LTE support), etc.
For the record, I traded my Edge bike computer for an iPhone because of the ecosystem.
Please name those essential things for a extreme athletes that Iwatch has and Garmin doesn't. I have both watches. I use Iwatch for business and Garmin for training. Iwatch is a tech state of the art and Garmin is specialized for real athletes (not Instagram ones).
Indeed it stole the thunder, for the geeks and those who like they're toys to shine
Indeed. And the people will decide which functionalities they need. If an apple introduced a laser that cuts through the steel, marathon runner couldn't care less.
But let's encourage apple to do more and maybe in the near future it will be possible to do a long night run will all the stats without charging it before.
I actually have, when I was using Android Wear. They even had Google Authenticator running on it.
But 2FA, for me is almost exclusively (1) putting in a code received via SMS or (2) authenticating yourself on a banking app, on the phone. I just don't see how the watch would help much here.
2FA is so rare, and when needed I am generally at my computer or doing something with my phone (in my hand) that moving part of the process to a watch doesn't make it more convenient.
Sorry, I don't see how this is the killer app.
Podcasts you can do with the Garmin, and payments, and I'm not sure why you'd want Strava when you have superb built in fitness apps including running.
You could say that you really want to talk into your wrist and that's that, you got to get an Apple Watch. But if that was your killer use case, you won't throw away your Garmin now to get an Ultra because it can do that. You were already on the hook with Apple Watches.
Garmin will have a very hard time justifying they can't do all the smarter stuff once the Ultra is out To make things worse, the Android watches ecosystem will try to place Apple Watch Ultra competition and also attack Garmin.
Would be best for them to switch to software for Android and Apple Watches if their sports app are so great, or are they? (I switched from Garmin to Wahoo and never looked back to the clunky software they had on their Edge bike computers).
To make things worse, the Android watches ecosystem will try to place Apple Watch Ultra competition and also attack Garmin.Would be best for them to switch to software for Android and Apple Watches if their sports app are so great, or are they? (I switched from Garmin to Wahoo and never looked back to the clunky software they had on their Edge bike computers).
While clearly Garmin's tweet was bs and a poorly thought marketing ploy, I think it's a little disingenuous to pretend that battery life doesn't matter that much or that Apple has anything comparable.
It's like pretending that a 50km range on a car is fine: "but I charge it every day, what is the problem? and if I need more I just stop every 50km and charge, so it's really as good as a car with a 800km range". Similar bs. Nobody believes that.
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Agreed, and five times the battery life compared to the apple watch is of course much better. I just thought it was funny to use months when you have to use nought point. They could've said they measure their battery life in decades too as well to make it sound even better (about 0.0017 decades worth of battery!).
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For me AW is a smartwatch with fitness tracking. Garmin's are fitness trackers with smartwatch features.
As someone who does long runs (the reality for most garmin owners is surely running, walking, cycling, a bit of hiking, etc?), my 7x was able to manage 100km run non-stop (over about 14 hours) and still have something like 70% left. Very impressive. But in reality, I dont need it to have 70% left, i need it to have maybe 10-20% left for safety.
With AW7 I have to run with a garmin as well, or I'll be running out of battery at the end of the day if I run to/from the office etc (only about 8 miles round trip).
I'm hoping the ultra will cover day to day situations, and I can stop wearing two watches to run. For the 100km, I'll wear a heart rate monitor and use that upcoming battery saver option. Im not keeping the garmin just for an ultramarathon event I do once or twice a year.
Edit: I should add, I think people comparing the Ultra to something like the Garmin enduro or Fenix 7x are playing. The fairer comparison for screen types would be to the Garmin Epix 2, which suggests 6 days battery life with always on mode (is the ultra with always on?).
As someone who does long runs (the reality for most garmin owners is surely running, walking, cycling, a bit of hiking, etc?), my 7x was able to manage 100km run non-stop (over about 14 hours) and still have something like 70% left. Very impressive. But in reality, I dont need it to have 70% left, i need it to have maybe 10-20% left for safety.
With AW7 I have to run with a garmin as well, or I'll be running out of battery at the end of the day if I run to/from the office etc (only about 8 miles round trip).
I'm hoping the ultra will cover day to day situations, and I can stop wearing two watches to run. For the 100km, I'll wear a heart rate monitor and use that upcoming battery saver option. Im not keeping the garmin just for an ultramarathon event I do once or twice a year.
Edit: I should add, I think people comparing the Ultra to something like the Garmin enduro or Fenix 7x are playing. The fairer comparison for screen types would be to the Garmin Epix 2, which suggests 6 days battery life with always on mode (is the ultra with always on?).
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What percentage of Garmin’s sports watch market are “extreme athletes” vs. either those who aspire to be “extreme athletes” or just want to be able to go for a longer (one - two hour) runs and still have a full day’s battery life left at the end? According to RunRepeat, in 2020 there were around 611,000 ultra runners in the world, of which about 74,000 are in the U.S. I am not an extreme athlete, nor do I aspire to be, but I have quite a few friends who are more serious than I am (they run a few marathons or triathlons a year). Most of their lives are not spent doing extreme sports, so the essential things that they need that Garmin does not offer are the same things that everyone else needs: ApplePay, CarKey, HotelKey, HomeKey, real LTE and the ability to leave one’s house for a walk, run, swim, etc. without one’s phone. From what I can tell from Garmin’s Garmin Pay website, American Express is not a participant, nor are the largest credit unions in the United States, Barclay’s is not a participant, nor are many others. For transit, they do not offer anything like Express Pay, so that I do not need to select my card first, it just happens automatically.
Not having real LTE means that leaving one’s house without one’s phone means being out of communications and being unreachable in the event of an emergency (not for the wearer who could have a ForeRunner 945 LTE, but for anyone else trying to reach him or her). Given its focus on athletes, it seems odd that to even send a message to one’s contacts using LTE one has to end the workout one is doing.
There will be some people who are willing to do what you have done. Garmin’s problem moving forward is that the Ultra shrinks that group somewhat (not to zero, and probably not even by 50%, but enough that it is an issue). I am not sure if you equate “extreme athletes” and “real athletes”, but I am pretty sure that most “real athletes” are not “extreme athletes”. Everyone who decides that they are willing to put up with a bit of hassle (for example wearing a heart rate strap to improve battery life when I go out phone-less) to not have to have two watches and does not enter Garmin’s ecosystem is one fewer person that Garmin can easily upsell or have upgrade (an upgrade is an easier sale than a new one).
When Ray Maker reviewed one of the earlier Apple Watches (I do not remember which generation), he said it was the watch that people would want 23 hours of the day (with the other hour being working out). He did not even talk about it for longer competitions as there would have been no point. While many had already decided to use their Apple Watches for working out, before the Ultra, now longer events would have been possible. The Ultra does not yet serve Ultra Marathoners, nor other extreme sports, but it makes 5Ks, 10Ks, and (probably) even marathons for some, but it makes it possible for it to be the only watch for a much larger group of athletes.
The most lucrative part of the market.Indeed it stole the thunder, for the geeks and those who like they're toys to shine
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I don't get this LTE watch thing. I'm not with the most expensive carrier and right now the LTE watch addon option on my phone contract would cost me 90 francs a year (currently on special offer down from 120!).
Since I always have my phone with me, and I don't understand why I wouldn't have my phone with me - unless I lost it, this is 90 francs too expensive.
Is this free for you in the US or wherever you live? I would think that unless it costs a trivial amount of money it's just not worth paying for this "feature". A phone is such a relatively small and lightweight item that you can always carry it with you, even when running.
I get it that on a marathon or when swimming you probably don't want your phone, but you probably don't care about making calls or texting in these circumstances.
It feels like people tie themselves in logical pretzels trying to justify LTE calling when there's very little, if any, genuine need for it, it's more of a cool "look what my watch can do, I'm like Batman" thing.
Again, is it free? If not, why is it worth it? Can you look at your number of uses per year and divide by cost and not be mildly horrified on throwing money away?
Honestly? Not really. It's $10 a month, I piddle way more that that away on inconsequential things every month. $10 isn't even one meal at a restaurant these days. It's a convenience that I don't need and probably won't use often, but it's worth it to me to have the option.
Everybody has different financial situations, so to some people that $10 may matter a lot more - but then again, we're in a forum where people spend $1000+ on phones and $500+ on watches, so 'throwing money away' is pretty much the name of the game. Realistically we could all get by with cheap flip phones and analog watches - or no phone at all.
Someone give this man a cookie 🍪😅. Apple should hire you for some spicy replies 🌶️
I'm not sure if I agree with you on this one. You can spend a lot of money on a lot of things, and some can be very expensive. But that's different from effectively throwing money away - for example on useless subscriptions.
For example, I ordered an iPhone 14 Pro Max 512, which was relatively expensive. But I wouldn't pay for Fitness+ or whatever it's called, which is cheap. I spend a hell of a lot more on sports, but I make use of everything I spend money on. Getting a Fitness+ subscription would simply be a waste of money.
Ditto with LTE on the watch. I seriously doubt this is a feature that people need or use more than very sparingly. It not a serious argument in favour of the Ultra.
I've been looking for a serious argument in favour of the Ultra and - save for simply liking Apple Watches, their interface and user experience - I'm not finding one. Nobody has made the case, except for effectively love for this category of products.
Which is fine, but it won't affect Garmin at all, which is the whole point of this conversation. If you love Apple Watch you'll get an Ultra if the price and size won't put you off (it's huge! I didn't go for the big Fenix 7 for this reason). But if you wanted a Garmin or appreciate what Garmin offers - great battery life, offline maps, really good fitness/sleep/health tracking - I think it's unlikely to be swayed.
It's like this: Apple used to only make 8 pound boat anchors. They realized there was a sizable market of boat owners that needed 12 pound boat anchors. These customers were either struggling to make the 8 pound boat anchors work or buying 50 pound boat anchors from Garmin. Since this lack of choice resulted in Garmin selling a lot more 50 pound boat anchors than the market really needed. They incorrectly correlated that there was a big market for 50 pound boat anchors. Now that Apple offers a 12 pound boat anchor, Garmin's potential market shrinks to those that only need 13-50 pound boat anchors while those that actually need 13 - 50 pound boat anchors have a hard time understanding they are in the minority.
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