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

[Analog Kid]

Garmin is a great brand that makes great products and has been for decades. They’re optimized for different people and different use cases. The Ultra is aimed at people who want an Apple Watch that does more. I’d expect a lot of the Ultra sales will be to people who will never find themselves in the places it’s advertised for.

 

[spinedoc77]

Apple's response:

"We measure unit sales in millions, not thousands".

Lol, as pitiful as the Ultra's battery life is, it's still going to sell a HECK of a lot more watches than Garmin can dream of. This just seems like Garmin trying to reach for a life preserver on the way down Niagara Falls. Or for the more nuanced out there, trying to reach for a barrel on the way down the Pelorus river.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

has garmin been taken over by samsung?

So, you’ll notice that no Apple products actually appear in the tweet.

 

[Mackie924]

I don't know, if I'm hanging off the side of a mountain - the amount of days my watch will hold a charge seems to be more important than how bright the screen gets or how many complications I can fit on the screen at one time.

Agreed. he atrocious battery life on the Apple Watch is what keeps me away.

 

[cannaqueers]

So wait battery life in the Apple Watch on “smart watch mode” is actually better? Apple gets 36 hours vs Garmin 34 hours. Nice job apple but that is so close feels like that must have been an engineering goal of apple - to beat the enduro.

Garmin specs are for when using gps. It gets 34 hours using gps without solar if i remember correctly. Apple is 36 hours in general.

 

[LeeW]

To be fair, most Apple users that buy this will at best use it to hike to the end of the garden so they don't need days or months.

 

[martint235]

I get 2 - 3 weeks out of my Fenix 7X. The only real feature that it lacks is taking calls on the watch.

 

[spinedoc77]

my current apple watch series 7 45mm i have to put to charge every night my garmin basic watch at times 3 days later i need to charge it so to each its own

My AW7 didn't even make it through one day if I tracked my workout in the morning. I'm curious what the Ultra's 36 hour battery life will truly end up at after you factor in workout tracking.

 

[axantas]

They're really trolling a smart watch? 😂

They would not be trolling it, it if it would not be something they are kind of worried about. So: it is rather "congratulations to Apple for this watch". Kind of an own goal to me...

...sometimes better stay quiet.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

“Despite Garmin's claim that it measures battery life in months and not hours, the company does actually advertise the Endor 2 as having "up to 150 hours of battery life in GPS mode with solar charging"”

I guess 0.2 months just doesn’t look as good in the marketing copy

 

[red elma]

Is Garmin the one with a built in calculator?

 

[MallardDuck]

Battery life is definitely the Achilles heel of the apple watch family.

Not having a complete ecosystem of products and services that work seamlessly across them is Garmin's.

Getting tracks off my GPS is essentially impossible in the field now - it no longer connects via USB to modern mac's (have to use a hub). I plan to retire it and move to using the apple watch to get a track to geotag my photographs (one of the reasons I got the Ultra).

 

[ct2k7]

My AW7 didn't even make it through one day if I tracked my workout in the morning. I'm curious what the Ultra's 36 hour battery life will truly end up at after you factor in workout tracking.

Ok, I thought I was the only one with the unremarkable battery life - if I wake up at 10, charge it to 100%, then wear it to the gym a few hours later and go for a walk... in less than 12 hours, the battery is hitting 30-40% (and I might have given it a top up during the day as well).

 

[Stewie]

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.

You mean the apple watch can do some things that Garmin can't and that Garmin can do things the apple watch can't.

This really isn't going to hurt Garmin sales much, they are still 2 different segments of the market.

 

[Kabeyun]

Savage

Oh, snap!

Meh. Apple measures product success in unit sales, not battery charge duration.

 

[phillypharm]

Sure, but endurance runners are a minority. Casual runners/hikers/etc. who want a rugged watch with a decent battery life combined with social and lifestyle functions are a much much bigger group!

Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying. This won’t take a huge chunk from the Fenix/Enduro/Forerunner 955 group, which is Garmin’s bread and butter. And for their cheaper models, it’s too expensive to compete. This will maybe take from other manufacturers or create a new market or shift from other AW owners.

Garmin sells lower volume with large margins.

But if apple can actually start to match garmin’s metrics and battery in a few years, it’s a different story.

 

[CapitalIdea]

Not really. Nobody would buy an ultra to use it instead of a Garmin.

This statement brought to you by the Jim Balsillie Foundation at the Steve Ballmer Department of the Gateway Computing School of Business and published in the Anssi Vanjoki Journal of Business Strategy.

 

[drugones]

I own a Garmin and wish to switch to Apple due to ecosystem….. but the real battlefield here is battery life, once Apple will deliver there it will eat the whole pie of the market.

Battery is a must for both high end sportsman and just people who don’t want to charge another device daily.

Today Garmin do provides better running/sport stats but that’s meaningful only to very high end sportsman, most of the people just use few of those stats, the rest are nice to have stats which Apple can implement easily.

 

[Stewie]

Oh snap. Them fightin' words.

Let's revisit this this time next year and see who wins this fight.

My guess: Apple.

But this really isn't a fight. They are 2 different segments of the market. Sure there is some overlap between AW and Garmin, but not much.

 

[CthuluLemon]

Garmin has reacted to Apple's new rugged Apple Watch Ultra, saying in a tweet following the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch event that it measures battery life in "months" and "not hours," promoting its latest Enduro 2 watch for athletes.

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The tweet attempts to highlight how compared to the Apple Watch Ultra, Garmin's Enduro 2 can last for months rather than hours.

Thanks MacRumors, couldn’t have gotten there without ya! 😉

 

[dannyyankou]

Meh, it’s 36 hours with standard use and 1 hour of activity. Endurance runners do at least 1-2 hours per day and 2-3+ hours for a long run. So it’s daily charging still.

Fair, let's see what we get from real world tests. But as long as it'll last the whole day, it'll be fine.

 

[NeonNights]

My previous Garmin watch was better than my prior Galaxy S Gear smartwatches, but the Garmin lacks cellular and other features that made me switch to an Apple Watch 7 last year. Yes, the Garmin Forerunner 230 battery truly did last a month but having extra features mattered more to me. I charge the AW7 every 1-2 days and it hasn’t become a pain point. I charge my 13 Pro every night, so no biggie.

 

[MallardDuck]

My AW7 didn't even make it through one day if I tracked my workout in the morning. I'm curious what the Ultra's 36 hour battery life will truly end up at after you factor in workout tracking.

Even when my 4 was new it wouldn't make it on an overseas flight without dying. I'll settle for daily charging.

I do wonder though, why apple bothers to put sleep tracking in it, when you can't wear it while sleeping because you have to charge it for a few hours. Do they think people are going to charge in the middle of the day?

 

[Babygotfont]

iApple is choking on garmins chicken

 

[ajgraves]

Not going to lie, I lusted after the Garmin Fenix 7x sapphire solar, but as much of an improvement as it would be from a purely battery life standpoint, I didn't want to give up on the Apple ecosystem integration the Apple Watch has, and the Garmin will never have (yes, I know that this is a limitation imposed by Apple itself, but still). I pre-ordered the Ultra, really hoping that it lives up to the hype in terms of battery life. I still have eyes on a Garmin Enduro 2 just in case.