Help! Real athletes and or Garmin Users Need your input

[Born Again]

Any real athletes here?

I’m so conflicted…

I had an Apple series 4 ss. It broke and in need of a replacement. It was a great watch but crap battery for sports.

I also am a garmin user. You know days weeks of battery life… Marathons hiking cycling etc] Apple Watch was a joke and imo still is for these endurance sports.

I don’t care to wear two watches anymore and maybe I’m less into the garmin metrics - there is too much ~

Any real athletes abandon garmin forerunners and fenixeses for aw ultra? Any regrets?

 

[Tdude96]

Not an athlete, but here's a guy discussing this exact thing:

 

[trumptman]

Any real athletes here?

I’m so conflicted…

I had an Apple series 4 ss. It broke and in need of a replacement. It was a great watch but crap battery for sports.

I also am a garmin user. You know days weeks of battery life… Marathons hiking cycling etc] Apple Watch was a joke and imo still is for these endurance sports.

I don’t care to wear two watches anymore and maybe I’m less into the garmin metrics - there is too much ~

Any real athletes abandon garmin forerunners and fenixeses for aw ultra? Any regrets?

I'm old and slow but in the last year I've done the LA Marathon, Oregon 70.3 and previously completed the California Triple Crown.

I often double watch it and the main reason is I like using media on the Apple Watch. I have Apple Music and Audible and the watch handles my tunes better. I just let it back up my Garmin Watch too in case anything ever went wrong there. (It doesn't Garmin is solid).

The Garmin advantages at this stage are battery life, navigation, structured training across many platforms (Apple has planeted seeds that will be yielding results here) and all the metrics like sleeping HRV for recovery (my personal fav).

You are right that Garmin is generating so many numbers that they become noise in terms of understanding in many instances.

Apple is easily there if your main sport is running. The lack of navigation is a big deal for most cyclists. However I can say that the more I run the more I enjoy my Apple Watch in fact that is the only time I "double wrist" it at all.

Also my aging Apple Watch series 6 made it through the Oregon 70.3, over 7 hrs of GPS time and still had enough juice to call the wife to come pick us up. So I think an Ultra would easily handle most "real" events but you're going to charge it every 1.5-2 days.

 

[Born Again]

I'm old and slow but in the last year I've done the LA Marathon, Oregon 70.3 and previously completed the California Triple Crown.

I often double watch it and the main reason is I like using media on the Apple Watch. I have Apple Music and Audible and the watch handles my tunes better. I just let it back up my Garmin Watch too in case anything ever went wrong there. (It doesn't Garmin is solid).

The Garmin advantages at this stage are battery life, navigation, structured training across many platforms (Apple has planeted seeds that will be yielding results here) and all the metrics like sleeping HRV for recovery (my personal fav).

You are right that Garmin is generating so many numbers that they become noise in terms of understanding in many instances.

Apple is easily there if your main sport is running. The lack of navigation is a big deal for most cyclists. However I can say that the more I run the more I enjoy my Apple Watch in fact that is the only time I "double wrist" it at all.

Also my aging Apple Watch series 6 made it through the Oregon 70.3, over 7 hrs of GPS time and still had enough juice to call the wife to come pick us up. So I think an Ultra would easily handle most "real" events but you're going to charge it every 1.5-2 days.

Some interesting thoughts

I still have an edge computer for my bike so the garmin watch was merely back up.

Good to hear about your running experience.

Does it ultra do hiking navigation?

 

[jz0309]

You might find some insights in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/being-totally-objective-here-on-aw-vs-garmin.2365927/

 

[VideoFreek]

Does it ultra do hiking navigation?

Watch this space, so to speak. The Ultra version 1 did not include any navigation capabilities, but that will change with WatchOS 10, which supposedly will add Topo maps and navigation, though how well these will work and how extensive the map coverage will be remain to be seen. Meanwhile, there are third-party apps that do the job: WorkOutdoors is a perennial favorite, though this guy (Cris Hazzard, aka Hiking Guy, who is definitely worth listening to) prefers Footpath. Each has pros and cons, but I don't think they fully match Garmin's capabilities on the Fenix and Epix lines.

It comes down to how you want to use the watch while hiking. Cris Hazzard (referenced above) goes with Gaia GPS on his iPhone for his main navigation tool (or a dedicated Garmin handheld device), and uses the watch to capture metrics during the hike. He downloads routes to the watch too, so that it can be used as a backup nav device if his iPhone has a problem. I've adopted this approach as well--I don't think a watch, with its postage-stamp sized screen, makes much sense as a primary nav tool, but it makes a great backup.