Next watchOS to provide greater metrics for fitness and sleep?

[satchmo]

For you long time watch owners, what has been Apple‘s track record with respect to improvements to it’s built-in software?

I’m specifically interested in greater details in fitness and sleep tracking metrics.
Is this some we think Apple will implement or do they typically leave this stuff to third party apps to fill in the gaps?
I’m not adverse to this, but certainly rather have an all-in-one solution like Garmin.

 

[jz0309]

For you long time watch owners, what has been Apple‘s track record with respect to improvements to it’s built-in software?

I’m specifically interested in greater details in fitness and sleep tracking metrics.
Is this some we think Apple will implement or do they typically leave this stuff to third party apps to fill in the gaps?
I’m not adverse to this, but certainly rather have an all-in-one solution like Garmin.

not sure what it is you're looking for, all the data is basically collected in the Health app, plus, there are apps (I used QS Access before but there are others) that let you extract the data into eg csv so you can import it into Excel for your own analysis. there are 3rd party fitness and sleep tracking apps that might and probably display more with the data than the Health app does; for me, I don't use any so cannot further comment.
Bottom line, the raw data that the sensors collect is there, whether that is in 3rd party apps or in Apple's apps ...

What data is its specifically that you are missing? if you provide that there might be folks here that can help.

 

[satchmo]

not sure what it is you're looking for, all the data is basically collected in the Health app, plus, there are apps (I used QS Access before but there are others) that let you extract the data into eg csv so you can import it into Excel for your own analysis. there are 3rd party fitness and sleep tracking apps that might and probably display more with the data than the Health app does; for me, I don't use any so cannot further comment.
Bottom line, the raw data that the sensors collect is there, whether that is in 3rd party apps or in Apple's apps ...

What data is its specifically that you are missing? if you provide that there might be folks here that can help.

I‘m suppose I’m looking at many of the same data that Garmin and it’s Connect app collects and displays.
For sleep, it’s just a more detailed breakdown of the night i.e. deep sleep, REM etc. For fitness, there are some running metrics like stride length, cadence and pacing (although I think Apple may have recently added cadence).

I have no doubt the sensors capture all the data, and many of the review suggest Apple’s are among the most accurate. It’s just being able to see it broken down and how it’s shown…third party app or Apple.
I’m hoping it‘s Apple. But I can see them giving app developers that space to fill the gaps.

 

[PaladinGuy]

You can see your cadence, average stride length, and other details in several third party apps. HealthFit is one app that shows this. Athlytic also shows it.

Sleep, on the other hand, I don’t expect Apple to add sleep stages for a while (if ever). My personal guess is that they know how unreliable that data is on consumer wearables.

I REALLY wish that Apple would up their game on the software side of fitness/health and not rely so heavily on third party apps, but it’s just to meant to fill the same niche as Garmin (in my opinion). If you’re hoping for something like Garmin Connect, I wouldn’t count on it. It would be a big change in direction for Apple. (I should say that I’d love to see a step in that direction.)

 

[satchmo]

You can see your cadence, average stride length, and other details in several third party apps. HealthFit is one app that shows this. Athlytic also shows it.

Sleep, on the other hand, I don’t expect Apple to add sleep stages for a while (if ever). My personal guess is that they know how unreliable that data is on consumer wearables.

I REALLY wish that Apple would up their game on the software side of fitness/health and not rely so heavily on third party apps, but it’s just to meant to fill the same niche as Garmin (in my opinion). If you’re hoping for something like Garmin Connect, I wouldn’t count on it. It would be a big change in direction for Apple. (I should say that I’d love to see a step in that direction.)

I’m curious why you think Apple won’t create a more Connect-like app. The current Health and Fitness apps are a bit of a mess and not best in terms of UI design. Just looking at the sleep metrics now, and has a weird mix of fonts. It’s one of the few instances where another major company (Garmin) has a better and cleaner interface for legibility.

As far as sleep data, I don’t think Apple would have included that feature if it didn’t have faith in it to begin with. While it’s not perfect science, it is a very popular feature. Given the competition, there’s enough incentive for Apple to spend the extra resources and show us more data points.

I’m right now on the fence between a Series 7 and a Garmin Venu 2. My leanings are towards Apple as I’m fully locked into their ecosystem. I’d just like to see them improve on the software instead of just the hardware side.

 

[PaladinGuy]

I’m curious why you think Apple won’t create a more Connect-like app. The current Health and Fitness apps are a bit of a mess and not best in terms of UI design. Just looking at the sleep metrics now, and has a weird mix of fonts. It’s one of the few instances where another major company (Garmin) has a better and cleaner interface for legibility.

As far as sleep data, I don’t think Apple would have included that feature if it didn’t have faith in it to begin with. While it’s not perfect science, it is a very popular feature. Given the competition, there’s enough incentive for Apple to spend the extra resources and show us more data points.

I’m right now on the fence between a Series 7 and a Garmin Venu 2. My leanings are towards Apple as I’m fully locked into their ecosystem. I’d just like to see them improve on the software instead of just the hardware side.

I think they will (and should) clean up the UI in Health. You’re correct that it’s not user friendly and is a bit of a mess.

As to why I don’t think they’ll go fully in the direction of Garmin Connect, I don’t think it fits the market that they’re aiming for with the Apple Watch. Garmin is still pretty niche with serious fitness/sports/athletes. Your average Apple Watch user isn’t interested in knowing about their vertical oscillation, stride length, cadence, aerobic/anaerobic training, lactate threshold, etc. Apple’s fitness software is designed to be mainstream and get people to move in general.

I think they’ll continue to let third parties fill in the gaps and meet the needs of those narrower use cases. They can (and should) continue to improve and add to the amount of data that third parties can leverage though, and I sincerely hope they will. For example, more frequent heart rate and heart rate variability sampling would be enormously useful. I think they took a small step in this direction by allowing third parties to use the AOD with watchOS 8. Improving battery life would also add to this.

These are obviously just my opinions and guesses.

 

[oeagleo]

I don't really see apple "improving" the given metrics for activities such as sleep, and exercise, mostly because they'd rather rely on 3rd party apps, and get the additional revenue that they receive from the app developers. They'd be cutting their own cash cow's throat with that, and they didn't get to be the 3 Trillion dollar company by passing on additional income opportunities. Just my honest opinion.

 

[PaladinGuy]

I don't really see apple "improving" the given metrics for activities such as sleep, and exercise, mostly because they'd rather rely on 3rd party apps, and get the additional revenue that they receive from the app developers. They'd be cutting their own cash cow's throat with that, and they didn't get to be the 3 Trillion dollar company by passing on additional income opportunities. Just my honest opinion.

I agree. As I said, I do think they can and should do some stuff to improve on the data/capabilities that third parties can draw from. When looking at something like recovery, more HRV readings and slightly better sleep data would go a long ways.