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Apple Watch Series 5

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161–170 of 491 posts

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#162
post #65
post #49

For me, the single biggest problem with Apple Watch is battery life, and they seem to have done nothing to improve it. Garmin has always-on, reflective screen watches that can last for weeks on a single charge. I shouldn't need to babysit my watch.

5th generation of the Apple Watch and it still doesn't come close to replacing my Pebble, unfortunately. At least it's closer to an actual watch now, with an always-on screen, but it still can't last 24 hours on a charge.

Why did Pebble go under, anyway? They had a solid product that people enojoyed

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#163
post #49

For me, the single biggest problem with Apple Watch is battery life, and they seem to have done nothing to improve it. Garmin has always-on, reflective screen watches that can last for weeks on a single charge. I shouldn't need to babysit my watch.

I'm curious, does anyone with more knowledge know how Garmin are able to get so much more battery life out of their watches? Their official spec definitely lists "2 weeks" in "Smartwatch Mode" (which seems to be GPS disabled, but still heart rate tracking and similar). It is impressive and I'm curious why Apple cannot compete.

Feature set.

I have a Garmin FR645 "smart" watch. It lasts two weeks between charges if I don't use GPS a lot; if I run 5 times in the week (w/ GPS on) it'll go most of a week between charges.

But, it doesn't have much of an app ecosystem. Just a few widget-type things. Notifications are basic, and mostly unidirectional. The screen is nowhere near as nice as an Apple Watch. And no cellular.

But, for basic smart things - GPS, simple notifications, and telling time - it's excellent. And costs less than the Apple.

Until Apple can make their watch last most of a week, I'll stick with slightly dumber smart watches that I don't have to think about too much.

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#164

> all-day 18-hour battery life. Is there a standard for what "all-day" means? I think most would initially assume 24 hours, but thinking about it more, it seems reasonable to consider "can work from wake up to sleep" or "can work from sunup to sundown"/

In day vs. night context, ~18 hours for day and ~6 hours for night - no comment other than it's an interesting way to frame it as "all-day."

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#165

Scrolling down there's the Nike and Hermes editions. Maybe this is a cultural difference between here (Frankfurt) and elsewhere - I fail to understand how one would willingly pay extra to advertise a brand. The way I see it is that Nike for example should pay ME to wear their branding. And even then I wouldn't. I'm not a walking billboard.

I think there is a cultural split here in the US. I personally hate branding and logos but you also have a large group of people that go out of their way to buy things with huge logos. To each their own.

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While sleep tracking is possible the single most useful thing I could get out of a wearable, I just have never been able to sleep with a watch or band on. Until there's something as low profile as a reminder band (think Livestrong), I'm not sure if I'll be able to get sleep tracking (the Oura ring is promising, but the price point is too high for its limited applications to me).

I use a Beddit for this very reason - https://www.beddit.com

I didn't realize Beddit kept going after they were acquired by Apple. I had the first couple versions as review units but I ended up just stopping using them because they didn't tell me anything I basically didn't already know. Which is sort of how I feel about sleep tracking generally. I didn't get enough sleep last night? You don't say.

(I do think they're potentially useful for someone who feels tired a lot and doesn't understand why. I'm less convinced by the value of ongoing tracking.)

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#167
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite like the idea of a smart watch, but having to charge it every day is much less appealing.

I agree with this sentiment. But then I discovered the Fitbit has a 7 day battery life. That's a game changer.

Take a look at Withings. You can get weeks to months of the battery life with limited but very useful features set.

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#168
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5th generation of the Apple Watch and it still doesn't come close to replacing my Pebble, unfortunately. At least it's closer to an actual watch now, with an always-on screen, but it still can't last 24 hours on a charge.

Why did Pebble go under, anyway? They had a solid product that people enojoyed

Probably a lack of good marketing.

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#169
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5th generation of the Apple Watch and it still doesn't come close to replacing my Pebble, unfortunately. At least it's closer to an actual watch now, with an always-on screen, but it still can't last 24 hours on a charge.

Why did Pebble go under, anyway? They had a solid product that people enojoyed

I don't have insider knowledge of their financials, but my impression is if they stayed lean and focused on their core product they'd have been a sustainable small company. Instead, they grew too big in typical VC-backed fashion and it wasn't sustainable.

Re: Apple Watch Series 5

#170
While I am looking to upgrade to the Series 5 from a Series 1, I'm disappointed in the lack of native sleep tracking functionality... it's a glaring hole in the concept of overall health tracking.

Similarly, I'd hoped they would announce some standardization to weightlifting in HealthKit. The watch and iphone health options are very cardio-centric, and every weightlifting app has implemented their own internal 1RM tracking which should be at an OS-level instead.

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