181–190 of 491 posts
Only reason I don’t have an Apple Watch is because you can’t stream Spotify over cellular, you need to have your phone with you. What’s the point? I want to go for a run and stream music with just the watch to my Bluetooth headphones. I don’t need the watch if I have to bring my phone with me.
The last 2 generations of Garmin watches support streaming by Spotify. I'm kind of stunned that Apple doesn't support this.
Spotify issued a cease and desist within days. I still have it installed on my phone and watch - it's a long way short of perfect (when it loses its connection it hangs and there's no easy way to reset it) - but it does work.
So it's not Apple stopping the release of this functionality.
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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 thing…
Feature wise I honestly think that Garmin makes better sport watches, while Apple does better smart watches.
Is it just me, or has the surge in popularity of smart watches also caused a surge in the popularity of regular watches too? Speaking of myself, I bought a Pebble watch back in 2013 or so. I quickly realized I liked wearing a watch. Then I also realized I really only needed the time function. I then went from the Pebble to a Seiko mechanical. Now I have no smart watches and about ten different mechanical and quartz w…
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.
The general concept is, either it lasts for weeks or it lasts for one day, if it lasts for 3 days you'll forget to charge it, if it lasts for weeks it's okay if you forget, a small reminder can tell you to charge it enough for a day in a few minutes.
The trade off is insane in comparison, the Apple Watch is capable of a ton of things you just can't do in a longer battery-life product, things like phone calls, cellular connection, sharp graphics and quality voice replies. Meanwhile the garmin products have fantastic readability outdoors on their low res, low power transflective LCDs.
They simply are on a different roadmap and each roadmap has its own constraints.
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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
No sleep tracking, no SpO2 sensor. They must be working on this, it would perfectly well into their health theme, and they bought Beddit. Another year.
What do people do with data from their sleep trackers? I tracked my sleep for years with a Fitbit and now I track it with an Oura ring. I look at the results occasionally, but it has never provided any useful information. Is there something I'm not aware of?
I've also used it to experiment a bit with how drinking at night affects my sleep. (noticeably!). I could do that with just how I feel, but the hard data is easier to correlate later.
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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 thing…
Another difference is the CPU, which is really bad on 645 (and all the others). If you play music from it it dries up the battery pretty fast. It goes nowhere near 2 weeks, as you say, for me at least. I’m keeping all the features active, though (bluetooth, gps, glonass, garmin pod, heart rate monitor). Feature wise I honestly think that Garmin makes better sport watches, while Apple does better smart watches.
They mentioned that the Series 3 will start at $199. What about the Series 4? I hope they don't discontinue it, since this is the model I would plan to get. Bigger screen, but not the top-tier pricing of the Series 5.
Sincerely, other than looks (and I woild still not bring an Apple phone to more formal occasions just like I don't bring my Amazfit) I can't understand why anyone would pay 10x more for an iWatch not can I stand that I would have to charge it everyday.