Apple user. Wanting to get a smart watch primarily for fitness. The perks of AW sound cool, but not sure if I want even more notifications from life.

Those that have experienced Both or have one or the other, recommendations?

Depends what you're looking for.

Wife has an apple watch, I have a Garmin.

Main pro for apple watch is it will obviously integrate better with the apple system. More apps, better notifications, etc. For example, my wife can answer calls and reply to texts with simple responses on her watch, I cannot with my Garmin. She also gets the picture notifications from our cameras on her apple watch, I do not.

For basic fitness, Apple watch is very capable. But if you're wanting more advanced metrics, Garmin is hands down the winner.

Pros for Garmin, first, all the options. They have watches ranging from a couple hundred dollars to near a thousand. Look on their website, decide what you're needing, compare models to narrow it down.

Another plus is longevity and quality of them. I had a forerunner 235 for 4 years or so, wearing it every day. Only reason I replaced it was to upgrade to the 945 as I've started training and competing in triathlons. My wife replaced her apple watch a couple times in the time I had my 235.

Battery life, my wife charges her apple watch nightly. I charge mine weekly, and that's with me using it for workouts 10+ times a week, half of those using GPS. The 235 was still only needing to be charged every 4 nights or so (with same workout load) after 4 years. My 945 will last the 12+ hours of my Ironman race no problem, zero chance an apple watch would last that long.

And as previously stated, metrics. Garmin is a fitness device and they are constantly introducing new features. The number of features and metrics your watch will capture depends on the model, but pretty much all of them capture more than the apple watch.

Don't have experience with the Garmin, but I've used the Apple Watch far more than I ever expected to.

You can adjust notifications to get as little or as much as you want (personally I get texts and reminders but no emails or anything else) and I really love the integration with my phone for music and general fitness tracking. I use the Nike Run Club and Training Club apps and I love being able to do "coached" speed workouts that walk me through my intervals and cool downs.

As far as charging, I throw mine on the charger at some point in the evening after dinner and it's done in an hour or so. Never had a problem there.

fig96 said:

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Don't have experience with the Garmin, but I've used the Apple Watch far more than I ever expected to.

You can adjust notifications to get as little or as much as you want (personally I get texts and reminders but no emails or anything else) and I really love the integration with my phone for music and general fitness tracking. I use the Nike Run Club and Training Club apps and I love being able to do "coached" speed workouts that walk me through my intervals and cool downs.

As far as charging, I throw mine on the charger at some point in the evening after dinner and it's done in an hour or so. Never had a problem there.

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I agree, for most it's not a problem. Though it's always nice to have better battery life.

My watch loses 10-15% of battery life per day, dependent on how long I'm using the GPS. So when it hits around 30% I'll generally charge it after my afternoon workout while I'm stretching, showering, etc. By the time I'm done, usually 30ish minutes, its back up to 85-95%. If I forget to charge it, oh well, can last a couple more days easy. My wife has forgotten and it dies on her the next morning. When we travel my wife has to take her charger. I typically charge it before the trip and unless we're going to be gone for a couple weeks, I'll be fine. Again, not a must but a nice to have.

The better battery life is required for some of my workouts. I'm expecting to complete my Ironman in 12ish hours, an apple watch will not last that long running and activity and with GPS on. Hell, I doubt it'd last for my longer brick workouts, 6+ hours. If you go on a couple day or long weekend hiking trip and are using your watch to log, track, navigate, etc., the Apple watch won't last the whole trip, a Garmin will. I know these are rare and the exceptions, but as I said, it depends what you are doing as to which watch better suits your needs.

Finally, battery life degrades over time. After 2+ years of daily use and charging, the degradation of an apple watch battery that started at a life of 1.5ish days will be a lot more significant than a Garmin that started at 2ish weeks.

I have a Garmin Fenix 6x and highly recommend it. It has too many features to list, but just wanted to add to the discussion that you can receive calls and text on it. I've never had an iWatch, so not exactly sure how the function works, but it shows notification on incoming calls that you can answer or decline on the watch through your earbuds or just use it as notification (which is helpful to me since I never seem to feel my phone going off in my pocket). You can also stream music from Amazon, Spotify, etc., use Garmin Pay with it, etc. it's got a lot of functions to it similar to an iWatch.

Yeah, you get notifications on garmin, can read texts, and can click to "answer" a call. But Apple Watch is better integrated in that aspect.

You can physically answer the call and speak to the person through the Apple watch. For example, wife and i were at the grocery store, I went to the restroom, when I got out I called to see where she was. She answered on her watch, I asked where she was, she said next to the bananas or whatever. All without taking her phone out of her purse. Speaker and microphone are built into the watch.

For texts, there are short responses you can actually reply to text messages from the Apple watch with.

I also don't believe you can stream music with garmin devices. You can download and store playlists and listen to them, I have two Spotify playlists stored in my 945. But you can't stream any Spotify station, for example. Not sure if you can with the Apple Watch or if it would require the phone.

If you're into serious fitness, but also want smart watch functionality, get a Garmin.

If you want a smart watch, but also want basic fitness tracking, get an Apple Watch.

The number of metrics Garmins track blows Apple Watches out of the water, as does the accuracy of the sensors measuring those metrics. Look up any major racing event on Strava and see that nobody is using an Apple Watch to record their activities. It's mostly Garmin, with some Polar, Suunto, and others mixed in.

I agree with the previous poster in that the battery life is key for me. I use my Garmin daily for workouts, I generally charge it every 2-3 weeks, and I wear it 24/7. It annoys me enough having to charge my phone daily that is hate having to charge another device that frequently.

As anyone with AirPods will tell you, battery life degrades quickly, and 1-2 years in, the 1-1.5 day battery life an Apple Watch provides will be shorter. I've been using a Garmin 920XT since late 2015, and I still get 2-3 weeks battery life out of it and that's with daily workouts, some with GPS, some without.

What'd I'd recommend is reading the reviews on DCRainmaker for the Apple Watch and Garmin watch of your choice and see which one you think fits your wants better.

I love my Apple Watch Series 5 LTE. Screen is always on and it's nice to get notifications. I use it for tracking my fitness (not a marathon runner).

Things to note from use.
-Expect to upgrade every 3 years.
-Battery gets to 50% at the end of the day for about 2 years then 0 - 20% the last year.
-Performance gets sluggish the last year too, but it ain't bad if you use it for basic things.
-You'll never use any sophisticated apps on it. Just texts, music, podcasts, and fitness tracking.
-Apple Pay is cool but I always just pull out my phone to better see which card I am using.
-Music and Podcasts sync while on charger. No guarantee you'll have the podcast you want loaded to the watch if you have the Wi-Fi model and loading things to the watch takes forever.
-LTE model is cool, but you'll only use it when you're running.
-You'll get RoboCalls on the LTE model if disconnected from your iPhone (if your iPhone has a RoboCall blocking app set up)
-AirPods automatically pair to the watch. You have to manually pair with other bluetooth headphones.
-You'll replace the screen protecter every couple of months.
-Buy screen protectors if you wan't to trade it in when upgrading.
-There are plenty of knock off watch bands that are almost as good as Apple's and cheaper.

Per your other comment, you can sync playlists to the wifi version of the Apple Watch via Apple Music but don't think that's been implemented in Spotify yet.

And while I totally get that you have different requirements, I think it's fair to say you're not the typical use case Good luck in the Ironman though, that's awesome.

These battery comments are interesting as my Series 3 is almost two years old and I've experienced zero noticeable battery degradation. I'm currently at 45% after charging it yesterday evening and wearing it to bed, I do notice that it drops off rapidly after it gets down under 20% though. I keep an extra charging cable at work, though I think I've used it twice when for some reason I wasn't able to throw it on the charger at home.

Pman17 said:

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-Apple Pay is cool but I always just pull out my phone to better see which card I am using.

-You'll replace the screen protecter every couple of months.
-Buy screen protectors if you wan't to trade it in when upgrading.

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I use my watch 99% of the time. I typically just use the Apple Card, but you can switch with a swipe on the screen if you want to use a different card.

My Series 3 is going on 3 years old - never had a screen protector and not a scratch on it.

AggieFrog said:

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My Series 3 is going on 3 years old - never had a screen protector and not a scratch on it.

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Seconded, meant to comment on that.

Going on two years here and my only damage is a tiny scratch on the case itself, I've actually been surprised how durable it's been.

Most have covered this well. I have a Garmin Fenix 5x and a Series 5 Apple Watch. I wore the former from 2018-2019 and have been exclusively wearing the AW for about 2 months now. The only reason I got an Apple Watch is because I had some points sitting around not being used burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought an AW with them.

I loosely compare the Garmin vs Apple Watch to Android vs Apple phones. The Garmin is way more customizable if you use their Garmin Connect portal online which is where all of your watch data can be viewed. It's data overload. You can set up custom workouts down to the set and repetition level and load that back to your watch whereas you get what you get with the AW. If you are a data nerd and love customizing stuff, you will love the Garmin.

Having said that I prefer my AW after two months of use for following reasons:

1. I prefer the simplicity, seamless integration, and ease of use of the AW vs the Garmin. Part of this is simply a function value of my time. I love the idea of being able to tinker with all that data and customizing stuff which I did for two years, but after using the AW I realized I really got nothing from it. It's a time waste and you can easily get into analysis paralysis with the Garmin.

The simplicity of the AW allows me to work out without having to fiddle with my watch during my workout which you will do if you utilize the custom workout features with the Garmin. You have to constantly remember to hit buttons to pause or move to the next set or load the correct rep counts. The Garmin is very poor at counting your repetitions so if you forget to correct in workout then you get home and have to correct in the portal manually, if you care about the accuracy of what you did. It's also way easier to navigate the AW vs the Garmin.

2. I've seen more health improvements from using my AW combined with an app called Shred than I did in two years with my Garmin watch. To be fair. with the Garmin I could simply use Free Workout with the Shred app and it would be the same as the AW, but then what's the point of having all the custom workout features with the Garmin?

3. I don't mind the battery difference. I consistently use 50% of the battery in a day on my AW currently. I'm going to sleep at night regardless like most of humanity, so I charge my watch while I sleep. This is a non-issue for me. You set it on the round disk and it charges. Big whoop. When I do actually charge my Garmin it's a minor pain in the butt because I charge it connected to your PC. Why? See #4.

4. WiFi on my Garmin is not always reliable so many times had to connect directly to PC to ensure updates and syncing.

5. Random tidbit on Polar....my wife had a Polar equivalent to the Garmin Fenix during same two years. Syncing flat out didn't work worth a damn and all of her data was constantly jacked when it did sync. She ended up just throwing it away. She bought AW same time as me and is super happy now.

6. My Garmin watch STINKS after a workout because of the rubber band. My AW has a nylon band that I wear to workout in. Problem solved.

YouBet said:

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2. I've seen more health improvements from using my AW combined with an app called Shred than I did in two years with my Garmin watch. To be fair. with the Garmin I could simply use Free Workout with the Shred app and it would be the same as the AW, but then what's the point of having all the custom workout features with the Garmin?

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I'm not sure I'm following this? Are you talking about improvements in your health or improvements in the watch?

Improvements in the watch I've seen in the past couple years:

• temperature sensor to better account for VO2 max, really accurate now; also greatly improves accuracy of recovery time, race predictors, etc. Temp sensors also help with heat acclimation notifications
• Pulse Ox sensor - monitor altitude acclimation
• Body battery - uses workouts, hr, stress, rest, etc. to estimate body battery and best time to get most out of workouts
• Workout load - analyzes your workouts to determine if you have a shortage of high aerobic, anaerobic, etc. workouts
• respiration rate
• Sure I'm missing a bunch

For preset workouts, I only use this for running and cycling. I build tempo workouts on my phone or computer, and it syncs with my watch. For a run, for example, mile warmup, 800 m at zone 4, 400 m at zone 2, repeat x times, mile cool down. The watch then cycles through the workout for me.

For strength workouts, I simply use the preset strength workout setting in the watch. It does a good job for counting reps for me, includes pushups, situps, rows, box jumps, lunges, etc.

As for the data overload, the data is what you make of it. I reference trends in the Garmin connect app

• Running: how have various metrics changed over time, I don't look at all these regularly, cadence and stride length, pace in specific hr zones, vertical oscillation, VO2 max
• Cycling: power, cadence, hr zones
• Swimming: swolf, stroke length, 100 yd splits
• Strength: honestly don't reference this at all, just use my watch to ensure I'm staying in HR zones during the workouts

Also, Garmin is a little more work upfront to sync everything, but pretty painless after its set up. I weigh myself in the morning on a Withings scale, it goes into my Garmin account to track the trends, which also syncs to my apple health app on my phone. I finish my run, once my watch gets into range of my phone it syncs and the workout is uploaded into the Garmin app and Strava. Same with my daily steps getting loaded into the Apple health app (granted I never reference this, just use Garmin).

One thing not mentioned yet that is a huge knock against the Apple Watch as a fitness device, IMO, is the lack of ANT+. Pretty much every sensor on the market and every other fitness device uses ANT+. If you want to get a HR chest strap for more accurate HR, foot pod, bike cadence sensor, speed sensor, etc., you'll have to buy more specific and more expensive bluetooth compatible ones. Garmin, Polar, Suunto, Wahoo, etc. are all interchangeable, Apple Watch is not.

For the watch smell issue, I wear mine everyday and for every workout and have never noticed it smelling. So not sure. And I sweat a lot.

That's a lot of words, but I believe the previous poster summed it up pretty well:

If you want a workout watch that has smart watch capabilities, get a Garmin.

If you want a smart watch that has fitness capabilities, get an Apple Watch.

htxag09 said:

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YouBet said:

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2. I've seen more health improvements from using my AW combined with an app called Shred than I did in two years with my Garmin watch. To be fair. with the Garmin I could simply use Free Workout with the Shred app and it would be the same as the AW, but then what's the point of having all the custom workout features with the Garmin?

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I'm not sure I'm following this? Are you talking about improvements in your health or improvements in the watch?

Improvements in the watch I've seen in the past couple years:

• temperature sensor to better account for VO2 max, really accurate now; also greatly improves accuracy of recovery time, race predictors, etc. Temp sensors also help with heat acclimation notifications
• Pulse Ox sensor - monitor altitude acclimation
• Body battery - uses workouts, hr, stress, rest, etc. to estimate body battery and best time to get most out of workouts
• Workout load - analyzes your workouts to determine if you have a shortage of high aerobic, anaerobic, etc. workouts
• respiration rate
• Sure I'm missing a bunch

For preset workouts, I only use this for running and cycling. I build tempo workouts on my phone or computer, and it syncs with my watch. For a run, for example, mile warmup, 800 m at zone 4, 400 m at zone 2, repeat x times, mile cool down. The watch then cycles through the workout for me.

For strength workouts, I simply use the preset strength workout setting in the watch. It does a good job for counting reps for me, includes pushups, situps, rows, box jumps, lunges, etc.

As for the data overload, the data is what you make of it. I reference trends in the Garmin connect app

• Running: how have various metrics changed over time, I don't look at all these regularly, cadence and stride length, pace in specific hr zones, vertical oscillation, VO2 max
• Cycling: power, cadence, hr zones
• Swimming: swolf, stroke length, 100 yd splits
• Strength: honestly don't reference this at all, just use my watch to ensure I'm staying in HR zones during the workouts

Also, Garmin is a little more work upfront to sync everything, but pretty painless after its set up. I weigh myself in the morning on a Withings scale, it goes into my Garmin account to track the trends, which also syncs to my apple health app on my phone. I finish my run, once my watch gets into range of my phone it syncs and the workout is uploaded into the Garmin app and Strava. Same with my daily steps getting loaded into the Apple health app (granted I never reference this, just use Garmin).

One thing not mentioned yet that is a huge knock against the Apple Watch as a fitness device, IMO, is the lack of ANT+. Pretty much every sensor on the market and every other fitness device uses ANT+. If you want to get a HR chest strap for more accurate HR, foot pod, bike cadence sensor, speed sensor, etc., you'll have to buy more specific and more expensive bluetooth compatible ones. Garmin, Polar, Suunto, Wahoo, etc. are all interchangeable, Apple Watch is not.

For the watch smell issue, I wear mine everyday and for every workout and have never noticed it smelling. So not sure. And I sweat a lot.

That's a lot of words, but I believe the previous poster summed it up pretty well:

If you want a workout watch that has smart watch capabilities, get a Garmin.

If you want a smart watch that has fitness capabilities, get an Apple Watch.

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I completely agree with this. For me, I just don't care about all of the detail you listed anymore. It's overkill for me. FTR, the HRM on my Garmin is unreliable and has been for some time. It will show me at 85 when I'm working my ass off barely able to breath. Granted, a newer SW update may have fixed that but they have a lot of bugs and break things frequently with each SW release. A quick perusal of their boards shows this.

Regardless, I agree with the bold. If you like all the data, the Garmin is better. To answer your question, I was talking about my health and not the watch. My primary use case is strength training in the gym and elliptical so I don't really need a lot of the stuff the Garmin provides. Also, I can't/don't run anymore. And, you can't get a VO2 reading on the Garmin unless you do a run outside for several times in a shorter time frame so that's useless for me now too.

The only disappointing thing for me about my Apple Watch is the quality of the golf GPS apps available. They're all pretty bad. If one of your justifications for buying an Apple Watch will be to use it for golf, you'll probably be happier with a Garmin or ShotScope. Otherwise, I love mine.

G Martin 87 said:

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The only disappointing thing for me about my Apple Watch is the quality of the golf GPS apps available. They're all pretty bad. If one of your justifications for buying an Apple Watch will be to use it for golf, you'll probably be happier with a Garmin or ShotScope. Otherwise, I love mine.

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Have you tried Golfshot Plus on the Watch? I've used the phone app for several years and love it. I just got a watch for Christmas and haven't had the opportunity to use it in a round yet. I figure it will be great not having to pull my phone out of my pocket or off the cart for every shot.

CoppellAg93 said:

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G Martin 87 said:

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The only disappointing thing for me about my Apple Watch is the quality of the golf GPS apps available. They're all pretty bad. If one of your justifications for buying an Apple Watch will be to use it for golf, you'll probably be happier with a Garmin or ShotScope. Otherwise, I love mine.

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Have you tried Golfshot Plus on the Watch? I've used the phone app for several years and love it. I just got a watch for Christmas and haven't had the opportunity to use it in a round yet. I figure it will be great not having to pull my phone out of my pocket or off the cart for every shot.

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Yes, I've tried all the popular ones. The best by far was GameGolf, but unfortunately GameGolf seems to be on the verge of bankruptcy now. I use The Grint on the watch now. The scorekeeping UI is excellent on the watch, but shot tracking is a complicated mess.

For those who say garmin for the advanced metrics, I'm interested in what advanced metrics you are looking for?

I'm about to release an MVP for a running app (iOS/watch only) soon and the end goal is something tailored more towards the intermediate to advanced runner.

Most intermediate to advanced runners will use accessories to get the most accurate information. Foot pods, chest strap HRM, cadence sensor, power sensor, etc. This is going to be a negative for your iOS app as apple watch doesn't support ANT+. I believe more are starting to come out with bluetooth capability, though.

As for me, I'm far from intermediate to advanced (I'd put myself in the slow but passionate/addictive category lol), but what I use for running:

While running

• Distance, avg pace, current pace, HR, cadence, and sometimes altitude gain (being in Houston, this isn't big). I'll also keep an eye on my estimated calories burned on long runs to see how my hydration/nutrition effects the effects of "the wall"
• Not metrics, but being able to create and store tempo/interval workouts that you can just open on your watch to complete

Looking at current training status, i.e. looking at workouts right when I finish

• Above metrics
• Aerobic/anaerobic benefits, workout load
• Recovery time
• VO2 Max changes
• Interval paces and HR, if applicable
• Lactate threshold changes

Looking at past runs and trends over time

• Above running metrics
• HR zones - paces w/in those zones
• VO2 max trends
• Stride length

Some other metrics I like but don't really know how to categorize/compare:
Training load/Status

• Garmin syncs all your workouts, looks at HR, times, etc. to show your training status
• Shows if you need more recovery, high aerobic workouts, anaerobic, etc.
• Compares your workout loads over time
• Current VO2 max

Body battery

• Uses workouts as well as HR throughout the day to calculate stress, rest, etc. and give a number on "energy" you have

Heat acclimation
Altitude acclimation

• uses Pulse Ox
• Another I don't use much as I'm in Houston, but found it cool on our vacation to Breckenridge

Some running metrics available and I'm starting to research some but don't really use yet

• Vertical Ratio
• Vertical Oscillation
• Avg ground contact time
• Avg ground contact time balance (left foot vs. right foot contact time)
• Respiration rate
• Running Economy

Also, something to think about, a lot of intermediate to advanced runners have coaches. So a way to give access or share this data with them would be important.

I'm a data junkie, so I want to see all and every metric possible. I don't know what to do with many of them, but I love examining all of the data and tracking improvements. If I could implant a device beneath my skin and track every medical metric known to man, I'd get the procedure done tomorrow.

I also realize this isn't normal.

I concur.

I still have my 235, and it's my daily everything watch. I'd like to upgrade, but this thing is too handy, and really hasn't degraded or shown any enough wear to justify it.