Smartwatch advice for iPhone user - Feedback from Geekzone smartwatch owners appreciated!

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Smartwatch advice for iPhone user - Feedback from Geekzone smartwatch owners appreciated!

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#2888033 18-Mar-2022 10:11

Gurezaemon:

alasta:

There are two distinct use cases for connected wearables; nerds and athletes.

If you're an athlete then the Garmin Instinct 2 with solar will give you incredible battery life. Also consider the Garmin Fenix 7 with solar.

If you're a nerd then you won't find anything appealing with a week of battery life.

I'm not an athlete - my phone is already with me on walks and handles recording of distances and speed just fine.

I am somewhat nerdy - I absolutely find a week (or more!) of battery life very appealing, more than things like heartbeat monitoring or similar, which to me seem like they would drain the battery.

The high-capacity battery tech in a fitness watch combined with stripping out all the battery-draining fitness bells and whistles would surely give a watch that with at least a couple of weeks' battery life.

I would dearly love to find a smart watch that could handle notifications, alarms, and timekeeping, but that doesn't have all the fitness bells and whistles. And that is also not square, as squarish watches look clunky and ugly 😅

Have a look at this. I think it'll do what you need. Yes, it has fitness functions but they can be turned off to increase battery life. It has a very good screen, excellent battery life and isn't square. https://www.techradar.com/nz/reviews/amazfit-gtr-2

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#2888040 18-Mar-2022 10:19

RunningMan:

The issue with the 3 having insufficent room for OS updates was well documented, and was resolved quite some time ago. They're only $329 new from Apple so I wouldn't be paying $200-$300 for a 2nd hand one.

Has it? The last 2 updates for my wife's Series 3 required us to completed factory reset the watch to wipe so there was enough room to perform the update. I wouldn't call that resolved. Setting a watch back up with all of your apps and settings is a right pain.

For that alone I wouldn't recommend anything less than a series 4.

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#2888050 18-Mar-2022 10:36

alasta:

There are two distinct use cases for connected wearables; nerds and athletes.

I'm proud to be an athletic nerd. An all Apple house but I would never buy an Apple watch (My wife has one). When it comes to a watch the fitness aspects are far more important to me than the smart watch side. As someone who likes to spend countless hours off-grid and in the back country trail running I rely on my Fenix 7 SS paired with my InReach Mini to keep me safe and not lost.

I get about 2-3 weeks of battery life with more than 10hours of activities recorded each week. I couldn't imagine doing that with anything other than a Garmin Fenix or Coros Vertix 2

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#2888070 18-Mar-2022 11:06

jonathan18:

I'm very much in a similar boat; the sole fitness-related feature I use on my watch on a regular basis is step counting, but I also insist on a watch where battery life is measured in days not hours.

I find the Galaxy Watch line fine for this purpose - I get three or four days of use, which is adequate; don't bother with regular heartrate monitoring etc, and find that it works perfectly for those every-day functions of notifications, alarms, stopwatch, audio controller for phone etc.

It's also round, which is also a must-have for me; agree square watches are fugly.

While I know I'm paying more for the fitness/health features I don't take advantage of, I'm ok with that as the aesthetics, battery life and other functions absolutely meet my requirements.

I also use a Galaxy Watch in the same way - if I remember to turn it totally off at night as well as not use it for very much, I can get 3 days use, but usually 2. This is its only downside.

Technofreak:

Have a look at this. I think it'll do what you need. Yes, it has fitness functions but they can be turned off to increase battery life. It has a very good screen, excellent battery life and isn't square. https://www.techradar.com/nz/reviews/amazfit-gtr-2

That looks amazing. The 46mm thing would bother me, as I have little-girl wrists - a regular G-Shock is getting too big.

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#2888092 18-Mar-2022 11:26

Senecio:

Has it? The last 2 updates for my wife's Series 3 required us to completed factory reset the watch to wipe so there was enough room to perform the update.

From memory there was an issue with it a year or 2 back, I recall having the problem myself. I'm sure there was some change to the updates for the series 3 to make it smaller for this reason, and I never had the issue since. Not good if it's come back again.

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#2888522 18-Mar-2022 21:11

Gurezaemon:

Technofreak:

Have a look at this. I think it'll do what you need. Yes, it has fitness functions but they can be turned off to increase battery life. It has a very good screen, excellent battery life and isn't square. https://www.techradar.com/nz/reviews/amazfit-gtr-2

That looks amazing. The 46mm thing would bother me, as I have little-girl wrists - a regular G-Shock is getting too big.

Yes, I think it's a pretty good smart watch which covers most of the bases. They have since released the GTR3 3 but I decided on the GTR 2. I did wonder about the size before I got mine. For me it's OK.

The earlier model the GTR came in 42mm and 47 mm. It also had an even longer battery life but less features. They do other models as well.

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#2888664 19-Mar-2022 09:20

Senecio:

I'm proud to be an athletic nerd. An all Apple house but I would never buy an Apple watch (My wife has one). When it comes to a watch the fitness aspects are far more important to me than the smart watch side. As someone who likes to spend countless hours off-grid and in the back country trail running I rely on my Fenix 7 SS paired with my InReach Mini to keep me safe and not lost.

I get about 2-3 weeks of battery life with more than 10hours of activities recorded each week. I couldn't imagine doing that with anything other than a Garmin Fenix or Coros Vertix 2

Like you, I value the sports & fitness features over the more technical aspects. In your case I can see why you need the battery life, but as a competitive runner doing mainly half marathon events I have never really been bothered by the battery life of the Apple Watch.

To be honest my biggest complaint about the Apple Watch is the control interface in the fitness app. The stopwatch style interface on the Garmin watches is perfectly suited to competitive running events, whereas with the Apple Watch there are numerous problems:

You have to use the touch screen to start your 'workout' which is extremely difficult if the screen is wet due to rain.
You have to manually lock the screen to prevent water from causing problems during the event.
The stupid three second countdown timer makes it difficult to start the timer exactly as you pass the start line.

Yes, I know there are probably third party apps available to solve these problems but competitive athletes are not the sort of people who enjoy fumbling around with computer software. The benefit of the Garmin Forerunner/Fenix is that it just works out of the box.

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#2888721 19-Mar-2022 14:00

The GPS on my wife’s Apple Watch Series 3 has just started going wonky. It has her doing a 4:05min km followed by 7:30min km when she’s just doing steady 6:00min kms. When you look at the GPS plots after they can sometimes have her 100m away from the path she was in.

She now just uses he Apple Watch as a daily driver and we’ve picked up Coros Pace 2 for her running.

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#2888733 19-Mar-2022 15:43

Gurezaemon:
alasta:

There are two distinct use cases for connected wearables; nerds and athletes.

If you're an athlete then the Garmin Instinct 2 with solar will give you incredible battery life. Also consider the Garmin Fenix 7 with solar.

If you're a nerd then you won't find anything appealing with a week of battery life.

I'm not an athlete - my phone is already with me on walks and handles recording of distances and speed just fine.

I am somewhat nerdy - I absolutely find a week (or more!) of battery life very appealing, more than things like heartbeat monitoring or similar, which to me seem like they would drain the battery.

The high-capacity battery tech in a fitness watch combined with stripping out all the battery-draining fitness bells and whistles would surely give a watch that with at least a couple of weeks' battery life.

I would dearly love to find a smart watch that could handle notifications, alarms, and timekeeping, but that doesn't have all the fitness bells and whistles. And that is also not square, as squarish watches look clunky and ugly 😅

The Huawei watch GT line would probably suit you. They are pretty ‘dumb’ but do everything in your list and have week long battery life.

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#2888751 19-Mar-2022 17:38

Handle9:
Gurezaemon:

I'm not an athlete - my phone is already with me on walks and handles recording of distances and speed just fine.
I am somewhat nerdy - I absolutely find a week (or more!) of battery life very appealing, more than things like heartbeat monitoring or similar, which to me seem like they would drain the battery.
The high-capacity battery tech in a fitness watch combined with stripping out all the battery-draining fitness bells and whistles would surely give a watch that with at least a couple of weeks' battery life.
I would dearly love to find a smart watch that could handle notifications, alarms, and timekeeping, but that doesn't have all the fitness bells and whistles. And that is also not square, as squarish watches look clunky and ugly 😅

The Huawei watch GT line would probably suit you. They are pretty ‘dumb’ but do everything in your list and have week long battery life.

Damn, those look nice too. To be honest, I am very happy with my Galaxy Watch 3, I'm just enjoying seeing what else is out there for if and when my current watch gives up.

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#2888760 19-Mar-2022 17:48

davidcole:

If you wanted longer life but less "smarts" then the garmins tend to run about 7 days before charging.

Wont automatically figure out an activity, but you set it before you start (pool swimming, run, walk, cycling, skiiing etc).

Gets notifications from a device, but you can't interact with them but read.

My Garmin fenix 6 allows you to interact. I can answer reject calls, reply to texts etc.

Has a 14 day battery life with normal usage. Frequent music and GPS, and nightly blood oxygen tracking brings it down to 7 days. I tend to charge it while I shower and fully charge it if I am going away hiking for a few days.

Plus it has a sapphire screen.

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SheriffNZ

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#2888813 19-Mar-2022 18:15

blackjack17:

davidcole:

If you wanted longer life but less "smarts" then the garmins tend to run about 7 days before charging.

Wont automatically figure out an activity, but you set it before you start (pool swimming, run, walk, cycling, skiiing etc).

Gets notifications from a device, but you can't interact with them but read.

My Garmin fenix 6 allows you to interact. I can answer reject calls, reply to texts etc.

Has a 14 day battery life with normal usage. Frequent music and GPS, and nightly blood oxygen tracking brings it down to 7 days. I tend to charge it while I shower and fully charge it if I am going away hiking for a few days.

Plus it has a sapphire screen.

Just to be clear, you can only reply to texts on a Garmin if it’s paired to an Android phone. The Garmin Venu is the Garmin “smartwatch” (compared to the Fenix/Forerunner watches which are more sports focused. I have a Forerunner 945LTE for the record.

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#2888820 19-Mar-2022 18:42

To be honest my biggest complaint about the Apple Watch is the control interface in the fitness app. The stopwatch style interface on the Garmin watches is perfectly suited to competitive running events, whereas with the Apple Watch there are numerous problems:

You have to use the touch screen to start your 'workout' which is extremely difficult if the screen is wet due to rain.
You have to manually lock the screen to prevent water from causing problems during the event.
The stupid three second countdown timer makes it difficult to start the timer exactly as you pass the start line.
Yes, I know there are probably third party apps available to solve these problems but competitive athletes are not the sort of people who enjoy fumbling around with computer software. The benefit of the Garmin Forerunner/Fenix is that it just works out of the box.

Just on point 3, you can tap the screen to bypass the 3 second countdown and start the workout immediately.

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#2888834 19-Mar-2022 20:15

SheriffNZ:

Just to be clear, you can only reply to texts on a Garmin if it’s paired to an Android phone. The Garmin Venu is the Garmin “smartwatch” (compared to the Fenix/Forerunner watches which are more sports focused. I have a Forerunner 945LTE for the record.

Yes but that goes to any smartwatch that doesn't have a sim. Unless it is paired you aren't going to get any notifications to respond to.

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SheriffNZ

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#2888840 19-Mar-2022 21:16

blackjack17:

SheriffNZ:

Just to be clear, you can only reply to texts on a Garmin if it’s paired to an Android phone. The Garmin Venu is the Garmin “smartwatch” (compared to the Fenix/Forerunner watches which are more sports focused. I have a Forerunner 945LTE for the record.

Yes but that goes to any smartwatch that doesn't have a sim. Unless it is paired you aren't going to get any notifications to respond to.

Maybe I wasn’t clear. On at least some Garmin watches, if your android phone is connected to your watch, you can reply to text notifications. If the same Garmin watch is connected to an iPhone, you can’t reply to text notifications.

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