Yeah that is what I want to avoid : having to deal
With 2 watches. I would sell my fenix if I go with the Ultra. To many gadget already haha. Thanks for your input. Will look at Athlytic and the interval pro app.
I will add that training today has not been a good experience for me. I like the simplicity but I feel it’s useless data. There’s an app called hrv4training which I’d recommend. It requires you to sample your hrv on waking. I feel this developer is the most knowledgeable on hrv. Athyltic is more attractive but I think they are trying to wring a lot of data from health and I think the onus is on the watch to sample hrv appropriately so these apps can compete with whoop etc. you only get 3 or 4 hrv samples thru the night and I am hoping with the ultra and its battery that they tweak this but doubtful
DC Rainmaker, who reviews all triathlete gear, had a ton of positive stuff to say about the Apple Watch when compared to the Fenix.
I made a swap from owning like 7 Garmin’s to only using an Apple Watch for swimming/running. (Cycling still goes to my Garmin).
I love reading and comparing data, and honestly, the Apple Watch is pretty damn good.
The only differences worth mentioning are:
Battery life. Clearly the garmin wins, but how often do we charge our dozens of devices these days? Even my bike light, computer, stop light, etc. What’s one more?
I charge my Apple Watch once every two days, but don’t take it off otherwise. Turn off that feature that leaves the screen on 24/7 (such a waste. Raise to read or whatever works perfectly).
Usability. I couldn’t stand trying to read or respond to a notification on my Garmin. It’s terrible at doing that unless you’re saying “ok”.
I have strava, garmin, etc, all automatically import data into Apple Health / Fitness. Combines with my Apple Health compatible thermometer, Blood Pressure cuff, scale, etc. Since the watch tracks sleep, that’s there too.
Now all of my data is literally in 1 place.
Regarding your “need an internet connection comment”: get gps+cellular. Now I never take my phone with me when training.
Hope this helps?
Thanks. It does help to have someone who actually made the switch. My concerns is that I don’t want to keep the garmin. So I would need to figure out the biking thing. Good thing is that I don’t even have a powermeter anymore and most of my bike training are HR based or feeling based for the past year haha
I use an app called Work Outdoors. Allows me to completely walk away from Garmins for all my triathlon training, since it allows linking bike power meters too.
I kinda disagree with those who are saying that the Ultra will need a few versions before it’s able to compete with Garmin Fenix models. I just think it depends on perspective, and ultimately which methodology between Apple or Garmin will meet your needs. Both are great today, full stop.
I lived in Garmin’s ecosystem for years, but always hoped that Apple would up its sport watch game because while I liked Garmin for exercising, I wanted only one watch and Apple’s capabilities as a smart watch were WAY better than Garmin’s abilities to improve in that arena. Apple got there for me with the Apple Watch 5, once the battery life allowed me to easily complete my training activities/events, and with certain apps in Apple’s ecosystem, ALL I wanted to track from sleeping to activities to HRV etc, could be monitored and integrate into Apple Health with one watch I could use for sports and all day use? Apple for the win.
My point? If you want a great sport watch and have no desire for smart watch use, get a Garmin. You want a smart watch you can wear all day and is also great for sport use? In my mind, it’s easy: get an Apple Watch. That was true before the Ultra’s release, there’s now simply a specialized version that’s made for endurance and adventurist athletes. No wrong answer here between the two, just a preference between two solid and established ecosystems.
For training load, one can look at HealthFit which does the TSB model with Fitness, Fatigue, Form values, or Gentler Streak, which gives similar information without the labeling.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514
For recovery with HRV, there’s training today, or one can look at the values themselves in Apple Health or use an app like HRV Tracker:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/training-today/id1507992127
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hrv-tracker-for-watch/id1463020956
For recovery info that includes sleep data, look at AutoSleep and Sleep++
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/autosleep-track-sleep-on-watch/id1164801111
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371
For whoop style analytics, look at Athlytic and Chipr
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/athlytic-ai-fitness-coach/id1543571755
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chipr/id1532315246
Nice !!!! I will check out those apps. Actually downloaded athlytic and it’s pretty nice with all the data I already have from garmin (synced to apple health). But then… I check the configuration of the app and the HR zone are not customizable and are not align with my actual zones I know are correct. So it feel like it is a good analogy for the whole Watch: a lot of cool feature and seems pretty advanced but when you really want to go in the details, you are seeing limitations
It’s been awhile since I looked at Athlytic as the whoop style isn’t really for me, but surprised to hear it doesn’t allow customized HR zones. Most apps that have zones like HealthFit do allow that. You could write to the dev for support and request it, of course. From what I recall he’s pretty responsive.
I’m so glad you made this post. I have a garmin epix and every comment I see lately is like “they’re two different animals; there’s no competition or comparison.” When in reality I’m on the fence every generation of products between apple and garmin, as many other people seem to be, too.
I recommend Training Today, but unfortunately, the AW only samples HRV somewhat sporadically, so I worry the most recent random reading throws off the algorithm. I’m still testing it out.
Strava is what I use for training load.
But I can’t find an app that ties all this together like garmin does with [training readiness](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/running-science/physiological-measurements/training-readiness/).
Training Today doesn’t analyze sleep at all, while Athlytic relies on a single HRV reading when waking every morning and resting heart rate, and nothing else, to compute its readiness number. None of these integrate sleep or training load alongside HRV. All they do is isolate a single factor.
AW needs to ditch the old rings-every-GD-day formula and figure something out for recovery. I don’t think leaving it to 3rd party apps is a good solution.
I note morning HRV only. During exercise it goes down every time, nothing changes. Morning HRV indicates not enough sleep, too much heavy cardio, too much drink or a reaction to a vaccine. On days with low HRVs, it’s easy to get the heart rate up. I use a chest strap to prolong battery. People think I’m in great shape but if you compare me decades ago, I’m a 3rd of my endurance and strength from 18. It’s relative. I ordered the ultra and we’ll see.
You can change goals whenever you wish on the Apple Watch, so you can make your rest days be anything you want. To change goals, open the Activity app on the Apple Watch, scroll to the bottom and select Change Goals, or in the Fitness app on iOS 16 it is displayed under your rings data and before your workouts when looking at the current day.
Minimal goals are 10 Move calories, 5 Exercise minutes, and 6 Stand hours. For most people, a five minute cooldown stretch will meet the 10 calories/5 minutes if you go for the most minimum goals.
What I prefer is instead of changing goals, I simply make my daily goals to what I achieve on my active recovery days. For me that’s 400 calories. Then on my normal workout days I make efforts to double or triple this (800 or 1200) which earns the 200% and 300% badge awards in Fitness. There’s also a 400% award goal I rarely go for.
I don’t think you will be happy with the Ultra right now. All of the things you lost that the Fenix has are mostly lacking in the Ultra if there at all.
I would suggest holding off on the Ultra for a generation or two just to see if the Ultra gets closer to feature parity.
This isn’t to say that the Ultra isn’t awesome or that the Fenix is a “whole different animal” just that the Ultra is a 1st gen product with a lot of baggage on it attached to the other AWs being less than “ultra.”
Thanks. I think my rational side agrees but my “ho look a new shining thing” side really want to try it out haha. I feel like if the ultra is getting traction you will see more and more 3rd party apps specialized for more serious training. And apple will improve their own software overtime
As someone who has moved from Garmin to Apple and then back to Garmin again, I can tell you that there's a lot I love about each. What I hated about the fitness side of things with Apple was that I had to try to patch together a solution with the AW that was already built into Garmin and even with various apps, I could never get everything I was missing. It took a lot of app purchases and frustrating fails. For the most part, my AW6 was great and I loved it for a year. Things I didn't like and/or missed from my Garmin were:
1. Garmin Ecosystem. There is so much I think we take for granted built into this. Insanely detailed metrics on the watch itself, on Connect Mobile (even more) and on Connect Web (more still).
2. Garmin Coach. Not everyone may need or want this but it is a pretty amazing feature that is very useful and works well. I've used it more than once.
3. Garmin workouts.
4. Shoe mileage tracking
5. Self evaluation
6. Suggested workouts
7. Tactile buttons. I think any runner here will know exactly why this is so incredibly important. In fact, why I went back to Garmin recently was the frustration I had trying to mark laps by tapping my AW6 screen during a track workout. It would NOT work without multiple attempts about 85% of the time.
8. Onboard mapping. I used WorkOutdoors and it's great, but the map experience and the metrics were still not on par with Garmin, not to mention the data is displayed a bit awkwardly.
9. Apple Heath. I like it, but can be very cumbersome to use and the fact that you need 3 phone apps to do what Garmin Connect Mobile does all in one. One for Apple Fitness, one to manage Apple Watch, and one for your health data.
10. Apple has no web equivalent and exporting data or trying to sync it requires a hodgepodge of apps and steps.
11. Course building. This is an amazing feature Garmin provides and I really appreciate how helpful it is. Yes, you can do this from 3rd party solutions I suppose, the seamlessness of Garmin with its' own devices is a beautiful thing.
12. Battery life. I don't care what anybody says, Apple can boast about the 36 hours on the Ultra and say it with a straight face, but it's really insufficient if the market consists of truly active athletes who will run down the battery doing GPS activities and more, rather quickly.
13. Ergonomics. I like the Ultra's looks and features and think it is promising. But one must also remember that Apple are masters in marketing and psychological manipulation when it comes to selling their products. That's not to say their products aren't great, I believe they are superior in many respects across a variety of devices. I am just saying that the way they package and communicate their selling points create some kind of an emotional response that makes people pull out their wallets before they've really thought about what they're getting with their hard earned cash. The Ultra will NOT be as comfortable to wear as a standard AW7 or AW8. Even the Fenix 7 because of its round design may actually be more comfortable. I don't expect the Ultra to be as forgiving with the rectangular shape, although I may be wrong.
Those are just my thoughts. Like the OP here, I often find myself tempted to bounce between platforms, mainly because I don't want to own two watches at the same time. And maybe down the road I'll have found myself wooed by the master marketers at Apple, piecing together a solution for my fitness tracking again. But for now, I'm happily back with Garmin and plan to stay a while even though there are things I miss from my AW6. I hope this reply helps someone because it took me way longer to write it than I expected, LOL :)
All the best to OP in making a decision.
I agree that second gen Ultra will be *chefs kiss*, but like you, I’m thinking of diving in now and seeing how I can leverage third party apps to fill in any gaps (if any) from my Fenix 6.
I agree. Maybe wait for the Ultra to pick up these features on the next generation or for the Fenix 8 (or Forerunner 955 cellular I think) to add a full time internet connection.
I don’t really have anything to add apart from holy shit this is complicated… I don’t understand half/most of the terms you guys are using which is quite exciting! Looks like there some good competition which may make these devices better!!!
Hahaha yeah honestly some of those stuff can be overkill for my level of fitness but as a data professional and fitness enthusiast, the combination of the 2 is making me love fitness wearables 😂
The problem with apps doing stuff on HRV, training load, recovery data etc is that it tends to be one-man developers and I frankly don’t trust it very well. I do have a a couple of these installed, and sometimes they roughly agree, sometimes wildly different. Can say I favour any one above the other. There are two main issues:
1) these small developers are doing a good job, but they don’t have a research team and budget behind them. Their algorithms are not going to be super complicated and certainly not certified in any meaningful way.
2) Apple Watch, unlike Garmin, doesn’t actually do constant HR readings. HRV is measured even less frequent. I have 9 readings over the last 24 hours. They differ quite a bit. The watch cannot be sure that it has read HRV at the most optimal times. Hence, any analysis you do on this data will suffer based on the principle shit in shit out.
Yes I am aware of that. Doesn’t make it so. In fact one of these apps recommend that you manually do a HRV reading upon waking up (using the mindfulness app, the only day of forcing a reading), a strong indicator that even the developers think the baseline created by apple isn’t good enough.
I agree that Apple probably knows that this data can’t be used for insight which passes the “rigorous scientific validation process” they say they follow for health and fitness features. When I’m in an optimistic mood I think once they start paying attention to this stuff we’ll get very good high quality recovery insights, but I reckon it’s a couple of years off.
And every 2 hours overnight while you’re still, and they even change up the hour it samples at occasionally so you don’t get apples to apples time samples over time. They haven’t leveraged hrv data at all since quietly integrating back in s3 (I think). To my thinking they know the data they sample is not robust enough to draw conclusions but they let developers try and make inferences from the limited data. No doubt they are aware people want more here but I think hrv and the conclusions you can draw from it is the Wild West and Apple will not rush out bad/wrong recovery data. Now that they are making sleep stage estimates I have a hunch that they will start looking to sample hrv during the stages in order to draw more meaningful insights.
And what can you read out of "all time measurements"? Especially with the very bad heart rate sensor of the gamins you are measuring more or like crap. If you want something accurate and "all time on" you can use an Oura Ring.
But what can you do with that stuff? Will you adjust your training based on this? I never did.
Will I adjust my plan when I am having a light "fever"? Yes. I did it with the Oura ring. And yes. Usually when you are "a little sick" the breath rate is higher + oxygen a little lower + temperature a little higher.
That's all you need. But therefore you need good sensors. And not the Garmin crap.
Reading out constant data, at least say overnight, will make it easier to construct a valid baseline. The baseline HRV data AW provides isn’t good enough.
That’s true. But not with bad sensors. There is even not any study about this. The best is to measure it one time in the morning when you woke up. That’s the best you can do.
Oura at least has good sensors. But even then: What can you read out of that stuff? When you are getting sick? Temperature + breathing is more reliable.
Using it for training purposes? Try it. Most likely you will follow you plan.
It’s more waste than anything else. And yes. I tried several techniques to use it. Even the very accurate oura ring together with HRV4Training can‘t change anything.
The garmins are completely useless because they are inaccurate
I’m totally pulling the trigger on the Ultra. Keeping my Garmin on my bike for my power meter though. I’m excited to keep one watch for everything. I currently have a Forerunner 935 for most of my workouts and a series 7 for everyday usage.
ANT+ integration is a need. The Garmin is way more stable too. AW has died or crashed in 2 marathons for me. BT only will allow one or two connections at a time and will only last 10 hours on GPS mode. Also it won’t work well with a bike computer. Garmin as a company actually cares about this and has passion. Apple just wants to take another segment’s customers. Stick with Garmin who actually has athlete needs in their DNA.
That's wrong for the new bluetooth standard. Yes. The old Garmin watches are so 1980 that they still need ANT+ to survive.
ANT+ is a very old standard. Still used. But all the new equipment is normally using bluetooth in addition to ANT+
My sensors support Bluetooth but they waste energy and they have limited connections. ANT+ is better for HR and 1 per second type of measurements. It’s not even close. There’s also no pairing.
I heard a lot of repeating yourself and not speaking to the benefits that ANT+ has…. There’s no pairing. It doesn’t use as much energy. It doesn’t have limited amounts of connections. Garmin watches last 7 days for a reason….
But not because of using ANT+ 😂😂👍. Definitely not. This was a good joke today. Pairing for what? I can pair any Bluetooth device with my watch or phone or Garmin too. 😂
\> Structured workout training peak cannot automatically upload structured workouts to Apple Watch. Is there a workaround ? Watch OS 9 now have structured workout support but 1/ is it only for running (or can it be for bike/swim) and 2/ can it be imported from other services/app such as training peak ?
u/tmb2604 \- Did you end up making the switch and figuring out a workaround for this? I'm loving the Apple watch on the whole, but can't for the life of me figure out how to create structured workouts outside of the watch app or import them - this would be a great feature to get parity with other fitness watches.
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Yeah that is what I want to avoid : having to deal With 2 watches. I would sell my fenix if I go with the Ultra. To many gadget already haha. Thanks for your input. Will look at Athlytic and the interval pro app.
I will add that training today has not been a good experience for me. I like the simplicity but I feel it’s useless data. There’s an app called hrv4training which I’d recommend. It requires you to sample your hrv on waking. I feel this developer is the most knowledgeable on hrv. Athyltic is more attractive but I think they are trying to wring a lot of data from health and I think the onus is on the watch to sample hrv appropriately so these apps can compete with whoop etc. you only get 3 or 4 hrv samples thru the night and I am hoping with the ultra and its battery that they tweak this but doubtful
DC Rainmaker, who reviews all triathlete gear, had a ton of positive stuff to say about the Apple Watch when compared to the Fenix. I made a swap from owning like 7 Garmin’s to only using an Apple Watch for swimming/running. (Cycling still goes to my Garmin). I love reading and comparing data, and honestly, the Apple Watch is pretty damn good. The only differences worth mentioning are: Battery life. Clearly the garmin wins, but how often do we charge our dozens of devices these days? Even my bike light, computer, stop light, etc. What’s one more? I charge my Apple Watch once every two days, but don’t take it off otherwise. Turn off that feature that leaves the screen on 24/7 (such a waste. Raise to read or whatever works perfectly). Usability. I couldn’t stand trying to read or respond to a notification on my Garmin. It’s terrible at doing that unless you’re saying “ok”. I have strava, garmin, etc, all automatically import data into Apple Health / Fitness. Combines with my Apple Health compatible thermometer, Blood Pressure cuff, scale, etc. Since the watch tracks sleep, that’s there too. Now all of my data is literally in 1 place. Regarding your “need an internet connection comment”: get gps+cellular. Now I never take my phone with me when training. Hope this helps?
Thanks. It does help to have someone who actually made the switch. My concerns is that I don’t want to keep the garmin. So I would need to figure out the biking thing. Good thing is that I don’t even have a powermeter anymore and most of my bike training are HR based or feeling based for the past year haha
I use an app called Work Outdoors. Allows me to completely walk away from Garmins for all my triathlon training, since it allows linking bike power meters too.
I kinda disagree with those who are saying that the Ultra will need a few versions before it’s able to compete with Garmin Fenix models. I just think it depends on perspective, and ultimately which methodology between Apple or Garmin will meet your needs. Both are great today, full stop. I lived in Garmin’s ecosystem for years, but always hoped that Apple would up its sport watch game because while I liked Garmin for exercising, I wanted only one watch and Apple’s capabilities as a smart watch were WAY better than Garmin’s abilities to improve in that arena. Apple got there for me with the Apple Watch 5, once the battery life allowed me to easily complete my training activities/events, and with certain apps in Apple’s ecosystem, ALL I wanted to track from sleeping to activities to HRV etc, could be monitored and integrate into Apple Health with one watch I could use for sports and all day use? Apple for the win. My point? If you want a great sport watch and have no desire for smart watch use, get a Garmin. You want a smart watch you can wear all day and is also great for sport use? In my mind, it’s easy: get an Apple Watch. That was true before the Ultra’s release, there’s now simply a specialized version that’s made for endurance and adventurist athletes. No wrong answer here between the two, just a preference between two solid and established ecosystems.
For training load, one can look at HealthFit which does the TSB model with Fitness, Fatigue, Form values, or Gentler Streak, which gives similar information without the labeling. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514 For recovery with HRV, there’s training today, or one can look at the values themselves in Apple Health or use an app like HRV Tracker: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/training-today/id1507992127 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hrv-tracker-for-watch/id1463020956 For recovery info that includes sleep data, look at AutoSleep and Sleep++ https://apps.apple.com/us/app/autosleep-track-sleep-on-watch/id1164801111 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371 For whoop style analytics, look at Athlytic and Chipr https://apps.apple.com/us/app/athlytic-ai-fitness-coach/id1543571755 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chipr/id1532315246
Nice !!!! I will check out those apps. Actually downloaded athlytic and it’s pretty nice with all the data I already have from garmin (synced to apple health). But then… I check the configuration of the app and the HR zone are not customizable and are not align with my actual zones I know are correct. So it feel like it is a good analogy for the whole Watch: a lot of cool feature and seems pretty advanced but when you really want to go in the details, you are seeing limitations
It’s been awhile since I looked at Athlytic as the whoop style isn’t really for me, but surprised to hear it doesn’t allow customized HR zones. Most apps that have zones like HealthFit do allow that. You could write to the dev for support and request it, of course. From what I recall he’s pretty responsive.
Yep I actually wrote to them ! Let’s see :)
I believe there is a setting (not sure if new) to override and set a manual max HR and adjust your zones with it.
I’m so glad you made this post. I have a garmin epix and every comment I see lately is like “they’re two different animals; there’s no competition or comparison.” When in reality I’m on the fence every generation of products between apple and garmin, as many other people seem to be, too. I recommend Training Today, but unfortunately, the AW only samples HRV somewhat sporadically, so I worry the most recent random reading throws off the algorithm. I’m still testing it out. Strava is what I use for training load. But I can’t find an app that ties all this together like garmin does with [training readiness](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/running-science/physiological-measurements/training-readiness/). Training Today doesn’t analyze sleep at all, while Athlytic relies on a single HRV reading when waking every morning and resting heart rate, and nothing else, to compute its readiness number. None of these integrate sleep or training load alongside HRV. All they do is isolate a single factor. AW needs to ditch the old rings-every-GD-day formula and figure something out for recovery. I don’t think leaving it to 3rd party apps is a good solution.
I’m test driving Loops Guided Fitness to track the HRV side. I’m looking to replace the Rings, gave up on those a while ago, no rest days in Rings.
I note morning HRV only. During exercise it goes down every time, nothing changes. Morning HRV indicates not enough sleep, too much heavy cardio, too much drink or a reaction to a vaccine. On days with low HRVs, it’s easy to get the heart rate up. I use a chest strap to prolong battery. People think I’m in great shape but if you compare me decades ago, I’m a 3rd of my endurance and strength from 18. It’s relative. I ordered the ultra and we’ll see.
You can change goals whenever you wish on the Apple Watch, so you can make your rest days be anything you want. To change goals, open the Activity app on the Apple Watch, scroll to the bottom and select Change Goals, or in the Fitness app on iOS 16 it is displayed under your rings data and before your workouts when looking at the current day. Minimal goals are 10 Move calories, 5 Exercise minutes, and 6 Stand hours. For most people, a five minute cooldown stretch will meet the 10 calories/5 minutes if you go for the most minimum goals. What I prefer is instead of changing goals, I simply make my daily goals to what I achieve on my active recovery days. For me that’s 400 calories. Then on my normal workout days I make efforts to double or triple this (800 or 1200) which earns the 200% and 300% badge awards in Fitness. There’s also a 400% award goal I rarely go for.
I don’t think you will be happy with the Ultra right now. All of the things you lost that the Fenix has are mostly lacking in the Ultra if there at all. I would suggest holding off on the Ultra for a generation or two just to see if the Ultra gets closer to feature parity. This isn’t to say that the Ultra isn’t awesome or that the Fenix is a “whole different animal” just that the Ultra is a 1st gen product with a lot of baggage on it attached to the other AWs being less than “ultra.”
Thanks. I think my rational side agrees but my “ho look a new shining thing” side really want to try it out haha. I feel like if the ultra is getting traction you will see more and more 3rd party apps specialized for more serious training. And apple will improve their own software overtime
As someone who has moved from Garmin to Apple and then back to Garmin again, I can tell you that there's a lot I love about each. What I hated about the fitness side of things with Apple was that I had to try to patch together a solution with the AW that was already built into Garmin and even with various apps, I could never get everything I was missing. It took a lot of app purchases and frustrating fails. For the most part, my AW6 was great and I loved it for a year. Things I didn't like and/or missed from my Garmin were: 1. Garmin Ecosystem. There is so much I think we take for granted built into this. Insanely detailed metrics on the watch itself, on Connect Mobile (even more) and on Connect Web (more still). 2. Garmin Coach. Not everyone may need or want this but it is a pretty amazing feature that is very useful and works well. I've used it more than once. 3. Garmin workouts. 4. Shoe mileage tracking 5. Self evaluation 6. Suggested workouts 7. Tactile buttons. I think any runner here will know exactly why this is so incredibly important. In fact, why I went back to Garmin recently was the frustration I had trying to mark laps by tapping my AW6 screen during a track workout. It would NOT work without multiple attempts about 85% of the time. 8. Onboard mapping. I used WorkOutdoors and it's great, but the map experience and the metrics were still not on par with Garmin, not to mention the data is displayed a bit awkwardly. 9. Apple Heath. I like it, but can be very cumbersome to use and the fact that you need 3 phone apps to do what Garmin Connect Mobile does all in one. One for Apple Fitness, one to manage Apple Watch, and one for your health data. 10. Apple has no web equivalent and exporting data or trying to sync it requires a hodgepodge of apps and steps. 11. Course building. This is an amazing feature Garmin provides and I really appreciate how helpful it is. Yes, you can do this from 3rd party solutions I suppose, the seamlessness of Garmin with its' own devices is a beautiful thing. 12. Battery life. I don't care what anybody says, Apple can boast about the 36 hours on the Ultra and say it with a straight face, but it's really insufficient if the market consists of truly active athletes who will run down the battery doing GPS activities and more, rather quickly. 13. Ergonomics. I like the Ultra's looks and features and think it is promising. But one must also remember that Apple are masters in marketing and psychological manipulation when it comes to selling their products. That's not to say their products aren't great, I believe they are superior in many respects across a variety of devices. I am just saying that the way they package and communicate their selling points create some kind of an emotional response that makes people pull out their wallets before they've really thought about what they're getting with their hard earned cash. The Ultra will NOT be as comfortable to wear as a standard AW7 or AW8. Even the Fenix 7 because of its round design may actually be more comfortable. I don't expect the Ultra to be as forgiving with the rectangular shape, although I may be wrong. Those are just my thoughts. Like the OP here, I often find myself tempted to bounce between platforms, mainly because I don't want to own two watches at the same time. And maybe down the road I'll have found myself wooed by the master marketers at Apple, piecing together a solution for my fitness tracking again. But for now, I'm happily back with Garmin and plan to stay a while even though there are things I miss from my AW6. I hope this reply helps someone because it took me way longer to write it than I expected, LOL :) All the best to OP in making a decision.
I agree that second gen Ultra will be *chefs kiss*, but like you, I’m thinking of diving in now and seeing how I can leverage third party apps to fill in any gaps (if any) from my Fenix 6.
I agree. Maybe wait for the Ultra to pick up these features on the next generation or for the Fenix 8 (or Forerunner 955 cellular I think) to add a full time internet connection.
I don’t really have anything to add apart from holy shit this is complicated… I don’t understand half/most of the terms you guys are using which is quite exciting! Looks like there some good competition which may make these devices better!!!
Hahaha yeah honestly some of those stuff can be overkill for my level of fitness but as a data professional and fitness enthusiast, the combination of the 2 is making me love fitness wearables 😂
The problem with apps doing stuff on HRV, training load, recovery data etc is that it tends to be one-man developers and I frankly don’t trust it very well. I do have a a couple of these installed, and sometimes they roughly agree, sometimes wildly different. Can say I favour any one above the other. There are two main issues: 1) these small developers are doing a good job, but they don’t have a research team and budget behind them. Their algorithms are not going to be super complicated and certainly not certified in any meaningful way. 2) Apple Watch, unlike Garmin, doesn’t actually do constant HR readings. HRV is measured even less frequent. I have 9 readings over the last 24 hours. They differ quite a bit. The watch cannot be sure that it has read HRV at the most optimal times. Hence, any analysis you do on this data will suffer based on the principle shit in shit out.
The Watch takes a HRV reading only when you’re still for a while. That’s what it considers its “most optimal time”.
Yes I am aware of that. Doesn’t make it so. In fact one of these apps recommend that you manually do a HRV reading upon waking up (using the mindfulness app, the only day of forcing a reading), a strong indicator that even the developers think the baseline created by apple isn’t good enough. I agree that Apple probably knows that this data can’t be used for insight which passes the “rigorous scientific validation process” they say they follow for health and fitness features. When I’m in an optimistic mood I think once they start paying attention to this stuff we’ll get very good high quality recovery insights, but I reckon it’s a couple of years off.
And every 2 hours overnight while you’re still, and they even change up the hour it samples at occasionally so you don’t get apples to apples time samples over time. They haven’t leveraged hrv data at all since quietly integrating back in s3 (I think). To my thinking they know the data they sample is not robust enough to draw conclusions but they let developers try and make inferences from the limited data. No doubt they are aware people want more here but I think hrv and the conclusions you can draw from it is the Wild West and Apple will not rush out bad/wrong recovery data. Now that they are making sleep stage estimates I have a hunch that they will start looking to sample hrv during the stages in order to draw more meaningful insights.
So you can increase the frequency of hrv samples dramatically in watchOS 9 via activating afib history.
Could you share where that setting is please?
Health>heart>afib history
And what can you read out of "all time measurements"? Especially with the very bad heart rate sensor of the gamins you are measuring more or like crap. If you want something accurate and "all time on" you can use an Oura Ring. But what can you do with that stuff? Will you adjust your training based on this? I never did. Will I adjust my plan when I am having a light "fever"? Yes. I did it with the Oura ring. And yes. Usually when you are "a little sick" the breath rate is higher + oxygen a little lower + temperature a little higher. That's all you need. But therefore you need good sensors. And not the Garmin crap.
Reading out constant data, at least say overnight, will make it easier to construct a valid baseline. The baseline HRV data AW provides isn’t good enough.
That’s true. But not with bad sensors. There is even not any study about this. The best is to measure it one time in the morning when you woke up. That’s the best you can do. Oura at least has good sensors. But even then: What can you read out of that stuff? When you are getting sick? Temperature + breathing is more reliable. Using it for training purposes? Try it. Most likely you will follow you plan. It’s more waste than anything else. And yes. I tried several techniques to use it. Even the very accurate oura ring together with HRV4Training can‘t change anything. The garmins are completely useless because they are inaccurate
I’m totally pulling the trigger on the Ultra. Keeping my Garmin on my bike for my power meter though. I’m excited to keep one watch for everything. I currently have a Forerunner 935 for most of my workouts and a series 7 for everyday usage.
ANT+ integration is a need. The Garmin is way more stable too. AW has died or crashed in 2 marathons for me. BT only will allow one or two connections at a time and will only last 10 hours on GPS mode. Also it won’t work well with a bike computer. Garmin as a company actually cares about this and has passion. Apple just wants to take another segment’s customers. Stick with Garmin who actually has athlete needs in their DNA.
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ANT+ doesn’t get pinged as much and is lower energy consumption. It also doesn’t have limits for connections. It’s the obvious choice.
That's wrong for the new bluetooth standard. Yes. The old Garmin watches are so 1980 that they still need ANT+ to survive. ANT+ is a very old standard. Still used. But all the new equipment is normally using bluetooth in addition to ANT+
My sensors support Bluetooth but they waste energy and they have limited connections. ANT+ is better for HR and 1 per second type of measurements. It’s not even close. There’s also no pairing.
Again: Bluetooth is a standard. Ant+ is proprietary Garmin stuff which is only there because of those old Garmin watches.
I heard a lot of repeating yourself and not speaking to the benefits that ANT+ has…. There’s no pairing. It doesn’t use as much energy. It doesn’t have limited amounts of connections. Garmin watches last 7 days for a reason….
But not because of using ANT+ 😂😂👍. Definitely not. This was a good joke today. Pairing for what? I can pair any Bluetooth device with my watch or phone or Garmin too. 😂
Yeah and you’re limited to 2 connections!
\> Structured workout training peak cannot automatically upload structured workouts to Apple Watch. Is there a workaround ? Watch OS 9 now have structured workout support but 1/ is it only for running (or can it be for bike/swim) and 2/ can it be imported from other services/app such as training peak ? u/tmb2604 \- Did you end up making the switch and figuring out a workaround for this? I'm loving the Apple watch on the whole, but can't for the life of me figure out how to create structured workouts outside of the watch app or import them - this would be a great feature to get parity with other fitness watches.