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Has a smartwatch other than the Apple Watch ever done well?
Garmin does pretty well. Although you could argue they're more fitness and sports oriented, they do have "normal" smartwatches too like the Venu and Lily series, and also hybrid watches like the Vivomove. All Garmins have excellent battery life and there have been very few complaints about them. If anything, the most common complaint is that they've got too many watches to choose from, which can be confusing for someone new to the Garmin lineup.
Garmin also has titanium watches with sapphire glass on their high end. I'm ridiculously clumsy with watches, so I got one thinking I'd stand a chance of not breaking it. Now the new problem is, the watch is way harder than anything else I accidentally smack it into, and can break stuff around it instead.
I have the same "issue" on my galaxy watch 5 pro. I can see the dents on walls I accidentally hit, but the watch hasn't a single scratch.
And being pedantic, it's not sapphire glass, it's sapphire crystal. Glass is a wholly different thing. Sapphire glass would be when Apple claims their products have sapphire in them, but in reality they just mix the tiniest amount of sapphire in the glass so they can technically call it sapphire glass, but it doesn't offer any extra resistance or hardness.
lmao that's better problem to have no? Rather than breaking an expensive piece of super hitech hardware?
Oh yeah, definitely. I also love the no screen protector life. Last time I had another smart watch, I put on a screen protector and destroyed the first screen protector literally the day I got it. Now I just have small marks on my walls I can clean up with paint way down the line, and need to make sure I have a screen protector on my phone haha.
How's the battery life? I have a Pixel watch and I like it but the battery life is kinda bothersome.
Going on a long hike with literally every power draining option turned on, I still finished the day with like 65%+ battery. A normal day, again with pretty much every battery draining feature turned on, drains about 10% battery, estimated battery life is about 11 days with that set up. If I turn off the extra GPS antennas and only use the US constellation, and dial down the rest of the tracking a little, it's easily 18-20 days I think.
My watch is also the power hungry one with an AMOLED screen. You can get closer to 30 day battery life from their Enduro lines I think.
I need that sapphire stuff for my watches to survive my work environment.
Which model is that?
Epix for me, think their Fenix and Enduro lines also have these options
You're saying it's a Nokia.
I have a Venu 2 and I love it. Battery lasts forever and I can pretty much do all the things I'd want to. The best part is that the performance is always top-tier. The OS is very lightweight and that makes it nice and snappy.
This is great input! I'm in the market right now and haven't had a Garmin in 8-ish years. I'll take a closer look again!
Another Venu 2 owner here. It is great, does what I want from a smart watch(notifications, calender, heart rate, sleep and some other stuff), ties in nicely with the Garmin cycle computer I own, and allows for tracking between the two. And I get 3 - 4 days(or more depending on how much I am using it to record activities) in a single charge. I do kinda wish I had gone for a forerunner, but I dont wear it when cycling and it tracks walks and runs and everything else under the sun perfectly well.
Definitely recommend a Garmin if it fits your needs.
Honestly my one complaint is when starting a workout, activating the GPS takes a bit so I usually have to wait up to about a minute for the GPS to be ready and then I can start.
I have the Venu and the only thing I'm waiting for Garmin is YouTube Music support. I know most fully featured smart watches have 1 or 2 days but I get like multiple days even when I go for runs so often.
My girlfriend and I both got Garmin watches and we absolutely love them. I got the Forerunner 265 and she got the venue 2sq. I like that they support both android and Apple, and don't have subscriptions!
Just got my Garmin watch and it's been fantastic already. Battery life is the best I've had since my Pebble smartwatch.
Even the basic ones are almost as expensive as my phone, how do they cost so much?
Comparing a piece of tech to something your children will inherit isn't really a fair comparison though, is it?
I feel like my Garmin could probably survive being run over by a car
Garmin's are excellent. Mine takes a beating.
The galaxy watches are pretty good, and as usual, Samsung carried Wear OS on its back while Google was planning on killing it, up to a point that Google then decided to have their own smart watches.
Samsung wasn't using wear OS until the watch 4 IIRC, they were using tizen
I've had a Samsung watch for a few years and I'm definitely not careful with it but it has easily put up to all of my abuse and the battery still lasts a couple days or more. Nothing I can really complain about.
Similar experience with my Galaxy Watch 4 classic, had it since launch, don't treat it carefully and I haven't managed to damage it, and it's been pretty much faultess for me.
I had a gear s3 frontier that I got about a year after it released. I didn't baby that thing at all, and I took it swimming pretty often. It lasted until about 3 months ago.
A little water got in and stuck it in a boot loop. I went out and ordered a replacement battery, and viola, it still works minus the back button, which is probably a reassembly fuck up and fixable. I had already bought a watch5 pro, so I don't really care about fixing it further.
Pebble watches were awesome! 1 week battery eink screens with app support. Too bad fitbit bought them and went nowhere. It shut down 5 years ago, but the hardware is still supported by third party alternatives. In fact I'm using it right now.
My Pebble Time Steel is still kicking ass! The only repair I had to do was replacing the battery a couple years ago
I was a Kickstarter backer for the Time. It really set the bar for me in smartwatches. I sold my Pebble Steel to a fledgeling developer after owning it for a year or so and I think I gave my Time away to a family member. Big regret.
My 5 something years old Fenix 5s still works great with like, a week and a half battery still lol. So yes, it's just that brands like Garmin don't advertise as much as Apple's.
No complaints whatsoever with my Samsung Watch 4 Classic. Best watch I've ever owned, smart or otherwise.
PineTime is cheap and FOSS
I've got a ticwatch, it's excellent. Only thing it's not capable of that the flagships are, is loading a sim to function without a phone, but this isn't a feature I want or need. I've definitely bashed it around quite a bit too, and aside from a few scratches (none on the screen), it's perfectly fine.
I love my Watch 6!
Fitbit has a good niche.
Samsung is shit
Fitbit is owned by Google and has the same policy of not repairing cracked screens.
I owned a Sense 2 and was in a bicycle crash. Screen hit the pavement and shattered. Absolutely no options from Fitibit/Google to get it repaired.
I switched to Garmin and couldn't be happier.
Huh.. I missed when Google bought them. That sucks. Might end up with a Garmin as well when this one dies.
Does it integrate with other apps like chronometer?
That's a really great point and another reason I've really enjoyed the Garmin experience -- Garmin doesn't try to sell your own data back to you.
Getting anything more than the absolute most basic of real time data out of a Fitbit requires an annual subscription. With Garmin, it's just there.
I've been using a Galaxy Watch 4 Classic for about 2 years now. Apart from the usual scuffing, no other issues really.
I swapped from a 3 to a 5 pro and same. I got it specifically for fitness stuff, and aside from issues with HR monitoring on my hairy arms, no issues.
It's not my favorite option, but I got it on sale for like $400 while similar specced Garmin and other options push $7-800.