[HN Gopher] Garmin's -$40B Pivot
___________________________________________________________________
Garmin's -$40B Pivot
Author : thibautg
Score : 201 points
Date : 2025-01-18 23:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.readtrung.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.readtrung.com)
| maskull wrote:
| I'm amazed apple has got by with a 3/4 day charge for 10
| generations while garmin has had products with a 7+ day charge
| for years.
| Etheryte wrote:
| They target different market segments, that's all there is to
| it. Similar to how some phones get away with having an absolute
| rubbish camera while other brands offer high resolution cameras
| -- they sell to different people and both companies do fine.
| hx833001 wrote:
| Ultra has better battery life, most people don't wear a watch
| while sleeping, so it's easy to charge at night like you do
| with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost
| everything essential in terms of communication without a phone
| if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| > most people don't wear a watch while sleeping, so it's easy
| to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway
|
| for me at least, the silent alarm so as to not disturb my
| partner is a huge part of the value in a smart watch.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for
| this feature alone. Works great for that.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| I thought the sleep tracking and resting heart rate tracking
| is one of the most important features of a smartwatch. pretty
| sure most garmin users wear them at night for these reasons.
| LandR wrote:
| I always thought resting heart rate while sleeping was a
| pointless metric ?
|
| YOu can have a resting heart rate while sleeping in the
| 30s, yet your real resting heart rate in the 60s.
|
| I don't need a watch to tell me if I was sleeping or not, I
| was there, I know if I was sleeping... I also don't see the
| point if it telling me if I got enough sleep or not. Again,
| I know if I didn't get enough sleep as I'm tired...
|
| I also don't think it's sleep tracker is accurate, I've had
| my garmin tell me I have taken naps when I hadn't. I was
| just lying on the sofa watching a film and didn't get up
| for an hour or so. That doesn't mean I'm asleep.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| I guess most metrics are pointless if looked at in
| absolute terms and isolation, but trends might still be
| interesting.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks
| how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep
| sleep, etc.
|
| A lot of value is in the long term trends. One bad night
| doesn't mean much but if our sleep quality is trending
| down over weeks, it's a sign you should change something.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch
| tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the
| deep sleep, etc.
|
| Anecdotally, this is very inaccurate for me.
| LandR wrote:
| Yeah, plenty times I've got up during the night multiple
| times, sometimes out of bed entirely wand walking about
| and the watch hasn't realised this at all.
|
| Similarly I've been in bed, awake, reading, unable to
| sleep and the watch has thought I was sleeping.
| LandR wrote:
| If I'm watching a film, yes... I know if I've fallen
| asleep and missed half of it!
| kadoban wrote:
| Sleeping heart rate is useful because it gives you a good
| "resting" value. Resting heart rate will tell you if
| you're getting sick, before you have any real symptoms.
| doix wrote:
| Yeah, I first learned that from the "HOW TO SKATE A 10K"
| ebook[0] that was posted here[1] a while ago. He talks
| about how he tracked heart rate to figure out when he was
| going to get sick.
|
| I then started looking back at my historical garmin data,
| pretty much everytime I was sick, my HRV would drop a few
| days before. I then started monitoring my HRV closer and
| taking it easy whenever it dropped. Anecdotal data from
| one person here, but I found that I get sick less and
| when I do get sick, it's usually not as bad.
|
| [0] https://www.howtoskate.se/
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30320639
| kadoban wrote:
| Yeah HRV is especially good for that. Mine doesn't really
| expose HRV very well, I'm guessing because I'm a couple
| of generations back, so I have to make due. Works pretty
| well even so though.
| Lio wrote:
| I find sleep tracking to be really useful.
|
| One thing that surprised me has been seeing the affects
| of either alcohol or caffeine on the type and quality of
| the sleep I get.
|
| Even if the absolute numbers aren't 100% accurate the
| watch definitely spots when I've had even 1 beer during
| the evening.
|
| I also find heart rate variability interesting. I can't
| put much spin on the absolute numbers but after either
| heavy exercise or if I've been unwell I can see the
| variability rate really drop.
| jerlam wrote:
| > real resting heart rate in the 60s
|
| What makes one measurement "real" and the other one "not
| real", if you're mainly using it as a personal metric?
|
| The reason that the traditional definition of resting
| heart rate exists is people didn't have 24/7 heart rate
| monitors, and doctors had to measure what they are able
| to measure. And they still can't measure it well, because
| patients often have white coat syndrome and there's not
| enough time during an appointment for people to relax
| fully.
|
| The Apple Watch, which uses the traditional definition,
| has to use algorithms to guess which of its measurements
| counts as "resting" or not, which adds complexity. In
| contrast, lowest HR during sleep is a more reliable and
| consistent measurement.
| LandR wrote:
| What I mean is, you can be pretty unfit and still have a
| resting heart rate in the mid 30s when you are asleep.
| The same unfit person takes a resting heart rate just
| sitting in a chair doing nothing for a minute or two and
| it's probably not going to be anywhere near 30.
|
| I've known people who have had resting hearts in the low
| 40s, but actual resting heart rate when awake is closer
| to 70!
|
| I think Garmin uses resting heart rate when you are
| asleep as it makes it seem like you have a really low
| resting heart rate, where you might not. I think it's
| overly flattering.
| nradov wrote:
| Citation needed. I'm not aware of anyone who is unfit and
| has a sleeping heart rate in the mid 30s. Let's see some
| hard data on that.
|
| Garmin watches calculate resting heart rate as the lowest
| 30 minute average.
|
| https://support.garmin.com/en-
| US/?faq=F8YKCB4CJd5PG0DR9ICV3A
| jerlam wrote:
| I think we're talking about two different things.
|
| You're saying that some devices are measuring "resting
| heart rate" when it's not using the traditional
| definition, and comparing that number to the traditional
| definition is wrong, and I would agree.
|
| I'm saying that the traditional measurement of resting
| heart rate is bad for a variety of reasons, one of which
| is that taking it while sitting at your couch at home
| after 15 minutes and having a stranger take it in the
| weird doctor's office can have very different results.
| And if our smart devices consistently measure an RHR on a
| regular basis, that's probably a better measurement of
| progress.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Also, the flashlight and silent alarm are superb features.
| I use the clock too if I wake up.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had a review copy of a separate sleep monitor band that
| you slept on top of from a company that I think Apple
| bought. Basically I thought it was mostly an interesting
| curiosity and (possibly) a reasonable first diagnostic step
| if you suspect you have sleep issues.
|
| However, for me, the results looked reasonable most nights
| and for those nights when I didn't sleep well for whatever
| reason, I mostly knew that was the case without the device
| results.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| The Ultra is the most bizarre in the lineup. It's marketed at
| extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc. For
| that demographic, battery life of less than at least a week
| is a non-starter, not to mention 100% button navigation as
| opposed to touchscreen + dial. Those are really hard to
| operate whilst wearing thick gloves.
| wil421 wrote:
| Garmin makes solar powered watches for adventures types in
| the back country. The Ultra is probably good for scuba
| diving since you aren't doing it for so long.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I know the Ultra has an extra button, but I wonder if you
| can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch).
| That was what finally pushed me away from Apple Watch, and
| the marketing of the Ultra is quite funny if it doesn't
| solve it.
| jagermo wrote:
| plus, no support for ANT+ is a dealbreaker.
| dagw wrote:
| I know several people who own the Ultra, and while they are
| all 'outdoorsy' sort of people, none of them are even close
| to 'extreme'.
|
| The market more likely is people that see themselves as
| "extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc",
| despite mostly doing half day rides at the nearest mountain
| biking trail, national park hikes where they spend one
| night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski
| resort.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I'm hardly extreme, and the Ultra is bad enough for me.
| If I'm out in the cold trying to navigate, I don't want
| to take my gloves off. When I retire to my tent, I don't
| want to worry about recharging my watch.
|
| > spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding
| at a ski resort
|
| This should be enough to get people away from any watch
| without the features I mentioned - long battery life and
| button-operated.
| etrautmann wrote:
| This is a bit silly. I was gifted an Ultra, and as a
| climber/skiier/trail runner, it serves my purposes
| extremely well. The maps using WorkOutdoors are far
| superior to what I've seen from Garmin devices (although I
| haven't tried) and I can always get all-day battery and
| charge within 30-40 min before bed. Yes, I wish the battery
| lasted longer but it's a tradeoff I'd always take for a
| more responsive and usable interface.
|
| One gripe is that the functionality with gloves is a little
| annoying since you can get false positive screen taps from
| sleeves/cuffs. A second is that the main button is pressed
| when doing a pushup or in some situations while climbing,
| which triggers the emergency alarm mode by default (but is
| configurable to turn off).
|
| Most adventures are not many days long without sleeping
| (for me) and this watch works pretty well.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| > most people don't wear a watch while sleeping
|
| Eh, what? When watches were just watches, most everyone wore
| there watch while sleeping.
|
| On that note, my brother and I were talking about these smart
| watches the other day and I expressed how having a gshock is
| nice because with my use I seem to get about 7 years of
| battery life, so my watch is always on. Whereas people with
| smart watches has (as he put it) significant time blind-
| spots. But he made a comment at one point and basically said
| something like "It's not a watch. It is a fitness device that
| has a clock in it". I think that is a good point. As a watch,
| all these actually perform rather poorly. But as
| fitness/GPS/communication devices they perform well.
| sanswork wrote:
| My watch charges for the 15 minutes each day that I'm in
| the shower and getting ready. I'm not missing out on huge
| tracks of time.
| grujicd wrote:
| What do you mean it performs poorly as a watch?
| Smartwatches sync time, change time zone as you travel,
| automatically apply DST. It's actually better watch than
| classic watch.
| hedora wrote:
| My non-ultra gets at least 28 hours, and over 48 in low power
| mode.
|
| I leave it in airplane mode (this leaves bluetooth on, so it
| doesn't impact functionality when my phone is nearby) and
| disabled the always on screen.
|
| I agree about the questionable value proposition though. A
| $35 Amazfit band is surprisingly competitive with it, and has
| much better battery life.
| jgtrosh wrote:
| An Apple device would need to bring 9.3x the value of a Garmin
| device in other ways to compensate the charge gap? I'd say
| Apple users would agree that it does.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I can just leave my phone at home when I'm running or in the
| gym and get phone calls, send messages, and stream music from
| my watch.
|
| I have a stand by my bed that I just plop my phone, watch and
| AirPods on and they all charge wirelessly and use MagSafe so I
| don't have to worry about placement.
| marliechiller wrote:
| If you have to charge overnight, you miss out on all the
| benefits of sleep tracking which personally, has been
| essential in managing recovery and also illness
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Other people are commenting here that they can wake up, put
| their phone on the charger and it is charged enough to last
| a full day by the time they take a shower and get dressed
| in the morning.
|
| It's fully charged in an hour and half from looking at the
| documentation.
| tzs wrote:
| Many people get more than 3/4 day. For the Series 10 that 18
| hours of battery is based on 300 time checks, 90 notifications,
| 15 minutes of using apps, and a 60-minute workout with music
| playback from the watch via Bluetooth. For watches without
| cellular it also assumes 18 hours of Bluetooth connection to a
| phone. For watches with cellular it assumes 14 hours of
| Bluetooth connection to a phone and 4 hours of LTE cellular
| connection.
|
| I've got mine set to charge to 80%, and over 23.5 hours it
| typically falls to somewhere in the 30-40% range. I put it on
| the charger for 30 minutes when I sit on my couch in the
| evening to watch Jeopardy! and do the NYT crossword puzzle.
| That's plenty of time to get it back to 80%.
|
| I do have the always on display turned off, so the display only
| comes on when I turn the watch to look at it or tap or click.
| Always on display would take more power but my recollection
| from before turning it off is that it would still easily make
| it 23.5 hours starting from 80%. With a 20 W charger it can go
| from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, so that would still be done by the
| time I finished Jeopardy and the crossword.
|
| (I didn't turn off always on display to save battery. I turned
| it off because I didn't really find it useful. When I'm not
| actively checking the watch I almost hold it in a position
| where I don't really have a good look at the display, and
| moving it so I can get a good look almost always would be
| enough to turn it on in "raise to wake" mode).
| dboreham wrote:
| Samsung has had 2+ day charge for several generations. Their
| software was/is terrible, but since the switch to Google code 2
| generations ago it is not bad.
| rm445 wrote:
| Once you give up sleep tracking as a feature, it doesn't matter
| too much as people can charge their watch nightly.
|
| I'm very much on the other side of that decision - I find sleep
| tracking to be a killer feature, but you can see how Apple got
| away with it.
| layer8 wrote:
| From my research, none of the available sleep tracking
| solutions are reliable, unless you attach electrodes to your
| head. When using multiple sleep tracking solutions in
| parallel, they all report significantly different results.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| That's because the analysis about Garmin is wrong. None of that
| stuff matters.
|
| Garmin's competition is having kids. Moms and dads will buy
| Apple Watches because it is more compatible with the having
| kids lifestyle. In contrast you don't need a dive computer or a
| bicycle thing when you have no time for hobbies. So an Apple
| Watch with a diving app meets the demand for aspirational
| hobbies, which of course, aspirations have a much larger
| audience than going out and doing something.
|
| That said, people having fewer kids is ultimately what is
| helping them the most. Every hobby got more expensive, there is
| more demand. If you believe that more dogs and cats, less home
| buying, more video game playing and TV watching, etc. is also
| related to the trend of fewer kids - if you read what experts
| say about this, and if you can believe that LOTS of stuff
| people spend money LOTS of money on is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the
| decision to have or not have kids - then expand your mind and
| look for it everywhere.
| busterarm wrote:
| I live in a part of the country where most people still have
| 3-5 kids. Some of their parents had like 8.
|
| Everyone is very active outdoors here and as a family. The
| gyms are family gyms and have daycare services while you work
| out. Fitness is VERY popular here as are fitness trackers and
| Apple is a distant third to Garmin & Fitbit.
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| I don't know if you have any data to back up your claims, and
| I have nothing to back mine up but anecdotes but - all of the
| most active people I know have kids and all my single friends
| are amongst the most sedentary.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| I have kids and I'm very active too. I'm not saying they're
| not active. I'm saying they're not _diving_. And if they do
| dive, once, wouldn 't they be buying an Apple Watch Ultra
| for Christmas, that _says_ that it can do your dive, but
| also be useful every single day of the year?
|
| In terms of data, well, the number of kids per family is
| trending down, marriage is trending down, relationships are
| trending down... I don't need to measure anything,
| everyone's audience is becoming the No Kids audience.
| newsclues wrote:
| Another example of a tech company that would not exist without
| the military
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Because the military invented GPS?
|
| The military (sort of) invented the Internet too, so no tech
| company would exist without the military.
| mathieuh wrote:
| I don't know if their other product lines are better but the
| software and user experience of their Edge 1040 cycling computer
| is atrocious. It has every feature you could think of and some
| you couldn't but I swear it was designed by someone who has never
| ridden a bike.
|
| Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a
| roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then
| immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the
| actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same
| routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
|
| It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| The hardware is great. The software has always been mediocre at
| best.
| dktp wrote:
| Agreed. I have 1040 as well and it serves me super well,
| largely because of its battery life (1 recharge on 7day
| bikepacking trip of ~6hr/day usage), consistency (no
| disconnects with other data points) and very solid gps (multi
| band enabled, no issues in forests etc)
|
| UI takes a lot of time to get used to and even then there are
| many things I hate
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| I have been looking around on a number of separate occasions
| for reimplementation of Garmin connect. Sadly i haven't found
| anything yet.
|
| As great as the hardware is the app is frankly atrocious and
| doesn't inspire confidence with a company that is storing a lot
| of very sensitive personal information.
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| There's a form to report map issues. I've seen a missing or
| backwards graph edge wreak havoc like that before.
| Lio wrote:
| I remember using a Garmin Edge 1000 to navigate through a city
| I don't know. I could see the street I should be on running
| parallel to where I was but couldn't find the correct turn to
| take me there.
|
| Then the Garmin popped a big modal dialogue over the top of the
| map to tell me I was on the wrong street. Worse still a few
| spots of rain meant the screen locked and I couldn't dismiss
| the modal.
|
| I came to the same conclusion, that the UI wasn't designed by
| some one that rode a bike.
|
| I have to say they've got better over time though. I've had a
| Garmin 530 for a few years and an Epix 2 watch that I like much
| better. I love that the Epix can be operated with just the
| buttons.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| The title on HN got mangled. It's ~$40B (APPROXIMATELY $40B), not
| minus.
| yccs27 wrote:
| Yeah, from the title I thought they lost $40B in market cap due
| to the pivot.
| prodent wrote:
| Sure it's mangled, but it's clearly a dash (-) and not a minus
| (-).
| aaomidi wrote:
| Is this sarcasm
| iroddis wrote:
| I think just a dash.
| pupppet wrote:
| Thread winner.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Oh, but _that_ is not a minus. That's a hyphen-minus. A
| proper minus (-) is almost the same width as an en dash.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's an en dash which is supposed to denote ranges eg
| 2013-2024 basically meaning 'to' so it's still incorrect here
| even if it weren't extremely similar to - or negative and
| easy to confuse.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I think to 99+% of people that's not "clear".
| layer8 wrote:
| Typographically the latter character is not a minus sign,
| it's an ASCII hyphen-minus, which is usually designed to look
| more like a hyphen than a minus sign. An actual minus sign
| typically looks more like a dash than like a hyphen-minus.
|
| - hyphen-minus
|
| - minus sign (should have equal width to +)
|
| - en dash
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of
| years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it
| was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I
| guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day
| would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better
| than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't)
| but overall it didn't make sense to me as a product (or,
| evidently, to my partner, who now leaves it gathering dust).
|
| I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their
| devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a
| Vivoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery
| life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually
| useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
|
| Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone
| GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your
| phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides,
| like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier
| (though I think most people probably run with their phone
| anyway).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| With my Apple Watch, I don't need my phone when I'm running,
| swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make
| and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the
| watch or streamed over cellular.
| iechoz6H wrote:
| How do you receive calls without a sim? Or does it have a
| dedicated sim with a different number to your regular phone?
| anderiv wrote:
| Apple Watches have their own eSIM and they share a number
| with your phone.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The Apple Watch has had a cellular option since 2017 with a
| built in eSIM.
|
| There is a separate number as far as billing. But the
| cellular carrier pairs your cellular watch with an iPhone
| on the same network. So calls come in and go out as if they
| were coming from your iPhone's number. Whenever someone
| calls your phone - they both ring.
|
| If your phone is on and close enough to your watch so they
| are connected via Bluetooth (or WiFi?), all data and voice
| communication is relayed through your phone to save battery
| life.
|
| If your watch isn't connected to your phone, the Watch uses
| cellular.
|
| Roaming support for Apple Watches was just announced in
| 2022 and is still not ubiquitous
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| As far as I know, the watch's eSIM technically has its own
| phone number, but the mobile provider does some backend
| stuff to make it look like it is using your iPhone's phone
| number.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| We got 3 cellular watches for our kids and set them up on
| one parent phone using the family connection thing. Each
| watch used only the phone number assigned to it, for both
| phone calls and messaging. Maybe they do things
| differently if you set it up in that way.
|
| As an only device for kids, it was about 80% there and
| over the course of a few years Apple made 0 progress, so
| we gave up on it as a concept. Only 1 kid still wears the
| watch; the other two are e-waste.
| dhosek wrote:
| The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and
| even identifies what stroke I'm doing (although I need to
| have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch
| the change of stroke).
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Pretty much all fitness trackers can do this, even really
| cheap ones.
| nightski wrote:
| That's funny, phone related features are the first things I
| turn off on my Garmin watch when I set it up. The last thing
| I want is my wrist buzzing off when I am focused lol. In
| fact, any notifications on my wrist are just flat out
| obnoxious.
|
| I'll take my multiple weeks of battery life for a single
| charge on the Forerunner 965. The data and analytics are
| fantastic as well.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There is a "Do not disturb" feature on the Apple Watch.
| nluken wrote:
| The point of that comment wasn't to suggest that you
| couldn't also silence notifications on an Apple Watch, it
| was to illustrate that the ability to receive these
| notifications isn't as relevant to Garmin's watches'
| target market as it is to the Apple Watch's.
| wiether wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's part of the reason both the Apple
| Watch and Garmin's can thrive: because they have their own
| market.
|
| I recently renewed my Garmin watch and I did the same:
| disable all the phone related features.
|
| And one of the Reddit comments quoted in the article says
| the same:
|
| > Apple Watch is a Smartwatch with fitness features, Garmin
| is a Fitness watch (with admittedly lacking) smartwatch
| features.
|
| People still buy Garmin watches instead of Apple Watch
| because they don't want the "smart" stuff, they want the
| fitness stuff first.
|
| And yeah, the battery life is also a big factor!
| maples37 wrote:
| I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on
| my Garmin watch. For me, that's "shows me a preview of
| incoming SMS and Telegram messages" and the contact name
| when I receive a phone call. Plus the syncing of fitness
| activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to
| buzz or not, but that roughly overlaps between when I'm
| wearing the watch in the first place, so that has worked
| out well in my particular case.
|
| It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone
| notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or
| make noise (phone calls / text messages) and everything
| else waits silently in the notification drawer until I
| choose to look at the phone.
| hedora wrote:
| I wish I could just use the watch for everything and dump the
| phone. It does some ham fisted stuff to prevent this. For
| example, the watch Bluetooth stack detects that it is
| connected to a car stereo and refuses to work.
| timenova wrote:
| I play music in my car over bluetooth only from my watch.
| Works even without having the iPhone nearby. But yes, I
| agree with you. The Apple Watch can and should support
| almost all features the iPhone has. Three features I would
| like to see: hotspot, switching apps while on call, and
| Airplay music to soundbars.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Hotspot from the watch would kill the battery life.
| figers wrote:
| not being able to connect to car bluetooth is painful, why
| can't they just let that work already!
| exhilaration wrote:
| It's kind of a sloppy solution, but what about using a
| Bluetooth to aux adapter? You would lose the dashboard
| audio controls but at least you can listen to your stuff.
| infecto wrote:
| People value things differently but the battery life is always
| interesting to me. Certainly if I was backwoods hiking I get it
| but for my day to day I only take it off post workout in the
| morning as I shower and get ready for the day. It's charged so
| quickly that I throw it back on as soon as I am done.
| chikere232 wrote:
| It sounds like you have a good routine, but it's pretty nice
| to just have to charge once a week or something
| vel0city wrote:
| Yeah but we can always just shift that goalpost of a
| tradeoff and act like our arbitrary choice is the only
| right way.
|
| You need to charge that every week? Well this one lasts two
| weeks. Only two weeks, what a drag, this one lasts a month.
|
| You need to actually charge it? A Citizen Eco Drive charges
| itself even with only indoor light. Or an automatic watch
| that self winds on regular wrist movements, never really
| needing a "charge" so long as you're actively wearing it.
|
| It's all a trade off of what kind of features you want on
| your "watch". I'm not taking phone calls and doing NFC
| payments on an Eco Drive. People are going to value
| different things, to many charging a few minutes every day
| isn't an issue for what they seem to get from it.
| chikere232 wrote:
| Of course, I just want the activity and sleep tracking,
| and the occasional alert or notification, so the tradeoff
| is easy. If I wanted whatever the apple watch can do
| beyond that I might make a different choice
| dhosek wrote:
| The ideal charging cycles are either daily or never. With
| some non-daily cycle, I need to add "does my watch need
| recharging?" to my cognitive load.
| cozzyd wrote:
| you can still charge it daily if you want...
| organsnyder wrote:
| The advantage of a watch that only needs to charge every
| few weeks is that it likely doesn't need a lot of time to
| top it off if you're charging it daily (unless it has a
| massive battery or only charges extremely slowly). When I
| wore Pebble watches, charging them while I was in the
| shower was plenty of time to last until I showered the
| next day. With my Apple watches, I've gotten into the
| habit of not wearing them for a while in the evening as
| well as my morning shower.
| cozzyd wrote:
| indeed, I try to do that when I remember with my Garmin
| Venu 2 (~11 day battery life). Otherwise, I charge it on
| weekends while I'm home doing nothing.
|
| It's also nice because most trips I take are under 11
| days so I don't need to remember to pack the charger.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| I understand the sentiment. But I have an old Garmin
| Forerunner 35 watch that charges in about 2 hours and the
| charge lasts for three weeks. So the cognitive load is
| less than you would think.
| criddell wrote:
| It would be cool if digital watches could borrow the idea
| of harvesting power from movement from the mechanical
| watch world. I wonder how close to that we are?
| izacus wrote:
| Garmins went another way - the "Solar" models use sun to
| prolong battery life.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Ultimately I charge my phone (almost) every day, so I'm sure
| I could charge my watch every day as well. But it's still
| another habit I have to build, another way I have to adjust
| my routine to accommodate the things that are supposed to
| make my life easier.
|
| The other thing is, battery life degrades over time, which is
| relevant if you don't want to be buying new devices every
| couple of years. When I got my Garmin it probably held a
| charge for 6-7 days. After four years, that is probably
| closer to 4 days, which is still pretty good. If less than a
| day is the _starting_ point, I can imagine that after 3+
| years the battery life will be poor enough that you regularly
| end up wearing a paperweight on your wrist for some portion
| of the day.
| cft wrote:
| There's a difference: I wear my watch, and I expect it to
| always work, and be accessible even at night
| dlachausse wrote:
| With the newer Apple Watches you can just use fast
| charging. I basically just charge it when I shower and do
| my night time hygiene routine and it's ready to go back
| on my wrist to track my sleep and act as a silent
| vibration alarm in the morning so that I don't wake my
| wife up early. The only time I run into battery life
| issues is when I go on a weekend camping trip.
| ray__ wrote:
| Likewise-I pop it on the charger in the shower and
| occasionally at work if I'm at my desk. The alarms,
| timers, and reminders access (via Siri) more than makes
| up for the inconvenience of frequent charging.
| Notifications for messages and e-mails is just a bonus
| that sometimes ends up being a double-edged sword. The
| only downsides for me come on long bike rides, and that
| it is ugly (and getting too big, coming from a Casio
| F91-W).
| dlachausse wrote:
| I've owned both and the truth is Garmin makes the best
| fitness tracker that can be a smartwatch and Apple makes
| the best smartwatch that can be a fitness tracker.
| tcbawo wrote:
| My preferred alarm clock is the vibration from my fitness
| band. I wanted something extremely light with a long battery.
| Unfortunately, no modern fitness bands target this
| functionality. The vibration is weak, band is heavier, and
| the use large display. The best ones I used are probably 6-10
| years old now.
| neves wrote:
| The cheap Mi Band does it. The greatest annoyance is that
| if you forget it charging for too long the battery goes
| South.
| criddell wrote:
| Who makes the best (or at least very good) vibrating watch
| alarm today?
| tcbawo wrote:
| I am trying to figure that out.
|
| All the manufacturers today are trying to sell connected
| services, so devices are accumulating lots of features
| and heft. In addition, none of the manufacturers quantify
| the strength of vibration (what units would that be
| expressed in?). The lightest bands are the lowest
| end/value models and have the worst vibration mechanisms.
|
| What I want is: (1) see the current time (2) get a buzz
| for a notification (3) alarm clock (4) ability to wear
| for multiple days without charging.
| notatoad wrote:
| yeah, i've had a garmin and i've had an apple watch. both
| have their strong points, but the battery life of the apple
| watch was really just never an issue for me. it seems like it
| should be an obvious downsite, but it's pretty easy to get in
| the habit of charging it, and once it is habit its just
| really not an issue.
|
| if anything, the garmin's battery life was a downside,
| because i _wouldn 't_ charge it daily, and then i'd go to
| start a bike ride and find it was at 10% battery.
| tw04 wrote:
| Unless you're riding for 4-5 hours, 10% should still be
| more than enough to get through a workout though? And in my
| experience a 10 minute charge would have you north of 30%.
| notatoad wrote:
| not in my experience. i had an edge 120 bike computer and
| a vivoactive watch, and the last 10% wasn't enough to get
| through anything. the 10% from 100 to 90% would be
| plenty, but the last 10% always drained really quick and
| charged slow.
| sylens wrote:
| The Apple Watch is also a terribly designed device for running.
| Too much of its functions rely on interacting with the
| touchscreen, something you are either unable to do with sweaty
| hands when running or don't want to do as it draws your
| attention away for a prolonged amount of time and hurts your
| form.
|
| Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you
| can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard
| in this area for me.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| As a non-Appleista, what strikes me most is their "silo"
| mentality. Most of the iPhone /iWatch using fitness types I
| know log their stuff inside the Apple cloud, and do not
| crosspost to Garmin Connect or Strava so the non-Appleistas
| don't see their stuff. Whereas the Garmin/Strava world is
| relatively open. I can for example take the original
| Forerunner (pictured in the article) and upload stuff from it
| to the Garmin or Strava cloud, albeit slightly cumbersomely.
| I sometimes do with a later model, a Forerunner 305, even if
| it does take USB download to do it.
|
| Physical buttons, though... I've lost more than one bike ride
| because the start/stop button was bumped on the Forerunner
| and it turned out not to be recording.
| sylens wrote:
| That might have changed in recent years - I can import
| workouts to Strava that are recorded by my Apple Watch
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| With maps? The only Appleista that I know that crossposts
| to Strava always ends up with stats, but no map trace.
| karlshea wrote:
| Yes, with maps. The Apple Watch Strava app will record
| and upload directly or you can import workouts from Apple
| Health, both give you GPS, HR, etc.
|
| If recorded elsewhere it can depend, but that's due to
| Strava being irritating/changing/dropping integration
| features in the last couple of years and not an Apple
| ecosystem issue.
|
| Or those people have maps uploaded but have chosen not to
| make them public?
| zelos wrote:
| It used to be a fairly unintuitive manual process but
| Strava enabled auto-import with full GPS and heart rate
| import recently.
| gausswho wrote:
| They may be less gatekeeping than others, but they don't
| let you get data off the device without a cloud account, at
| which point all your biometrics are for sale.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Are you talking about Garmin? If so, that's not my
| experience of the two watches I have had, which let you
| take data directly from the device over USB (as FIT
| files).
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Just plug in the Garmin watch to your computer, and its
| storage opens revealing sensibly named folders. You can
| open the folder named Activity and copy your sport files
| in FIT format. Everything else is JSON.
|
| No cloud account needed!
| canucker2016 wrote:
| On my Garmin Forerunner watch, under Settings/System/USB
| Mode - change to "Mass Storage" from "Garmin".
|
| I connect the watch via USB cable and copy the FIT files
| over to the computer.
|
| Looks like there's the same setting in a similar location
| on the Epix watch - https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhe
| lp/GUID-E5C62F3F-DCE3-4...
| freshchilled wrote:
| > I've lost more than one bike ride because the start/stop
| button was bumped on the Forerunner and it turned out not
| to be recording.
|
| I've had that happen to me during yoga and boxing workouts
| I've recorded. There's a way to lock the physical buttons
| (at least on my Instinct watch), which requires multiple
| presses to stop/start a workout. IIRC, it's by holding the
| light button.
| stouset wrote:
| What strikes _me_ is that I alread have a central
| authoritative store of health and fitness information on my
| Apple devices bundled directly into the operating system
| but every single app in that category wants me to use them
| as the single database of truth instead. Even when they
| have integration with Health!
|
| Everything goes into Apple Health but individual apps can
| barely talk to one another. Oura won't pull heart rate data
| from Apple Health, so when I track my lifting workouts on
| my watch (a ring is a no-go for barbell work) it's not
| there. Same for my Polar chest strap which I use during
| judo and BJJ. Oura is completely blind to this despite the
| data being available and it having access through Health.
|
| Strava only pulls in workouts for apps that have been
| directly connected to it. So I have to have n:m connections
| between apps with this model, and only get sync between
| apps that have explicit Strava integration. For Garmin
| cycling workouts this works okay. When I integrate with
| Polar workouts, Strava insists on reduplicating the data
| back into Apple Health a second time. I have yet to find a
| way to get the data into Strava but have it recorded once
| instead sold zero times or twice.
|
| Garmin directly refuses to use _anything_ not recorded from
| their own devices. It won't import sleep from my Oura or
| Withings trackers, heart rate from anything else, etc. Want
| to use any of the derived metrics in their app? Sorry, you
| 'll need to exclusively use Garmin devices for everything
| in order to have all that data in place.
|
| The only thing that _isn't_ a complete shitshow in this
| entire ecosystem is Apple Health.
| jamespo wrote:
| What's it like getting data out of Apple Health?
| stouset wrote:
| There's a very easily-discovered button to export
| everything. It goes to some sort of XML format that I
| haven't bothered to inspect but which I assume others
| have written extractors for.
|
| I don't think I really care all that much though. Other
| than older heart rate data from my watch and workouts
| recorded on my watch, all the data is already stored in
| the apps that created it: Strava, Oura, Garmin, Polar,
| etc. If I went elsewhere, those apps will still have all
| their own collected information.
|
| I don't mind that those apps are the source of truth for
| stuff collected from their own devices. I just want them
| all to share data with and communicate to one another
| through Apple Health instead of insisting they can only
| use data they directly collected (Garmin, Oura, Polar) or
| requiring direct integration between every pairwise set
| of apps (Polar, Strava).
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Garmin, Polar, and Strava existed before Apple
| Health/Watch were released. They had to have a solution
| in a non-Apple world, and I doubt they'd abandon existing
| users once Apple appeared (and stuck around).
|
| Oura's first Ring was released the same year as the
| Watch, so I don't think that Oura was given early access.
| stouset wrote:
| I'm not asking them to abandon anything.
|
| Apple Health has been around over _ten years_. Oura could
| have figured out in the intervening time how to read
| heart rate data from Health.
|
| All I'm asking for Strava, Garmin, and the rest is to
| just use Apple Health to import data from other sources
| and assume that it is the source of truth for externally-
| generated data rather than requiring direct app-to-app
| integration or simply ignoring anything their devices
| didn't emit.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| An example of how Strava is geek-compatible (so far! it may
| get ensh*ttified in the future). I found some old GPS logs
| from 22 years ago, when I first got a handheld GPS and
| geeked out with it, logging a whole bunch of rides and
| hikes.
|
| It took a bit of work to get those converted to a modern
| format (load into ancient tool, which is still maintained,
| and write out as GPX files... one at a time). But then
| these GPX files can be uploaded to Strava and there they
| are! Activities older than Strava itself, fully integrated.
|
| Also I've more than once had a "whoopsie" - app left
| recording during the drive home, for example. Download
| activity from Strava, edit the GPX file, delete the
| activity and re-upload from the file.
|
| And when you download your stuff from Strava, you get a
| database dump. That's both good and bad; e.g. users are
| just numbers and you'd need to use the web Strava to
| translate them to names, but all your photos and all your
| traces and all your stats come down in standard formats
| (jpeg, gpx and csv respectively) and nothing is dumbed
| down; everything is in the best possible format for re-
| import to something else.
| vitorsr wrote:
| > Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how
| you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold
| standard in this area for me.
|
| Most people may be unaware that Garmin has a strong foothold
| in the stringently regulated avionics industry, in particular
| in flight instruments, displays, deck and others human-
| machine interface products. In turn, specific regulations
| informed by ergonomics research are unambiguous in
| prioritizing safety and unanimously contain minimum usability
| requirements.
|
| As an example, an AC [1, Ch. 7] advises on (electronic
| display) control devices, and another AC [2] advises on
| design and evaluation of controls and displays. The software-
| defined counterparts have immensely harder requirements that
| must be satisfied, which, in my reading, is incompatible with
| _pure_ touchscreen devices.
|
| [1] https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circul
| ar/...
|
| [2] https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circul
| ar/...
| cjrp wrote:
| That was true with something like the G1000, but their
| newer avionics are very much touchscreen in favour of
| physical buttons. See the G3X or G3000 for example:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21eOTAXdXLM&t=18s
| chinathrow wrote:
| Correct. Garmins GPS/NAVCOM flagship, the GTN series is
| 95% touch.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Genuinely curious, what do you need to change mid-run on your
| watch? I set an apple music playlist to start, open a run on
| WorkOutDoors, and go. I really am only interested in heart
| rate, distance traveled and pace. And if I need to stop for
| anything walking back to my apartment after a session I have
| apple pay.
|
| Granted, I'm not a serious runner, I only do it as a
| supplement for my muay thai training (i.e. I'm only running
| 5-8k at like a 4'30" or so pace). So I guess I'm interested
| in what runners who are running as their primary sport like
| about the Garmin, as I often hear people say the Garmin is so
| much better.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| FWIW there are a lot of features that are really great on a
| run, but you might have to switch screens or even
| manipulate the screen. For instance, zoom in and out on a
| map. Or instruct your watch to re-route you to the fastest
| way home, or start guiding you the reverse way you came so
| you end up doubling your distance when you get back home.
| You might have other sensors feeding info and the data
| doesn't all fit on one screen. Maybe you want to control
| music playback and find playlists subpar (you might want to
| change based on how you feel in the moment, or pick another
| podcast because you added time onto your run or the other
| one ended up being boring, etc.).
|
| Play music and run is fine for lots of people, though, so
| I'm not surprised it works for you.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Ok yeah, the map stuff makes a lot of sense then, if I
| were out on trails or somewhere unfamiliar I can see that
| being very helpful. I'm always just running the bridges
| of NYC, so it's hard to get lost! Although I might get
| more serious this year so I can run the ridiculous
| williamsburg bridge marathon [1], so maybe I'll check out
| what I'm missing with Garmin.
|
| [1] https://www.williamsburgbridgemarathon.com/
| jean-bonneau wrote:
| I'm usually on the same main screen with
| time/distance/heart rate, but when I change screen that
| would mostly be for: - Map/routing, useful for trail
| running or when running in an area you are unfamiliar with
| - Elevation, vertical speed (useful for trail running too)
| - Workouts (steps/next step/instructions/duration/etc.)
| jmull wrote:
| From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart
| watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for.
|
| They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and
| aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a
| secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not
| to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
|
| IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if
| you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using
| it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge
| every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same
| ball park.
| jagermo wrote:
| can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the
| time"?
|
| I wear my Epix 2 every day and it does all I want from a
| smartwatch - see incoming texts and calls while it tracks my
| health stats day and night. Yes, apple watch or Samsung ones
| may have more features, but I am not missing anything.
| jmull wrote:
| > can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all
| the time"?
|
| Well, they look like sport watches.
|
| People can choose the aesthetic they want, but you're
| sending a message with one that's that opinionated, which I
| don't particularly want to.
| eitally wrote:
| Ummm... and Apple Watches are the epitome of high
| fashion? I don't think this is a strong argument when
| directly comparing these two things. Fwiw, I have met
| quite a few watch enthusiasts who wear a mechanical watch
| on one wrist and an Apple Watch on the other. This seems
| natural, honestly, since the primary function of an Apple
| Watch is definitely not to tell time.
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| The newer Fenixes are a lot more elegant looking. If you
| paired it with one of those steel-link straps I don't see
| why it wouldn't look great with a suit.
|
| The official straps are pricey but you can easily find
| cheaper aftermarket ones, e.g.
| https://www.amazon.com/Titanium-strap-Garmin-AMOLED-
| titanium...
| jerlam wrote:
| My perspective is the exact opposite - I can't tell what
| "smart watch" features the Apple Watch is supposed to provide
| me over my "fitness" Garmin as a trade off for terrible
| battery life.
|
| The Apple Watch actually provides worse functionality for
| notifications than my Garmin, since it wants to act as its
| own separate device, instead of simply mirroring my phone's
| notifications.
|
| Interacting with the Apple Watch is usually so difficult and
| the app support is lacking (I believe it's actually gotten
| worse over time) that I generally take out my phone for
| anything beyond pressing the dismiss button, so it's no
| better than the Garmin.
| goosedragons wrote:
| What things do you want from a smartwatch? For the basics,
| notifications+, music controls, fitness tracking, Garmin
| handles well. It does not have an extensive ecosystem of apps
| but what apps do you need?
|
| And for fitness Garmin is very very good. Today was below -10
| C on my run and my watch was 100% usable with gloves. Garmin
| actually tells me when I get a GPS lock and it works ANT+
| devices.
|
| I use the GPS all the time on my Fenix, it's 6 years old and
| I'm still charging roughly once a week. I think a 6 year old
| Apple Watch would struggle to get a day, if that.
|
| +On a non-Apple device.
| jajko wrote:
| Oh man so many... inaccuracies to be polite in 1 post.
|
| My wife uses GPS all the time, why else you would buy premium
| watch like Fenix for. Apple watch needs charging / daily/bi-
| daily. Garmins of my wife who even sleeps with them with
| monitoring on - every 5-6 days, after cca 4 years of
| ownership already with same battery. You can definitely wear
| them all the time, and if you can't, same goes for other
| watch as well. This is what these watches are for if you
| still have issues understanding their market proposition,
| long term usage, without battery anxiety and additional
| management of frequent charging.
|
| They can have eSim, but I really don't see a reason and the
| price to pay in terms of battery drain is too steep. I don't
| know anybody around who is using it, everybody still have
| their phone with them.
|
| If I want to be reachable, there is phone which I can put
| into any pocket, if I want some quiet peace time, I can just
| listen to the music streamed from watch. I would never rely
| on tiny watch with crappy battery and super tiny cellular
| antenna re safety ie in wilderness or mountains where signal
| is non-ideal.
| mceachen wrote:
| If you just talk about notifications, the apple watch is
| better, in that you can reply without pulling out your phone,
| or even take the voice call, which you can't (at least afaik)
| on a Garmin.
|
| If you look at Apple watch activity tracking, though, Garmin
| is playing a different ballgame.
|
| Calorie counting on apple is off by 2-5x (compared to energy
| output measured on an erg, and running and biking are
| similarly _really_ incorrect on apple, and in my experience
| pretty spot-on with Garmin).
|
| Reviewing an activity on apple fitness is really, _really_
| coarse. You can't pick what metric is shown on the map. You
| can't plot a metric over time. Even something as simple as
| max speed? Who knows!
|
| Apple's attempted copycat of body battery functionality in
| the new iOS 18 seems like it was designed by a PM that was
| handed 2-3 screenshots from a Garmin, shrugged, and went from
| that. It's wholly useless--but on Garmin, this is a valuable
| feature included 8 years ago in their cheapest running
| watches.
| nradov wrote:
| Some Garmin devices have a speaker and microphone so you
| can take a voice call using it as a Bluetooth device linked
| to your phone.
|
| You can also reply to text messages with a limited set of
| canned responses on Android phones only. This doesn't work
| on iPhones because Apple has intentionally blocked third-
| party smart watches from being allowed to use that API in a
| particularly monopolistic and consumer-hostile move.
| timanderson wrote:
| A Garmin watch is absolutely designed for wearing all the
| time, even when sleeping. You might prefer not to for reasons
| of appearance or because there are features of some other
| smart watch that you like, but Garmin is fine for what I use
| it for and does notifications etc. The battery life was a
| game changer for me (as an Apple Watch switcher) since it's
| now something I just don't worry about whereas with Apple
| Watch it was a daily thing and it let me down on several runs
| too.
| maples37 wrote:
| Echoing a comment I left in a different thread: from my
| perspective as a Garmin watch owner, I can't find any reason
| why I'd want to switch to an Apple watch. (Admittedly my
| phone is an Android, so there's some inherent bias there. But
| the general point stands that I can't think of anything I'd
| want in a smart watch that's not a feature of my current
| Garmin.)
|
| I'm pretty happy with the level of "smart" integration on my
| Garmin watch, which boils down to "show me a preview of
| incoming SMS and Telegram messages and the contact name when
| I receive a phone call". Plus the syncing of fitness
| activities. I do go back-and-forth on whether I want it to
| buzz or not for text messages, but that roughly overlaps
| between when I'm wearing the watch in the first place, so
| that has worked out well in my particular case.
|
| It fits well into my general philosophy of smartphone
| notifications, where real humans are allowed to buzz or make
| attention-grabbing noise (phone calls / text messages) and
| everything else waits silently in the notification drawer
| until I choose to look at the phone.
| InfiniteTitan wrote:
| I bought a smartphone. I was shocked at the poor value
| proposition. Very expensive and the charge wouldn't even last a
| day!!!
| petee wrote:
| My Garmin Forerunner 265 has pretty decent battery life, maybe
| 8 days. I think what was the value for many was how their
| Connect app processed and displayed stats, though a recent
| change to "be pretty" has undone much of the usefulness.
|
| Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact,
| stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping
| correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are
| definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a
| phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
| eitally wrote:
| Fwiw, I felt the same way about the Connect app changes last
| year, but that went away after a couple months once they
| released an update that lets you customize your main screen
| view. Now I appreciate the much richer widgets and the
| ability to swipe between several of the metrics that are most
| valuable to me.
|
| Also, I've found that the current iteration of their wrist HR
| sensors are quite good [compared to a chest strap] for
| everything except outdoor cycling. I have an Epix 2 Pro and
| never wear a chest strap for anything but cycling anymore.
| jajko wrote:
| Apple to me has clearly a goal of providing a tiny version of
| smart phone on your wrist. Garmin aims at as-smart-as-possible
| watch. Everything else comes from this philosophy, be it
| battery, design of not only display and it shape etc.
|
| Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely
| the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care
| about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the
| pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
|
| Premium price, premium look, massively better battery,
| durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster
| child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of
| products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than
| Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving
| capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top,
| saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise
| completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-
| device syndrome.
| briffle wrote:
| I have a Garmin Instinct 2 solar. I had g-shock watches before,
| because I liked how tough they were, and the instinct2 is
| pretty close. I wear it swimming, running, sleeping, showering,
| etc. I take it off about once a month when I charge it up. This
| summer, I went 6 weeks between charges.
|
| The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is
| exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my
| physical activity, and sleep).
|
| I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get
| back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing
| for a low level garmin.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm still convinced most of the feature list of the Ultra was
| primarily added to dress up why the larger battery version
| needed to cost so much more.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I've been using a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch for years, and
| what I've found I like the most about it is actually the Garmin
| Connect app on my phone. I don't think Garmin gets enough
| credit as a software shop. Connect is a great application for
| tracking your workouts over time. A fair number of runners even
| use Garmin's workout plans from the app. Even compared to
| running apps exclusively for iOS and Android I think the Garmin
| app is one of the better ones around, and is free to use with
| no monthly fees. Combine that with the fact that I don't even
| have to take my phone with me, I just wear my watch and it
| syncs with my phone when I get home. Running with a phone
| sucks, I have yet to find a way to carry one that isn't
| annoying.
| aeyes wrote:
| For all runs except races and interval sessions I carry my
| phone in a Naked band. Works well for me and allows me to
| carry some other things like gels, tissues, keys, light...
| tra3 wrote:
| What's more, Garmin has an API so you can pull your data and
| analyze it locally. It's pretty neat.
|
| See garmindb: https://github.com/tamkaho/GarminDB
|
| You can get a rolling average of your stress for example, or
| your sleep times.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop.
|
| They make avionics systems. They probably have a good culture
| of making well tested, reliable software.
| nradov wrote:
| I have tried a bunch of options and the Rabbit running shorts
| with a rear phone zipper pocket are the least annoying. They
| hold a large phone securely without bouncing around but but
| are still easy to access on the move.
|
| https://www.runinrabbit.com/collections/mens-shorts
| subsubzero wrote:
| I have the forerunner watch as well, and also the inReach
| personal gps. Both are quite rugged and the forerunner's
| metrics collection is great if you want to see your health
| progress ie. VO2 max and other key metrics. The inReach is
| for me a life insurance policy in case I twist an ankle out
| in the middle of nowhere and can flag an emergency responder.
| I would not part with either device and pay the monthly
| subscription to the inReach device for years now.
| eitally wrote:
| Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be
| an extension of their phone. Full stop.
|
| Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active
| lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the
| ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note,
| though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the
| current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches
| directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| It's more like "Apple Watches are great for people who want
| their watch to be an extension of their iPhone. Full stop."
|
| Apple Watch is not smartphone agnostic (requiring iPhone for
| Apple Watch setup). That's Apple's choice. Apple Watch has
| done well targeting just iPhone users. It makes some stuff
| easier for devs.
|
| But South Korea has its own walled garden -
| https://www.gizchina.com/2023/11/13/korean-smartphone-
| market....
| danudey wrote:
| > I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch
| every day would drive me mad.
|
| The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast
| charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you
| could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower
| and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering,
| getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch
| off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily
| use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the
| battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder
| time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked
| for me for years.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Most smart watches (and even Xiaomi smart bands) are in
| similar ballpark of 200-ish mAh. All should in principle
| charge as quickly.
|
| It's just that Apple Watch is power hungry.
| cogman10 wrote:
| There's really only 2 features my garmin forerunner lacks that
| would make it pretty awesome.
|
| 1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send
| out live track notifications from my watch would be really
| fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to
| use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that
| stuff.
|
| 2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My
| watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice
| but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to
| kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
|
| But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long
| battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not
| having them.
|
| I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin
| ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two
| features above are the only things it does that I'd want from
| it.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| The first thing I do when I buy a Garmin watch (I have several)
| is turn off phone notifications. I simply cannot imagine why
| anyone would want them on. I tried for a decent amount of time
| but I just don't see the value in it, it's just aggravation I
| don't need. Not because of the implementation from Garmin,
| which is fine, but the whole concept.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I just don't understand how Apple, supposed masters of design
| and aesthetics, ever thought it was a good idea to release a
| square watch. It just looks so dumb.
| searealist wrote:
| The latest series Apple Watch charges from 0 to 80% in 30
| minutes.
| basedrum wrote:
| Way to expensive watches. Full stop
| orphea wrote:
| Garmin is expensive? Maybe, but I got my Vivoactive 5 for $190.
| For a watch that I need to charge every 7-10 days (vs every day
| like it is for many other brands) it's a good value, imo.
| izzydata wrote:
| There are various models and generations of their watches at
| every price point. Them having more expensive options doesn't
| mean they don't have less expensive options as well.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They also provide a lot of EFIS (Electric Flight Information
| System, or "Glass Cockpit") for small GA aircraft. I think
| AeroDyne and Honeywell are also in this market but I mainly see
| Garmin there. Like the G1000 (higher models are available on
| business jets I think).
|
| It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited
| to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around
| you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility
| conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
| parthdesai wrote:
| Marine instruments/sonars as well
| wil421 wrote:
| They make awesome chart plotters and sonar systems for boats. I
| have a smallish one on my kayak that works very well.
| FL410 wrote:
| They have really become the gold standard in avionics, so much
| so that some airframes are preferred to others due to the fact
| that they've chosen to integrate a Garmin flight deck instead
| of Honeywell/Rockwell/etc. They have a very consistent and
| capable design methodology that extends from single engine
| piston avionics all the way up through relatively large GA
| jets.
| joezydeco wrote:
| They've also made advances with their Autoland product, which
| can take control of a small aircraft and safely land at an
| airfield while communicating with ATC.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmdPZPWZKw8
| jeffbee wrote:
| But the margins on that business are not exceptional. Operating
| income on "outdoor" segment of their business, the one that
| includes the epix and fenix series watches and so forth, is
| higher than aviation segment.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Margin isn't everything, it's a very stable business with a
| very wide technological and regulatory moat. Add to that
| fierce brand loyalty among pilots and it's a great business
| IMO.
|
| Personal electronics (unless you are Apple basically) is a
| pretty fickle business and fortunes can change very rapidly.
| Aviation? Not so much, unless you chuck a Boeing.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I just always thought that given what you said -- it's a
| good product with a giant moat -- the margins would be just
| about infinite.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| Aviation also represents recurrent revenue through
| subscriptions for database updates which could be on the
| order of $1000/yr and upwards.
| film42 wrote:
| The C172 with a G1000 setup was around $20/hr more at the local
| flight school than a C172 with a six pack. Def not needed for
| X-country but I always felt safer flying it through busy
| airspace. Garmin really does make fantastic avionics.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Wow $20 more, that's a lot.
|
| At our place they were the same price (though the steam gauge
| one was a newer type). They still had to have it because some
| exams require it.
| film42 wrote:
| It was, but I spend a lot of time flying near DC, so it was
| nice to know exactly where airspace boundaries were. A
| luxury, for sure.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I think Garmin is a really good example of a company that
| benefits from Apple making the market so much bigger. I had an
| Apple Watch, got into running a lot, and eventually found the
| Watch too limiting (bad heart rate measurement, touch only UI
| were my main issues). I probably wouldn't have ended up a Garmin
| customer if I'd never got an Apple Watch though.
| rob74 wrote:
| Of course, the unmentioned elephant in the room here is that
| Apple watches don't work with Android phones (it's possible to
| use the "cellular" version with limited features without a phone,
| but you still need an iPhone to configure it), which means that
| ~70% of the market are up for grabs...
| salviati wrote:
| Reading your comment it sounds like Wear OS [0] is not a thing.
| But it is... So the market for watches paired with non-iOS
| phones is not empty.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_OS
| rob74 wrote:
| Sure, I didn't say Garmin had no competitors, just that the
| Apple Watch is limited to 30% of the smartphone market, while
| Garmin can address (a part of) the remaining 70% plus some of
| Apple's 30% as well.
| Neywiny wrote:
| I think the article brings up a great point about how they
| pivoted. So many companies start out strong then resort to "the
| original" to try and get sympathy? Nostalgia? Idk who falls for
| that or why. Or they sell out to someone that'll gut them. These
| guys knew that their first success wasn't a GPS locator. It was a
| PNT device that met an unserved market. In that regard they
| haven't pivoted at all. I respect that immensely.
| djsjajah wrote:
| I think everyone should be reminded that a few years ago Garmin
| let someone take down their whole network (globally) and then
| paid the ransom after a few days [1]. In my opinion, the company
| does not deserve your money.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2020/07/garma...
| neillyons wrote:
| I looked at the Apple watch but choose Garmin as it has a
| physical button to start and stop my run. I don't know if this is
| still the case but with the Apple watch I think you have to tap
| the touch screen. Takes too long, especially when every second
| counts on a 400m lap round the track :-P
| aldur wrote:
| I discovered this recently, but can start/stop by clicking the
| crown and the side button at the same time.
| tzs wrote:
| You can stop a workout by telling Siri "end workout".
|
| I'd expect that you can also start one with Siri but have
| never actually tried, mainly because the idea of using Siri
| to start/stop workouts never occurred to me until reading
| this thread, which I happened to be doing this morning while
| doing a workout on my treadmill.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| How accurate is that speech detection when you're trying to
| hold in being sick after running a spicy interval?
| anshumankmr wrote:
| As a somewhat proud owner of an Apple watch, I end up using my
| older lo-fi smart watch for long rides I do on cycle (anything
| 100+) cause its battery lasts just so much more. I bought it when
| I did not have enough money to shell out for either an Apple
| Watch and did not even know what a Garmin was, but it does the
| job reasonably well though its GPS is a bit poor but I did last
| throughout the 12 hours I did my my BRM in July (a 208KM ride).
|
| Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it
| costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is
| another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition
| as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
|
| But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS
| device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet
| which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart
| from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently
| people are being arrested for using it in my country.
| kshahkshah wrote:
| I'm in the market for a watch. Turned 41, my weight has slowly
| crept up despite working out 4-5 times a week - not too bad, like
| not obese. My cholesterol is bad partially due to genetics but
| mostly due to diet. I also have a mild sleep apnea, especially
| when my weight is high. I'm focusing on dropping weight this year
| and would love to start tracking sleep, recovery, apnea, and any
| heart issues before/as they happen. I do not want another screen
| though and though I've looked at the Apple watch multiple times,
| I've not actually purchased it yet.
|
| I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues
| at all unfortunately
| dqv wrote:
| It will alert you if your heart rate goes above a certain limit
| (that you've set) when you're not exercising. It tracks sleep
| too, but I don't know about sleep apnea signals. It does track
| pulse ox, so a low sleep quality report and low pulse ox might
| indicate sleep apnea? idk
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Some models have an ECG monitoring app in some countries.
|
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/health-scienc...
| abawany wrote:
| one thing my first garmin from 2016 did for me was to make me
| more active, because its activity nags with minimum-enforced
| active time ensured that I wouldn't just keep sitting all day.
| Their newer models track hrv and offer ecg in some
| models/countries to help with heart health tracking.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I have an older relative who uses their Venu3 to take their own
| ECG and combine that with a Garmin Index BPM (~$150) to help
| monitor their heart function. The ECG is simple to use on the
| watch and the BPM syncs to Garmin Connect so that all that data
| is stored daily for their cardiac specialist to review when
| they go in for appointments. They had a diagnosis of A-Fib a
| while back that explained all their decrease in energy levels
| and since beginning treatment for it they have had no further
| issues. Now they have the ability to sit and take an ECG to
| transmit to their cardiologist if they start feeling bad. For
| them it provides peace of mind that their meds are working as
| designed. They regularly get in 5k - 10k steps daily which is
| pretty great for someone making a strong run at 90 y.o.
|
| I don't think Garmin has a device that is able to track or
| identify sleep anea events but would not be surprised to see
| that functionality appear in the near future on some product.
|
| I have an Instinct 2 Solar and it has been great for me. I told
| other relatives about it and they have picked their own models
| to suit their lifestyles.
|
| I think that is Garmin's strength, the wide variety of fitness
| devices suited for almost any activity or personality.
| kubb wrote:
| My Garmin has a flashlight, maps with navigation on device,
| altimeter, barometer, thermometer, GPS and other satellite
| navigation systems, it tracks pulse, sleep, etc. It's perfect for
| hiking and cycling, helps you find the right route, shows the
| altitude profile, etc. The form factor is perfect, the watch is
| light and comfortable.
|
| I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the
| specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use
| certain apps are advantages
| ghaff wrote:
| I have an Ultra that I use for hiking. But I mostly don't wear
| it day to day because of the charging effort.
| StrLght wrote:
| Moreover, they have a great variety of other options that look
| and feel similar to what you already have. So if you want to go
| further with cycling (and have a budget to do that), you can
| buy Garmin Edge bike computer.
|
| Apple doesn't make this sports ecosystem
| salviati wrote:
| Sorry to pick on this detail, but I don't understand why TFA uses
| 2008 as year of Google Maps release. My memory (and Wikipedia)
| say 2005. I think I figured it out : in October 2009 Google maps
| introduced turn by turn directions.
| rtkwe wrote:
| One of Garmin's big old (probably still made in small numbers
| though) product lines were stand alone turn by turn GPS units
| you'd attach to your windshield or dash so when Google Maps
| introduced turn by turn that's when it became relevant as a
| major competitor to that product line and a major threat to
| Garmin.
| jeffbee wrote:
| A lot of people are not aware of the fact that there were
| mobile apps before the iPhone. First time I used gmaps was on a
| j2me platform.
| transpute wrote:
| Garmin: - sells an accurate blood pressure cuff
| with WiFi data sync (sans phone) - is an active R&D
| contributor to OpenEmbedded Linux - includes optional
| health data sync to vertically integrated cloud - provides
| open FIT [1] protocol for local data sync
|
| [1] https://developer.garmin.com/fit/protocol
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Yet I can't use my new Forerunner 55 watch without connecting
| it to Garmin servers. They make sure it takes about an hour to
| have a reliable GPS position unless your make it regularly
| connect to an active Garmin account, either via Garmin Express
| (dekstop) or Garmin Connect.
|
| I switch to GadgetBridge but without updating the AGPS files,
| no reliable GPS.
|
| How open of them.
| superq wrote:
| I was seriously looking at their Tactix 7 Pro Ballistics
| watch. But, yeah, that's a total no-go for me then too.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Before my workout, I'll take my Garmin watch and switch to a
| workout mode that requires GPS and leave it by a window while
| the Garmin gets a GPS lock.
|
| Go prep for workout.
|
| Just before heading out, I'll go by the window and get the
| watch which has locked on to the nearby GPS satellites.
|
| Start workout.
| gausswho wrote:
| I picked up an Epix Pro during the holiday sales. Aware that
| they'd had a data breach, I was dismayed to find there is no way
| to get the data off it without using an app and that app won't
| even start without an account. Despite the settings, wouldn't
| show up as a storage device when connected (on Linux).
|
| I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame
| because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got
| a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS
| without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
| phicoh wrote:
| By and large Garmin devices can be accessed directly from a
| Linux system. I have a FR 965 and it connects just fine.
|
| But in typical Garmin fashion, there may be a hard to find
| setting to enable this. My watch asks if I want to connect to a
| computer when I plug in the cable.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| The Epix watches seem to have a setting to switch the watch to
| Mass Storage USB mode - see
| https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-E5C62F3F-DCE3-4...
|
| Did you change this setting on the watch?
| xnorswap wrote:
| I found it interesting that they mention Tomtom as being a
| footnote.
|
| In the UK, TomTom was much bigger than Garmin for in-car GPS:
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=g...
|
| It guess they didn't have the same market penetration / dominance
| in the US market.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Same on the continent. They were a dutch company, so i guess
| they didnt have time to really expand much in the US until they
| got killed by smartphones.
| Yeul wrote:
| TomTom is now an app on smartphones. I still use it I can't
| stand Google maps and their annoying ads.
| myflash13 wrote:
| There's a lesson to be learned here for small bootstrapped SaaS
| founders. You can still succeed (as a lifestyle business) even
| when Big Tech has a competing product. Who would pay for email
| when Gmail is free? And yet FastMail does well. There are many,
| many, smaller companies that may not be VC-scale, and yet manage
| to build profitable, sustainable, businesses on top of a good
| niche product, even when competing against VC funded giants.
| lopis wrote:
| Meta: For some reason, HN replaced the tilde in the title of the
| article with a dash, making it seem like Garmin did a negative
| 40B pivot, instead of approximately. Why is that?
| jboggan wrote:
| Garmin recently entered the ballistic chronograph market with
| their Xero - it's the closest thing to actual magic I've
| experienced with a piece of technology. Chronographs are
| notoriously finicky, since you are trying to accurately measure
| the speed of a bullet in an uncontrolled environment.
|
| Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window
| [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't
| work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to
| the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very
| sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a
| majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some
| higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar
| [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size
| of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly
| downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or
| audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public
| range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a
| lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at
| all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar
| units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that
| records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity
| settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on
| the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve
| into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile
| effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping
| and misaligning the radar in the process.
|
| Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a
| tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings
| option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a
| simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks
| up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or
| recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data
| from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed
| this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units
| were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange
| from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
|
| This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they
| somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better
| form factor, better battery life, superior app integration,
| impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than
| all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other
| experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe
| how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price,
| which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs
| this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the
| combined used prices of all the various chronographs this
| replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
|
| 0 - https://www.caldwellshooting.com/range-gear/chronographs-
| and...
|
| 1 - https://magnetospeed.com/v3-ballistic-chronograph
|
| 2 - https://mylabradar.com/product/chronograph/
|
| 3 - https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/771164
| jcfrei wrote:
| I use a Garmin edge 830 for cycling and it feels like one of
| those devices where software engineers hated every minute
| developing the GUI for it. I can only imagine that the reason
| garmin is profitable is because they keep the same cheap hardware
| and custom OS they developed 10, 20 years ago for generations and
| just do occasional GUI refreshments. Definitely going to switch
| to an alternative for my next one.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I still use an Edge 130 because its lack of graphics abilities
| constrains the UI to something reasonable. All I want it to do
| is throw the time/speed/distance/pulse in my face. In fact if
| Garmin made an Edge-like product that was _only_ a head unit
| for a smart watch, didn 't have its own gps radios, that would
| be ideal for me.
| FriedrichN wrote:
| I actually really like the fact that my Garmin Instinct is not
| really a smart watch, it makes connecting it to your phone
| optional. Mine has never connected to a phone because I don't
| like to run Google's spyware on my phone. Yet, I can use most of
| it's functions I care about (time & date, GPS, moon & sun,
| compass, steps, heart rate, temperature, sports-specific stuff)
| without giving up my soul to Big Tech.
| sorenjan wrote:
| I used to have an Android Wear watch, when it was still called
| that. I thought it was really cool, a small computer on my wrist,
| ready to use instantly. I looked for more things I could use it
| for. But after a while, I noticed that I almost always preferred
| to take my phone out of the pocket if I needed to interact with
| anything. So the watch mainly got used for notifications,
| changing songs, and logging run workouts. My current Garmin can
| do all that, and the battery lasts a long time so I never have to
| care about it, and it has buttons. A WearOS watch is slow and
| unusable with less than 1 GB of RAM, there's something very wrong
| with that.
|
| I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new
| generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make
| watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin
| uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less
| powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be
| interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will
| also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I
| can see why others would want that.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I've wanted a Garmin for running but they are so expensive. I
| just buy a cheap old version of the Apple Watch for $30 on eBay
| and it works great. The crappy battery life doesn't matter
| because the maximum length of my run is 1.5 hours.
| fifilura wrote:
| To be honest, that watch line-up with dozens of watches looks a
| bit like Nokia in 2007.
|
| I have no deeper analysis than that, other than that I remember
| how proud they were to be able to launch 2 phones per month.
|
| I am a Garmin user myself, but i have a basic $150 ForeRunner 45.
| I love it and use it every day, because it has all the features
| and no touch screen.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The title here on HN looks more like "negative $40B pivot" than
| the real "approximately $40B pivot", which was a fun whiplash. I
| was wondering was their original car GPS market really that
| profitable?!
| lenerdenator wrote:
| So, let's review:
|
| 1) build headquarters in (relatively) low COL city - in this
| case, Olathe KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City MO.
|
| 2) Have people who actually want to make a product instead of
| making analysts happy
|
| 3) Invest in R&D
|
| 4) Bring manufacturing in-house and tightly control processes
|
| It's like everything the people actually doing the work at tech
| companies have been saying for years.
|
| Can I have my $10mil/year pay package now?
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| They have some postings for jobs that I might actually enjoy
| working on also. Too bad they don't offer remote roles.
| petee wrote:
| We'll have to see over the next couple years how this pans out;
| early in 2024 they changed their Connect app to be significantly
| less usable, angering their core use base with many vowing to
| move to competitors. While some is handwaving, others are
| definitely not coming back due to how Garmin has handled it. The
| Connect app was a big part of their watches' popularity.
|
| For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store
| rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+
| reviews, so not an insignificant number
| nice_scott wrote:
| I recently got into using the connect app. What were some
| notable changes that made the app less usable and upset their
| core user base?
| petee wrote:
| Another user said they may have since improved the changes,
| so I'll have to check it out again. But originally the main
| interface was a list-style of recent or relevant stats shown,
| clicking would bring you to more in-depth stats. Most of the
| time all you needed was the main screen. They swapped that
| out for a grid of small widgets that showed less data, and
| you could only choose a few. Clicking would bring you to a
| stats screen but with less info than before, and often
| requiring clicking even deeper to find common items.
|
| So lack of customization, and lots of deep-navigation.
| Garmin's initial action was silence, eventually they said to
| get over it its not going back. Apparently it got poor
| feedback in Beta too, so this was just a change they decided
| chug through with despite a very large outcry on their
| forums.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I was expecting to see a mention of Garmin acquiring Dynastream
| Innovations, inventor of the ultra-low power (ULP) technology ANT
| Wireless protocol
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| I do a lot of deep wilderness hiking. I have two Garmin products
| - an InReach Mini 2 and a Fenix 6X watch. There are a couple of
| big benefits over the Apple/Android ecosystem. 1) Battery life.
| 21 days (more with the newer models). 2) No dependence on
| cellular/wifi data availability (though they have been doing
| their damnedest to require it for syncing you watch to your
| Connect app). I'd love to see them merge the functionality of the
| two devices (provide satellite messaging direct from the watch).
| I have zero desire for some of the other stuff they've added
| (music player, payments, etc.), they're just battery drains.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I had an InReach for years, mostly just for the satellite
| messaging. I tried this feature recently out on the trail with
| my iPhone and it worked great. So, I got rid of my InReach, and
| now my iPhone and AllTrails subscription is all I need. Battery
| life hasn't been an issue for me on the trail - I usually just
| turn off my iPhone when I'm not using it.
| spchampion2 wrote:
| I have a Garmin Descent Mk2i which I use for scuba diving, and
| it's a fabulous all-purpose fitness and adventure watch. I've
| used to for hundreds of dives, navigation on multiple backpacking
| trips, cycling, and tons of other stuff. I even wear it daily,
| and it nicely supports notifications from my phone.
|
| When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of
| surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of
| established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already
| had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin
| when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin
| showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar
| based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of
| marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the
| competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats.
| People love them.
| malfist wrote:
| Man, I wanted to get the garmin dive computer so bad. It's got
| so many awesome features, it's just priced out of my budget.
| Wound up going with the peregrine from shearwater, which was
| about half the price, but does way less than the garmin.
|
| Another place they shine is for bikes. Their radar system that
| integrates with a bike computer is absolutely groundbreaking.
| It's so fantastic to be able to know when a car is coming up
| behind you without having to turn your head and possibly lose
| balance, it's such a great safety feature.
| nradov wrote:
| I have one of those as well and it's generally a good device
| but it has a few weird software defects which make me wonder
| whether Garmin employees do any real diving? Like in the Multi-
| Gas activity profile it will automatically prompt you to switch
| gases based on calculated PO2, but the message covers the
| entire screen so you can't see your depth! And there's no way
| to disable those alerts.
| regus wrote:
| I have a soft spot in my heart for Garmin.
|
| I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS.
| I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my
| daily driver (lol?).
|
| I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing
| worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or
| driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone
| service for navigation on this trip.
|
| Although the question often comes up: why not just use your
| phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
|
| --------
|
| _Pros_ :
|
| - You don't need a cellular connection for map data. -- Counter
| Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is
| something extra that you need to remember to do.
|
| - You don't need to waste your cellular data -- Counter Point:
| Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
|
| - A corporation isn't tracking your every move -- Counter Point:
| Most people don't seem to care about this.
|
| - Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It
| requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google
| maps
|
| - Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get
| one that is as large as a tablet -- Counter Point: you could
| probably use a tablet and google maps
|
| - Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles
| and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when
| routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
|
| - A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as
| long as you can update the maps.
|
| - Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of
| these in the trunk of your car as a back up
|
| - Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without
| overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
|
| - I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to
| look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment
| screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard
| or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car
| where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
|
| _Neutral_
|
| - The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all
| GPSes including apple maps and google maps
|
| _Cons_
|
| - And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding
| businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer
| feature
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It
| requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as
| google maps
|
| They make versions that get the traffic data over FM radio, you
| don't need a phone with those. For example
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1240929.
| regus wrote:
| That's true, I was considering mentioning that but I wasn't
| sure if that feature is still enabled in the latest version.
| It is also not really dependable because you need to be in
| the right place in order to get the data, or at least that
| was my perception when using older GPS models.
| maples37 wrote:
| Fellow user of a physical Garmin car navigation GPS. The one I
| use is my dad's old Nuvi from about 2015.
|
| In addition to several of the pros you listed, I'd add a few
| more:
|
| - Stupid-simple interface. I was a Google Maps user for a
| while, and I was not a fan of various popups (from "Welcome to
| <state name>" to "Is this speed trap still here?"). I'm
| piloting a several-thousand-pound hunk of metal at highway
| speeds, do NOT interrupt me!
|
| - Unchanging interface. I'd get used to the way Google Maps
| behaved, and then an update would change something and break
| muscle memory. Whereas my 2015 Garmin isn't getting updated
| with unnecessary animations and pointless button re-arranging.
| When updating maps, the firmware update is a separate download.
| Since it's not Internet-connected, I don't care if I'm running
| "outdated" software. As long as it still gives directions,
| that's all I want.
|
| - It's not my phone. I don't want my text messages coming up
| across the top of the screen while I'm trying to read the next
| turn on my route. I don't want _anything_ on the screen that 's
| not directly related to navigation.
|
| It's a great example of KISS in a hardware product. It does GPS
| navigation. It is literally incapable of distracting you with
| anything else. I consider that a killer feature.
| regus wrote:
| I agree with the interface. It only does one thing and it
| does it really well: it tells you how to drive somewhere.
|
| I also never considered the fact that the UI won't change
| randomly to be a feature lol.
|
| In the latest model you can hook it up to the internet so
| when you get home it auto updates itself. You can also hook
| it up to your phone so text messages and Slack notifications
| pop up on the side of the screen. I would imagine these are
| features you would not want to use.
| world2vec wrote:
| Slightly offtopic but my girlfriend's smartwatch is falling apart
| and can't stand it anymore. Her birthday is coming soon and was
| thinking about a Garmin smartwatch. She runs a lot, gym almost
| everyday. Loves tracking fitness data and workouts but she's
| petite. Anyone with good recs on what to check?
| StrLght wrote:
| Forerunner-series sounds like a perfect fit, take a look at
| Forerunner 265
| tw04 wrote:
| Depends on what your budget is, if there's any additional
| features she wants, and how frequently she's OK charging it.
| Basically every Garmin watch will cover those initial use
| cases.
| asleepawake wrote:
| forerunner 265 - I've used it for running triathlons and
| marathons and have had no issues. Garmin has great automated
| training plans where you can upload various races you're
| preparing for and Garmin will schedule your runs so that you
| can meet your time goals. Also highly recommend the vibrating
| metronome feature to improve your cadence. This feature has
| dramatically reduced the number of injuries I get. I don't use
| it to track gym workouts (e.g. lifting). There is a feature for
| that but I haven't tried it. If you want to really nerd out on
| your running the HRM Pro Plus provides amazing running dynamics
| information which again is very helpful for improving running
| form and reducing injuries.
|
| For women you may want to look at the forerunner 265S which is
| identical to the forerunner 265 but is slightly smaller. The
| HRM-fit I believe gives the same data as the HRM Pro Plus but
| is designed to fit under a sports bra
| disqard wrote:
| I'm using a Garmin Forerunner 55 -- it has a 2-week battery
| life, and is great for regular running.
| JanisErdmanis wrote:
| Have also a look on Garmin 7s
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| If it's just running and gym she does, basically any watch will
| work capability-wise. Some specific lines have extra features
| geared towards other sports like diving, golf, etc. Other than
| that it will really come down to budget and aesthetic
| preferences. I would suggest just going on the website and
| having a look. The size of each model is also listed which is
| probably relevant if she is petite - some of them are pretty
| chunky. Forerunner and Vivoactive lines are both pretty
| suitable I would think.
| nradov wrote:
| Try something like a Forerunner 265S. When you see an "S"
| suffix on model numbers that indicates it's a "small" size
| variant specifically designed for petite wearers.
| Hoefner wrote:
| I would rather ask about her own wishes and thoughts (about
| watches), because it's can also be about some style or own
| preferences
| exabrial wrote:
| > But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an
| automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers.
|
| My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft
| and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable
| amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent
| certification.
|
| The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a
| pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
|
| Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen
| to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life
| on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all
| features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at
| night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer
| space.
| izzydata wrote:
| I think you are correct here. There seems to be a
| misunderstanding that Garmin's primary industry was automotive
| navigation devices due to that brief moment in time. Well
| before Garmin made automotive devices they were a Avionics and
| Marine equipment company. They didn't shift away from
| automotive GPS as much as they continued on their original path
| of R&D into all things GPS.
| froh wrote:
| The article further down has a diagram (and a reference to the
| source the Economist) which shows how automotive was 70% of
| their revenue in 2008 and how outdoor and fitness is ~50%
| today.
|
| they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they
| may develop there first. is that what you mean by core?
|
| because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning
| and now is outdoors and fitness.
| yurlungur wrote:
| I used to own one Garmin GPS and replaced it with my cellphone
| plus a mount. Updating the map was a major pain point.
|
| Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3
| is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin
| products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices.
| Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas
| Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I developed a proof of concept for a Garmin Watch (I forget which
| model, this was 6 years ago roughly), and it was interesting,
| they have their own programming language called MonkeyC, it
| wasn't complicated to get into, and I had a demo in under a week
| or two. I based my code off existing sample code, and made it do
| what was needed for demo purposes.
|
| Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch.
| I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch,
| I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into
| my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
| Ataraxic wrote:
| I'm really glad Garmin exists and makes smartwatches. The broad
| approach they have to market segments has created really great
| products that serve markets other large tech manufacturers
| haven't really touched. I'm sure the Apple watch is a good
| product but I'm uninterested in a general notification device
| (what I take to be the function of a smartwatch). I've used my
| farming for hiking, paragliding, tracking sleep, connecting to my
| bike trainer, etc. It tracks all my activities and is my
| dedicated device for anything athletic. The athletic features,
| good battery life, and sleep tracking have made it so that I
| actually wear a watch all the time. Spent $700 4 years ago and it
| was totally worth it. Perhaps the only caveat for Garmin is that
| I don't need to upgrade. It does everything I want it to without
| issue.
| jwhiles wrote:
| The title made me think this was about a 'negative 40B pivot',
| when it actually means an 'approximately 40B pivot'.
|
| Does hacker news not support Tildes or what?
| qznc wrote:
| A nice story similar to Nokia/Kodak/Netscape but with a happy
| ending.
| dcchambers wrote:
| Love my Forerunner. I have zero interest in general-purpose smart
| watches but for Marathon training a fitness watch that I only use
| for tracking runs and workouts is a godsend.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Kinda hate mine, now. My Forerunner 55 can't find a good GSP
| fix in less than one hour, even in wide open skies. And I've
| returned it so they sent me a new one, which has the exact same
| problem.
|
| The reason is that they want me to regularly connect the watch
| to their app/software (which requires an account) to update
| AGPS files. And there's no workaround.
|
| I'd just like to be able to use the watch I bought, without
| having it connect it to Garmin servers every now and then. Why
| isn't it possible?
| IronWolve wrote:
| Garmin Watch 30 days battery life
|
| Fitbit 5-7 days
|
| Apple 1 day
| eduction wrote:
| I felt personally trolled when he said Google Maps launched after
| the iPhone lol.
|
| If you're not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005
| a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was
| lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-
| new technology "AJAX").
|
| Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The original iPhone's maps app was Google Maps.
| carabiner wrote:
| Meanwhile the Garmin UX is godawful with watch faces that crash
| and a deep forest of menus that requires you to push through
| mountains of youtube videos to understand. There are 2-4 ways to
| perform any function. Entire menu screens might be useless, but
| you can't delete any. The day Apple improves the Apple Watch
| Ultra battery life is the day I switch from Fenix and never look
| back.
| bwanab wrote:
| One has to wonder about this kind of turnaround that happened
| simultaneously with Blackberry's corporate implosion which were
| mostly due to the same exogenous factors.
| its_down_again wrote:
| I love my garmin, it just feels like the perfect fit for me. I
| have zero interest in the Apple Watch, mainly because I don't
| want yet another device bombarding me with notifications. Plus,
| the Apple Watch just doesn't seem like something I'd be
| comfortable getting sweaty and slathered in sunscreen every day.
| The rubber and somewhat industrial design of the Garmin feels
| like it's just made for running, not for juggling texts or emails
| mid-workout.
|
| I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically
| carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I
| had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity
| about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I
| felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the
| app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by
| month.
|
| Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in
| my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway
| through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a
| while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the
| iPhone's GPS was unreliable--it added zigzags to my routes,
| inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was
| (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches,
| and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines
| to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most
| satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
|
| So I've had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple
| start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also
| appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using
| colored ranges--it's what I used to pace myself during races. For
| example, I'd aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and
| marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11
| for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That's when I
| hit an inflection point: I couldn't improve further without
| serious training plans.
|
| I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans
| slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn't run enough
| hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and
| took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace
| became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying
| to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit
| threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few
| miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic
| envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated--my half marathon slowed
| to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn't improve. I also psyched
| myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or
| over-fatigued on race days.
|
| Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my
| fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last
| year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my
| personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days
| I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for
| me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace
| of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The
| garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each
| stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap?
| Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments.
| Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of
| training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and
| analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just
| getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it--and
| ironically, I've just started improving again.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I just got my first Garmin Watch (Venu 3) in December for Xmas.
| So far I'm enjoying it. I'm happy to see the company knows how to
| survive because my last few smart watches didn't fare so well,
| not exactly from market changes, but from acquisitions.
|
| I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day
| Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1].
| There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web
| services and support the watch but I was not interested so I
| switched over to Fitbit.
|
| I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they
| were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed
| by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they
| already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a
| while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to
| good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started
| having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I
| got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Closing_of_Pebb...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Rebble
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit#Google's_acquisition
|
| The issues I was having with my Versa 3:
|
| Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize
| that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and
| manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command
| feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the
| watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth
| connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime
| last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did
| that and did the whole setup process again which included
| upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and
| it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep
| tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking
| became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing
| the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice
| commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| The ecosystem around these devices is amazing. The data is openly
| available in ideal formats for sharing.
|
| When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin
| ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline
| kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
|
| If only more of the software world would settle into this type of
| equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from
| so many other companies, it'd be a far better world for consumers
| and competition.
|
| Garmin's business model doesn't depend on hoarding data. Hope it
| stays that way!
| froginspector wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of their current sales are their inReach
| satellite phone. It seems like almost every hiker has one.
| ddghhhhdaf wrote:
| I'm using a Garmin for bike navigation on long trips (Edge
| Explore 2). It works but all the software feels old and brittle.
| Syncing will fail frequently.
|
| Are the watches different?
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