I have been using the Mi Band for years which I generally like, although it’s quite a simple device
I only use devices supported by gadgetbridge. This way I can track me without giving all the data to somebody else. Currently I use a Mi Band 7, but I’m thinking about getting a device with onboeard GPS.
Never heard of gadgetbridge. Excited to switch over
How is gadgetbridge working with the 7? The wikipage has a long list of unsupported features, which has held me back from trying it out, but I really want to give it a go!
Steps, sleep, stress, workouts work quite nice. PAI is supposed to have a tab within the next few releases of gadgetbrigde iirc. My approach is more like… I use gb to collect the data from the watch and then use grafana for a visualisation. which might be overkill.
Apple Watch.
I had a couple of Garmins before and the difference is night and day. The Apple Watch isn’t perfect, but it’s clear that a lot of thought went into it.
The Garmins on the other hand, were lowest of low effort.
They blatantly didn’t talk to even a single cyclists while building their cycling app.
Cyclists use average speed, not pace. Even the junkiest $3 cycle computer from Ali Baba gets this right, but not Garmin. They just copy-pasted the running screen.
This is a troll comment.
Let’s review: has “had a couple of Garmins”, but doesn’t know that both speed and lap speed are default data fields in the bike activity. And can be trivially changed to average speed or essentially a bazillion other types of data (HR, power etc) in a highly customisable way.
I said average speed. Learn to read.
Pretty sure my Garmin does pace for cycling. You bed to get a multisport watch from them first. The Forerunner watches are going to be focused on running obviously. Fenix line should do average speed
That’s not the Vivoactive cycling app.
They were Vivoactives. They had pace, not average speed.
Regardless of what the focus of the watch is, the cycling app should show cycling stats.
It’s incredibly low effort to get something so basic wrong.
Seems like your post was incredibly low effort, as the Vivoactive (all the way back to the blocky original) supported speed fields.
https://averagejoecyclist.com/how-to-use-garmin-vivoactive-3-record-bike-ride/
Oh, that’s interesting. I was under the impression that Garmin was best for the actual fitness stuff, but this is good to know
Nah you’re right and this person has obviously never used a Garmin.
The Apple Watch is a great smartwatch though and solid for sports. My wife has one and loves it. I’m on the Garmin side, so we’re always comparing.
Nah you’re right and this person has obviously never used a Garmin.
You mean that you didn’t bother to read my comment properly before personally attacking me. Let me guess, you’re from Reddit.
Garmins are smart fitness watches, not smart watches.
I have a forerunner 255 and it’s amazing for hiking and running which is what I do most times. I can also take calls and see notifications which is all I need and the battery life is amazing.
I only cycle, so I couldn’t comment on the other apps.
Garmin ftw
This author has done a few of these tests and Garmin seems to be most accurate. I’m mostly not a fan of the intense styling though
Well there’s lots of different sizes and a few styles. But all good. Different strokes …
Check out the Vivoactive and Venu lines. Those are nice and don’t look like the $40 Timex Ironmans.
I’m currently using a Mi Band 6 (with a nylon strap that’s real comfy), but I wish the Pebble still existed. The e-paper display, the nice UI and tactile buttons, with good battery life and the ability to make apps was great.
Once my Mi Band breaks, I’m torn between Garmin (since they check almost all of the Pebble boxes, even if I don’t do fitness and they’re more fitness oriented) and a Galaxy Watch with the rotating bezel, since that was really cool to play with, plus the Android integration might be nicer.
I have no idea why no other company has been able to recapture the magic of pebble. It was by far the best smartwatch I’ve ever owned.
There is watchy, pretty sure it is from the same guy who made the pebble.
It’s no Pebble, but I chose the BangleJS 2 for its openness and the ability to load and even make apps myself.
Where’s the “none of the above” choice? Aside from keeping the time, all I want from a smartwatch is the ability to see its screen both in the dark and under direct sunlight, a week-long battery life, 5ATM water resistance rating, receiving notifications from my phone (with the ability to dismiss them), ability to have customizable watch faces, and finally the ability to accept standard size watch bands. The last watch I’ve owned that could do almost all of that (aside from standard bands or ) was Pebble Steel. I still miss it to this day.
Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.
I’ve had this for 4.5 years and it is amazing. Does everything you want.
Double plus for the Garmin. I’m wearing an Instinct 2 right now. 21 day battery life! It replaced my Vivoactive 4S (6 day battery life) and was cheaper than the Venu 2 (11 day battery life).
I’ve killed at least two smartwatches by forgetting I’m wearing them when I go in the ocean. The Vivoactive 4S was completely unaffected by the salt water, and I’ll test the Instinct 2 this week.
My mom is all about her Apple watch, and has touted the features to me. “I can [insert feature] with this!” Have you used it for that? “No.”
I’ve had three Pebbles, a couple Fitbits, a couple Garmins, a couple Android watches, two Amazfits… I just want something that sends me notifications and has good battery life. If I have to charge the watch every night, I’ll forget I’m wearing it.
That being said, the Instinct 2 is actually worse at tracking my workouts than the Vivoactive 4 was. I do martial arts, so the GPS is actually a hindrance there, and I haven’t found a way to make it move “generic cardio” to the top of the workout list.
I miss Pebble so much.
Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.
That’s the thing. I have an apple watch, and apps on it are complete garbage. They’re not useful, they UI is impossible, browsing for apps to launch them is tedious and painful. Like, I don’t want to order Taco Bell on my watch. I don’t want to play a game. I need notifications, time/date/weather, and easy playback controls for whatever is currently playing on my phone and that’s it.
I also generally don’t trust fitness trackers. If you have a watch that can use GPS to track a run or a ride, then that’s fine. But pedometers are a joke, and counting calories burned is most assuredly bullshit since the human body isn’t a closed system and everyone’s metabolism is different
Not sure about the water-proof-ness, but actually a pinetime might tick most of those boxes. I’m happy with mine.
Where’s the “none of the above” choice?
I agree with that preference
I have a Withings ScanWatch. Almost all of that (except for custom watchfaces, because it uses a physical watchface).
It also does the heart tracking and ECG stuff, but that matters to me because I have a heart condition that it can help track.
TL;DR The author determined the most accurate are the Garmin Epix Pro and the Fitbit Inspire 3
I have a PineTime which I think is pretty good for what it is. In fact, I am very happy with it and recommend wholeheartedly the device.
Still, my favourite is even more basic. I have a standalone pedometer. This one, which has a website tha belies the product’s quality. I find it very accurate. It does some basic calorie calculations for you, and distance. And the battery lasts…ages.
Man, I loved my Fitbit One, but damn was it so fickle. So easy to lose and not waterproof, and spotty bluetooth. It was just a basic pedometer with calorie calculations.
FWIW I have an Inspire 3 and it’s reasonable. It has a chime to find it, Bluetooth seems solid enough, and it’s definitely waterproof as I run it under the sink to wash it every day. Cheap, too, so I don’t really care if it breaks. Small, so not a big, clunky fashion statement or something.
I just wish it tacked my heart rate a little better while I’m working out. Mine loses track what seems like immediately once I start sweating a little. It can recover with a little jostle or sometimes moving the band up a notch if possible, but man it’s annoying.
Hmm true. It does sometimes stop tracking, which is extremely annoying.
Another annoyance (that’s probably not unique to it) is that I’m doing calorie counting, and I’ve found I have to halve the calories it reports to get an accurate number.
I still love my Pebble smartwatches, and of them I prefer the Pebble Time Steel. It still lasts like at least a week on a single charge.
Still use my Pebble 2 SE and my Pebble Time. Still bummed they never came out with the Time 2.
Bangle.js 2
My preferred one is Withings one’s. They’re hybrid watches which means they largely have a regular watch face with a little screen and a heart rate sensor/gyroscope. Best of both worlds in my opinion.
They seemed to have stopped selling them, at least where I am.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2S. Works really well for me, it has all the smart watch functions I need and great battery life. It’s also quite rugged. The stats are a good motivation to get me out cycling more often.
I got the same watch last month, the non-s version though. I have always struggled to keep a watch on my wrist. With a phone I no longer needed to keep the time on my wrist. I did get a smart watch a few years ago but just couldn’t get on with it. It ended up in the draw to never be used again.
Last month I started looking again and settled on the Instinct 2. Initially I wanted a colour screen but in reality I am actually very happy with the monochrome display. It’s always on and has a long battery life. I’m actually really impressed with how good it is at tracking your health etc. I tracks all activities I do. It’s quite granular too in that I can choose from road, mountain bike, gravel bike etc. It also records kayaking and standup paddle boarding.
At £200 it was one of the more reasonably priced smart watches. Certainly compared to the Fenix which is another £400 extra.
For me it’s the Apple Watch because I can write apps for it
I have a Garmin Vivosmart 4; does all the things I need it to do, and isn’t big or distracting. All I wanted was a step tracker and the ability to set multiple alarms.
Garmin Forerunner 55.
It’s the most basic one in the running series, but it works well enough for what I need it to do.
It’s the first real “closed ecosystem” device I own, as usually I go the open source route for everything, but Garmin has a good track record and the device has helped me train for a half marathon really well. I put a “casio”-style watch face on it, and I enjoy it a lot.
@cinaed666 @twotone I also have the Forerunner 55.
Something to note is that Garmin watches are Linux-friendly and can be used without signing up to their cloud services. You can access the watch as a USB storage device and manually grab the .FIT files on it, which you can then import into tools of your choice (or convert to .GPX for wider compatibility).
Very good to know, thanks!
I’m very aware of this thanks, however for training to run I went for convenience.
I like comparing with my friends in the app and using the training plans etc.
The fit to gpx converter is a good way to extract hiking data though!
Been wearing a pinetime pretty much constantly since the start of the year, it only tracks walking though afaik but luckily that’s my main source of exercise (and way of getting around the city)!
It does track heartbeat too but I don’t use that either. What I really like is that the software has gotten so much better since I bought it and upgrading it is really easy
I’ve been rocking mine for close to two years now, and it just keeps getting better.