Which Smart watch ?

Well, I seldom use my Apple Watch for calls, since only spammers call these days. It’s handy for keeping up on texts but most the time I miss the alert.

I do like it because I can run (literally) out the door with empty hands and still feel safe I have a mode of contact about my person.

I’ve found the Apple ring system to be terrifically motivating, as has my husband. I enjoy seeing the fireworks display when I’ve closed all the rings. I vowed to myself when lockdown began that I would find a way to turn my move ring 3x (my mental challenge to myself to avoid putting on the weight I’d worked so hard to lose before lockdown).

I find the solo challenges…. challenging, as promised, and have enjoyed doing the team challenges with other folks from my MFP “friends” list.

I think it keeps a pretty accurate tally of steps unless I’m doing something out of the ordinary involving arm movement (crochet, operating a small butter churn crank, etc).

I’ve been very happy with the accuracy of recording exercises and calorie burns and transferring those to MFP.

I use the “hey Siri set a timer” and “hey Siri remind me to “ waaaaaaaaay more than any human ought to. Siri’s gonna end up rebelling and asking for a living wage at this rate. I can be up to my arms in flour but still ask Siri “how many grams brown sugar in a cup” and the answer is immediately on my wrist.

Mapping is much easier with the Watch than the phone because you can more easily see your wrist while driving, and it accurately vibrates before the next turn, versus the phone tricking me into turning too soon.

The weather feature is, frankly, puzzling. Very often it’s radically different from the weather forecast on the phone. But it’s convenient for a quick check to see if I can squeeze a walk in before it rains.

There’s a convenient stopwatch for the gym, alarm clock, Spotify controls, and the calendar is very well done, but only goes out exactly a week, which is a bit annoying. Wallet (credit card on wrist) has been spotty.

If I could get my drivers license on it and count on everyone accepting Apple Pay, I’d hardly ever carry my phone (my case has an integral wallet because I’m too lazy to deal with a purse) except for podcasts. I’m sure there’s a way to download them to the watch but I haven’t gotten around to figuring it out.

For a fitness smart watch I prefer anything Garmin. They've been in the GPS and fitness business for a very long time and their products are of high quality. I don't notice the lights at all when it's on my wrist. All of these things are going to have those lights.

If I wanted a true smartwatch for all of the smartwatch capabilities with some fitness aspects built in I'd likely opt for the Samsung Galaxy smartwatch...I'm not an apple guy...but for fitness with some smartwatch capabilities I go Garmin always.

First of all you should consider what's important for you: looks, tech inside, battery.

Apple doesn't last for 24hrs, thus you'll likely charge it over night. Still somewhat nice-looking but with some problems: Garmin Lily (doesn't do stairs I think) or Garmin Venu, I'm sure Fitbit also has options. A proper sports watch from Garmin or Fitbit?

Btw, how do you wear a watch that you can see the red light? All the sensors only work if the watch is in proper contact with your wrist. If it's sloshing around then it won't really record anything.

I have the Amazfit Bip S and the battery life is really awesome! Even when doing a lot of GPS tracking activities plus tracking heart rate all day, everyday(1 min intervals), I can get atleast 10 days out of it before charging! It's waterproof and gives quite a bit of detail for your outdoor runs. It has a PAI system that basically gives you a score on how active you've been for the week, the goal is to keep it above 100 for the week which should give you incentive on getting your workouts every week.

I’m one of the many who cannot wear a Garmin watch. The silicone strap gives me a bad skin reaction causing blisters under the strap. I’ve seen posts where people claim it’s the heart rate sensor light that caused it, but my rash is not near that. Unfortunately, the vivosmart isn’t capable of having its strap changed (a bit of an oversight) or I’d be happy. Also, I washed both the watch and my wrist every time I washed my hands after the bathroom, so it wasn’t sweat build up either. I’ve since given up on it and just keep my phone in my pocket to track steps instead.
Anyhoo, just a heads up in case you are one of the unlucky ones!

I have a Fitbit Inspire HR. I went through a few watches till I found that suited my needs - if you're not sure have you considered buying second hand and trying stuff out? I've had a basic fitbit, a garmin vivofit I think and also had a Fitbit Versa which just did 'too much' for what I needed and the battery life wasn't great.

My main exercises are pre programmed on the Inspire and it uses my phones GPS to track my walks, which is the thing I probably use the most after exercise. It's waterproof and I can use it for swimming. For a while, i synced fitbit with MFP, but once my weight got closer to the normal range it became a hinderance offering too many calories burnt for the exercise completed! I now ignore the estimated calorie burn and use MFP estimates for logging exercise. Would rather underestimate than over! It also shows me average and max hr, as well as length of workout.

Battery life is a couple of days, it charges quickly. It also notifies me if my phone is ringing or I have a message, but turned off other notifications. It's not a smart watch like an Apple, but it tracks my sleep which I find a great encouragement in getting me to try and sleep on time

Edit to say that it has reminders to move which I find useful when working- there are other prompts you can have too but I've switched those off.

There have been other watches that have come out since, but this one is still going and there's no need to change it really. I switched the wrist strap and it felt like new again

springlering62 wrote: »

My Apple Watch 7 came with a snifty silicon stretch band. It irritated my arm, too, so I’ve gone back a convenient and way more comfortable Velcro strap.

The silicone band is kind of a head scratcher to me. It got bigger with use, yet was hard to get on, pinched the hairs on my arm doing it, and then flopped loosely all around my wrist, which it made sweat. Have to wonder who thought they were a good idea.

Thinking there must be more to it than just material, like maybe thickness? Or was this Apple version a stretch band with enough stretch to pull over your hand?

My Garmin has a silicone strap, but it has a buckle. It's fine, I like it a lot. Because it has a tiny bit of stretch, it's easier to get on snugly, without being hard to unbuckle. I'm not allergic, and I have less trouble with it getting itchy than I had with leather-strap watches in past years. It's easy to clean, which is good when gardening and such. (For myself, I don't like velcro as a fastener in general on wearable things - gets too much stuff stuck in the hooks-y side, so high maintenance, for me; and I don't like metal segmented stretchy bands on watches at all.)

Obviously everyone prefers different things, so I'm not disputing your experience or preferences. I'm just saying that silicone strap A may not be the same as silicone strap B, as long as a person isn't allergic, maybe?

Garmin (and I think also Suunto) give all this information for free without the need of a premium membership. Garmin at least has a problem though: they don't put an altimeter into their simple devices, thus if you want to count stairs or track your mountain hike properly then that's not possible. If just the strap is the problem: there are lots of alternatives out there, also from nylon, metal, etc. I think the Vivoactive 4/4s has an altimeter though, and it's fairly small and flat. Considering it's a bit older already, I'm not sure how much Garmin is supporting it still though. Most other watches aimed at women (bleh!) don't have the altimeter. As if women don't want this stuff. Thanks Garmin.

I have a Garmin Fenix 6s pro solar. Only because I won it. It's the grey version and it looks cool. But the tech inside is super buggy, especially the GPS and how the watch handles pace when running (often, I'm 0:30min/km slower than I should be!). I would potentially be tempted with the new 7s, depending on how this one is doing in this respect, and first reviews sound carefully positive. But Garmin's marketing seem to think small watches = women = *kitten* colours. I literally have the choice between gold, cream gold, rose gold (btw, I hate gold!), some kind of purple and black. The black looks cool, but if you have very slim, very white wrists it will look like a huge block. And purple? What about a simple silver? Grey? Honestly, watch that might be worn by women: Garmin marketing be like "gold, need moar gold!"/rant

Agreed. The watch should be worn snugly, and not on the wide bone ends at the end of the lower arm, but a wee bit higher up. But many older devices had a huge protruding sensor, and if you have boney wrists then I could imagine this being a problem. Nowadays the sensors tend to be flatter.

Oh, and gold sucks!