Best smart watch?

kathymhardy
kathymhardy Posts: 273 Member
in Health and Weight Loss

I’m looking for a new affordable smart watch. Previously had FitBits which barely last. My current one is Hawaii, which has been good, but the battery really plays up now and is destined for the bin.

Replies

  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,804 Member

    I have a Garmin Forerunner 55. It is about 3 years old, IIRC. It has all the features I need and some I don't.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,645 Member

    Anecdotally, it seems like Garmins are less likely to die young than Fitbits. I'm not saying that's the best brand, or even saying it's the right brand for you. It's what I have, only brand I've had. I had other Garmin devices before they made all-day fitness trackers (car GPS, sport-related GPS) and have had two of their fitness trackers since. First Garmin tracker I bought in 2018, and it didn't break. The battery isn't user-serviceable under the warranty, and it was getting lower-recharge-life after a few years, and I wanted some of the newer features, so I upgraded. Can't recall exactly when I bought the 2nd one, but it's still going strong.

    I think there is no objective "best" one. Consider what features you need and want, and compare.

    Honestly, any of the major respected brands should be fine. If you want to sync it to MFP, of course get a brand that allows that straightforwardly. It may also matter what brands your friends/family use, if you want to do challenges and such with them. If you're athletic, some brands/models have better support or 3rd party integration for other fitness products, or better features for particular sports. If you care how it looks, some brands have a wider range of aesthetics.

    I like my current Garmin, and liked my previous one, but mostly for reasons specific to the features I like and use.

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 10,554 Member

    I do have a Garmin as well and am happy. You can use it without giving your data to google, the battery runs for a long time and there's no premium that you need to get all the important data. But it's not a smart watch but a sports watch. Apple watches are smart watches but they need to get recharged every day or every two days.

  • MarjMJMM
    MarjMJMM Posts: 9 Member

    There's a guy on YouTube called DC Rainmaker who reviews sports gear and tech. If you narrow down the brand you like, you could check out what he has to say if he has reviewed them. https://www.youtube.com/%40Dcrainmaker

    I have a Garmin Forerunner 45s which was basic enough for me - run, steps, walking, cycling, cardio and yoga are covered by it. It also does other fancy stuff like you can add a running training programme from Garmin and it will load it, or you can check your calories, and you can use it to sync to MFP as others have said. I don't think they make this model anymore, but it was the most basic of the more technical Garmin without getting into Garmin Fenix country.

    I think I have had mine about 2 years and the battery life is ok. If I use the GPS tracking on it on a walk it does run out quick, but it charges with a USB pretty quickly.

    Hope this helps.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 9,598 Member
    edited June 2

    What do you want your watch to do for you?

    Base your decision on that.

    I like the Apple Watch ring system. I have a good idea of where I am each day looking at the rings.

    I like being able to leave my phone at home when I’m pocket-less, but still having an emergency locator, text, and phone capability since I’m often on a trail that is sometimes empty, but a conduit for people looking for places to sleep in or outside the central business district.

    My local PD can send me alerts, like the citywide search for a multiple shooting suspect last month in our small downtown.

    I like being able to set reminders, view my calendar, check the weather, all from my wrist.

    Supposedly I can use Apple Pay from my watch, but haven’t tried it

    I like the idea of a “fall alert”, although I’ve turned mine off because I often fall in yoga, and don’t want to look up and find the studio being stormed by concerned emergency personnel. But my neighbor? It saved her life. They arrived before her husband even knew there was a problem.

    I love love love that it’s water resistant and can count my swim laps reliably because I tend to daydream and lose count.

    I’ve got it set to lmk if i have a defibrillation event .

    I’ve never used the sleep related stuff because I’m OCD enough I could see myself waking up at night to check, so on the charger it goes. But you might find that data useful.


    Apple challenges were a blast, until the same OCD tendency took over. if you have better self control, they might be just the thing to get -and keep- you in motion

    I’m sure other devices have other special abilities. Compare ‘em.

    My daughter has an Oura ring and really likes it. She wants no part of an Apple Watch l.

    My Apple Watch is about two and a half years old. The battery capacity is dropping like a rock. I’m very active, and am on the verge of having to charge it three times a day now for it to log everything.

    I think this one you can take it to Apple to send off to replace the battery. I might do that next time we go out of town.

  • kathymhardy
    kathymhardy Posts: 273 Member

    Thank you everyone. All very helpful 👍🏻

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 15,173 Member
    edited June 3

    Fitbit inspire is disposable. Gives you the same info as vivoactive 5 with better sleep at about 1/3 the price on sale $69/79 for fathers day. Including HR, HRV and sleep with auto detection that beats Garmin at the bottom end. Esp. if you price adjust to Garmin and spring the 50% premium from Inspiron to charge 6 which is still half price from the bottom end of Garmin

    HRV etc are available for a few days even in non premium. Six months of premium included. Cancel via Google pay a few days before get another six months with your next Inspiron. Two sales based Inspirons a year are the same or less than the yearly premium subscription and you have a spare for when it breaks.

    2022 Inspiron and vivoactive released.

    How much is vivoactive ?

    Caution least expensive vivofit has lots of nice things but no HR or sleep AFAIK.

    Yes sleep requires occasional manual correction but it is surprisingly correct sometimes :) YMMV based on how typical you are.

    If you're ready to invest more then consider Garmin

    And u would not necessarily be looking at 3 yo technology, i.e would look for their new hr sensor etc.

    Which puts you in the 3x Fitbit charge or 5x Inspiron brackets

    If they Fitbits are good enough in terms of the metrics for you, then it is tempting to cheap out and get the basics you want for less

    That said.... I've managed to get more than a year out of many of my fitbits.... so yeah.

    They don't live long. But neither do my phones. And most hang in there more or less for two or three years anyway🤪

    By which time I would enjoy getting a new toy anyway

  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,711 Member

    Yeah, picked up a Garmin Fenix 7X and I'm pretty happy, rugged which is what I needed.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,645 Member
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48637688#Comment_48637688

    That's a great example of why personal preferences and needs matter.

    I can totally understand prioritizing the affordability dimension, and possible being willing to accept more "infant mortality" of a particular brand in light of lifetime cost - the user's lifetime, not the device's.

    I mentioned having a Garmin because of my personal needs, though I admit they are on average more expensive than some others. Garmins (among a few other brands) tend to be appreciated by people with certain athletic goals or for whom the ruggedness matters (sometimes needing rugged devices because of what they do athletically, or because of their job).

    For me, one of the biggest reasons to have a fitness tracker is to collect stats about my rowing performance, on-water and machine. Garmin does an excellent job of that. Fitbit, last time I checked . . . totally doesn't. Some other sports are also better supported by Garmin, and they integrate better with a wider range of 3rd party athletic apps in some cases, besides. Before fitness trackers really existed, that's why I bought separate HRM and GPS devices to track workouts, to assemble the data to review rowing/fitness performance.

    Individual needs and preferences matter.

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 15,173 Member
    edited June 3

    Tl:Dr Ann right: individual needs and preferences matter!!!🤣

    Ann there is no question re rowing cycling triathlon anything more than casual jogging in terms of which ecosystem is athletic (Garmin) vs "a bit more" activity oriented (Fitbit)

    The op was asking about going cheaper third party vs Fitbit.

    Acceptable bottom end of fitbit, imho, (basically inspire) is cheap enough on frequent sales to not warrant research into ***lower end*** trackers. amazefit (or Redmi or Xiaomi ??) you can get some cheaper but then cheeper is a $30 savings for a device that realistically should last more than a year

    Personally I still spring for the charge (6 currently). But lived with an inspire happily enough during an exchange... happy enough that I didn't even bother re connecting the charge 6 back for several months at which time I passed on the temporary inspire to a friend who still has it in daily use a year later.

    That was when I discovered that the six month premium thing worked again which surprised me though it *should* work this way. the ads say 6 months included not 6 months trial included, i.e. in my opinion, each purchase should get an extra 6 months added.

    Am I happy with how Google are handling past data and the removal of the web interface?

    Why do you think I've recently looked at Garmin?

    However to get the equivalent hr tracking responsiveness of charge 6 and efficient auto detection of walks and sleep (both important to me as I tend to forget to trigger either manually and do not have a regular enough sleep time) I would probably aim for a Garmin watch with the elevate 5 sensor of which there are very few.

    Essentially for myself the jump would be from charge 6 at $159.99-$179.99 on sale ($219.99 not) of our northern pesos to a venu 3 at $519.99 on sale and $579.99 to $599.99 when not.

    Since I do not seek a smartwatch (truly) and since the FB metrics cover the bases for myself (and yes I have a polar h10 and know that the FB averaging is hiding quite a few details that might matter if I was aiming for athletic improvement)… anyway. You see why still FB. (Public service announcement: Verity Sense optical can detect peaks and drops almost as fast as h10 but cannot provide continuous HRV and ECG data to current crop of apps).

    That said... OP coming from Huawei could look at spending on the new sensor smartwatches Huawei just launched. But at the sub $100 category I don't see a meaningful improvement by moving away from Fitbit.

    And the savings options are limited by the us $79.99 inspire price vs??? $45 I guess for Redmi.

    But If that's where you're playing then Garmin at $450 is not in the game.

    (Btw Redmi products that friends in other countries have tried have been exactly as advertised: very good value for the money.)

    Now. If you hate Google you should consider whether you would be using Google fit or connect to collect your data (ie Android). Cause if you are, then I don't see a meaningful difference than using Fitbit in terms of data. To the contrary Fitbit has a marginally stronger privacy "promise" from Google than the general android ecosystem

    And that would only leave no integration to MFP, or direct others i.e. Garmin and Apple (and not sure if polar, sunto, have any direct connection). And all float in at above the $100 mark

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