This is a serious competitor to the Apple Watch for serious athletes / workout fans whether they are amateur or pro. Frankly, most of the really serious athletes / runners I know automatically look to Garmin and not much else. [...]
I think Apple should bring in some serious amateur athletes and have them make recommendations on how the Apple Watch could best meet their needs - rather than rely on media reviews, desk-bound geeks, medical personnel, very casual exercisers, and Nike as the only input.
I disagree that this is a serious competitor to the AW. This seems clearly a specialist device, while the AW is a generalist device. By nature then they serve different use cases and perform different jobs to be done. As a non-runner I would get very little value out of a device like this but derive much value from AW.
Also, to your latter suggestion I'm quite certain Apple already is doing this. They do not rely on web reviews to improve product.
I"m not sure if apple takes people who do some workout and like some data gathering (in my case running & MTB) serious. Their marketing machine works better these days than the products they make. When the first AW came out, I was ready to buy one. Beautiful design, well thought out UI ... But until today, they did not meet my expectations in the sports field ... Flawed HR-monitor and GPS - no good tools to evaluate your workouts ... In the end I was left with the ugly Fenix 5X and ugly UI. But GPS and HR are spot, I've got a lot of tools to evaluate my condition and routing is exceptional. A big bummer is that there is no music-player on board. So still needing my iPhone to carry with me. ;-( I hope in the end Apple comes out with the ultimate Sports Watch and I'll be the first to switch. But it won't be in the next five years I believe. First they have to stop working with Nike (How they fucked up the Nike+ app is beyond disbelieve)
The first AW was a stinker for even a casually serious (is there such a thing?) runner such as me. Beautiful watch - too many compromises for someone focussed on running. Like a previous poster said, a great generalist watch. Went back to my Garmin 220. TBH my preference was to run with my iPhone and iSmoothRun over the apple watch.
This is a serious competitor to the Apple Watch for serious athletes / workout fans whether they are amateur or pro. Frankly, most of the really serious athletes / runners I know automatically look to Garmin and not much else. [...]
I think Apple should bring in some serious amateur athletes and have them make recommendations on how the Apple Watch could best meet their needs - rather than rely on media reviews, desk-bound geeks, medical personnel, very casual exercisers, and Nike as the only input.
I disagree that this is a serious competitor to the AW. This seems clearly a specialist device, while the AW is a generalist device. By nature then they serve different use cases and perform different jobs to be done. As a non-runner I would get very little value out of a device like this but derive much value from AW.
Also, to your latter suggestion I'm quite certain Apple already is doing this. They do not rely on web reviews to improve product.
But, in reality, Apple has learned that it will not succeed that way and is strongly pushing it into the exercise/activity tracker market. Specifically: originally they marketed as a medic al device. That didn't work. Then they tried pushing it as a spiffy tech gadget and fashion trinket. That didn't work either.
Care to cite these claims? Where did they originally market it as a medical device, and where did that fail? Same as a "trinket"? I have seen no published releases from Apple declaring what their strategy is, nor have I seen any campaigns marketing it as a medical device first and then trinket. I have only seen several ads showing it doing several things, which seems about right as a generalist device.
This is a serious competitor to the Apple Watch for serious athletes / workout fans whether they are amateur or pro. Frankly, most of the really serious athletes / runners I know automatically look to Garmin and not much else. [...]
I think Apple should bring in some serious amateur athletes and have them make recommendations on how the Apple Watch could best meet their needs - rather than rely on media reviews, desk-bound geeks, medical personnel, very casual exercisers, and Nike as the only input.
I disagree that this is a serious competitor to the AW. This seems clearly a specialist device, while the AW is a generalist device. By nature then they serve different use cases and perform different jobs to be done. As a non-runner I would get very little value out of a device like this but derive much value from AW.
Also, to your latter suggestion I'm quite certain Apple already is doing this. They do not rely on web reviews to improve product.
I"m not sure if apple takes people who do some workout and like some data gathering (in my case running & MTB) serious. Their marketing machine works better these days than the products they make. When the first AW came out, I was ready to buy one. Beautiful design, well thought out UI ... But until today, they did not meet my expectations in the sports field ... Flawed HR-monitor and GPS - no good tools to evaluate your workouts ... In the end I was left with the ugly Fenix 5X and ugly UI. But GPS and HR are spot, I've got a lot of tools to evaluate my condition and routing is exceptional. A big bummer is that there is no music-player on board. So still needing my iPhone to carry with me. ;-( I hope in the end Apple comes out with the ultimate Sports Watch and I'll be the first to switch. But it won't be in the next five years I believe. First they have to stop working with Nike (How they fucked up the Nike+ app is beyond disbelieve)
The first AW was a stinker for even a casually serious (is there such a thing?) runner such as me. Beautiful watch - too many compromises for someone focussed on running. Like a previous poster said, a great generalist watch. Went back to my Garmin 220. TBH my preference was to run with my iPhone and iSmoothRun over the apple watch.
How so? Unless I'm doing a track workout, I won't run without a phone on me because its simply not safe. So, with an accompanying IPhone, there is nothing that the Original Series can't do that a Series2 or a Garmin can (except swim)...
If I believed the media reports I wouldn't know that though...
I’ve used a Fenix 3 for over a year and found it excels for hiking/trail running, road and treadmill running, cycling indoors and outside, and swimming. The bigger battery means you’ll be able to run the GPS as long as eight or nine hours, sometimes longer. With the pedal sensors and hub sensor, you get your bike cadence and distance data either indoors on a trainer or outdoors. With the advanced chest strap, foot pod sensor and temperature sensor, you can get some very detailed run data, either outdoors or on a treadmill. It distinguishes between swimming strokes like freestyle, backstroke and breast stroke very well, and provides lap counts with interval times. It will occasionally miss a lap count on longer swims, but you can detect that because it provides all lap times. It syncs with either Bluetooth, Wifi or USB. I find Wifi now works very well after a Garmin software update.
The Garmin Connect cloud database is excellent, but there are some glitches. Lets say you have the watch set for a swim in a 25m pool and fail to change it to a 50m pool size. You can’t correct that in the database later. You have to make the switch in the watch before your swim.
Fenix 3 also functions as a smartwatch with notifications when paired with your IPhone, but doesn’t really excel at this due to the screen quality. The Bluetooth range is limited and the watch beeps when it loses the connection. This can get irritating when you put your phone down in the house or go to sleep. I’ve had the phone just far enough away when sleeping that rolling to one side will produce a beep to show disconnection and the roll back to the other side produces another beep to show connection. The watch also needs to be repaired fairly often with the IPhone. Every time you open your IPhone, the watch will resend notifications for recent emails that you have not opened. This can get annoying and seems unnecessary.
The biggest drawback to its smartwatch capability is that the Garmin watch will not send data to the Apple Motion and Fitness App. At least, I’ve never been able to get them to connect. And my Withings weight scale and blood pressure monitor will share data with the IPhone but won’t share data with Garmin Connect. It would be nice to have all your health and fitness data in one location, but the various companies competing in this space don’t want to co-operate on the software to easily achieve this. Right now, I’ve got thousands of data points in my Garmin data base that keeps me fairly committed to Garmin products. Exporting that data into another company’s data format is possible but I expect it be a time consuming project to get it all sorted out.
As mentioned by others, the Fenix 3 is a big watch and can snag easily on shirt and jacket cuffs, backpack straps, etc. But if you want the big battery for long GPS life that’s part of the price to pay. As a fashion accessory and companion to the IPhone, the Apple watch excels and Garmin falls well short of its capabilities. But the Apple watch (based on what I’ve read since I don’t own one) can’t match the Garmin in what the latter excels at – tracking hiking, running, swimming, biking, etc. in one database.
This is a serious competitor to the Apple Watch for serious athletes / workout fans whether they are amateur or pro. Frankly, most of the really serious athletes / runners I know automatically look to Garmin and not much else. [...]
I think Apple should bring in some serious amateur athletes and have them make recommendations on how the Apple Watch could best meet their needs - rather than rely on media reviews, desk-bound geeks, medical personnel, very casual exercisers, and Nike as the only input.
I disagree that this is a serious competitor to the AW. This seems clearly a specialist device, while the AW is a generalist device. By nature then they serve different use cases and perform different jobs to be done. As a non-runner I would get very little value out of a device like this but derive much value from AW.
Also, to your latter suggestion I'm quite certain Apple already is doing this. They do not rely on web reviews to improve product.
I"m not sure if apple takes people who do some workout and like some data gathering (in my case running & MTB) serious. Their marketing machine works better these days than the products they make. When the first AW came out, I was ready to buy one. Beautiful design, well thought out UI ... But until today, they did not meet my expectations in the sports field ... Flawed HR-monitor and GPS - no good tools to evaluate your workouts ... In the end I was left with the ugly Fenix 5X and ugly UI. But GPS and HR are spot, I've got a lot of tools to evaluate my condition and routing is exceptional. A big bummer is that there is no music-player on board. So still needing my iPhone to carry with me. ;-( I hope in the end Apple comes out with the ultimate Sports Watch and I'll be the first to switch. But it won't be in the next five years I believe. First they have to stop working with Nike (How they fucked up the Nike+ app is beyond disbelieve)
The first AW was a stinker for even a casually serious (is there such a thing?) runner such as me. Beautiful watch - too many compromises for someone focussed on running. Like a previous poster said, a great generalist watch. Went back to my Garmin 220. TBH my preference was to run with my iPhone and iSmoothRun over the apple watch.
How so? Unless I'm doing a track workout, I won't run without a phone on me because its simply not safe. So, with an accompanying IPhone, there is nothing that the Original Series can't do that a Series2 or a Garmin can (except swim)...
If I believed the media reports I wouldn't know that though...
The information I wanted from the watch simply was not there from the 1st party apps and the 3rd party ones were simply not up to snuff. With my garmin my GPS was ready within seconds to run, the screen was always on and it never had to communicate with another device for basic running information. It just didn't work for me and I'm not the only one who feels that way. There are ZERO people I run with who use aw as a primary running device. I still run with my iPhone and if I don't have my garmin I'll run with ismoothrun.
The new new one I am sure is much better but I was bitten once.... it will be a while before I go back.
This is a serious competitor to the Apple Watch for serious athletes / workout fans whether they are amateur or pro. Frankly, most of the really serious athletes / runners I know automatically look to Garmin and not much else. [...]
I think Apple should bring in some serious amateur athletes and have them make recommendations on how the Apple Watch could best meet their needs - rather than rely on media reviews, desk-bound geeks, medical personnel, very casual exercisers, and Nike as the only input.
I disagree that this is a serious competitor to the AW. This seems clearly a specialist device, while the AW is a generalist device. By nature then they serve different use cases and perform different jobs to be done. As a non-runner I would get very little value out of a device like this but derive much value from AW.
Also, to your latter suggestion I'm quite certain Apple already is doing this. They do not rely on web reviews to improve product.
I"m not sure if apple takes people who do some workout and like some data gathering (in my case running & MTB) serious. Their marketing machine works better these days than the products they make. When the first AW came out, I was ready to buy one. Beautiful design, well thought out UI ... But until today, they did not meet my expectations in the sports field ... Flawed HR-monitor and GPS - no good tools to evaluate your workouts ...
Sorry but that's nonsense. Apple produces the finest smartphone, tablet, smartwatch, laptop, desktop, and wireless headphones I've every used. All routinely copied by their competitors. I can't imagine using anybody else's. These products have nothing to do w/ marketing and everything to do with excellent build and functionality. And, as they always have since the 1980s, they get better with every iteration.
Also, the AW's HR monitoring has been identified as the best in class on multiple occasions. Note that "in class" means for a cheap wrist device -- a chest strap will perform better, which is why the AW can pair to one as well. For a non-professional, recreational athlete, the wrist-worn HR monitoring on the AW is fine. It's not going to hold back your workouts or performance. If you need a strength-training compatible device, or more serious running device, they exist -- as specialist devices. That's a different job-to-be-done than a generalist device like the AW.
My friend, I' never used a PC or an other branded smartphone. I'm working with Apple computers my entire professional life (28 years to be exactly). Had 3 iPods and now using my 4th iPhone and 3d iPad. As a fanboy, i think I'm entitled to be critical towards the Apple Watch or Apple in general. I think the AW is a great device, but not for sports. Like mentioned before take a look at dcrainmaker.com.
I would like to see Garmin incorporate music playback. Then, I could truly run with only the watch. This is what's pushing me toward the AW2; but then, I hesitate there because reviews seem to indicate compromised GPS to stretch battery life, and using the Apple health app to integrate calorie consumption and exercise data is not appealing - it seems very clunky to me when I try to use it with other devices.
Had the same problem and in the end went for the Fenix. UI is not Apple neither the looks. But hey it works better than expected and have no regrets.
Im confused. You would like to see Garmin incorporate music so that you could leave the phone home, but was beeing pushed towards AW2 so that you could leave the phone home. How does that work for you with the AW2?
Maybe you better read the post better. Using the Fenix now with iPhone 6 plus and BeatsX. It sucks, but it is the best solution for now.
Completely different markets it's like comparing apples to oranges...literally. The review was reasonable but doesn't appear to come from a serious athlete. The Fenix range is aimed at those who do multi-sports like triathlons or ultra-running as it can combine and track multiple activities over many hours. Some ultra-events last longer than the Apple watch has battery life so it isn't even in the running as a competitor in this market. My Fenix 5X goes for almost 2 weeks when used as a watch with notifications etc. I can go 50hrs recording a fitness activity including metrics such has Heart Rate, GPS track recording, speed, pace, distance, elevation (including gain/ lost), R-R calculations, anaerobic/ aerobic training effect, VO2MAX, cadence, ground contact time and vertical oscillation amongst many others. It has on device GPS and extensive maps including Topo - as well as the ability to load third party maps like openmaps etc. Serious athletes don't use the on-device optical HR during an activity, they continue to use bluetooth/ ANT+ chest straps and optical HR is used for continual monitoring of daily HR. It's the best way to get a true reading of energy expenditure. It's in a completely different league as a fitness device.
I agree... Except for two points: 1) The Fenix 5 is not just for triathletes and ultras -- it would work well for most serious runners regardless of distance. 2) I know a number of serious runners and very few of them continue to use a chest strap. They are all migrating to wrist based monitors.
1) I never said the Fenix line was aimed just at ultra-runners/ triathletes/ trail runners.....just that it was designed with those features in mind. If all you do is track running, the Fenix is overkill, but will happily record your workout without breaking a sweat.
2) I'm not sure if any serious athletes would be moving to optical/ wrist based monitors for recording activities. The simple reason is optical monitors do not allow you to monitor heart rate variance (R-R variances) which are important for some advanced running metrics. I'm not even a serious athlete and I geek out on the extra stats the chest based recording gives over optical.
Comments
If I believed the media reports I wouldn't know that though...
I’ve used a Fenix 3 for over a year and found it excels for hiking/trail running, road and treadmill running, cycling indoors and outside, and swimming. The bigger battery means you’ll be able to run the GPS as long as eight or nine hours, sometimes longer. With the pedal sensors and hub sensor, you get your bike cadence and distance data either indoors on a trainer or outdoors. With the advanced chest strap, foot pod sensor and temperature sensor, you can get some very detailed run data, either outdoors or on a treadmill. It distinguishes between swimming strokes like freestyle, backstroke and breast stroke very well, and provides lap counts with interval times. It will occasionally miss a lap count on longer swims, but you can detect that because it provides all lap times. It syncs with either Bluetooth, Wifi or USB. I find Wifi now works very well after a Garmin software update.
The Garmin Connect cloud database is excellent, but there are some glitches. Lets say you have the watch set for a swim in a 25m pool and fail to change it to a 50m pool size. You can’t correct that in the database later. You have to make the switch in the watch before your swim.
Fenix 3 also functions as a smartwatch with notifications when paired with your IPhone, but doesn’t really excel at this due to the screen quality. The Bluetooth range is limited and the watch beeps when it loses the connection. This can get irritating when you put your phone down in the house or go to sleep. I’ve had the phone just far enough away when sleeping that rolling to one side will produce a beep to show disconnection and the roll back to the other side produces another beep to show connection. The watch also needs to be repaired fairly often with the IPhone. Every time you open your IPhone, the watch will resend notifications for recent emails that you have not opened. This can get annoying and seems unnecessary.
The biggest drawback to its smartwatch capability is that the Garmin watch will not send data to the Apple Motion and Fitness App. At least, I’ve never been able to get them to connect. And my Withings weight scale and blood pressure monitor will share data with the IPhone but won’t share data with Garmin Connect. It would be nice to have all your health and fitness data in one location, but the various companies competing in this space don’t want to co-operate on the software to easily achieve this. Right now, I’ve got thousands of data points in my Garmin data base that keeps me fairly committed to Garmin products. Exporting that data into another company’s data format is possible but I expect it be a time consuming project to get it all sorted out.
As mentioned by others, the Fenix 3 is a big watch and can snag easily on shirt and jacket cuffs, backpack straps, etc. But if you want the big battery for long GPS life that’s part of the price to pay. As a fashion accessory and companion to the IPhone, the Apple watch excels and Garmin falls well short of its capabilities. But the Apple watch (based on what I’ve read since I don’t own one) can’t match the Garmin in what the latter excels at – tracking hiking, running, swimming, biking, etc. in one database.
The new new one I am sure is much better but I was bitten once.... it will be a while before I go back.
"Garmin's Fenix 5 smartwatch aims at athletes"
A sportswatch aims at athletes, no kidding!"not Apple Watch fans"
So Apple Watch fans are not athletes...They're not a lot of things (like showing discernment) but that one might be slightly overlooked.
2) I'm not sure if any serious athletes would be moving to optical/ wrist based monitors for recording activities. The simple reason is optical monitors do not allow you to monitor heart rate variance (R-R variances) which are important for some advanced running metrics. I'm not even a serious athlete and I geek out on the extra stats the chest based recording gives over optical.
For those interested in a serious review, have a look at DC Rainmaker's review: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/03/garmin-fenix5-5s-5x-review.html