I'm a runner, so obviously biased, but I implore everyone (to the point of annoyance) to check out some of the cheaper Garmin smart watches. They use MIP displays so the battery life runs about 2 weeks, you get phone notifications, the ability to find your phone, sleep scoring, step counting, heart rate monitoring. Then there's the obvious GPS run recording which you don't have to use. There's more stuff as well but I don't really use that like NFC card payments, music controls, but overall it hits a nice balance of features versus battery life.
For the sake of fair comparison, my wife had an Apple watch, which looked better and had way more features, but the 1 day battery life became such a frustration it sat in a dresser drawer. My last Garmin lasted 5 years with daily use and sports, and only died because I took it into the sea on vacation after the waterproof seal failed on the screen. I replaced it the day I got back with the successor model and couldn't be happier.
I'm not shilling for Garmin (or at least not being paid to), I love the Pebbles and I'm very much looking forward to the launch as I want a more fashionable smartwatch. Apple, Samsung et al have kinda tainted the smartphone market with feature vomit, when in fact there's a lot of good stuff out there, it's just not as hip.
The difference between such Garmin watches and Pebble Round 2 seems to be trading off hardware like built-in GPS and NFC for open source software and thinness. 100% worthwhile trade IMO.
Isn’t this thread about the pebble round 2 which is the closest from form factor to a garmin ? Moreover, GPS is lacking on any pebble anyhow which is also a major use case and again therefore, garmin’s and pebble’s can’t be compared, 2 different use cases for me.
Even the PT2 is significantly thinner than Garmins, roughly 2mm. That's about 15% thinner, which is a big deal in my book. Not as thin as AWs though, but not off by too much. Based on photos, it looks like the PR2 will be 2mm thinner than the PR2, which would make it thinner than AWs.
Seconding the Garmin watches, been using a Forerunner for years and the battery still lasts over a week with an always-on display. Does about as much as a Pebble and even has a documented SDK with sideloading. The refresh rate is very low but totally fine for a watch, I think newer models have much better displays. The only thing I wish were better is exporting all the tracked health data in a format I can use myself. Using the official tool for that I couldn't even get heart rate data.
> They use MIP displays so the battery life runs about 2 weeks
Double-check this because they have a lot of OLED models now alongside their MIP ones. Battery life is more or less the same either way with AOD off, but with AOD enabled the OLEDs fall behind the MIPs.
OLED is also a heck of a lot less readable in sunlight. They're constantly improving, but the brightness they need to pump out to actually compete is extreme and they're still nowhere near that.
I find the Garmin UI to be awful, and the Pebble UI to be a breeze. Also, Garmins are pretty bulky compared to Pebbles, and many of them don't have buttons that can be used to control music, for those of us who find touchscreen interfaces to be lacking.
If you don't want to use the touchscreen (I'm in the same boat, totally get it) you need to avoid their "lifestyle" ranges (Venu, Vivoactive, etc) and stick to the "outdoors"/"sport" ranges (Forerunner being the most entry-level of these), these have 5 side buttons (3 left/2 right) and the UI is designed around button-only use.
Man I wish the Garmin UI was better. I have a vivomove luxe that looks absolutely gorgeous (more hybrid smart watches PLEASE!) but the UI is so hard to navigate that I wear my ugly old Apple Watch much more.
Huh? Are you sure you aren’t thinking of another brand? Literally every garmin watch I can find on their site has buttons.
The size is also very much watch specific. They will all be thicker than a pebble, but they’ll also all have far more features. Like pulse ox, which is one of the main drivers of thickness.
Nope, some are touch screen only or with only 1-2 buttons. The Garmin's with 5 buttons (eg: Forerunner 55 at ~$170) are decent once you get used to the button-mechanisms, but pebble's UX for "productivity notifications" has always been top-tier.
I seriously cannot understand how to see old notifications on my Garmin. On the Pebble it was just "scroll up" (or down, I don't remember). But on the Garmin it's like multiple button pushes, and even then the list of notifications is not complete. I basically figure if I don't see a notification when it comes in I won't be able to find it in the Garmin's history.
Appreciate the help! That contains some notifications, but not all. For example, none of my text messages or emails are there. It's mostly a bunch of alerts from my security system/cameras, for some reason.
Garmin Lily 2 Classic (shazam!). Certain Venu and VivoActive seem like 1-button or 2-button.
And also by "touch screen only", I mean like: "can you set an alarm with the buttons like a CASIO from 1982?" ...if you have to use the touch-screen for swiping like a monkey in a one square inch area to set (or turn on) an alarm, then the watch "doesn't have buttons" IMHO.
Pebble had Up/Ok/Down on the right side, and "Android-Back" on the lower-left. So you just generally navigated tree-like menus, and you could set shortcuts to long-presses of up/ok/down (ie: start/request Uber, next train from nearest station, music controls).
I can't wait to have it again, as while Apple says "you don't need to be tied to your phone!" with their watches, Pebble actually delivered on it. You still needed your phone nearby or in bluetooth range, but you could comfortably "leave it" on the table, or in the bedroom or whatever and not worry about missing an important phone call, and still get "just enough" connectivity to drip out of the internet that you didn't need your phone unless you were transitioning into "using your phone for a task".
When I was looking a couple years ago, most Garmins had at least 2 buttons, but only those with 5 supported music control via buttons.
I think I have used the pulse oximeter maybe 1x/year, and that's counting during COVID shutdowns, when people talked about pulse ox more than in normal times.
I will keep my Garmin and will use it when exercising. But I would never buy another one as long as I can get Pebbles instead.
I had two pebble watches, and I used them daily for years. I rarely use my pixel watch 3, mainly because of charging. I only have one proprietary charger for the watch and sometime it is on my desk, sometimes near my bed, sometimes somewhere I can't find. I don't need my watch, but I do need my phone, so I charge the phone, and forget that my watch exists for a few months at a time. I think the biggest hurdle for me and watches is daily charging. I will not buy another smartwatch unless the battery is at least a week. Pebble round 2 having two week battery is great!
I've looked at Garmin, because I have the fitbit sense 2 and was looking for something with a reasonable battery life.
However, I think Garmin has made the flaw of overcomplicating their product offerings. I ended up pre-ordering a pebble because I implicitly don't like a company that tries to segment their market that hard on smart watches.
Every Garmin I've tried has been a complete mess, laggy, and deeply unstable in its connection and what notifications it supported (if any), whether it was cheap or expensive.
I'd love an alternative, but from the models I've tried I don't think Garmin is anywhere near what I liked about Pebbles. Closer than some brands, but not anywhere near what I'd consider "close". Bangle.js is closer, for all its (many) flaws.
I switched over to Coros devices and have been fairly impressed with the performance over the last 5 months. Excellent battery life on the APEX series.
> For the sake of fair comparison, my wife had an Apple watch, which looked better and had way more features, but the 1 day battery life became such a frustration it sat in a dresser drawer.
To each their own, but it sounds like your wife just couldn't get into the "happy path" routine of an Apple Watch user.
I've been using an Apple Watch since Series 5 introduced the always-on display. I wear it for roughly 23 hours a day, and charge it whenever I'm in the bathroom. I'm fine with this routine 99% of the time, but I'm also not someone who'd camp or stay outdoors for more than a night.
Before that, I was using a Amazfit Bip and was really proud of its 30+ day battery life. I very much prefer the features the Apple Watch has.
That happy path works okay for a while but provides very little margin for when the battery inevitably starts to degrade. I’m a few years in and now every few days it’s started to die at around 8pm (yet claims the battery health is still just barely outside replacement range which is … quite convenient for Apple).
as someone who only recharges their garmin watch maybe once a month(with dozens of hours of activity tracking), lol at daily recharging of a watch. that completely eliminates it as a possible product for me.
even after a few years with battery degradation I rarely recharge my watch more than once every 2-3 weeks.
it's kind of wild to me that folks would daily recharge a watch.
As a reluctant runner, I still don't see any value in a smartwatch. I just use my phone and it does everything I want, which is basically, play podcasts and record my run for Strava.
I did previously have a smartwatch which did heart rate monitoring, but really, once I'd confirmed that when I exercised harder my heart rate went up, I lost interest in it.
I dont see the point of smart watches either. I wear a casio / gshock with the backlight button that sticks right up on the front of the watch. i am on my second watch now cz my sister gifted it to me. the first is ticking away happy with 0 charging , battery changes to date.
0 reasons to change.
my sister otoh has an apple watch that she never charges, lies in a drawer which i hear about when she's trying to find her phone. conversation ends with "eh i should charge it maybe"
if i ever buy a smart watch, will likely be the pebble
I tried a Garmin for a while but the UI bugs/inconsistencies/onboarding process put me off a lot so I eventually got rid of it. Using an old Apple watch SE at the moment and apart from the minor inconvenience of charging it overnight (no need for sleep tracking) it does everything better.
not defending garmin, but they completely redid the onboarding process last year. watch data and everything transfers right over to new devices now. I took me like 10 minutes to setup my new fenix a few months ago.
The problem I have with Garmin is lack of support for older devices. They practically bricked my old bike computer. Unfortunately it's been awhile and I can't recall the details of the issue. I have since switched to Wahoo but have only had it for about 3-4 years now.
For the sake of fair comparison, my wife had an Apple watch, which looked better and had way more features, but the 1 day battery life became such a frustration it sat in a dresser drawer. My last Garmin lasted 5 years with daily use and sports, and only died because I took it into the sea on vacation after the waterproof seal failed on the screen. I replaced it the day I got back with the successor model and couldn't be happier.
I'm not shilling for Garmin (or at least not being paid to), I love the Pebbles and I'm very much looking forward to the launch as I want a more fashionable smartwatch. Apple, Samsung et al have kinda tainted the smartphone market with feature vomit, when in fact there's a lot of good stuff out there, it's just not as hip.