After about 6 months of owning a Nike edition Apple Watch I've sold it and put the money towards a Forerunner 935, the latest multi sport from Garmin. I thought I'd share a few thoughts on why I sold, my experience with the Apple Watch and the first few days with the Garmin. I intend this to be balanced and respectful; I won't be saying the AW is terrible and everyone should buy a Garmin or anything like that, just in case that's what you are expecting.
I originally bought the AW Nike as running is my thing and the addition of GPS to the series 2 watches was a big draw for me. At that stage I owned a Garmin Forerunner 920XT; functional but ugly as sin. Having a watch that did music and GPS was precisely what I wanted.
The first bump in the road was the Nike app. Nike have your data and don't want you to share it with any other service. As a long time Strava user this wasn't what I wanted. Updates came but none that improved that situation. Hacks were available to get round this but you know they'll break at some point. Other platforms were going to bring out Watch apps that supported GPS so with patience this should improve.
The bigger problem for me, the real deal breaker, is the touchscreen and specifically how badly it responds to moisture, be that sweat or rain, both pretty day-to-day circumstances for an all-season runner. I lost at least one GPS trail because the watch recorded a phantom screen press and stopped the workout. It's kind of like Apple didn't test the watch for real world running at all because I very quickly found this flaw.
It hasn't been all bad by any means. I've looked to fill my activity rings every day which can only be good. Apple Pay on the watch is really good. Walking round the supermarket and ticking off items on the AW is nice too. Getting texts and notifications is also good. I've used it for sleep tracking too. I've either been lucky or the watch has been quite rugged; I was able to sell it and describe it as being in as new condition despite having used it for 6 months. And as with most Apple products, the resale value is healthy too; I got about two-thirds of my money back.
So onto the new Forerunner 935. It's a plain black watch with a circular face and has 5 buttons around the outside. It's quite chunky but not excessively so and it looks fine. The display uses a different technology to the AW, so you've got an always-on display, but not close to being as bright and vibrant as the AW screen. I've gone for a simple analog watch face with the date, step count and battery percent within the face. The big plus with this type of display is battery life. I charged 3 days ago, have done 2 long bike rides with GPS, 1 long indoor bike ride using the heart rate sensor and am at 67% battery remaining. You get a lot of detailed data related to your running through the Garmin app, particularly if you opt for their chest strap with accelerometer (I use this as I already owned it from my old Garmin) or the new pod that attaches to your waist band which is really cool along with the optical HR sensor. The forerunner does all of the basic activity tracking that AW/Fitbit etc does (Step count, floors climbed, sleep tracking etc)
In terms of the Smart Watch stuff the Garmin obviously is weaker. In a premium priced device I find the absence of music playback to be bordering on being a crime. My iPod shuffle will remain in service for another couple of years! It does a reasonable job with notifications from the phone. Clearly the notifications aren't interactive as with the AW because Apple doesn't offer that to 3rd parties but that's not a deal-breaker...I never replied to iMessages from my watch anyway. I can see if I've got a message and the first line or so of it which is generally enough to know whether I need to reach for my phone or not. I have been able to add an app called Maker to my Garmin watch which offers simple IFTTT triggers so I have basic control of my Philips Hue lights from my watch which I didn't expect.
I guess the other key downside of the Garmin to note is price. Usually it's Apple being criticised for hefty prices, but the AW is quite a chunk cheaper than a Forerunner 935.
Overall remember that I'm not knocking the Apple Watch. At the moment it's early days for Smart Watches. Think of the early days of the iPhone and how new features flip-flopped back and forth between iOS and Android, and now both platforms have a lot of functionality and both are pretty good and it's about personal preference over brands. With the watches we're not there yet. With Garmin there's some big wins, with AW there's some other big wins but there's big compromises whichever camp you go for. Perhaps in the next few years they'll both borrow from each other and then the consumer will able to buy either and be happy with either. I will continue to keep an on AW and see what series 3 then series 4 brings. My experience with AW wasn't terrible so I'm definitely not ruling out getting another in the future if a few key things change.
I originally bought the AW Nike as running is my thing and the addition of GPS to the series 2 watches was a big draw for me. At that stage I owned a Garmin Forerunner 920XT; functional but ugly as sin. Having a watch that did music and GPS was precisely what I wanted.
The first bump in the road was the Nike app. Nike have your data and don't want you to share it with any other service. As a long time Strava user this wasn't what I wanted. Updates came but none that improved that situation. Hacks were available to get round this but you know they'll break at some point. Other platforms were going to bring out Watch apps that supported GPS so with patience this should improve.
The bigger problem for me, the real deal breaker, is the touchscreen and specifically how badly it responds to moisture, be that sweat or rain, both pretty day-to-day circumstances for an all-season runner. I lost at least one GPS trail because the watch recorded a phantom screen press and stopped the workout. It's kind of like Apple didn't test the watch for real world running at all because I very quickly found this flaw.
It hasn't been all bad by any means. I've looked to fill my activity rings every day which can only be good. Apple Pay on the watch is really good. Walking round the supermarket and ticking off items on the AW is nice too. Getting texts and notifications is also good. I've used it for sleep tracking too. I've either been lucky or the watch has been quite rugged; I was able to sell it and describe it as being in as new condition despite having used it for 6 months. And as with most Apple products, the resale value is healthy too; I got about two-thirds of my money back.
So onto the new Forerunner 935. It's a plain black watch with a circular face and has 5 buttons around the outside. It's quite chunky but not excessively so and it looks fine. The display uses a different technology to the AW, so you've got an always-on display, but not close to being as bright and vibrant as the AW screen. I've gone for a simple analog watch face with the date, step count and battery percent within the face. The big plus with this type of display is battery life. I charged 3 days ago, have done 2 long bike rides with GPS, 1 long indoor bike ride using the heart rate sensor and am at 67% battery remaining. You get a lot of detailed data related to your running through the Garmin app, particularly if you opt for their chest strap with accelerometer (I use this as I already owned it from my old Garmin) or the new pod that attaches to your waist band which is really cool along with the optical HR sensor. The forerunner does all of the basic activity tracking that AW/Fitbit etc does (Step count, floors climbed, sleep tracking etc)
In terms of the Smart Watch stuff the Garmin obviously is weaker. In a premium priced device I find the absence of music playback to be bordering on being a crime. My iPod shuffle will remain in service for another couple of years! It does a reasonable job with notifications from the phone. Clearly the notifications aren't interactive as with the AW because Apple doesn't offer that to 3rd parties but that's not a deal-breaker...I never replied to iMessages from my watch anyway. I can see if I've got a message and the first line or so of it which is generally enough to know whether I need to reach for my phone or not. I have been able to add an app called Maker to my Garmin watch which offers simple IFTTT triggers so I have basic control of my Philips Hue lights from my watch which I didn't expect.
I guess the other key downside of the Garmin to note is price. Usually it's Apple being criticised for hefty prices, but the AW is quite a chunk cheaper than a Forerunner 935.
Overall remember that I'm not knocking the Apple Watch. At the moment it's early days for Smart Watches. Think of the early days of the iPhone and how new features flip-flopped back and forth between iOS and Android, and now both platforms have a lot of functionality and both are pretty good and it's about personal preference over brands. With the watches we're not there yet. With Garmin there's some big wins, with AW there's some other big wins but there's big compromises whichever camp you go for. Perhaps in the next few years they'll both borrow from each other and then the consumer will able to buy either and be happy with either. I will continue to keep an on AW and see what series 3 then series 4 brings. My experience with AW wasn't terrible so I'm definitely not ruling out getting another in the future if a few key things change.