Smartwatch recommendations?

[Pivo]

@pipkun
Will this be your only smart watch, or will it's use be dedicated to daily wear? I am retired and in the last year have owned the Garmin fenix 5x and COROS Vertix 2, both are more lifestyle devices for active people.
If I was still working an Apple Watch or Samsung would be better for day to day wear. They both have better features for calls, notifications, voice to text etc, and still have tracking/ logging features for activities.

[xsproutx]

Agree with Pivo; what are your main use cases? I had the forerunner series for years when running was the only thing I cared about and loved it. Switched to a Fenix when I took up backpacking and hiking again as I like some of the features it has for that. When I travel (well, used to...) for work and still went into an office, I'd wear my apple watch for the same reasons Pivo mentioned; tends to be better for calls/emails/day to day stuff like that. My wife has the Venu from Garmin which is pretty well featured and, cosmetically, more attractive than the Fenix (IE, looks more like a fashion watch than tactical). She's into tri-sport.

[Heliops]

@xsproutx
The Garmin Fenix series , hands down if your an Android person. Sucks they are the only game in town

[Pivo]

Sucks they are the only game in town

COROS Vertix 2 is far more impressive than my Garmin fenix 5 x Saphire. Way better battery life, faster, also connects to all five major satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou) at the same time.
The crown can be used to scroll and access menus and there is fingertip scrolling on some menus. Unlike Garmin only using buttons for navigating menus.

[xsproutx]

The Coros is an excellent watch and stands toe-to-toe with the Fenix 6 in most ways, surpasses it on accuracy, but falls short on some areas (that may not matter to everyone, like Spotify compatibility). I'm incredibly glad it exists.
I may be biased in my own weird way but I worked on one of the embedded teams at Garmin for a while and the way the company operated was pretty much... at a snails pace (I'm speaking specifically on the inreach side as that's what I was involved with and the watch side, which I was very close to and had some intersection with. Aviation was a completely separate thing that I have no real exp with.). Innovation? Hah, who needs it! We're at the top of the food chain and no one comes close! I've been happy to see companies like Zoleo coming out with a better product (mostly) at a cheaper price point that is now forcing Garmin to innovate the inreach line. Similarly, with Suunto coming out with some good stuff and Coros now as well, it's actually forcing Garmin to innovate instead of just sitting on, admittedly great, laurels.

[mudlugs]

@xsproutx
sort of an adjacent topic but Suunto has come out with a desktop app called SuuntoLink that works with the older Ambit watches (there's a list on the link below.) If you've got an older watch that worked with Movescount but not with the new bluetooth phone app it's worth a look. It revived a base Ambit for me.

https://www.suunto.com/en-us/Support/so ... uuntolink/

[ShatteredArm]

@Heliops
I've been using a Fenix 5X for some time, and I can't recommend it at all. Battery life was way overstated (never got the advertised 20 hours, now I'm lucky to get 10 hours on a full charge), won't stop changing displays automatically despite my turning off those settings, less GPS accuracy than the Suunto I had previously. The only nice thing is the maps, but not worth the $750 the watch cost at the time. It's like they tried to make the watch do a little of everything, and as a result it excels at nothing.

I'll probably be looking at a Coros in the near future, or see what Suunto has to offer now (I never liked their software when I had the Ambit).

[Pivo]

@ShatteredArm
I am in agreement with you on the fenix 5. I replaced it with the COROS Vertix 2 in September.

[xsproutx]

So I do want to point out that the Fenix 5 is 5 years old now. The complaints listed above are valid for that particular version. I have the 6 and the battery life exceeds advertised and has higher GPS accuracy than the Suunto devices. The Coros Vertix 2 is a newer device and has better GPS accuracy. Battery life with GPS on is roughly the same although that varies based on settings of course. I've used this on thru hikes where I have GPS on max battery GPS mode and it can go a week without recharge while tracking your hikes from sun up to sun down. I'm assuming the Coros has something similar.
All that's to say is that I haven't owned the Vertix 2 and it seems like a damn good watch but just wanted to point out the the Fenix 5 is pretty old tech at this point and the Fenix 7 is coming out in the next few days, which is two generations past the 5.

[ShatteredArm]

@xsproutx
It may be "old" technology at this point, but I am not judging it based on some comparison to newer technology. It was a step down from the Suunto Ambit2 I had before it, so as far as I'm concerned, Garmin spent all their goodwill on the 5 series.

[The_Eagle]

Some more gas for the fire https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/18/2288 ... rs-fitness

[chumley]

I find it amusing that any technology that you wear on your wrist will apparently always be called a "watch", a word previously used to describe a portable timepiece.

[Pivo]

I find it amusing that any technology that you wear on your wrist will apparently always be called a "watch", a word previously used to describe a portable timepiece.

Being a Master of the Obvious, all of the wrist worn devices discussed in this thread, are multi-function timepieces.

[chumley]

@Pivo
My phone is also a multifunction portable timepiece, not called a watch...but even more amusingly called a phone (though in 2007, SJ at least attempted to redefine it as an internet communicator and ipod!)

[tibber]

calling Dick Tracy [ youtube video ]

[Pivo]

calling Dick Tracy [

I am correcting that for @chumely to Dick Tracing

[xsproutx]

I really dig the fact that channel has a single purpose in life.That belt!

[LindaAnn]

I have the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar, and it has been a great watch, zero complaints. The solar feature was probably a waste of a hundred bucks, but that doesn’t take away from the rest of the watch. I do not connect it to my phone notifications, nor do I use the music, so I can’t speak to those features. All the health and activity data/tracking is really what I care about, and I am more than happy with all of that.

I’ve been eyeing the new Epix Gen 2 Sapphire, but it’s hard to justify a new watch when the Fenix 6 is still working perfectly.

[Mountain_Rat]

@LindaAnn
I'm still waiting for my 5x to suck enough to move on, but It's not there yet. I also have a Tactix Charlie I use alternately, and still have an f2, Tactix Alpha & f3 in a drawer. My 5x isn't as accurate as your 6, especially with the real time data, but I can't complain about any of the fenix line compared to say a foretrex like I once relied on.