I’ve been rolling a Fitbit Charge 5 for the last year and a half and it’s been pretty great, had an issue at six months and Fitbit replaced it, no issues since. Good screen, reliable tracking, 1 charge lasts 5 days to a week, no issues with sync.
I’ve had Fitbits for years but I’m probably never buying another one.
The main thing keeping me locked into the Fitbit ecosystem was the social features - my family are dispersed around the country and all have Fitbits, so for years we did the weekly step challenges as a bit of friendly competition and a vehicle for staying in good contact. The competition made a genuine difference to our behaviour - especially for encouraging my parents to stay active in retirement.
Then after the Google acquisition they killed off the challenges on spurious grounds. It’s generally suspected this is part of a drive to gradually kill off the Fitbit brand and drive people onto Google’s own Pixel watches. Now Fitbit’s USP is gone and so I’ll probably just get a Garmin next time as people generally think that’s a better product.
My wife has a Garmin (vivoactive 4s I think) and on paper it looked fantastic, in action she has had nothing but trouble. Terrible battery, ugly UI, ridiculous management app, nothing but sync trouble. Hopefully Garmin has picked up their game with newer watches.
a Mi Band storing everything offline with Gadgetbridge, because I don’t need Xiaomi to know how many steps I’ve made and what’s my heartbeat at a given moment.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2S. Works really well for me, it has all the smart watch functions I need and great battery life. It’s also quite rugged. The stats are a good motivation to get me out cycling more often.
I got the same watch last month, the non-s version though. I have always struggled to keep a watch on my wrist. With a phone I no longer needed to keep the time on my wrist. I did get a smart watch a few years ago but just couldn’t get on with it. It ended up in the draw to never be used again.
Last month I started looking again and settled on the Instinct 2. Initially I wanted a colour screen but in reality I am actually very happy with the monochrome display. It’s always on and has a long battery life. I’m actually really impressed with how good it is at tracking your health etc. I tracks all activities I do. It’s quite granular too in that I can choose from road, mountain bike, gravel bike etc. It also records kayaking and standup paddle boarding.
At £200 it was one of the more reasonably priced smart watches. Certainly compared to the Fenix which is another £400 extra.
I only use devices supported by gadgetbridge. This way I can track me without giving all the data to somebody else. Currently I use a Mi Band 7, but I’m thinking about getting a device with onboeard GPS.
How is gadgetbridge working with the 7? The wikipage has a long list of unsupported features, which has held me back from trying it out, but I really want to give it a go!
Steps, sleep, stress, workouts work quite nice. PAI is supposed to have a tab within the next few releases of gadgetbrigde iirc. My approach is more like… I use gb to collect the data from the watch and then use grafana for a visualisation. which might be overkill.
TL;DR The author determined the most accurate are the Garmin Epix Pro and the Fitbit Inspire 3
I have a PineTime which I think is pretty good for what it is. In fact, I am very happy with it and recommend wholeheartedly the device.
Still, my favourite is even more basic. I have a standalone pedometer. This one, which has a website tha belies the product’s quality. I find it very accurate. It does some basic calorie calculations for you, and distance. And the battery lasts…ages.
Man, I loved my Fitbit One, but damn was it so fickle. So easy to lose and not waterproof, and spotty bluetooth. It was just a basic pedometer with calorie calculations.
FWIW I have an Inspire 3 and it’s reasonable. It has a chime to find it, Bluetooth seems solid enough, and it’s definitely waterproof as I run it under the sink to wash it every day.
Cheap, too, so I don’t really care if it breaks. Small, so not a big, clunky fashion statement or something.
I just wish it tacked my heart rate a little better while I’m working out. Mine loses track what seems like immediately once I start sweating a little. It can recover with a little jostle or sometimes moving the band up a notch if possible, but man it’s annoying.
Hmm true. It does sometimes stop tracking, which is extremely annoying.
Another annoyance (that’s probably not unique to it) is that I’m doing calorie counting, and I’ve found I have to halve the calories it reports to get an accurate number.
My previous one was a Withings Steel HR, Fantastic smart watch, did the basics but it’s main draw for me was it’s analog watch face. Approx 1 month battery life.
The smart stuff was shown in a small screen behind it.
Ultimately I stopped using it due to age, always losing Bluetooth connection so notifications were unreliable.
My current watch is an Amazfit GTR Mini, Fully touchscreen, Again does basics and few more extras.
Battery life is about 10-14days. Nothing to complain about so far.
I had a couple of Garmins before and the difference is night and day. The Apple Watch isn’t perfect, but it’s clear that a lot of thought went into it.
The Garmins on the other hand, were lowest of low effort.
They blatantly didn’t talk to even a single cyclists while building their cycling app.
Cyclists use average speed, not pace. Even the junkiest $3 cycle computer from Ali Baba gets this right, but not Garmin. They just copy-pasted the running screen.
Let’s review: has “had a couple of Garmins”, but doesn’t know that both speed and lap speed are default data fields in the bike activity. And can be trivially changed to average speed or essentially a bazillion other types of data (HR, power etc) in a highly customisable way.
Garmins are smart fitness watches, not smart watches.
I have a forerunner 255 and it’s amazing for hiking and running which is what I do most times. I can also take calls and see notifications which is all I need and the battery life is amazing.
Pretty sure my Garmin does pace for cycling. You bed to get a multisport watch from them first. The Forerunner watches are going to be focused on running obviously. Fenix line should do average speed
I take it off for showering and the holes wear out from opening and closing it daily. I know they are waterproof, but don’t want to be wearing anything in the shower.
I have Withings Scanwatch Horizon.
I love the look and the battery life. I average 22 days between recharging.
Steps are reasonably accurate, it measures a bit on the low side but this means I do another few hundred steps occasionally to meet my goal.
The app is pretty good. I use it to track walks and gym sessions mainly.
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Same here. I’ve had mine for a few weeks and I love it. The battery life is amazing too, I charge it once a week.
I’ve been rolling a Fitbit Charge 5 for the last year and a half and it’s been pretty great, had an issue at six months and Fitbit replaced it, no issues since. Good screen, reliable tracking, 1 charge lasts 5 days to a week, no issues with sync.
I’ve had Fitbits for years but I’m probably never buying another one.
The main thing keeping me locked into the Fitbit ecosystem was the social features - my family are dispersed around the country and all have Fitbits, so for years we did the weekly step challenges as a bit of friendly competition and a vehicle for staying in good contact. The competition made a genuine difference to our behaviour - especially for encouraging my parents to stay active in retirement.
Then after the Google acquisition they killed off the challenges on spurious grounds. It’s generally suspected this is part of a drive to gradually kill off the Fitbit brand and drive people onto Google’s own Pixel watches. Now Fitbit’s USP is gone and so I’ll probably just get a Garmin next time as people generally think that’s a better product.
My wife has a Garmin (vivoactive 4s I think) and on paper it looked fantastic, in action she has had nothing but trouble. Terrible battery, ugly UI, ridiculous management app, nothing but sync trouble. Hopefully Garmin has picked up their game with newer watches.
a Mi Band storing everything offline with Gadgetbridge, because I don’t need Xiaomi to know how many steps I’ve made and what’s my heartbeat at a given moment.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2S. Works really well for me, it has all the smart watch functions I need and great battery life. It’s also quite rugged. The stats are a good motivation to get me out cycling more often.
I got the same watch last month, the non-s version though. I have always struggled to keep a watch on my wrist. With a phone I no longer needed to keep the time on my wrist. I did get a smart watch a few years ago but just couldn’t get on with it. It ended up in the draw to never be used again.
Last month I started looking again and settled on the Instinct 2. Initially I wanted a colour screen but in reality I am actually very happy with the monochrome display. It’s always on and has a long battery life. I’m actually really impressed with how good it is at tracking your health etc. I tracks all activities I do. It’s quite granular too in that I can choose from road, mountain bike, gravel bike etc. It also records kayaking and standup paddle boarding.
At £200 it was one of the more reasonably priced smart watches. Certainly compared to the Fenix which is another £400 extra.
I just have some cheap fitbit. I just care about the sleep metrics and battery life.
Garmin ftw
This author has done a few of these tests and Garmin seems to be most accurate. I’m mostly not a fan of the intense styling though
Check out the Vivoactive and Venu lines. Those are nice and don’t look like the $40 Timex Ironmans.
Well there’s lots of different sizes and a few styles. But all good. Different strokes …
I only use devices supported by gadgetbridge. This way I can track me without giving all the data to somebody else. Currently I use a Mi Band 7, but I’m thinking about getting a device with onboeard GPS.
How is gadgetbridge working with the 7? The wikipage has a long list of unsupported features, which has held me back from trying it out, but I really want to give it a go!
Steps, sleep, stress, workouts work quite nice. PAI is supposed to have a tab within the next few releases of gadgetbrigde iirc. My approach is more like… I use gb to collect the data from the watch and then use grafana for a visualisation. which might be overkill.
Never heard of gadgetbridge. Excited to switch over
TL;DR The author determined the most accurate are the Garmin Epix Pro and the Fitbit Inspire 3
I have a PineTime which I think is pretty good for what it is. In fact, I am very happy with it and recommend wholeheartedly the device.
Still, my favourite is even more basic. I have a standalone pedometer. This one, which has a website tha belies the product’s quality. I find it very accurate. It does some basic calorie calculations for you, and distance. And the battery lasts…ages.
Man, I loved my Fitbit One, but damn was it so fickle. So easy to lose and not waterproof, and spotty bluetooth. It was just a basic pedometer with calorie calculations.
FWIW I have an Inspire 3 and it’s reasonable. It has a chime to find it, Bluetooth seems solid enough, and it’s definitely waterproof as I run it under the sink to wash it every day. Cheap, too, so I don’t really care if it breaks. Small, so not a big, clunky fashion statement or something.
I just wish it tacked my heart rate a little better while I’m working out. Mine loses track what seems like immediately once I start sweating a little. It can recover with a little jostle or sometimes moving the band up a notch if possible, but man it’s annoying.
Hmm true. It does sometimes stop tracking, which is extremely annoying.
Another annoyance (that’s probably not unique to it) is that I’m doing calorie counting, and I’ve found I have to halve the calories it reports to get an accurate number.
My previous one was a Withings Steel HR, Fantastic smart watch, did the basics but it’s main draw for me was it’s analog watch face. Approx 1 month battery life. The smart stuff was shown in a small screen behind it. Ultimately I stopped using it due to age, always losing Bluetooth connection so notifications were unreliable.
My current watch is an Amazfit GTR Mini, Fully touchscreen, Again does basics and few more extras. Battery life is about 10-14days. Nothing to complain about so far.
I’ve always wanted one of those. They’re gorgeous and remind me of my Skagen watch’s styling. Also appreciate the long battery life
Apple Watch.
I had a couple of Garmins before and the difference is night and day. The Apple Watch isn’t perfect, but it’s clear that a lot of thought went into it.
The Garmins on the other hand, were lowest of low effort.
They blatantly didn’t talk to even a single cyclists while building their cycling app.
Cyclists use average speed, not pace. Even the junkiest $3 cycle computer from Ali Baba gets this right, but not Garmin. They just copy-pasted the running screen.
This is a troll comment.
Let’s review: has “had a couple of Garmins”, but doesn’t know that both speed and lap speed are default data fields in the bike activity. And can be trivially changed to average speed or essentially a bazillion other types of data (HR, power etc) in a highly customisable way.
I haven’t touched the thing in three years.
I just remember that it had pace where it should have average speed. That is all.
Now go away. I’m not interested in defending myself to someone like you, who’s been nothing but nasty.
I said average speed. Learn to read.
Oh, that’s interesting. I was under the impression that Garmin was best for the actual fitness stuff, but this is good to know
I only cycle, so I couldn’t comment on the other apps.
Garmins are smart fitness watches, not smart watches.
I have a forerunner 255 and it’s amazing for hiking and running which is what I do most times. I can also take calls and see notifications which is all I need and the battery life is amazing.
Nah you’re right and this person has obviously never used a Garmin.
The Apple Watch is a great smartwatch though and solid for sports. My wife has one and loves it. I’m on the Garmin side, so we’re always comparing.
You mean that you didn’t bother to read my comment properly before personally attacking me. Let me guess, you’re from Reddit.
Pretty sure my Garmin does pace for cycling. You bed to get a multisport watch from them first. The Forerunner watches are going to be focused on running obviously. Fenix line should do average speed
That’s not the Vivoactive cycling app.
They were Vivoactives. They had pace, not average speed.
Regardless of what the focus of the watch is, the cycling app should show cycling stats.
It’s incredibly low effort to get something so basic wrong.
Seems like your post was incredibly low effort, as the Vivoactive (all the way back to the blocky original) supported speed fields.
https://averagejoecyclist.com/how-to-use-garmin-vivoactive-3-record-bike-ride/
Bangle.js 2
Got a MiBand as well. Had the first one, then the 3, and now I believe the 5 or 6.
Only replaced them because new wristbands were hard to come by after 2 years respectively, the battery was still going strong.
Now I’ve bought 10 straps right from the start and am only on number 4, another 2 years in. Let’s see if I can beat the battery this time.
Love this, haha.
wtf do you do to those wristbands?
I take it off for showering and the holes wear out from opening and closing it daily. I know they are waterproof, but don’t want to be wearing anything in the shower.
Either you’re wearing it (way) too tight or it’s cheap garbage. Going through two wristbands per year is not normal.
It’s the latter. The bands on Mi Band watches are always cheap garbage.
For me it’s the Apple Watch because I can write apps for it
I still love my Pebble smartwatches, and of them I prefer the Pebble Time Steel. It still lasts like at least a week on a single charge.
I have Withings Scanwatch Horizon. I love the look and the battery life. I average 22 days between recharging. Steps are reasonably accurate, it measures a bit on the low side but this means I do another few hundred steps occasionally to meet my goal. The app is pretty good. I use it to track walks and gym sessions mainly.
Love mine too. Looks like a normal watch. Has all the features I need, and doesn’t require constant charging.