Which is your preferred smartwatch/fitness tracker?

twotone@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 124 points – I walked 4,000 steps with these 4 fitness trackers — here’s the most accurate
tomsguide.com

I have been using the Mi Band for years which I generally like, although it's quite a simple device

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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.

Never heard of gadgetbridge. Excited to switch over

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.

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 said average speed. Learn to read.

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.

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

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.

Oh, that's interesting. I was under the impression that Garmin was best for the actual fitness stuff, but this is good to know

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.

Nah you’re right and this person has obviously never used a Garmin.

You mean that you didn't bother to read my comment properly before personally attacking me. Let me guess, you're from Reddit.

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.

I only cycle, so I couldn't comment on the other apps.

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

Well there’s lots of different sizes and a few styles. But all good. Different strokes …

Check out the Vivoactive and Venu lines. Those are nice and don't look like the $40 Timex Ironmans.

I'm currently using a Mi Band 6 (with a nylon strap that's real comfy), but I wish the Pebble still existed. The e-paper display, the nice UI and tactile buttons, with good battery life and the ability to make apps was great.

Once my Mi Band breaks, I'm torn between Garmin (since they check almost all of the Pebble boxes, even if I don't do fitness and they're more fitness oriented) and a Galaxy Watch with the rotating bezel, since that was really cool to play with, plus the Android integration might be nicer.

I have no idea why no other company has been able to recapture the magic of pebble. It was by far the best smartwatch I've ever owned.

There is watchy, pretty sure it is from the same guy who made the pebble.

It's no Pebble, but I chose the BangleJS 2 for its openness and the ability to load and even make apps myself.

Where's the "none of the above" choice? Aside from keeping the time, all I want from a smartwatch is the ability to see its screen both in the dark and under direct sunlight, a week-long battery life, 5ATM water resistance rating, receiving notifications from my phone (with the ability to dismiss them), ability to have customizable watch faces, and finally the ability to accept standard size watch bands. The last watch I've owned that could do almost all of that (aside from standard bands or ) was Pebble Steel. I still miss it to this day.

Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don't need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don't want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.

I've had this for 4.5 years and it is amazing. Does everything you want.

https://www.garmin.com/en-CA/p/621802/pn/010-02064-00

Double plus for the Garmin. I'm wearing an Instinct 2 right now. 21 day battery life! It replaced my Vivoactive 4S (6 day battery life) and was cheaper than the Venu 2 (11 day battery life).

I've killed at least two smartwatches by forgetting I'm wearing them when I go in the ocean. The Vivoactive 4S was completely unaffected by the salt water, and I'll test the Instinct 2 this week.

My mom is all about her Apple watch, and has touted the features to me. "I can [insert feature] with this!" Have you used it for that? "No."

I've had three Pebbles, a couple Fitbits, a couple Garmins, a couple Android watches, two Amazfits... I just want something that sends me notifications and has good battery life. If I have to charge the watch every night, I'll forget I'm wearing it.

That being said, the Instinct 2 is actually worse at tracking my workouts than the Vivoactive 4 was. I do martial arts, so the GPS is actually a hindrance there, and I haven't found a way to make it move "generic cardio" to the top of the workout list.

I miss Pebble so much.

Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.

That's the thing. I have an apple watch, and apps on it are complete garbage. They're not useful, they UI is impossible, browsing for apps to launch them is tedious and painful. Like, I don't want to order Taco Bell on my watch. I don't want to play a game. I need notifications, time/date/weather, and easy playback controls for whatever is currently playing on my phone and that's it.

I also generally don't trust fitness trackers. If you have a watch that can use GPS to track a run or a ride, then that's fine. But pedometers are a joke, and counting calories burned is most assuredly bullshit since the human body isn't a closed system and everyone's metabolism is different

Not sure about the water-proof-ness, but actually a pinetime might tick most of those boxes. I'm happy with mine.

Where's the "none of the above" choice?

I agree with that preference

I have a Withings ScanWatch. Almost all of that (except for custom watchfaces, because it uses a physical watchface).

It also does the heart tracking and ECG stuff, but that matters to me because I have a heart condition that it can help track.

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.

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.

Still use my Pebble 2 SE and my Pebble Time. Still bummed they never came out with the Time 2.

My preferred one is Withings one's. They're hybrid watches which means they largely have a regular watch face with a little screen and a heart rate sensor/gyroscope. Best of both worlds in my opinion.

They seemed to have stopped selling them, at least where I am.

For me it's the Apple Watch because I can write apps for it

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.

Been wearing a pinetime pretty much constantly since the start of the year, it only tracks walking though afaik but luckily that's my main source of exercise (and way of getting around the city)!

It does track heartbeat too but I don't use that either. What I really like is that the software has gotten so much better since I bought it and upgrading it is really easy

I've been rocking mine for close to two years now, and it just keeps getting better.

I have a Garmin Vivosmart 4; does all the things I need it to do, and isn't big or distracting. All I wanted was a step tracker and the ability to set multiple alarms.

Garmin Forerunner 55.
It's the most basic one in the running series, but it works well enough for what I need it to do.
It's the first real "closed ecosystem" device I own, as usually I go the open source route for everything, but Garmin has a good track record and the device has helped me train for a half marathon really well. I put a "casio"-style watch face on it, and I enjoy it a lot.

@cinaed666 @twotone I also have the Forerunner 55.

Something to note is that Garmin watches are Linux-friendly and can be used without signing up to their cloud services. You can access the watch as a USB storage device and manually grab the .FIT files on it, which you can then import into tools of your choice (or convert to .GPX for wider compatibility).

I'm very aware of this thanks, however for training to run I went for convenience.
I like comparing with my friends in the app and using the training plans etc.
The fit to gpx converter is a good way to extract hiking data though!

Apple Watch. But I recognize there are better options now, just not for iPhone.

Yup. Apple Watch for me. It works mostly seamlessly with the rest of my Apple stuff. I don’t think any others do.

Galaxy Watch 4. I don't like Samsung but I wanted WearOS 3 so yeah...

I just have some cheap fitbit. I just care about the sleep metrics and battery life.

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

I like the garmin venu 2 that I bought used, it's been very reliable. I pretty much forget about it since it just works with minimal fuss. Battery lasts 2 weeks too which is nice.

I remember researching fitbit and it just seemed like more hassle, and some features were locked behind subscriptions and stuff like that.

For something with fitness tracking, I've been using the Garmin Forerunner series for years. Recently though, I've been using the Pine64 PineTime as my main smartwatch. It doesn't have much for fitness tracking, but if you're looking for a basic smartwatch it's pretty nice!

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.

It’s perhaps not a fully fledged fitness tracker, and it’s certainly not a smartwatch - but my favorite health tracking device has turned out to be my Oura ring.

I used it alongside my Apple Watch for quite a while, but I’ve found that the Oura ring gives me plenty of insight on my sleep, recovery and (more limited) activity. And the form factor is just awesome! I don’t even notice I’m wearing it, and I only charge it every 5 days or so.

I’ve stopped wearing the Apple Watch altogether now, and I find it freeing not to have all those notifications available on my wrist, while still having the health tracking I want from the Oura. Obviously it’s not a good fit for someone who does want the other features of a smartwatch, but solely as a health tracker I really like it.

I used the Mi band 1S for several years, on the opposite wrist from a mechanical watch. That was a good solution.

Apple Watch for me, because of how well it integrates with my phone - the point where i end up using my phone a lot less.

I don't really bother with fitness tracking to be honest. I know in my head that I went for a 50 minute bike ride on the weekend. That's enough for me. I do appreciate when my watch tells me if I've been too sedentary/etc today or reminds me that it's late and I should probably get some sleep, but that's about the extent of my "fitness tracking" needs.

I went from using a garmin fenix to an oldschool mechanical watch and my stress levels have gone down like you wouldn't believe. The only thing I miss is garmin pay.

I like my Garmin Vívoactive 3. It has all the basic features (for casual walking/running) and looks okay.

I really like the look of the "hybrid" watches like the Garmin Vívomove or Withings watches. They look great but as far as I know none of them have in-built GPS.

Would be very interested in checking out the BangleJS 2 as well.

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.

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.

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.

Garmin Epix Pro gen 2, by far the best, as like the 7x but with an OLED screen. A real fitness watch, rather than a apple smart watch

Hard to take this review seriously if they didn’t test Polar. The gold standard of HRM and excellent Garmin competitor.