25 in Fitness Trackers
Apple - Watch Series 5
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Reddit Reviews:
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Based on 1 year's data from Mar 17, 2026 How it works
Liked most:
36
0
"Being able to run with my Watch only connected to cellular service is soooo freeing. ... I have music and podcasts available to keep me entertained and getting audio cues from Runna for my running plan is just perfection."
"I love cellular! ... I just bring my Apple Watch to be able to ditch my phone without going off grid."
"With the cellular plan on my watch I don’t bring my phone with me."
51
6
"the fact that they integrate to the Apple Watch simply cannot be understated for me, I couldn’t go back to Garmin now, it is just so much part of my life now. ... Tracking weightlifting workouts, nutrition and other stuff, analysis of the data, send messages to HomePod, changing NC automatically, sending emails …."
"I unlock my computer and phone with it."
"It has the best sensors in the biz ... meshes well with apple health and the iOS ecosystem."
51
17
"It’s well known that Apple has the best optical hr in the business and has since the series 4."
"The later AW is best in class for non chest straps. ... For daily fitness, Apple Watch is just better IMO. ... It being the most accurate heart rate tracker not a chest strap makes it the best fitness tracker to me. ... Maybe I should say it's the best workout recorder because it records the most accurate heart rate data. ... I just really like the AW for every day fitness more so than what Coros or Garmin can provide. ... Executing a training plan I've set out for myself and recording the results. Results being the duration and heart rate data during the planned workouts. I then upload that data to Training Peaks and use Training Peaks to keep up with my training load over time. So the every day fitness part is executing and recording my workouts. ... Apple Watch is data recording. Together they are tracking my fitness."
"I also validate my heart rate with a cheststrap occasionally and I will say that the watch is very accurate up until going beyond 175 bpm."
51
39
"It’s also pretty well established that AW has the best motion tracking which shows up when you use the swim feature for distance. ... In swimming, it’s not even close. 100% of garmins worn during our pool swims are incorrect, regardless of swimmer level. ... Every single Garmin incorrectly reported swim distance vs manual counting. Freestyle 4000m in 25m pool."
"I had an Apple Watch, replaced it with a garmin forerunner for 1 month it was the worst! So inaccurate and when I’d swim in pools it would so often double count my lengths… I went back to Apple Watch"
"Does an excellent job of recording sessions"
5
1
"pairing with iOS. ... If you like to complete your circles, get awards etc then yea the AW integration with Health and Fitness is unbeatable"
"The whole rings system is a good daily motivator and social aspect pushes one to achieve daily/weekly/monthly goals."
"the closing of the rings which both my wife and I got totally hooked on"
Disliked most:
0
165
"Mine kept dieing one me mid run ... after two years of using it twice hours was about all an aw had battery for when using music and gps! By the 2:15 mark it would be dead. ... When I started running for longer than 2 hrs my battery would die mid run"
"Also the battery life was trash, I’d leave my new series 10 in the drawer charged and it’d be dead the next day."
"The battery life is a literal joke. ... Do an activity? There goes 75% of your battery."
6
17
"I also hated having notifications and apps and stuff on my wrist. ... It was cool at first and then it was annoying and distracting. ... My big motivation away from Apple Watch was this."
"I dont get overloaded with notifications like my apple watch"
"not being distracted by a small screen on my wrist"
17
51
"one day I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep and I got a 95 sleep score on Apple lol the Garmin was correct in telling me I got shit sleep."
"my sleep was very fragmented which the Apple Watch didn’t pick up. ... The difference is the garmin should a lot of awakenings which is what I really had. This is the effect of alcohol being metabolized."
"Because what's the value of the score if it doesn't correlate to real-world experiences? It's meaningless to get a high score and be told you slept great just because you slept a long time, but it was restless and low quality and you feel like garbage. ... My Oura gives a much more accurate picture of my sleep then Apple Watch unfortunately. ... I'm not sure there's much I can do short of sleeping for 4 hours to get my Apple Watch score to drop below 90."
0
19
"That was a constant issue for me training in the UK, and I once missed the start of a race because I accidentally started recording a walk and couldn’t get my Apple Watch to stop that and start a run in time because the screen was wet."
"If you are in long sleeves in the rain, you need to lock the touchscreen to prevent accidental touches. But that prevents you from using the touchscreen without holding to unlock for a few seconds. So if you are doing intervals, it can be hard to end the interval quickly."
"I already got sick and tired of touch screens with my Apple Watch ... Dripping sweat, rain and sleeves really screw with touch screens ... where I live we have like 6 months worth of snow so needing to take off my gloves and disable a screen lock before being able to pause my workout is an annoying PITA."
1
83
"It misses key info and HR was clearly elevated compared to baseline even on the Ultra, but it doesn't count that. So a night of drinking and shit sleep, still give you a 95 score! ... But the vitals aren’t accounted by the sleep score as far as I can tell and my HR was higher though not abnormally high by Apple Watch standard but this could be because of sampling it does compared to the Garmin ... both HR and RR were elevated but not enough for Apple to flag but the sleep score doesn’t include those metrics, which I really think they should. ... The sleep scores doesn’t take into account vitals."
"If you’re healthy and looking to improve your fitness, performance, or recovery, the Apple Watch probably isn’t the best tool. ... limited in terms of true fitness insights."
"the metrics, data, tracking, training plans, insight, is all so much better on the Garmin."
Ace_Fun 1.0Used to have a watch series 2. That one sucked. Then went to a apple series 5. That one fell into a lake and seeing as the ground in the middle was over 10m, i doubt it survived Switched to a Garmin instinct 2 tactical solar about 3 years ago. I love not plugging it back to charge everyday (with gps its been lasting a solid 15-20 days a charge) Great with sports especially skiing (it uses about 3 different satelite technologies so i never lose connection and it detects skiing / lifts to get back up) I can control music from the watch - bit finnicky with the buttons but eh it is what it is I got 50% ish off through work so that was a bonus I do miss being able to send custom messages from it and controlling songs on spotify.... I also miss having the touchscreen, but this watch has remained on my wrist even diving hard into water from cliffs About 18 months after switching I binned my iphone 9 and got a google pixel so yeah, i never would turn back to apple products.... Depends on what you want to be honest. Just know, that most of these watches can survive in water for a few hours to a couple days, so swimming/diving in it isn't a problem but thats just my opinion Hope I helped
Adventurous-Yam-735 1.0I have a 5 that the battery doesn’t even last my workday. I can’t decide if I should get the 10 or 11. Either way, big upgrade for me.
Amazing_Raisin2836 1.0Honestly, if you are an iPhone user a used old applewatch (like series 4 or 5) is extremely good value for the money. And you don’t have any subscriptions or anything like that
a_train642 1.0It was a series 5. So basically no comparison
ausstieglinks 1.0I wore nothing from age 15 to when I got an Apple Watch Series 5. I wore it all the time for a couple years. Slowly a lot of apps for it which I liked (mfa, Google Maps) and it started to feel less useful to me. A friend of mine showed me what mechanical watches were (I thought they were all quartz) and I watches some watch repair videos and realized I loved the engineering involved. After that I picked up my first automatic, a 40mm blue prx. After wearing that for a year and getting a couple other watches in the meantime I realized I wasn’t wearing my Apple Watch at all I gave it to my sister for her to use working out. Since then, I’ve got a few really nice watches for me and wouldn’t ever go back outside of exercise tracking/music/phone. It would be nice to go for a run with only AirPods and an Apple Watch. I actually love not having the Apple Watch, I didn’t realize how annoying it was. It’s also less socially and professionally awkward to check a normal watch than it is to check a mini cellphone
awdonoho 1.0I also lift kettlebells and shed both my Watch and Oura ring during workouts in favor of my phone and a Polar H10 strap. I own both an AW5 and an AWU3. The AW5 is stylish and worn daily in polite company. The AWU3 is used for walks and sleep tracking. We also hike in parks but I haven’t yet used it in the wild. We used to be divers. Perhaps I’ll use it again in that context. The big screen is nice. The AW11 is likely sufficient for most people.
Barkley2019 1.0Let me preface this by saying that I already know that this is stupid, lol. I have 2 AW's, a 5 series, and a 6SE. They both only last for about 2hrs or so when I use them during my runs to listen to music. If i plan to run for about 3hrs, I take the 2nd watch with me and throw it on when the first watch dies.
bob-the-licious 1.0I would not know tbh. Personally I have an AW 5 that I put on theatre and DND mode. Does the trick.
Captaincadet 1.0I am also an Ultra 3 wearer (having a series 5) and a massive cyclist. I have the bike computer doing all my cycling and everything is exported to HealthKit. I do like that portability and how interoperable it is. However the default apps ain’t amazing for bard core work outs and it does leave a lot to be desired. I wish Apple focused on that more
CompetitiveFun1095 1.0I left AW in 2023 because the battery life on my series 5 was failing and I wanted to try something different. I really liked the change in metrics and find the connect app pretty decent. My only complaint about the app would be its cloud based and wished data was actually stored on your phone. The battery life along on my Venu2+ is enough to keep me from going back. It’s all dependent on what features you love on you AW. Do you text on you watch or just read notifications? Do you want to run without your phone and are willing to pay for cellular on your watch? Are you looking to just stay healthy? If you’re more into the fitness metrics (which is what I got into) then Garmin will suit you and in a week you’ll forget about your AW. If you need all the snappy features of texting via your watch then you won’t like Garmin. However I have several friends who left AW for Venus and found that they enjoy them better. Besides battery life my biggest draw was to be able to set my goals how I wanted and focus on them. If Apple had let me set an actual step goal on my rings then maybe I would have stayed. Ultimately give your garmin a solid go for a few weeks. You may find you never needed the AW features after all