Smartwatch Recommendations

[hawkeyez]

I've never been a watch wearer, but I'm finally ready to bite the bullet and buy a smart watch. I have a Samsung (Android) phone, so I think that pretty much eliminates the Apple watch. The main features I'm concerned about are battery life, syncing with my phone, and fitness/sleep tracking (steps, heart rate, Spo2, etc). I'm intrigued by the Whoop from the fitness aspect, but it looks like it's strictly for fitness and doesn't even double as a clock?

The interwebz tells me these are my top options...

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4
Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2
Fitbit Sense
Fitbit Versa 3
Garmin Venu 2
Whoop 4.0

Any particular Brands/Models that you would recommend or that I should avoid?

 

[QChawks]

Like you said, a Galaxy would make the most sense.

I wear an apple watch and thought they were dumb until I got one for a gift. It's great to track your exercise and easy to check notifications without picking up your phone. Battery is just okay, if I'm lucky I get two days out of it before I need to charge.

 

[Nole Lou]

I have had Galaxy watches for a few years now. I'm not primarily a fitness user, but I like having it count the steps. The main thing I like having it for is telling the time, and showing me my texts so I don't have to pull the phone out of my pocket, and surreptitiously getting my fantasy football scoring notifications during church.

Most of the other functions that I kind of set it up for, including Samsung pay by watch, I've pretty much stopped bothering with.

I like that it looks and feels like a watch, can get whatever kind of watchband I want. It generally has good touch sensitivity, good connectivity, battery life etc. I also have a Galaxy phone.

In between a couple Galaxy watches I had a well regarded but inexpensive straight Android watch with a pure Android Wear or whatever they call it OS. It sucked balls and I wanted back to the Galaxy watch ASAP.

To me, it's basically a watch with a little more functionality and not an especially central part of my digital life, and I've been satisfied that it just works like that.

 

[Nole Lou]

Like you said, a Galaxy would make the most sense.

I wear an apple watch and thought they were dumb until I got one for a gift. It's great to track your exercise and easy to check notifications without picking up your phone. Battery is just okay, if I'm lucky I get two days out of it before I need to charge.

Agreed. They are cool to have, and you get used to it once you have one.

I think unless you're extremely dedicated to fitness as a hobby and need elaborate tracking of many different activities, need to make phone calls without your phone halfway up a mountain, need gps on your watch etc...most people end up using it to track steps and heartbeat and get their notifications on their phone. So you probably don't need to get hung up on whether it has scuba diving GPS at depths of 100 feet or whatever.

95% of what they CAN do is so much easier to do on your phone that you won't bother. I would look at some videos on how they handle notifications and see if you have a preference, look at the watch faces available and see if they have ones you like, and then get the one that most fits your style and preferences. I prefer a round face and something that has some weight to it, so I like the Galaxy Watch, or that Venue 2 looks sharp to me as well. The square ones look corny to me.

I don't know if they all do by this point, but I'd get one that accepts a standard watch band that you can switch out to any you like. My first Galaxy watch had some kind of custom proprietary band that was a pain in the ass to replace, with limited options.

 

[onlyTheObvious]

Apple Watch is great for tracking sleep and workouts/calories burned.

I also have the face set to show temp and wind speed which is important for me when planning morning bike ride.

heart rate monitoring is interesting to monitor.

generally for the rest …. The phone is better.

Paying for things with watch wallet is also nice.

 

[BlIIlken2]

As an avid Apple user, Garmin Fenix is the only way to go. If you need something cheaper forerunner 245/vivoactive 4. They just do the fitness watch right.

Simplify things if you want a smartwatch-go apple. If you want a fitness watch that has limited smart capability-Garmin all the way.

 

[hawkeyez]

I have had Galaxy watches for a few years now. I'm not primarily a fitness user, but I like having it count the steps. The main thing I like having it for is telling the time, and showing me my texts so I don't have to pull the phone out of my pocket, and surreptitiously getting my fantasy football scoring notifications during church.

Most of the other functions that I kind of set it up for, including Samsung pay by watch, I've pretty much stopped bothering with.

I like that it looks and feels like a watch, can get whatever kind of watchband I want. It generally has good touch sensitivity, good connectivity, battery life etc. I also have a Galaxy phone.

In between a couple Galaxy watches I had a well regarded but inexpensive straight Android watch with a pure Android Wear or whatever they call it OS. It sucked balls and I wanted back to the Galaxy watch ASAP.

To me, it's basically a watch with a little more functionality and not an especially central part of my digital life, and I've been satisfied that it just works like that.

@Nole Lou which model do you currently have? Are you satisfied with the battery life? That's my main concern after reading reviews of the Galaxy Watch 4 (44mm).

 

[bdcolt45er]

I have a Garmin Instinct. It's a simpler watch. You are obligated to use Garmin software. But I think it is pretty good. Only needs charged every 10 days or so which is great.

 

[SoDakHawk]

Garmin Vivoactive 3.

 

[Nole Lou]

@Nole Lou which model do you currently have? Are you satisfied with the battery life? That's my main concern after reading reviews of the Galaxy Watch 4 (44mm).

I actually have like a Samsung Gear Sport something. It's a pretty poorly reviewed version. I don't have too good a sense of battery life, because I generally put it on the base every night, and it's pretty old at this point and I don't know how much the battery has degraded. I get 2-3 days without a charge if I forget to charge it. If I go somewhere for the weekend, I don't need to bring the charger.

For me, because it's easy to put it in the charging cradle at night, its fine. But no, I don't know that you could go a week without charging if that's important.

 

[hawkeyez]

I actually have like a Samsung Gear Sport something. It's a pretty poorly reviewed version. I don't have too good a sense of battery life, because I generally put it on the base every night, and it's pretty old at this point and I don't know how much the battery has degraded. I get 2-3 days without a charge if I forget to charge it. If I go somewhere for the weekend, I don't need to bring the charger.

For me, because it's easy to put it in the charging cradle at night, its fine. But no, I don't know that you could go a week without charging if that's important.

I'm fine with charging it every 2-3 days. I want to use it for sleep tracking, so I'd probably just charge it when I'm sitting at my desk for an extended period. I've read some reviews of them not even lasting 24 hours, which is concerning and would be a deal-breaker. Those people probably just need to adjust their settings though. I've also read that LTE drains the battery more than Bluetooth, so I'll definitely go with a Bluetooth model.

 

[Nole Lou]

I'm fine with charging it every 2-3 days. I want to use it for sleep tracking, so I'd probably just charge it when I'm sitting at my desk for an extended period. I've read some reviews of them not even lasting 24 hours, which is concerning and would be a deal-breaker. Those people probably just need to adjust their settings though. I've also read that LTE drains the battery more than Bluetooth, so I'll definitely go with a Bluetooth model.

Yeah, not getting a day out of it would suck. If you get it and that happens, I would return it immediately, that's never going to stop being a pain in the ass.

Unless you have a a very specific usage case where you need to go phone-less for extended periods, I'm not sure there's any good reason to have it on a mobile data plan or even have that capability. Honestly, I could probably turn wifi off on mine and get more battery life, I'm not sure I'm really using it for anything that wifi is of any use, just the bluetooth connection to my phone like you said.