Payments, music, podcasts and calls.
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Apparently lol.
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I’ve got a 530 and posted lists on several occasions. If you ask I’ll go search, but the short version is that its much better for workouts and the HRV/HR/power based metrics are useful. For example I’ve been getting pretty accurate FTP estimates from my 530, without doing a full 20-min or longer test, for over 3 years now. I even get accurate FTP estimates from doing endurance rides if you can believe that. For over 3 years now. There is other stuff but those two are the standouts for me.
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I’m pretty serious: contactless payments are huge, and using your watch is so much faster than rummaging around your pocket, authenticate with your face or code on your phone or finding your credit card. I can use my iPhone/Apple Watch also on public transportation or to call people. If you want to wear your smartwatch all the time, at a certain point it becomes an expected feature, if it hasn’t already.
And if you want to leave your phone at home, you need LTE and music/podcast support.
PS Like you wrote, we probably agree 90+ % in the end. I agree with your characterization that Apple starts with the needs of the middle xx-percent and then expands, focussing on doing things well and making things accessible to users.
Thanks for the feedback.
Are those features of Garmin Connect or the 530 specifically? E. g. are the HRV metrics displayed on the head unit and does it give you actionable info?
Regarding outdoor workouts what is better about them on Garmin? (I have tried outdoor workouts on a few occasions, but found that for the most part, it did not mesh well with me. I did not feel my head unit was holding me back, though.)
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Features of x30 and x40 series Edge units. Also I get scoring of unstructured rides. And some training load stuff that adjusts to volume, letting me know if I’m short on anaerobic work or high aerobic or low aerobic. Some other stuff too. Again since buying it in Fall 2019 after it had been on the market for some time.
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Quite clearly it was @gpl and his counterfeit t-shirts that have placed Wahoo in their current financial predicament having clearly having to have paid lawyers fees in the millions to go after the powerhouse that is @gpl
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I won’t buy an Apple Watch because…
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The wrist band. The Apple Watch I had felt awkward (plasticy & rigid) and didn’t have as many holes to get the perfect fit.
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Apple Watch doesn’t look or feel like a sports watch. It has no lap button, it has no start stop button. I don’t want to tap, swipe and go though an interface just to use my watch.
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I don’t trust the stats. Garmin just seems more accurate.
I’m sure these are all things you can set up your Apple Watch to do and will improve. For the record, I love Apple stuff, I’m in their ecosystem but the Apple Watch just didn’t do it for me. I actually went back to my old timex Ironman watch with 100 lap memory (still one of my all time favorites) before getting a Garmin forerunner 55 (which I think is superb).
As some mentioned being able to call without carrying your phone is huge. If Apple actually makes a sports watch with cell capability I might give it ago, but not as it is currently.
Did you miss their recent release? Hehe
Why? Why do you need that on your devices? Enlighten me as to what I am missing/not seeing. Keep in mind, convenience is subjective so don’t fall back on that. Asking, not trolling.
It’s those things that I do not need. Nor want. Hence why I prefer the basic functionality of my Suunto 9 Baro watch and Elemnt Roam and Bolt. Even post insurance pay out for loss of previous devices I chose functionality over features.
I have no bias to others wanting/needing those additional features on their hardware. It’s just that I don’t need them and as such, don’t buy the feature full devices.
In the context of sports, it is mostly about safety: if something happens, I can call home or an ambulance. I have fall detection. I can leave cash, phone and credit cards at home and — in the worst case — still take public transportation. In the rare cases when I go running, I could also listen to music or a podcast. (I would bet that a large share of endurance athletes listens to music or podcasts, at least when it is safe to do so.)
While security is mostly about “what if” scenarios, these features would be useful for everyday life: I use contactless payments literally every single day and public transportation several times a week (I usually commute by bike, otherwise it would be daily). Going from chips/signatures with credit cards shaves off about 30 seconds to 1 minute every single time. With the Apple Watch you reduce that to <= 5 seconds.
For me personally, so far I could make do without a sports watch, and IMHO it has to earn its place in terms of budget and all. I have a Wahoo Bolt that records me when I am cycling and a Polar heart rate strap. A smart/sports watch that didn’t offer e. g. contactless payments and music would feel incomplete. IMHO that should be part of the package and is of much more immediate use than 1±week battery life.
PS I understand if you personally don’t need these features. But I think they will be expected as must-have features over the course of the next few years. Garmin has a few models that allow athletes to use Spotify for music and podcasts, I think. So it isn’t as if Garmin is oblivious to that. It just is a hard problem. Ditto for cellular, because once you have a cell radio, I doubt you get the same kind of battery life that make Garmin watches stand out compared to Apple Watches and other smart-first (as opposed to sports) watches.
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Thanks.
I can’t see it working for my circumstances. Horses for courses.
Here in South Africa we do not have reliable acceptable public transport services. I (trail) run the mountains and ride (with no watch but a headunit) in the rural areas, both with a SPOT device due to limited or non-existent cellular coverage, as such, a cell phone is a paperweight me most times never taken with for running or riding.
Would the use of devices that have the features you need still be beneficial to me? Does the watch need to work in conjunction with a cell phone for payments and music etc? Do I need earphones/headset to hear the music?
Has contactless payments been rolled out?
(I’m asking, because I have had when i lived in Canada 7 years ago, but it is just being rolled out here in Japan. So I don’t assume it is necessarily universal. I haven’t been to the US since fall 2019, but contactless payments seemed universally available. Ditto for Europe.)
No.
You don’t need cell phone coverage at all for contactless payments, that uses NFC (= near field communication) just like modern credit cards. And you can download some music and podcast to your Apple Watch. However, it works best if you can download dynamically.
Technically no, but I reckon you’d want to.
Is this the real reason that Apple have dropped the mini from the Iphone 14 line up, sell more watches? My theory is that they decided to make your phone so big its a hassle to get out of your pocket, which anything bigger than an SE(2016) or Mini is, then you end up believing that you need the Apple Watch to do all things you used to use you phone for when it took seconds to slide out of you pocket.
That’s a good theory. My theory is that they wanted to piss me off, me personally! 
(I have a 12 mini, it is my favorite iPhone, I love it to bits. Perfect size, very fast. Second place goes to my 4S.)
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@OreoCookie you are making some good arguments for using a watch to do many things that I don’t use mine for because I have my phone… Those of us who are over 40ish grew up in a world where we didn’t have mobile phones, so we dream of a world where we can leave it behind and smartwatches are a solution to that problem.
What’s interesting to me is that people under 30ish don’t wear watches. They use their phone for a time piece, and they are almost always looking at their phone. It amazes me that people today still go for a run with their phone strapped to their bicep. As such, getting them to wear a watch to do things they can already do with a phone is a tough ask. I can’t envision them ever preferring to surf the internet on their watch, so phones are not going away. In fact, they want phones that are bigger, not smaller.
Are we talking about something (smartwatches) that will die with generations? Or do you think that as people age they will start to wear watches again? Serious question.
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One thing I don’t see mentioned yet is Wahoo poor reliability on most products. My Tickr HR monitor has been warrantied and replaced 5 times, a few other people I talked to have similar issues with them. I’ve heard people have had lot of issues with kickrs needing to be warrantied. I know one of my friend has had his kickr warrantied more times than he was able to use it before he switched to a different trainer.
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I agree re: the TICKRs. They’re just garbage. >_> I haven’t seen too much regarding KICKRs.
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Glad you mentioned in, I’m on a 4th TICKR now, shocking.
Bolt - 2nd replacement due to failures.
I have a KICKR that was actually given to me by them when my Core failed twice.
As for a desk, I went with a similar model that was 1/3 of the price.
For a fan I have one of the Cleva ones, their fan is just plain crazy on price.
Customer service, they seem to do great on, cannot praise them high enough but it’s clear they have massive issues in their products.
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I’m on my 3rd Tickr now, they last a year for me and then the pod starts dying it seems, also seem to get inconsistent battery life readings from TR with it, sometimes 20% sometimes 80%, I’m not sure there is any accuracy to that. However, Wahoo is very quick to respond with customer support and happily replace the Tickr without much hassle, it kinda seems like once you buy a Tickr once you get replacements for life.
Lol until the manufacturer decides to do a security update. We were at a cafe the other week and my mate swiped his watch (no idea if it was google/apple/garmin) and it was declined. He brought up his email and saw a security message that he’d have to re-register all his cards, which were in his house 25miles away 
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