I have to be honest, I was lurking at the Apple Watch for the past few years but every time I was looking a bit more in depth, it was clear that my Fenix watches were a world apart and it made 0 sense to switch. And no, I don’t want to have 2 watches, one for working out and one for day to day stuff. I need a centralized place where everything is tracked, from my sleep, my overall activities, my workouts and all the stats that comes with it.
This was until the rumours of an “Apple Watch Pro” started popping out over the past year or so. I was still not convinced… But then, on presentation day, I just knew I was going to make the switch. WatchOS 9 in the spring was already a good step forward, but the battery and durability of the standard Watch hardware were 2 big deal breakers for me at the time. Well, not anymore. While the battery is nowhere my Fenix 6 Pro, it still hold up for the type of training and workouts that I do. The titanium body and Sapphire glass were all I was looking for in term of durability.
The last part that I was hesitant about was the software. Apple did a lot of improvements over the years and their focus on health is a good thing. But that focus is more on overall health than actual serious training: I was questioning it this would have the depth of Garmin in term of metrics, stats and recommendations such as training load, HRV status etc…
After a lot of research online, I decided to still jump ahead. If not everything is perfect, it’s pretty damn good and with the release of the Ultra, I know that Apple is getting more focused on serious training and will add massive amount of capabilities over the next years.
Durability
Nothing to complain here, the watch seems very durable and overall it felt greatly build. Many people tested the Ultra durability (as you can see in the video above) and while I won’t test is the same way 😅 I am not afraid to use it anywhere for any type of activity.
Battery life
If there is one thing Garmin Fenix are good at, is the battery life! And it’s obvious that, even with the double of the standard Apple Watch, the Ultra still doesn’t come close to the Fenix watches…. But to me that is irrelevant for 2 reasons:
– First, It’s either you charge your watch once in a while, every 2-3 weeks, and it doesn’t become a habit, OR you make it something regular on a daily basis. If your watch needs to be recharge every 4-6 days like the Garmin EPIX 2 for example, to me it’s not much better than every day. Yes it give you more room for long training sessions after a couple of days for example, but at the end of the day, the Apple Watch Ultra is so easy and fast to recharge (much more than Garmin’s), that you just take the habit to top off the battery every morning with 10-15 min and your good to go for the day.
– The second reason is regarding training and races. This is more personal, but to me, the longest triathlon I ever did was a half Ironman and the watch will largely cover this ! Even 4-5 hours bike rides that I do sometime in the summer will easily be done while still wearing the watch for the rest of the day (and night). I don’t see myself doing any activity right now or in the future that will required more than the 14-16 hours (with GPS) of battery life. And this is not counting on the new Power saving mode coming soon.
Overall, and after 2 weeks of wearing it and training with it, the battery is enough for me, and while I sometime wish I could go for weeks without charging it, it’s doesn’t bother me that much.
The software & metrics
This video above gets it! You literally need 2 apps on the Ultra to pretty much replace Garmin (Almost 😀 ). Yes, those are 3rd party apps, but I actually feels that this is positive. Let me explain: on one hand you don’t have the full integration inside the OS as the Garmin, but on the other hand, this works with any data stored in Apple Health app. While some stats such as training load or readiness on the Garmin will NOT work with Zwift workout or other workout apps ( you always need to start a session on your watch on top of on your computer/phone), in the case of Athlytics, it will take any data store in Apple Health in consideration to calculate exercision and other stats.
Overall Athlytics is able to give me all the information I need and I am used to have on Garmin. It goes even beyond for some stats such as sleep analysis or HRV.
Workoutdoors, the second app, allows you to build advanced workouts (intervals, alerts etc.), can be customized like crazy, and most importantly, is able to connect to sensors such as cadence, power meters, speed etc. This last part is a huge gap for the Apple Watch Ultra and I wouldn’t be surprise that this will be supported soon (WatchOS 10?) as Apple is now targeting more serious sports enthusiasts. No serious sport watch can be consider as one without being able to connect to such sensors.
Summary
By having those 2 applications installed, and getting use to that quick 15 min / day charging, I would say I couldn’t be happier I made the switch. I am still learning about the Apple Watch Ultra, but I can say this is a beautiful piece of technology. There are many functionalities that I am learning every day making it a better sport watch AND even a better smartwatch !
I see a lot of people online doing the switch from Garmin. While the die-hard Garmin fans will say “those 2 are completely different and it will never hurt Garmin Watch sales”, I beg to differ and I would easily see the majority of Garmin users switch to Apple Watch (Ultra)… if they have an iPhone!