I sometimes run races of up to 24 hours. The Garmin will record an activity that long, and longer if you charge it during the activity. This is an extreme case, but the Apple Watch can’t do either of these things.
My Garmin connects to a foot pod. This gives more accurate cadence info than from your wrist. It also gives more accurate instantaneous pace and more accuate distance if you’re running somewhere that GPS is insufficient.
There are high tech accessories that track additonal metrics that work with the Garmin, such as the Stryd foot pod.
The Garmin display is always on. I prefer this to the Apple display.
The Garmin uses its physical buttons for all operations of the watch which means I can use it no matter how sweaty my hands are or whether I’m using gloves.
The Garmin battery lasts 7-10 days.
Garmin Connect syncs my runs to Strava and Smashrun. I can also download all my runs to rubiTrack.
Those are a few of the reasons I prefer my Garmin.
Everything other than always on & battery life is quite possible with an Apple Watch.
I’ve tracked things for 8-10 hours and had 50% left so I can see if working for you, even in your admittedly extreme use case.
I feel like you’re being rather unfair to it and other than always on & the hardware buttons you mentioned, it sounds like my original statement is true for the vast majority of people.
My Garmin connects to a foot pod. This gives more accurate cadence info than from your wrist. It also gives more accurate instantaneous pace and more accuate distance if you’re running somewhere that GPS is insufficient.
There are high tech accessories that track additonal metrics that work with the Garmin, such as the Stryd foot pod.
The Garmin display is always on. I prefer this to the Apple display.
The Garmin uses its physical buttons for all operations of the watch which means I can use it no matter how sweaty my hands are or whether I’m using gloves.
The Garmin battery lasts 7-10 days.
Garmin Connect syncs my runs to Strava and Smashrun. I can also download all my runs to rubiTrack.
Those are a few of the reasons I prefer my Garmin.