[hx833001]

Ultra has better battery life, most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost everything essential in terms of communication without a phone if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.

[KeplerBoy]

I thought the sleep tracking and resting heart rate tracking is one of the most important features of a smartwatch. pretty sure most garmin users wear them at night for these reasons.

[LandR]

I always thought resting heart rate while sleeping was a pointless metric ?

YOu can have a resting heart rate while sleeping in the 30s, yet your real resting heart rate in the 60s.

I don't need a watch to tell me if I was sleeping or not, I was there, I know if I was sleeping... I also don't see the point if it telling me if I got enough sleep or not. Again, I know if I didn't get enough sleep as I'm tired...

I also don't think it's sleep tracker is accurate, I've had my garmin tell me I have taken naps when I hadn't. I was just lying on the sofa watching a film and didn't get up for an hour or so. That doesn't mean I'm asleep.

[Lio]

I find sleep tracking to be really useful.

One thing that surprised me has been seeing the affects of either alcohol or caffeine on the type and quality of the sleep I get.

Even if the absolute numbers aren't 100% accurate the watch definitely spots when I've had even 1 beer during the evening.

I also find heart rate variability interesting. I can't put much spin on the absolute numbers but after either heavy exercise or if I've been unwell I can see the variability rate really drop.

[kadoban]

Sleeping heart rate is useful because it gives you a good "resting" value. Resting heart rate will tell you if you're getting sick, before you have any real symptoms.

[doix]

Yeah, I first learned that from the "HOW TO SKATE A 10K" ebook[0] that was posted here[1] a while ago. He talks about how he tracked heart rate to figure out when he was going to get sick.

I then started looking back at my historical garmin data, pretty much everytime I was sick, my HRV would drop a few days before. I then started monitoring my HRV closer and taking it easy whenever it dropped. Anecdotal data from one person here, but I found that I get sick less and when I do get sick, it's usually not as bad.

[0] https://www.howtoskate.se/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30320639

[kadoban]

Yeah HRV is especially good for that. Mine doesn't really expose HRV very well, I'm guessing because I'm a couple of generations back, so I have to make due. Works pretty well even so though.

[The_Colonel]

You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc.

A lot of value is in the long term trends. One bad night doesn't mean much but if our sleep quality is trending down over weeks, it's a sign you should change something.

[iamacyborg]

> You remember when you fell asleep? I don't. Watch tracks how often you wake up, how long you spend in the deep sleep, etc.

Anecdotally, this is very inaccurate for me.

[LandR]

Yeah, plenty times I've got up during the night multiple times, sometimes out of bed entirely wand walking about and the watch hasn't realised this at all.

Similarly I've been in bed, awake, reading, unable to sleep and the watch has thought I was sleeping.

[LandR]

If I'm watching a film, yes... I know if I've fallen asleep and missed half of it!

[jerlam]

> real resting heart rate in the 60s

What makes one measurement "real" and the other one "not real", if you're mainly using it as a personal metric?

The reason that the traditional definition of resting heart rate exists is people didn't have 24/7 heart rate monitors, and doctors had to measure what they are able to measure. And they still can't measure it well, because patients often have white coat syndrome and there's not enough time during an appointment for people to relax fully.

The Apple Watch, which uses the traditional definition, has to use algorithms to guess which of its measurements counts as "resting" or not, which adds complexity. In contrast, lowest HR during sleep is a more reliable and consistent measurement.

[LandR]

What I mean is, you can be pretty unfit and still have a resting heart rate in the mid 30s when you are asleep. The same unfit person takes a resting heart rate just sitting in a chair doing nothing for a minute or two and it's probably not going to be anywhere near 30.

I've known people who have had resting hearts in the low 40s, but actual resting heart rate when awake is closer to 70!

I think Garmin uses resting heart rate when you are asleep as it makes it seem like you have a really low resting heart rate, where you might not. I think it's overly flattering.

[nradov]

Citation needed. I'm not aware of anyone who is unfit and has a sleeping heart rate in the mid 30s. Let's see some hard data on that.

Garmin watches calculate resting heart rate as the lowest 30 minute average.

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=F8YKCB4CJd5PG0DR9ICV3A

[jerlam]

I think we're talking about two different things.

You're saying that some devices are measuring "resting heart rate" when it's not using the traditional definition, and comparing that number to the traditional definition is wrong, and I would agree.

I'm saying that the traditional measurement of resting heart rate is bad for a variety of reasons, one of which is that taking it while sitting at your couch at home after 15 minutes and having a stranger take it in the weird doctor's office can have very different results. And if our smart devices consistently measure an RHR on a regular basis, that's probably a better measurement of progress.

[KeplerBoy]

I guess most metrics are pointless if looked at in absolute terms and isolation, but trends might still be interesting.

[The_Colonel]

Also, the flashlight and silent alarm are superb features. I use the clock too if I wake up.

[ghaff]

I had a review copy of a separate sleep monitor band that you slept on top of from a company that I think Apple bought. Basically I thought it was mostly an interesting curiosity and (possibly) a reasonable first diagnostic step if you suspect you have sleep issues.

However, for me, the results looked reasonable most nights and for those nights when I didn't sleep well for whatever reason, I mostly knew that was the case without the device results.

[dkdbejwi383]

> most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway

for me at least, the silent alarm so as to not disturb my partner is a huge part of the value in a smart watch.

[Marsymars]

I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for this feature alone. Works great for that.

[cassianoleal]

The Ultra is the most bizarre in the lineup. It's marketed at extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc. For that demographic, battery life of less than at least a week is a non-starter, not to mention 100% button navigation as opposed to touchscreen + dial. Those are really hard to operate whilst wearing thick gloves.

[dagw]

I know several people who own the Ultra, and while they are all 'outdoorsy' sort of people, none of them are even close to 'extreme'.

The market more likely is people that see themselves as "extreme adventurers, mountaineers, extreme hikers, etc", despite mostly doing half day rides at the nearest mountain biking trail, national park hikes where they spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort.

[cassianoleal]

I'm hardly extreme, and the Ultra is bad enough for me. If I'm out in the cold trying to navigate, I don't want to take my gloves off. When I retire to my tent, I don't want to worry about recharging my watch.

> spend one night in a cabin, and a weekend snow boarding at a ski resort

This should be enough to get people away from any watch without the features I mentioned - long battery life and button-operated.

[etrautmann]

This is a bit silly. I was gifted an Ultra, and as a climber/skiier/trail runner, it serves my purposes extremely well. The maps using WorkOutdoors are far superior to what I've seen from Garmin devices (although I haven't tried) and I can always get all-day battery and charge within 30-40 min before bed. Yes, I wish the battery lasted longer but it's a tradeoff I'd always take for a more responsive and usable interface.

One gripe is that the functionality with gloves is a little annoying since you can get false positive screen taps from sleeves/cuffs. A second is that the main button is pressed when doing a pushup or in some situations while climbing, which triggers the emergency alarm mode by default (but is configurable to turn off).

Most adventures are not many days long without sleeping (for me) and this watch works pretty well.

[mcintyre1994]

I know the Ultra has an extra button, but I wonder if you can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch). That was what finally pushed me away from Apple Watch, and the marketing of the Ultra is quite funny if it doesn't solve it.

[kalleboo]

> I wonder if you can start a run on it in the rain (ie without using touch)

You can use Siri to start a workout

[jagermo]

plus, no support for ANT+ is a dealbreaker.

[nradov]

ANT+ appears to be dying and Garmin has started moving away from it. Although I'm sure they'll still support it for several more product generations.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/the-begining-of-the-end-...

[thirdsun]

ANT+ is still very much present in the cycling world and likely won't go anywhere. While most sensors and devices will also support bluetooth it seems to be a much more fragile and problematic connection. From my own experience I'd always opt for ANT+.

[wil421]

Garmin makes solar powered watches for adventures types in the back country. The Ultra is probably good for scuba diving since you aren’t doing it for so long.

[hedora]

My non-ultra gets at least 28 hours, and over 48 in low power mode.

I leave it in airplane mode (this leaves bluetooth on, so it doesn’t impact functionality when my phone is nearby) and disabled the always on screen.

I agree about the questionable value proposition though. A $35 Amazfit band is surprisingly competitive with it, and has much better battery life.

[hunter-gatherer]

> most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping

Eh, what? When watches were just watches, most everyone wore there watch while sleeping.

On that note, my brother and I were talking about these smart watches the other day and I expressed how having a gshock is nice because with my use I seem to get about 7 years of battery life, so my watch is always on. Whereas people with smart watches has (as he put it) significant time blind-spots. But he made a comment at one point and basically said something like "It's not a watch. It is a fitness device that has a clock in it". I think that is a good point. As a watch, all these actually perform rather poorly. But as fitness/GPS/communication devices they perform well.

[sanswork]

My watch charges for the 15 minutes each day that I'm in the shower and getting ready. I'm not missing out on huge tracks of time.

[grujicd]

What do you mean it performs poorly as a watch? Smartwatches sync time, change time zone as you travel, automatically apply DST. It's actually better watch than classic watch.