Best Fitness Watch (Garmin vs Apple Watch) | Nourish Move Love (2024)

FAQs

Is Apple Watch better than Garmin for fitness? ›

Both the Garmin and Apple Watch utilize advanced sensor technologies, but Garmin is perceived as more accurate due to the emphasis on sports and outdoor activities. Garmin has a strong reputation in the fitness and outdoor markets, providing dedicated features for activities like running, cycling, swimming, and golf.

Apple Watch Results. While both brands offer outstanding, high-quality wearables, Fitbit has more budget-friendly options, superior battery life, and better health and fitness tracking than the Apple Watch.

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 had the most accurate results, yet both were further out than I anticipated. That said, no fitness tracker will offer you 100% accuracy and your cadence, height and stride will all play a role. Garmin and Apple don't make it easy when trying to track your steps during an activity either.

Garmin vs Apple Watch: GPS Accuracy (Winner – Garmin)

They also uses multiple satellites, which means more accuracy (GPS, Galileo and GLONASS). While the Apple Watch 8 series is far more accurate than earlier versions, many folks still find it not as accurate as Garmin and as a long distance runner that matters!

The best Apple Watches are also pretty great at tracking your exercise and, in a lot of ways, they do it better than many other dedicated sports watches. They're excellent at tracking runs, swims and workouts – and for everything else, there's usually an app for that.

The Fitbit averaged the highest percent difference of - 10.2% from the benchmark of counted steps, and underestimated steps at all speeds (p <0.05). Garmin averaged a -2.7% step difference, Jawbone averaged a -5.3% step difference, and the iWatch showed a -7.9% step difference.

Arm movement while walking will be captured by the internal 3-axis accelerometer in the watch which will record each complete swing of the arm as two steps.

I heard all the negatives of the Apple Watch, like how your battery life won't last your long runs or how the GPS will be so far off it would frustrate you to no end, or how because of the screen you can't read it in the bright sun.

In this respect, Garmin watches are the best, giving the best estimate, while the Apple Watch's estimate is unreliable and useless for a serious athlete. You can improve estimate accuracy, but it will never be 100% accurate. If you want to know your real VO2 max value, you need to do a lab test.

Can you text on a Garmin watch? ›

When you receive a text message notification on your watch, you can send a quick reply by selecting from a list of messages. You can customize messages in the Garmin Connect™ app. NOTE: This feature sends text messages using your phone. Regular text message limits and charges from your carrier and phone plan may apply.

The Garmin is more pro-active than Apple Watch in assessing your fitness and making recommendations. There are features like Training Readiness, Stress measurement, Body battery, and more.

My Garmin GPSMAP 65 is way more accurate than my Iphone, it will consistantly get me within 6 Feet, my cell phone around 20 feet at best. This is my experience, yours may differ.

Heart rate info shared with the Apple Health and Activity apps will include all-day heart rate, but only the high and low heart rate values from timed activities recorded on your Garmin device.