Una GPS smart watch – Repairable, USB-C charging, developer-friendly

Way beyond IP5X.

This is also why almost none of the manufacturers will fix the device under warranty when there is water damage, despite the IP rating.

Even Apple themselvers recommend against submerging and iPhone in water:

To prevent liquid damage, avoid: [...] Intentionally submerging your iPhone in water

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108039

The water resistance in these phones exist so that the phone hopefully survives when they get wet accidentally (heavy rain, pool drop, etc.). Not to shower with the phone, cleaning it by putting it under the tap, or doing underwater photography. Usually, it survives, until the seals fail.

It doesn't have all the Garmin features, but it's free and I don't have to worry about it's software getting redesigned.

I'm now usually taking the Coros Nomad because it has super-fast maps and still a battery life of three weeks.

They are really great otherwise and I love my Coros Nomad and Garmin Fenix so much more than the Apple Watch Ultra.

Also, not everyone with a GPS watch cares that much about heart rate. I am a runner (well, less so now that I used to be, but working on fixing that) and have a Feninx7, not for the health tracking features but for route tracking and the long battery life (for “ultra” events covering many hours or even multiple days).

Seems to me that "still working well after more than a decade of use" is a more useful piece of info than "newer models include additional features".

My body battery and stress often starts declining for no apparent reason and then 12-24 hours later I feel the symptoms of an illness. Similarly, when in a tough training block, HRV is a great tool to gauge how hard I ought to be able to go: I've tried to push through and just do a tough workout anyways when it's out of range, but failed to complete the workout in good form, or felt superficially crappy but had good training readiness according to the watch and was able to do better than expected.

The same holds true in the other direction, I don't log into Connect or scroll through the multitudinous widgets of data often enough to really keep tabs on this stuff, and when I get sick or feel good or bomb a workout or succeed at a workout when I felt off, the metrics consistently back up the actual results.

Personally, I've been thinking about jumping ship to a Coros Apex 4 if my battered Fenix 6 ever gives up the ghost - Garmin's prices are insane these days. At $270, this is cheap enough in comparison to a $1200 Fenix 8 Pro to take the chance. I could buy this and a $480 Apex 4, and then decide I didn't like either of them and go back to a used Forerunner 955, before spending as much as a new top-end Garmin.

And iWatch doesn't have a flashlight. And iWatch doesn't have the same battery life.

I also don't see why an Apple Watch wouldn't survive all those mentioned things. Pretty sure I did all those things with an Apple Watch on, except for the specific 108 mile gravel race. But I don't see why it would fail that.

And both might absolutely scratch while climbing, and if you're unlucky and hit it in the wrong spot, also crack.

That said, if I were an athlete in any of those categories and did it all the time, I'd still absolutely choose a Garmin.

There are several apps[0] off the top of my head that pull data from Apple's HealthKit. Apple even has a framework for it: HealthKit. That said, I've never written to that API myself, but it observational evidence indicates that you can pull data from Apple just fine. The app I use to pull data off Apple and ship to Strava says as much.

[0] RunGap and HealthFit

Whereas I throw my Apple Watch in the general vicinity of the magnetic charger, it locks into place, and charges just fine, 100% of the time. Fine, don't use induction like Apple, use two exposed, flush pins and a magnet like my Coros armband HR monitor, because that works 100% of the time, too.

I doubt that modern smart phones are waterproof. Who would trust use their smartphone while showering or being in a bathtube (including submerging the smartphone a few centimeters into the water)?

But you'd be a fool to believe a hardware startup would do so anyway.

Good thing with the Fenix line is that you stop the updates which I did a year in so I don't really care about them, but I do think they stopped firmware updates for the 6series about a year ago.

I by now often see the term "surveillance capitalists"/"surveillance capitalism" on HN.

While it is a great thing to fight surveillance organizations, don't forget that communist countries had/have (for the latter: People's Republic of China) much worse surveillance in place.

Yeah, if you only use the stock Garmin cable (why isn't it at least right-angle?!) it kinda sucks, but there are lots of products that do it really well:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5L632HM

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4F71WQC

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N18DX6Y

I would much rather these totally waterproof surface-level pads that put the spring pogo pins in the cable than give up internal device volume to a USB receptacle or magnetic charging coils.