Thinking of the One Hour Workout and the Apple Watch

Recently someone said that the Apple watch is seamlessly integrated and easy to use. I never considered its simplicity of use because I grew up playing with GPS devices from the etrex 32 to the Nokia N95 8GB to several dozen watches and devices over the decades. As a result the difficulty of Garmin, Suunto and other platforms is normalised.

I did switch back to the Suunto Run watch on Monday or Sunday and I was surprised to see that I had not started the device properly. I noticed the same with the Coros Nomad a day or two later.

With the Apple watch you go to the fitness app, you choose the sport, and you press “play”. With Suunto, Garmin and Coros you need to wait for the satellite signal to be acquired whereas with Apple you don’t.

Weeks ago I was playing with the Suunto Ambit 2 for some reason, and I was reminded that GPS acquisition, years ago, took minutes, not seconds. I would often go for a group hike, or via ferrata, and I’d make sure to start searching for satellites whilst people got ready.

With modern devices it is usually a matter of a few seconds, once you select the sport. You still need to start the activity once satellites are detected and the position is accurate.

With Apple you can download Sports Tracker, Wahoo, Strava, Kiprun, and a dozen other apps, and you can track your runs, bike rides and more, directly via the specific app. You can also track via the in-built Fitness app and share to any of the above platforms, after the fact.

This is often better, because the Fitness App doesn’t play nicely with other apps, whereas other apps play nicely with the Fitness app.

If you cycle Wahoo has you covered, with a range of devices. If you run, hike, and more then the Apple Watch app, or Coros, are your friends. Both allow you to share your runs and more to Wahoo, for analysis and feedback.

Garmin and Coros almost play nicely with each other, but it requires manual transfer from platform A to platform B and it can take a few minutes for the data to be digested and feedback to be provided. In general Garmin to Coros is okay, but Coros to Garmin is incomplete.

Now, you might think, but if the Apple watch is so versatile, app and ecosystem wide, why not use it and forget about Coros, Garmin, Suunto and more and the answer is, “because whilst the Apple watch is tremendously versatile, in terms of apps the battery lets it down, especially once an Apple watch reaches a specific battery health.”

When you go for a hike that lasts for half a day, or a bike ride that lasts for a hundred or more kilometres, then the Apple watch, especially as it gets older begins to last for an hour and a half or less, before dying. This means that the watch dies before you finish the hike. Several times I got to the end of a hike and it died before we caught the train home.

During the COVID honeymoon when I was hiking 20+ kilometres a day it lasted for an hour before dying. It couldn’t even last for half a day before needing a charge.

I used the Suunto Spartan, Suunto Ambit 2, and 3, and Garmin Instinct so regularly that each of these watches showed visible battery degradation after a while.

When the Apple Watch SE battery degraded to last half a day I replaced it with the SE2, and within two years I had the watch refurbished for “free” and now I’m on bonus time with the SE2 but it’s down to 87 percent health.

Now that I go for social runs, rather than group hikes an Apple watch would be good enough. An Apple watch is fine with a 40-50 minute run, even when the battery is degraded, and the app ecosystem for sporty people is expanding every day, as long as we’re ready to spend from 30-120 CHF per app. 120 CHF is for Strava + Runna combined. Most apps are around 30 CHF. Is it worth paying 30 CHF? I don’t think so, but it’s interesting to see that Wahoo via the Wahoo app and Suunto via Sports tracker allow you to pay for more in-depth analysis of your sporting habits.

For a while I was tired with the Apple watch for all of its gamification and more so I had to take a break. During this break I experimented with Coros as a new ecosystem and Garmin and found that I am far lesss interested in the metrics now.

If you pay too much attention to the challenges and awards then Apple Fitness becomes toxic, and if you go for hikes that last for hours the battery doesn’t last long enough. Garmin, Coros and Suunto are so demanding of us wearing and feeling their algorithms that I think I reached the point where I need to take a break, as strange as it feels to write.

The greatest irony of all, that I noticed when reviving the Suunto watch, is that it rewards you for taking a break from it. By taking a break from wearing the device all the trends go upwards.

I also found that by not going for hugely demanding group rides with two cycling groups my physical fitness is declining, but far more stable, and healthier. It’s as if taking a break from the quantified self is a good thing.

With cycling devices you use them when you’re cycling. With early forerunner GPS devices you wore them to a hike, but removed them straight after a hike was done. With plenty of devices before wrist heart rate monitoring, you wore them to know the time, and that is it, between sporting activities.

If you’re going for a social run, or a daily walk then you don’t need a Coros or Garmin device. The Apple watch or similar will track the same data.

For years I wore two or more devices because Garmin, Suunto and Apple want that now. I am fatigued, and I’m tempted, most of the time just to wear the Apple watch, to keep things simple, and integrated, and use Garmin and Coros when it makes sense to. For an event, or for a training program.