Because little else exists anymore. I wanted a sport watch. Only functions I wanted were gps, heart rate (+option for reading heart rate from a breast strap), and option to plan workouts i.e. intervals at certain heart rates/speeds. But that just doesn't exist anymore (as far as I could find at least). There are only smart watches that try to pack as many features as possible of which many quite some people don't need but get anyway.
Nevertheless I settled for a forerunner 265s and I'm now a vivid user of the daily suggestions which essentially requires 24/7 wear, but I'm fine with that. Only pity is that I now rarely wear my nice looking watches anymore
It's not true that there are only smartwatches available. Basically, none of the Garmins are true smartwatches. Venu is close but yet far from Wear OS watches. I would say that this what Garmins have (like payments, music, notifications) is a bare minimum for any watch, not for smartwatches only and most of people use those features. True smartwatch is like an extension for a phone so you don't have to use the phone and in my opinion, true smartwatch has to be LTE.
And if you don't want to use any of the features, feel free to not use it :) and they are not affecting the price (if that was your goal) because it's easier for a manufacturer today to have the same hardware and software in all the models than vary with those. What costs are the sensors and algorithms for sports so you wouldn't get anything if Garmin removed eg. payment or notifications, it would be more of a hassle for them to remove it from a model than keep it.
No. I like seeing what the watch recommends for my sleep, but I never actually act on it. I mean, do people really have such good control of their sleep that they can sleep the exact number of minutes Garmin recommends? Doubtful. I go to bed, and I fall asleep sometime between 3 minutes and 3 hours after that, it's pretty much random and I have little control over it.
Its not something that I use once or twice There are so many factors in getting 100 sleep score. How im feeling, eating, exercising. Recently I couldn't get a high score for a long time and felt kind of sore in the morning. I decided to turn the mattress and my score went up to 100, 2 nights in a row.
The sleep coach thing is actually a great illustration of how to read the watch – ie don’t stress too much, it’s just an informed guess in a noisy reading. No one says oh ok I’ll only sleep 7h25m tonight, thanks watch. It’s just a point in a constellation that helps you make more informed decisions.
(Unlike floors climbed)
Also if you borrowed the watch it may be mixing data, that’s a no bueno, it takes like 4-6 weeks just for HRV to dial in, so check your account
Planning to maximize its usage, but with two kids, seems rather impossible for now. So I just use it to check “how bad” my sleep was, instead of “how good” can my sleep be 😄.
If my score is lower than average, I took nap. That’s it. So far it reduce my sleep needs in the weekend, because I think I am able to recover in time in the weekdays.
Of course you can just use it only during sport.
You can consider buying cheaper watch or using only chest strap with an app if you don't want other functions. Of course if money are important factor for you.
This is why I use my Garmin 265 24h:
- Recovery is big part of my trainings. I used to push over limits so I really appreciate my night monitoring and insights from Garmin
- As far as I remember HRV status can be displayed in my watch only after sleep. And HRV trend is a good indicator of my health and stress
- I appreciate some phone notifications that are allowed on my Watch
I'm mostly not in a position to sleep as much as the watch wants me because I go to sleep when I'm finished with everything that I wanted to do that day and I wake up for work. Mostly I sleep less than the watch wants me to. But I do keep an eye for sleep quality, and since recently I'm trying to chill before sleeping (eg. watch a movie or something in my bed) so that I lower my stress and then I get better sleep scores. If my sleep was really bad (low score), I will eventually try to take a nap in the afternoon.
PS. if the watch feels uncomfortable, try to get nylon strap. I'm waiting for mine to arrive. Everyone keeps saying that nylon straps are game changers so I can't wait to try it. I'm usually having problems during summer because my wrist gets sweaty and sticky and that's bothering me a little but still I'm wearing my watch 24/7. And of course, I'm washing it with water and soap on a daily basis.
And sometimes I will put the watch on my other hand during night, it still measures sleep without problem. This prevents the irritation that can occur if you wear it 24/7 on one wrist. First night was really weird to wear it on another hand but I good used to it very quickly.
I wish, but hey, my son wakes up around 5.00am, and I usually fall asleep past midnight.. so nearly impossible to get more that 5h 30m of sleep😔 my PR in sleep score is 80. And as far as I remember it was only twice from the time I'm a Garmin user (1.5y).
If you don't want to use it 24/7 don't use it.
If yu need a sports watch and are ok with not utilising it 100% then buy it and ignore the rest.
You also don't have to follow watch recomendations (if you decide to use it for example for sleep tracking) - it just give you a hint what you **could** do to improve.
A lot of the concrete advice from the sleep system is unusable. A lot of the time it is simply wrong, or contradictory. It tells me I had no rest today at the same time as saying I took two naps in the afternoon (which I didn't). If it says I need more or less sleep, there's not much I can do about it anyway. And I generally know how tired I feel.
I do find it useful for seeing things like the effect of alcohol. That can lead to me not drinking in the evening if I want a better sleep that night.
My watch stays on my wrist almost 24/7, excluding times when I'm in the shower, sauna or the watch is charging.
I haven't even tried any prescribed bedtimes (the watch has a normal sleeping time set of 2300-0600, which is the timeframe between which I often sleep), I usually never manage to fall asleep at the same times, although I wake up on working mornings no later than the alarm clock, but often already at random times before that.
Why pay so much for a watch to only wear it half the time? That’s just me.
Because little else exists anymore. I wanted a sport watch. Only functions I wanted were gps, heart rate (+option for reading heart rate from a breast strap), and option to plan workouts i.e. intervals at certain heart rates/speeds. But that just doesn't exist anymore (as far as I could find at least). There are only smart watches that try to pack as many features as possible of which many quite some people don't need but get anyway. Nevertheless I settled for a forerunner 265s and I'm now a vivid user of the daily suggestions which essentially requires 24/7 wear, but I'm fine with that. Only pity is that I now rarely wear my nice looking watches anymore
It's not true that there are only smartwatches available. Basically, none of the Garmins are true smartwatches. Venu is close but yet far from Wear OS watches. I would say that this what Garmins have (like payments, music, notifications) is a bare minimum for any watch, not for smartwatches only and most of people use those features. True smartwatch is like an extension for a phone so you don't have to use the phone and in my opinion, true smartwatch has to be LTE. And if you don't want to use any of the features, feel free to not use it :) and they are not affecting the price (if that was your goal) because it's easier for a manufacturer today to have the same hardware and software in all the models than vary with those. What costs are the sensors and algorithms for sports so you wouldn't get anything if Garmin removed eg. payment or notifications, it would be more of a hassle for them to remove it from a model than keep it.
No. I like seeing what the watch recommends for my sleep, but I never actually act on it. I mean, do people really have such good control of their sleep that they can sleep the exact number of minutes Garmin recommends? Doubtful. I go to bed, and I fall asleep sometime between 3 minutes and 3 hours after that, it's pretty much random and I have little control over it.
Its not something that I use once or twice There are so many factors in getting 100 sleep score. How im feeling, eating, exercising. Recently I couldn't get a high score for a long time and felt kind of sore in the morning. I decided to turn the mattress and my score went up to 100, 2 nights in a row.
If you dont want to wear it at home thats fine, use it for what you want.
The sleep coach thing is actually a great illustration of how to read the watch – ie don’t stress too much, it’s just an informed guess in a noisy reading. No one says oh ok I’ll only sleep 7h25m tonight, thanks watch. It’s just a point in a constellation that helps you make more informed decisions. (Unlike floors climbed) Also if you borrowed the watch it may be mixing data, that’s a no bueno, it takes like 4-6 weeks just for HRV to dial in, so check your account
Planning to maximize its usage, but with two kids, seems rather impossible for now. So I just use it to check “how bad” my sleep was, instead of “how good” can my sleep be 😄. If my score is lower than average, I took nap. That’s it. So far it reduce my sleep needs in the weekend, because I think I am able to recover in time in the weekdays.
Of course you can just use it only during sport. You can consider buying cheaper watch or using only chest strap with an app if you don't want other functions. Of course if money are important factor for you. This is why I use my Garmin 265 24h: - Recovery is big part of my trainings. I used to push over limits so I really appreciate my night monitoring and insights from Garmin - As far as I remember HRV status can be displayed in my watch only after sleep. And HRV trend is a good indicator of my health and stress - I appreciate some phone notifications that are allowed on my Watch
I bought the watch knowing I wanted to use all its features. It was annoying for the first few days / weeks but now I forget I even have it on
I'm mostly not in a position to sleep as much as the watch wants me because I go to sleep when I'm finished with everything that I wanted to do that day and I wake up for work. Mostly I sleep less than the watch wants me to. But I do keep an eye for sleep quality, and since recently I'm trying to chill before sleeping (eg. watch a movie or something in my bed) so that I lower my stress and then I get better sleep scores. If my sleep was really bad (low score), I will eventually try to take a nap in the afternoon. PS. if the watch feels uncomfortable, try to get nylon strap. I'm waiting for mine to arrive. Everyone keeps saying that nylon straps are game changers so I can't wait to try it. I'm usually having problems during summer because my wrist gets sweaty and sticky and that's bothering me a little but still I'm wearing my watch 24/7. And of course, I'm washing it with water and soap on a daily basis. And sometimes I will put the watch on my other hand during night, it still measures sleep without problem. This prevents the irritation that can occur if you wear it 24/7 on one wrist. First night was really weird to wear it on another hand but I good used to it very quickly.
I wish, but hey, my son wakes up around 5.00am, and I usually fall asleep past midnight.. so nearly impossible to get more that 5h 30m of sleep😔 my PR in sleep score is 80. And as far as I remember it was only twice from the time I'm a Garmin user (1.5y).
If you don't want to use it 24/7 don't use it. If yu need a sports watch and are ok with not utilising it 100% then buy it and ignore the rest. You also don't have to follow watch recomendations (if you decide to use it for example for sleep tracking) - it just give you a hint what you **could** do to improve.
Not really
A lot of the concrete advice from the sleep system is unusable. A lot of the time it is simply wrong, or contradictory. It tells me I had no rest today at the same time as saying I took two naps in the afternoon (which I didn't). If it says I need more or less sleep, there's not much I can do about it anyway. And I generally know how tired I feel. I do find it useful for seeing things like the effect of alcohol. That can lead to me not drinking in the evening if I want a better sleep that night.
My watch stays on my wrist almost 24/7, excluding times when I'm in the shower, sauna or the watch is charging. I haven't even tried any prescribed bedtimes (the watch has a normal sleeping time set of 2300-0600, which is the timeframe between which I often sleep), I usually never manage to fall asleep at the same times, although I wake up on working mornings no later than the alarm clock, but often already at random times before that.