[Chase16]

Hi All,

I hope this message finds you all well! So I have been struggling with the thought of buying the new Samsung Galaxy "watch" I don't think it's a watch but besides the point. The issue I'm having is I will never give up wearing my watches on my left hand. I want to were a "smart watch" for health tracking purposes. I just feel I will look silly wearing them on both wrists. Does anyone rock both?

Thanks,
Gary

 

[midshipman01]

If it’s purely for daily health tracking you could do an alternative to a watch like the Oura ring. That handles all of your steps, heart rate, etc and is honestly known to be a better sleep tracker than Apple Watch and Samsung. Purely for health metrics this could be the best option going all things considered even if you don’t care about the watch aspect.

If on the other hand you’re like me and want actual workout data, then I’d still skip the Samsung or Apple Watch and go with a mid range, or top tier, Garmin like a 935, 945, or Fenix. Apple watches and Fitbit bands give you so much fewer metrics and options for connectivity, plus battery life is weeks longer on these between charges, that it’s a no brainer.

 

[Jonathan T]

I sometimes rock my Apple Watch on a regular watch together if I’m trying to close my exercise ring and going on a walk. Easier in the colder months of the year because I can just hide under my sleeves and nobody will notice.

By the way there is a dedicated smartwatch forum here too.

 

[Chase16]

If it’s purely for daily health tracking you could do an alternative to a watch like the Oura ring. That handles all of your steps, heart rate, etc and is honestly known to be a better sleep tracker than Apple Watch and Samsung. Purely for health metrics this could be the best option going all things considered even if you don’t care about the watch aspect.

If on the other hand you’re like me and want actual workout data, then I’d still skip the Samsung or Apple Watch and go with a mid range, or top tier, Garmin like a 935, 945, or Fenix. Apple watches and Fitbit bands give you so much fewer metrics and options for connectivity, plus battery life is weeks longer on these between charges, that it’s a no brainer.

Nice car!! Thanks I think I'm going to go in that route I have a Garmin cheaper one that stopped working so maybe I will buy something cheap I just want heart rate and sleep tracking steps stuff like that.

 

[Nokie]

You can find Garmin's and other options that have the heart rate, steps, etc, for decent prices.

The Oura is a good suggestion. That is what I use and it works great and has all of the features needed.

Good luck.

 

[Porky4774]

I’ve been saying for a couple years I don’t understand why they can’t just make a watch strap with the technology inside, or a deployant clasp for people that like to wear a regular watch.

 

[Davekaye90]

Nice car!! Thanks I think I'm going to go in that route I have a Garmin cheaper one that stopped working so maybe I will buy something cheap I just want heart rate and sleep tracking steps stuff like that.

I had a Galaxy Watch 3 for awhile. It was a decent smart watch, but a bad fitness tracker. The HR monitor was inaccurate, and would often just cut out for no reason and not be able to sense any heart rate at all (promise I wasn't dead). The steps tracking was "ok," definitely not great, and the calorie counting and # of stairs counting was completely useless and wildly inaccurate.

I got rid of it, and replaced it with a Garmin Fenix 5S Sapphire, which I'm much happier with. The Samsung lasted one day, and the always on display was unreadable in bright sun, so you had no choice but to wake up the watch to read it, and the sensor for that was all of the place, sometimes a slight change in wrist position would turn it on, otherwise you'd have to move your arm around a lot for it to do anything.

The Garmin uses a much simpler TFT screen. It's nowhere near as colorful as the Samsung OLED display, but the watch lasts a week instead of a day, easily worth the trade off. Also, instead of having to crank up the brightness to fight bright sunlight, TFT displays work with ambient light. The more light on the watch, the easier it is to read. During the day, you won't need the backlight on the Garmin at all.

 

[big_slacker]

Wearing two watches is goofy AF so I wouldn't do that. Oura ring is ok and is the gold standard for consumer grade sleep tracking. It also will measure body temp, heart rate variability and so on. Hopefully you like wearing rings, haha. I can't stand it and don't even wear my wedding ring.

Whoop strap or similar fitness band on the other wrist is an option as well and one that I like better than the ring. That said I don't have one despite being a fitness nerd. The iPhone tracks steps in the health app. I have a garmin forerunner 945 that I switch to for sports only to track my gym workouts, bike rides, skiing, paddleboarding, etc. The other stuff that fitness trackers do I have pretty well dialed just though long term habits and being in touch with my body. No need for the widget.

 

[Givemore_2day]

If it’s purely for daily health tracking you could do an alternative to a watch like the Oura ring. That handles all of your steps, heart rate, etc and is honestly known to be a better sleep tracker than Apple Watch and Samsung. Purely for health metrics this could be the best option going all things considered even if you don’t care about the watch aspect.

If on the other hand you’re like me and want actual workout data, then I’d still skip the Samsung or Apple Watch and go with a mid range, or top tier, Garmin like a 935, 945, or Fenix. Apple watches and Fitbit bands give you so much fewer metrics and options for connectivity, plus battery life is weeks longer on these between charges, that it’s a no brainer.

switched to the Oura ring in place of my old smart watch. Curious about the garmin data though, feel like it could be an option for actual work-outs versus just normal health data

 

[big_slacker]

switched to the Oura ring in place of my old smart watch. Curious about the garmin data though, feel like it could be an option for actual work-outs versus just normal health data

Garmin has tons of sport specific data. So for SUP it'll give speed, heart rate, stroke rate. For bouldering you can put in the v-scale rating of the problem and number of attempts. Weights will record reps per set (with a button press to separate ses) and so on. It can also do route planning for long endurance races which will do turn by turn navigation which can be HUGE if it's a backcountry event. It will also link with chest strap HR monitors and power meters on your bike, whether a real bike or stationary bike for things like Zwift.

None of this stuff matters for casuals, but for athletes it's AWESOME for training and recovery.

 

[leadbelly2550]

I wear a fitness device on the right and a traditional watch on the left and have done so for nearly 10 years. Initially, people asked why. past few years, friends know, and people i don't know almost never ask. currently a Garmin Fenix 6, 47mm (they sell in 42, 47, 51 mm sizes)

A good compromise might be the fitbit inspire 2 because it's very low profile and looks more like a strap than a watch. fitbit has started putting some of its functionality into a premium, subscription-based service, so i would check what you get non-subscription vs. subscription.

My issues with Oura (ring) and Whoop (elastic strap, no watch face): 1) they require monthly subscription fees. Oura is substantially less expensive per month. 2) if you're really active, it's a mistake to wear a ring due to the risk of finger injuries. Jam or badly injure your ring finger, the Oura runs a big risk of complicating the problem. 3) Oura is better for health metrics like sleep and heart rate, not in the same class as other trackers for workouts; Whoop's sensors are inferior overall to many other fitness trackers - haven't owned either but have digested many reviews of both.

 

[longtimelurker]

If you don't need music, dedicated apps, phone calls, or extensive data, a fitness band will more than suffice. And it won't look nearly as funky as a watch on both wrists.

 

[Stchambe]

I'm going to add another vote for Garmin products.

They make a lot of bracelet-like wearables that track basic stuff like heart rate, steps, and give a basic computation of caloric burn.

I used to wear one on my right wrist while wearing a traditional watch on my left wrist.

I would also suggest looking at a Whoop band. Don't have any personal experience with one but a lot of people like them.

 

[BHWookie11]

Sinn already solved this problem for us years ago! 😂

 

[Davekaye90]

Garmin has tons of sport specific data. So for SUP it'll give speed, heart rate, stroke rate. For bouldering you can put in the v-scale rating of the problem and number of attempts. Weights will record reps per set (with a button press to separate ses) and so on. It can also do route planning for long endurance races which will do turn by turn navigation which can be HUGE if it's a backcountry event. It will also link with chest strap HR monitors and power meters on your bike, whether a real bike or stationary bike for things like Zwift.

None of this stuff matters for casuals, but for athletes it's AWESOME for training and recovery.

Also extremely helpful for hikers - Garmin will track your route via GPS, and create breadcrumbs the entire time so you can just hit "back to start" and it'll send you back the exact same route you went out. It does this with its own topo map data, no internet necessary. In an emergency situation this can be a BIG deal. GPS chews through cellphone batteries very quickly, and unless you have topo maps pre-loaded on your phone, they don't really do that.

A Samsung watch would similarly die after not that long of constant GPS tracking, and if you were keeping the screen on to help you navigate, it'd be dead in a few hours. My Fenix 5S can do it for more than 12 hours, and the newer models can go into multiple days of full tracking. No Samsung or Apple can come anywhere close to that.

 

[MeisterEder]

I wear a WHOOP on my right wrist and an actual watch on my left.

The WHOOP does not have a display and is all black, so I don't think it looks that weird. Not my pic but you get the idea. It continually tracks heart rate, HRV and sleep, and displays all the data in the phone app (via Bluetooth).

 

[midshipman01]

View attachment 16856551
Sinn already solved this problem for us years ago! 😂

This is wild and while I love the idea I don’t know if THIS is going to be the ultimate iteration lol.

But this FC strap sounded really interesting to me and I’m not sure why this idea hasn’t been more of a push with other brands. Seems like enough people would be into health metrics provided it doesn’t look weird or hamper the look/function of the watch.

 

[big_slacker]

Also extremely helpful for hikers - Garmin will track your route via GPS, and create breadcrumbs the entire time so you can just hit "back to start" and it'll send you back the exact same route you went out. It does this with its own topo map data, no internet necessary. In an emergency situation this can be a BIG deal. GPS chews through cellphone batteries very quickly, and unless you have topo maps pre-loaded on your phone, they don't really do that.

A Samsung watch would similarly die after not that long of constant GPS tracking, and if you were keeping the screen on to help you navigate, it'd be dead in a few hours. My Fenix 5S can do it for more than 12 hours, and the newer models can go into multiple days of full tracking. No Samsung or Apple can come anywhere close to that.

Great point about following the route back. There have been many deaths that could have just been a little story about taking a wrong turn and wasting a little time following the watch route back instead. In terms of battery life I can attest to this. My forerunners have done plenty of 6-12 hour rides with full tracking on and had 40-60% battery left. That would murder an iphone/android/apple watch battery.

 

[OmegaGuySD]

When I travel, I frequently wear a mechanical watch on the left wrist and a Garmin one on the right. But that is mostly to get a sense of how bad my jet lag is. Unless you have a medical condition, health data is surprisingly boring.

 

[Lu1s95]

Very similar to the Whoop band mentioned above I use the Amazon Halo band on my right hand. Tracks calories, steps, heart rate and sleep among other things. It just looks like a cloth strap. (Not my pic)