Related
Options

What if Samsung & Epix 2 Had a Baby? (Please read before you judge me for this!)

gore2828
over 2 years ago

So we all know Garmin is playing around with different watch designs and options. The Epix is the first Fenix with an Amoled screen. The newest Venu 2 Plus has an on-board microphone to respond to text, take phone calls, and list to music from it's speaker. The Forerunner has LTE. My point being: Garmin is playing around with features related to many smartwatches out on the market.

With that being said, Samsung smart watches hold the biggest portion of the android market. They make superb smart watches. Where they lack is in the fitness arena. Garmin is the leader in the all things fitness electronics industry, the Fenix and Epix being their flagship devices. Where Garmin hasn't figured out is it's smartwatch features. What if Garmin and Samsung had a baby watch. It would have android, all of Garmin's full fitness hardware and software, Garmin's Fenix build design with a sapphire lens and DLC coating, the Epix battery life, and Samsung's smartwatch features all in one watch. I have always wondered what this watch would be like. Call it something else than Fenix or Epix. Is this something you guys would buy? 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Interesting premise. For me personally,I've had both the AW and many Garmins. Since I am into fitness, I need the metrics of Garmin. To me, the smartwatch stuff is nice but I have my phone for that. The one thing I REALLY appreciate is playing music from the watch without my phone nearby. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Wouldn't touch anything called Samsung with a 10 foot stick, so no, I wouldn't buy it.

    Also, anything able to run Android wouldn't be able to get the battery life we are used to on Garmin.

  • 0 over 2 years ago
    • IDK I have had smart watches since the first Moto 360 and own a Galaxy Watch 4. I can honestly say I think Garmin has nailed the smart watch features enough. If I had a couple things I would like it would be integration with Google maps. Having your wrist buzz before turns on a road trip to me is super helpful. I have Android Auto but definitely find it easier on a watch especially when just cruising along and using the screen for music. I do think their music controls are subpar compared to Android but otherwise the benefits by far outweigh the negatives. I don't miss Wear OS at all but these are a couple things Garmin could probably easily make better with a software update.
  • 0 over 2 years ago

    You're basically talking about a Suunto 7.

    You can't run Android (WearOS) and expect to get anything like the battery life of an Epix.

    Suunto 7 is a great watch by the way. BUT...all the reasons not to get one are the reasons why a Samsung type device with Garmin fitness chops and amazing battery life with a brilliant screen doesnt exist. I did use one for 6 months or so but struggled to get consistently beyond a marathon distance and having to be very careful to charge up fully before a run etc.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 3673816
    3673816 said:
    struggled to get consistently beyond a marathon distance and having to be very careful to charge up fully before a run etc.

    Must be a marketing trick from Suunto, giving you an excellent motivation to run faster Rofl. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    As others said...you can't get a lot from the battery with WearOS so i guess it's not really possible to get what you are looking for.

    I waited for a Pixel watch for years before deciding to go with Fitbit Sense and then Garmin...looking at the specs of the Pixel Watch and the "battery should last more than 1 day" looks so bad for me that i lost any interest in WearOS.

    I don't care about calls from the watch or listening to the music from the speaker...the smart notifications from Garmin are more than enough for me.

    The only thing that could be improved, in my opinion, is Garmin Pay which doesn't have many banks on board, in some countries, but i'm ok with creating a digital bank account just to be able to use it.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I wouldn't buy it.

    Trying to move away from wear os (specifically have both a galaxy watch 4 (wearos 3) and had all fossil versions up to the current gen6 (still on wearos 2) )

    only plus on wearos are on the smartwatch (notifications) side but very limited and often unrealiable:

    - proproper application icon for every APP (so you know from where the notification came from at a glance - on garmin instead many apps just show a generic "messages" icon, for example whatsapp and telegram on android)

    - full emoji support (garmin for example is not showing emoji  thru telegram like Flag de - epix 2 show up as as two separate emojis: letter "D" and letter "E")

    - voice-to-text replies (but this is frustrating as like 1 time out of 3 it fails to write the correct text, or fails to send and so on...)

    - google assistant (this is the same as voice-to-text :  totally unreliable and fails lot of times, so I end up to never use it because having to repeat something 3 times to get it done is worthless - better do it right away from the phone itself)

    - wifi notifications sync (this is probably the only thing I will really miss from wearos) basically when out of Bluetooth range the phone connects to wifi gets notifications pushed to it thru the internet - basically this feature means I can roam a big gym (with free wifi coverage) and get notifications from the phone without having to keep the phone with me all the time

    - Bluetooth coverage being massively wider (like literally at least 100 meters even across thick external walls... here the epix seems to loose the BT connection with just 1 internal wall in between) - this is probably the biggest hit on battery

    everything else is worse so far... but the worse part of it is the unreliability of wearos features... because having a feature that works half of the time for me is a no go - I just do not make use of it - I prefer fewer features that works flawlessly that bunch of things working 50% of the time

    just my 2 cents

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 7017726

    Using a bank that supports both Garmin pay and google pay.

    So no difference on that front 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 7017726

    In Canada i made an account with Brim and never had any issue.

    In Italy i made an account with Revolut but didn't try it yet Smiley

    I just move there some money, from time to time, to be able to use Garmin Pay...not ideal but not even a big problem.