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Looking for larger watch face

Former Member
Former Member over 6 years ago
Hi all. I am the new owner of a Vivoactive 3. Gotta tell you, I love just about everything about this watch. I don't get my shorts in a knot if the OHR doesn't match my chest strap, or if a device has a few bugs. I am a bit of a techie (my job) and expect electronic devices to have glitches. I'm loving the battery life of this thing, and all the parameters it tracks. The only thing bothers me is the face size. My 55 year old eyes can't read anything but the time. Any extra data fields (which I want) cause me to stop whatever I'm at and don my reading glasses if I want to see my current heart rate, sunset time, or whatever data I chose to have on the watch face. I've loaded about 25 different watch faces now, and some are almost great for me. I know there are widgets I can flip through, but I don't want a smartwatch just to see the time. Anyway, that being said, I'm looking for an alternative. After some researching, I'm considering the new Samsung Galaxy Watch. Feel free to talk me out of it. I am NOT a fan of Samsung phones, but am willing (maybe) to give this watch a try. I'm thinking the OLED screen may be a bit sharper and easier to read. My main question is, how much bigger is the display. No point in telling me that it's a 46mm watch, as my brain doesn't let me decipher that!! How much bigger is the display than the V3? Is it significantly larger. When my V3 arrived I was a little surprised as the watch was a lot smaller than I had figured from looking at internet pictures. I was willing to live with that if I could read it.

Some things I am worried about. Galaxy Watch battery life. I don't expect it to be as good as the V3 that's on my wrist right now. but I don't want to have to charge it every second night either. I know battery usage depends on how you use the watch. But right now I can get 4 days easily from the V3 with my style of usage. Galaxy seems to have all the features I need, plus wifi - which the V3 doesn't have.

I looked at some other watches. For example I probably would have bought the Diesel On Full Guard 2.5, but battery life sucks. Any other good advice or suggestions? I will not spring for the cost of the Fenix 5 line, nor will I step down to the Fenix 3 line. But I don't see a whole lot out there that will suit my needs.

My uses will be for 80% smartwatch function and 20% activity tracking. I am very much interested in sleep tracking, and I like how my V3 has performed there so far. My mobile device is the Essential phone.

EDIT: Waterproof to 3 ATM is mandatory.

Thanks all in advance for any help or guidance you may offer.

GC
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    You have to understand that you can't have a watch that is highly information dense and at the same time highly glanceable without stopping what you are doing to look at it; no smartwatch in existence today will be large enough to do that well. The question then becomes about finding the compromise that works for you; a watch that shows enough information that is useful, but not so much that everything is too small and you can't read it at a glance. For me the watch face DigitStorm in a Vivoactive 3 hits that sweet spot. Would I prefer a more information dense face like GearMin? Of course. But if I can't read it at a glance, it's useless in real life usage.

    I think you'll find that you'll face the same dilema with any smart watch that you try, whether a Garmin, a Fitbit, a Samsung or an Apple Watch. There's never going to be a smartwatch that shows you all sorts of info AND it's glanceable, you just gotta find the compromise that's best for you.


    Guys, I'm not dumb. The Garmin features are exactly what I want in a watch. I didn't say I wanted 80% smartwatch. I said my "uses" are 80% smartwatch, which means I'll be using it as an activity tracker 20% of the time. There's a difference. It seems any time I ever ask a question in a forum, one or two people actually answer the question and the rest advise me why I made the wrong choice, or say what I'm looking for isn't possible. One poster says you can't have an information dense face and be able to read it at a glance. I don't recall ever asking if I could do that. I asked for a clearly legible time, heart-rate, and a few more fields. And yes, it is possible. I find Crystal face pretty good - if they increased font size it would be great, and there is room for that.

    And thanks to Markus who actually answered the question posted, and for others who offered good advice. The larger face on the Samsung Galaxy watch along with OLED display will probably be quite a bit clearer to read.

    HOWEVER!! Have any of you been reading owner comments on the new Galaxy watch? Apparently it's a nightmare with GPS not working, not counting steps, battery life, HR monitor giving crazy readings, etc. Hopefully it's a software issue and not hardware.

    With all that being said, I grew to like the V3 a little more this weekend. Puttering around in the backyard, checked the time, and was impressed with how vivid the display is when outside in the sunlight. I should have know this as I have had Garmin GPS's in the past with transflective displays. After a full weekend of working in the yard, helping a friend move some stuff, a couple of treadmill runs, and one outside run, I was impressed with the watch. It counted steps great, floors reasonably well, and the HRM seems to be fine. And the smart features worked flawlessly. Perhaps I'll find a way to make this watch work.

    GC
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    For a big watch face go for one of the Fenix line of Garmin watches if you can afford it.


    I can afford it, but can I justify it is the question!!! I almost bought the Fenix 3HR, but if I were to buy a Fenix it would be from the Fenix 5 line. A quick look on Amazon shows the 5x at $850. Canadian prices are nuts. But I guess $350 is crazy to a lot of people too, so each has their perception of what's worth what!

    But I do like that watch!!

    GC
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    GreatCanadian, I understand your frustration. There are a lot of good watch faces for the VA3, but after trying a lot, I could not find the one that suited me exactly. So I wrote my own, taking a lot of design ideas form the watch faces I did like. It sounds like your needs are pretty close to what mine were. Check out my watch face at the link below and if it doesn't meet your needs I'd be willing to create a new one more specific to what you want, as long as you provided some kind of markup or detail summary of what you want to display and the size and location of the data. As long as it's a fairly simple watch face that would just take some small changes to my current watch face I could have a new one ready for use by the end of the weekend.

    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/0ff244f9-03cc-4711-813f-30a08bb39965
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    For a big watch face go for one of the Fenix line of Garmin watches if you can afford it.


    Fenix is bigger watch, not bigger screen ;) same screen size 1.2" ;)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    My eyes aren't the greatest anymore either. Had to find a large watch face too, but not too large for the wrist.
    I like the VA3 and went with the Wf4CoolSolid watch face. The font size is large enough to read at a glance and the customizations help minimize the clutter.

    If you just want more real estate on the watch face the Fenix series has a considerably larger face.
    Suunto offers larger faced watches but I doubt they have the smartwatch features you want.
    Then there's the Apple Watch. I never felt it had enough fitness features but it is a capable smartwatch.

    Personally, I'd look around the Garmin store to see if a watch face style did the trick before investing in another watch.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I didn't say I wanted 80% smartwatch. I said my "uses" are 80% smartwatch, which means I'll be using it as an activity tracker 20% of the time. There's a difference.
    GC


    Are you serious? Lol. OK, let's rephrase the comment. Maybe you selected the wrong watch if you'll be using it 80% of the time as a smartwatch. It must suck having to use your VA3 as a smartwatch 80% of the time even though you don't want to use it that way.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Wow, you really don't comprehend well do you. I don't know anyone that works out for 80% of their day. Most of the time you interact with your watch it will be as a watch. Anyway, enough arguing that point. Seems like you're the only one that doesn't understand.

    Anyway .... Someone posted earlier that the V3 and the Fenix 5 line have the same size display. Is that true? I know it's a bigger, heavier watch so I just assumed the display was bigger as well

    GC
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    The displays of all new round watches by Garmin have 30.4mm size. The Forerunner 935 has 30.5mm. All have 240x240 pixels.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    The displays of all new round watches by Garmin have 30.4mm size. The Forerunner 935 has 30.5mm. All have 240x240 pixels.


    Thank you.

    GC
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    One face you might consider is 'WeatherFace' - I find it has a good mix of 'time readability' and other data showing to me, in a fairly bright mix of colors. But like everything else, all of us have different opinions on things, what we want, etc. I also had a challenge initially finding the best face that gave me what I wanted - this one has been the best for me.

    https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/d8fa0718-9859-413d-afb4-8784c5072600