I would add that “barefoot” means, literally “barefoot”. I had convinced myself that “barefoot shoes” would be sufficiently the same because I was running outdoors and didn’t have the guts to do actual barefoot. I recently bought a new Assault AirRunner (curved motorless / manual treadmill) and run on it actually barefoot. The difference in my running form and sudden introduction of new muscle soreness makes clear how even barefoot shoes affect form.
Off-topic side note/rant: it is incredibly annoying how the Apple Watch becomes wildly inaccurate when on treadmills. GymKit has been out for years and has no - zero! - uptake among home treadmills and even shockingly low among commercial treadmills. And shame on Assault Fitness for creating an expensive, commercial level manual treadmills with an app that can see the data via Bluetooth from the treadmill, and failed to integrate HealthKit to sync the data. Wild decisions.
Apple Watch is probably < 1% of a market dominated by Garmin, Polar, and Suunto, so it doesn't make much financial sense to integrate with GymKit.
Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on a charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's performance analysis software is also years ahead of Apple's. Apple could fix both of those things but that would require investment which I'm not sure they are willing to make.
> Apple Watch is probably < 1% of a market dominated by Garmin, Polar, and Suunto, so it doesn't make much financial sense to integrate with GymKit.
Well, maybe (though I highly doubt it is 1% of the runner market) but it is by far the biggest player in smart watches generally now, and they are quickly eroding the feature advantage gap with those other brands. And most of the users of the brands you mentioned are serious runners whereas the average person walking into a gym bought their smart watch for a broader set of reasons than a serious runner buying a Garmin. It would make sense for a manufacturer of equipment to appeal to the average person walking into a gym.
> Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on a charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's performance analysis software is also years ahead of Apple's. Apple could fix both of those things but that would require investment which I'm not sure they are willing to make.
I wear mine all night and get the sleep info. I plop it on the charger while I shower and eat breakfast and it is full by the time I am ready to start my day.
Do you happen to know how Garmin compares to Fitbit in terms of performance analysis? Fitbit made some changes that I'm unhappy with and they refuse to offer us a way out. I'm thinking of talking to Santa Clause about this.
I’ve not used a Fitbit since the first version they released, I continue to be a huge Garmin fanboy though. I’m very happy with my Fenix 5, though I’m semi-regularly tempted to upgrade to a newer one for the “body battery” feature which uses training load, intensity, sleep, and other stuff to work out a more accurate recovery efficiency between activities. I also use a mix of Strava and Garmin Connect for various other analysis things. Which I guess is part of the appeal, they’re pretty open with the data integrations so you might be able to put your data into something else if you need more specific performance analysis.
Honestly the only complaints I have with my Garmin is the best kind of complaint to have: they last so long. My previous forerunner I had for 12 years. This Fenix must be close to 5 already. I keep looking at these new ones and I just can’t justify it. Battery life is still many days, features are still great. It’s just an absolutely rock solid watch that doesn’t actually need to be upgraded. Which is ultimately why I chose a Garmin instead of an Apple Watch last time - I didn’t want another Apple device that might be on a 3 year upgrade cycle.
My solution to the Apple Watch charging problem is to start charging it as the first step of my bedtime routine, and put it back on my wrist as the last step. This works because it takes about 45 minutes to charge.
I would add that “barefoot” means, literally “barefoot”. I had convinced myself that “barefoot shoes” would be sufficiently the same because I was running outdoors and didn’t have the guts to do actual barefoot. I recently bought a new Assault AirRunner (curved motorless / manual treadmill) and run on it actually barefoot. The difference in my running form and sudden introduction of new muscle soreness makes clear how even barefoot shoes affect form.
Off-topic side note/rant: it is incredibly annoying how the Apple Watch becomes wildly inaccurate when on treadmills. GymKit has been out for years and has no - zero! - uptake among home treadmills and even shockingly low among commercial treadmills. And shame on Assault Fitness for creating an expensive, commercial level manual treadmills with an app that can see the data via Bluetooth from the treadmill, and failed to integrate HealthKit to sync the data. Wild decisions.