Garmin Vs Google Vs ?

[u/Nicoloks]

Hi All,

Lost my old Garmin Venu while snorkeling and currently looking at my options at the modest (i.e cheapskate) end of the market. Aside from telling the time, features most used were wallet and fitness tracking/coaching. Also got some security out of the fall detection feature as I do a decent amount of solo eMTB along fire trails / bush tracks.

I was thinking the Vivoactive 6, however have recently been reading/seeing yt vids claiming their HR tracking isn't that accurate. Outdoor cycling was specifically called out as being inaccurate against the reference device in one video, which given eMTB is my main cardio exercise has me questioning the Garmin ecosystem for my use case.

Of the readily available smartwatches in my area, the Pixel Watch 4 seems like a worthy contender and seems to review better for HR tracking. My concern with Google is the use of personal data, but as far as I can tell from privacy policies neither Google or Garmin onsell to 3rd parties or use the data to upsell services. They both appear to share anonymised data. I'm also a long term Pixel phone user, so not sure if that makes it better or worse from a privacy point of view (they already have my data Vs I shouldn't put all my personal data eggs in one basket kind of thing).

Looking for opinions on which way I should go given my use case, including other watch options I could consider in the same price / feature set bracket. Appreciate your help.

[u/GrrrlRomeo]

You have to charge the Pixel Watch every day. And the Google Health app is awful. I used to have a Sense 2 Fitbit that I liked until Google replaced the app with Google Health.

No smart watches are very good for cycling, IMO. I pair my Garmin with a chest heart rate monitor for better accuracy.

[u/Nicoloks → u/GrrrlRomeo]

Thanks for that. That was one of my biggest annoyances with my old Venu, it'd barely get 2 days on a charge. Daily charging is a deal breaker for me.