I wear a Garmin GPS watch because I never have to set it up again

It’s no secret that I want Garmin’s wearables to their rivals from Apple, Samsung, or Google. I’ve praised Garmin’s battery life and working system flexibility extra instances than I can rely. Sure, I can admit that the Forerunner 965 and the Instinct 2x aren’t modern sufficient for formal events, however there’s one other important motive that I maintain going again to Garmin time and time again. That motive is that after I’ve set up a Garmin operating watch as soon as, I never have to do it again.

Few individuals swap telephones as typically as I do, which implies that few persons are probably to face the hurdle of setting up a new wearable as typically as I do. However, when you get your smartwatch set up and end navigating each final menu and have, the very last thing you need to do is begin over from scratch. If you’re swapping from Android to iOS or from a Galaxy Watch to a new Fitbit, you most likely begin over fairly usually. That’s not the case with Garmin.

Instead, Garmin retains all of your watches saved in your Connect account, letting you select and handle them as simply as if you happen to have been selecting a pair of footwear for the day. That means opening the app and choosing from my checklist of watches every time I set up a new cellphone for evaluation. I can deal with setting up the cellphone whereas figuring out that my emergency contacts, sleep preferences, and Garmin Pay data are already in place. Honestly, probably the most I normally have to do is coordinate the watch face with my new cellphone for a little bit of additional continuity.

On prime of the simplicity of saved settings, Garmin hangs onto your sleep monitoring and well being knowledge from one wearable to the following, too. This is essential, particularly for keeping track of your HRV. It takes about three weeks to construct a baseline in your HRV while you first set up a Garmin watch, so it could be a nightmare if I had to restart that clock every time I placed on a new watch. Thankfully, all of that valuable knowledge — in addition to your degree of operating health and your every day Body Battery — is saved within the Connect app.

Although the saved settings make the method a lot simpler, I’ve seen one little hiccup when pairing a watch with a new cellphone — Garmin’s Bluetooth connection is sort of too good. My Forerunner 965 typically needs to join again to a earlier cellphone and choose up notifications from that machine somewhat than my shiny new one. It’s not as huge of a problem with notifications from Slack or Twitter since I solely have one account, however it does imply that Garmin generally tries to escape my textual content messages and cellphone calls.

Of course, this received’t matter for most individuals since few maintain onto as many telephones (or Garmin watches) as I do, however that’s a part of my job. If you’re merely switching telephones after an improve, you must have no issues holding your Garmin related to your present machine as soon as your previous one is powered off.

There’s a standard saying about having the best instrument for the job, which is the opposite good thing about Garmin’s setup flexibility. Pairing one cellphone with a number of watches may be so simple as pairing one watch with a few completely different telephones. It additionally means you may dabble in different components of Garmin’s expansive lineup and nonetheless know you have probably the most applicable watch for every event.

For instance, you most likely wouldn’t wear your mountaineering and adventure-focused Garmin Instinct 2x to a marriage ceremony, similar to you wouldn’t wear a Garmin Venu 2 Plus for a lengthy tenting journey. If you had each watches and one cellphone, you would simply swap them in your machine and maintain your deal with the massive day (or, in my case, the view from the highest of the mountain). Or, if you happen to’re a runner who splits time between roads and trails, you would possibly bounce out of your Forerunner 965 to your Fenix 7 Pro when weight and sturdiness are your major issues.

By the best way, Garmin’s setup simplicity nonetheless holds true if you happen to’re switching from Android to iOS. Instead of spending further money on an Apple Watch or a Samsung Galaxy Watch for the additional devoted options, you may deliver your Garmin with its unbeatable battery life, pinpoint GPS, and easy setup course of from one platform to one other.

I received’t faux that the Pixel Watch isn’t trendy or the Apple Watch Ultra isn’t among the many greatest Apple merchandise to date, however I’ll maintain reaching for Garmin’s simplicity and suppleness each single time.