Garmin Forerunner 35 vs Fitbit Inspire 2

Well, we're pretty much all my workout gear. The risk based heart monitor to me was a major selling feature. I want to be able to learn the maximum I ...

Who is the FitBit Inspire 2 best suited for? The FitBit Inspire 2 is great for first-time fitness track buyers as it offers essential tracking feature...

I used the quick-release wristband because I would go back and forth between my road bike. I don't think I'll ever rely on it again because this is the second time it's disconnected accidentally, and certainly the last time since there's no hope of finding it along the 10 mile trail of rock and mud.

I'm a design engineer and there is not enough plating on the charging contacts and the base material below easily corrodes forcing users to have to replace the unit. THIS IS THE 3RD REPLACEMENT I've bought.

Garmin won't be able to sell the Forerunner 35 for $200 for too long. $150 seems like a better price point. I'm sure a Forerunner 35-level watch will be selling for only $100 or so in a couple more years. The Forerunner 35 wears pretty nicely

But I am glad I did not pay full price for it. I used the Mother's Day sale and my Best Buy points to get it for about half price.

Are you a runner looking to take training to the next level, but can't afford a really pricey device? Wondering why in the world you'd even need one? I was in your shoes! As an activity tracker, the Forerunner 35 is very nice. I give it 3 stars because many of the features that a runner would use don't work, and I feel it's deceptive to sell a device with these features when they're not really usable for training. Essentially, this is a good activity tracker posing (ineffectively) as a training tool. Many reviewers mention that the Forerunner 35 isn't for "serious runners", and I took that to mean that they believe "serious runners" need all the complexity of a very expensive watch

In addition, the Inspire 2 boasts all the fitness features of its predecessor, including SmartTrack automatic exercise recognition for walking, running, aerobic and elliptical workouts, outdoor cycling, sports like basketball, and swimming. It also lets you set exercise goals for metrics like calories, distance, or duration so that the tracker alerts you whenever you reach it. 

I use it primarily as a device to help family at home feel comfortable with me being off grid.

The ankle strap was going to solve another issue for me: I'm a stomach sleeper. And I sleep with my arms folded and tucked under my pillow. I know it's the worst way to sleep (bad for back, breasts and gut health) - but I've not been able to break the habit (even tried those special pajamas but I'd just take them off in my sleep). Like most people - I do a moderate amount of shifting or turning my head in my sleep

I think as long as you can run comfortably at a conversational pace, your HR shouldn't matter too much. That's not to say you shouldn't strive to get better at running, but there are so many more metrics than just HR to tell you if you're on the right path. Happy running :)

I bought this because it is smaller than many other activity bands and less obtrusive on my wrist. There really isn't much to choose from these days. It seems to work ok- it is counting steps and some exercise. I am finding the calorie/activity part of the app helpful

95 at Fitbit)(Opens in a new window) , which gives you the option to send a canned response, emoji, or voice-to-text reply.

App - The calories burned aren't accurate I think according to the steps taken. Supposedly you burn 40 calories per 1000 steps I think, or at least around that much and the fitbit app would say something like 7000 steps = 2000 calories burned. If you want accurate calorie burn count I would connect the fitbit app to the fitnesspal app. The fitnesspal app gives a more accurate calories burned plus you can log your food as well and has more food options and calorie accuracy than the fitbit app Device - I got the black one and it's pretty nice and discreet on my wrist

While I have found getting these alerts on my wrist pretty useful, this particular feature falls short of what the Pebble offered. There's no queue or timeline for reviewing notifications as there is on the Pebble and I find I miss the ability to simply scroll back through previous alerts. BATTERY LIFE The Forerunner 35's battery life is outstanding. I get between 8 and 10 days between charges, and a full charge takes only a few hours

Battery life is excellent as mine went a week and still had about half the charge. I've noticed my phone battery was draining significantly quicker due to the Bluetooth usage, so I prefer to have the unit gather data for a day, using a one-time per day sync in the morning. This would however, effect it's notification options from your phone. I sacrificed these functions and simply closed the phone app and turn off Bluetooth on my phone except to sync the unit

What I don't like: ------------------ Phone integration for text and call notifications is spotty. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. It's a nice feature when it works. The phone downloads slowly but reliably to my Moto G7 Power

**1-The features:** I'm not sure how to describe how great the features on this watch are, It feels like having a phone in your watch, for example I use Spotify in the gym using the watch and not my phone which makes things easier for me, be that as it may you the notifications feature is my favorite, me as a person I don't like touching my phone much as it distracts me a lot and the watch allows me to reply to people using quick responses, voice messages and typing and etc. It used to take ages for me to reply to people as I don't use my phone much but now I reply whenever I want, I use shazam a lot as I go work and study in coffee shops and I like exploring new music. Google keeps, Google pay, Google maps, Outlook and etc. is a plus that makes you more productive, if you have galaxy buds you'll be flabbergasted how amazing is the compatibility between your phone, buds and the watch is!!

The first of the three times I got up to pee the Garmin showed that my ARHR had by that time dropped to 44, indicating that even though customer service told me that ARHR is an average over the last 7 sleep periods, my ARHR when I went to bed was close to 44 - which tracks with readings of the previous night, which also dropped intranight to 44. However, last night, except for those 4-5 brief intervals, which totaled about 10 minutes across the duration of my 6:30 sleep period, the graph of my HR shows a resting pulse that ranged from 34-44, with the average for the night being about 40. Yet at the end of my sleep period my ARHR had gone back up to 45! How did customer service explain this anomaly? Apparently the device ignores any resting pulses below 40 as artifacts, and since my RP was in the 30's for about an hour and a half, and since this wasn't even counted in averaging over the night (which gave more weight to the brief periods when my RP was in the high 40s and 50s) there was no drop in my ARHR, and in fact, over the last 6 months I've only briefly ever gotten it down to 44, even though my actual RP for the night is typically around 10-42, except on the nights after intense training sessions. Despite these evident software design flaws, my overall impression of Garmin, and even of the Forerunner 35, is positive

Now the first thing I want to do is just give you guys a physical tour of this device. It's pretty simple and elegant, so this should be a fairly shor...

SUMMARY As disappointed as I am in the Apple Watch as a running watch, I'm not switching to the Garmin until they address at least the first two items under CONS above. I feel certain the CONS I mention above are purely in the software, so hopefully they'll enhance some of those capabilities in a future update. If not, maybe Garmin needs to release a Forerunner 40 that handles those features better. The higher end Garmins may already cover those complaints, but they're too expensive for a running watch and not sufficiently capable for a smart watch

Online help told me to reset it and that a background firmware update was the cause. They variably said this would take between 12-72 hours to resolve depending on who I was talking to.