For me the value of Garmin (Forerunner) is their proprietary algorithm for calculating Stress Level from HRV. It is the basis for the Body Battery measure. I find it useful to see how food and activity affects my stress levels.
I guess it would be possible to reverse engineer a similar stress level calculation. Perhaps AI-powered?
The title is misleading at least, to compete with garmin you need the similar offering, with swimming/waterproofing being the huge outliar here but also the ecosystem and like it or not features like the notifications.
Very valiant first effort for sure but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.
This is cool because we need more open competition for the app/identity locked ecosystems of sports related electronics like gps watches, bike computers, and action cams. I hate how none of the major brand ones will work without at least signing up for an account and most wont work at all without the manufacturers app.
If it has a flashlight and is beyond waterproof, I would maybe consider it.
My Garmin Epix watch is practically bullet proof. I've dove with it in open ocean. I've jet skied with it. I rock climb with it. It's surived 108miles of Unbound (the race) in mud, sun, sweat. I've water rafted with it. I've swam in crappy lakes, streams and jumped off cliffs. Hottubs? also no problem.
Zero chance a iWatch would ever survive these conditions.
Oh and despite all of this, the screen has not scratched, not even a little. Plus it has 5-10 days of battery life... and did I mention I always have a flashlight on me?
> "UNA is currently a non-submersible device due to its innovative modular design. So, swimming is not something we offer as an activity, nor do we advise it. UNA is IPX5 rated, which means it is splash & showerproof to a high degree."
If I had a dollar for every time some project that was ipx5 rated failed after getting caught in the rain one too many times...I'd have enough to buy another Garmin Fenix.
Some good points were already brought up in the comments (IP5X, USB C charging), but I have the feeling that it's also just not a good fitness tracker/smartwatch.
I see a single unboxing of the watch from three weeks ago on Youtube and zero reviews on YT or websites. Just posts based on their PR release that it's available now. (Though some clearly already shipped.)
Thus, it's unfortunately very likely that the product is also not good at its main purpose, tracking activities, workouts and health. If it would only even come somewhat close to the performance of all the competitor smartwatches/trackers, they'd be louder about that part.
> UNA is currently a non-submersible device due to its innovative modular design. So, swimming is not something we offer as an activity, nor do we advise it. UNA is IPX5 rated, which means it is splash & showerproof to a high degree.
I've wasted so much money on vendor charging cables in the past 10 years while traveling or moving that I would probably buy this just for the USB-C port, assuming it is actually
splash proof.
I wonder what HR sensor they use. Samsung apparently has an average error of 7% which is pretty bad, so I wonder if this would be worse. [0]
I really want to like this watch. Price is certainly right, and it does all of the things I'd want out of a Garmin or Apple Watch Ultra. But what problem does this solve for me? In the Apple Watch use case, a replaceable battery would be nice. But in contrast to Garmin, I've never replaced a Garmin because the battery wouldn't hold charge anymore. I've never broken a screen (if one has a habit of that, Garmin and Apple make watches with raised bezels). I just hold on to the Garmin for six or seven years, by which time it's so beat to hell that it's time for a new watch anyway. But I'm wondering if the subtle message isn't aimed at Apple and not Garmin.
USB-C charging would be awesome, instead of Garmin's proprietary plug and a cable that's made from spider silk. I'd prefer, though, wireless charging like Apple. Never once have I pulled an Apple Watch off a charger and said, "WTF? Why didn't it charge?" Garmin, OTOH...
I'm no triathlete, but the "no swimming" kinda puts a damper on my enthusiasm as well.
I wish them well, I love the idea even if I probably won't buy one.
Polar has an API where you can get more or less anything out. That bit is fine - sadly you can't put things in (like virtual cycling, or any activities not recorded on the Polar).
USB-C would suck. Part of the purpose of that proprietary plug is that it's very water resistant and very durable. Imagine getting mud or coarse sand in your USB plug and not being able to charge anymore.
Any "open ecosystem" product needs to be a competitive product out of the box, otherwise it's just a development toy. Developers aren't going to enhance your product to fill in all the gaps unless there are customers, and preferably paying ones.
I do like the idea of USB-C, the garmin's power plug is nothing but annoying. It's really just a matter of battery life and what sort of software integration it has. Although, it's hard to beat the Garmin ecosystem.
I think battery life is the most important. My Garmin Instinct 2 goes about 3.5 weeks between charging (the older non-OLED screen). It has solar, so I usually go over a month.
But a watch, something people will wear swimming, sweaty, in the rain, etc, is something that should ideally follow the wireless charging standards, and not have a plug taking up space, and being a spot for leaks...
One of the tiles on the buy page says "HR BAND SUPPORT Connect compatible BLE chest straps". But one single connection type doesn't compare to Garmin's list of supported ANT and BLE accessories.
Is it hard to get waterpoof, considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof? Important to note that this watch doesn't claim to be waterproof.
For me the value of Garmin (Forerunner) is their proprietary algorithm for calculating Stress Level from HRV. It is the basis for the Body Battery measure. I find it useful to see how food and activity affects my stress levels.
I guess it would be possible to reverse engineer a similar stress level calculation. Perhaps AI-powered?
If the algorithm is proprietary, how do you know it is calculating something meaningful?
The title is misleading at least, to compete with garmin you need the similar offering, with swimming/waterproofing being the huge outliar here but also the ecosystem and like it or not features like the notifications.
Very valiant first effort for sure but after 6 years with a Garmin Fenix still holding 90% of its battery (and being able to replace it), I'm not their potential customer.
This is cool because we need more open competition for the app/identity locked ecosystems of sports related electronics like gps watches, bike computers, and action cams. I hate how none of the major brand ones will work without at least signing up for an account and most wont work at all without the manufacturers app.
If it has a flashlight and is beyond waterproof, I would maybe consider it.
My Garmin Epix watch is practically bullet proof. I've dove with it in open ocean. I've jet skied with it. I rock climb with it. It's surived 108miles of Unbound (the race) in mud, sun, sweat. I've water rafted with it. I've swam in crappy lakes, streams and jumped off cliffs. Hottubs? also no problem.
Zero chance a iWatch would ever survive these conditions.
Oh and despite all of this, the screen has not scratched, not even a little. Plus it has 5-10 days of battery life... and did I mention I always have a flashlight on me?
> the screen has not scratched
I believe this the least!
> "UNA is currently a non-submersible device due to its innovative modular design. So, swimming is not something we offer as an activity, nor do we advise it. UNA is IPX5 rated, which means it is splash & showerproof to a high degree."
If I had a dollar for every time some project that was ipx5 rated failed after getting caught in the rain one too many times...I'd have enough to buy another Garmin Fenix.
Some good points were already brought up in the comments (IP5X, USB C charging), but I have the feeling that it's also just not a good fitness tracker/smartwatch.
I see a single unboxing of the watch from three weeks ago on Youtube and zero reviews on YT or websites. Just posts based on their PR release that it's available now. (Though some clearly already shipped.)
Thus, it's unfortunately very likely that the product is also not good at its main purpose, tracking activities, workouts and health. If it would only even come somewhat close to the performance of all the competitor smartwatches/trackers, they'd be louder about that part.
> Can I swim with UNA?
> UNA is currently a non-submersible device due to its innovative modular design. So, swimming is not something we offer as an activity, nor do we advise it. UNA is IPX5 rated, which means it is splash & showerproof to a high degree.
Damn. But hopefully they improve on that. I would absolutely be considering one if this wasn't the case
I've wasted so much money on vendor charging cables in the past 10 years while traveling or moving that I would probably buy this just for the USB-C port, assuming it is actually splash proof.
I wonder what HR sensor they use. Samsung apparently has an average error of 7% which is pretty bad, so I wonder if this would be worse. [0]
[0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/i-ran-30-miles-testing-5-sm...
I really want to like this watch. Price is certainly right, and it does all of the things I'd want out of a Garmin or Apple Watch Ultra. But what problem does this solve for me? In the Apple Watch use case, a replaceable battery would be nice. But in contrast to Garmin, I've never replaced a Garmin because the battery wouldn't hold charge anymore. I've never broken a screen (if one has a habit of that, Garmin and Apple make watches with raised bezels). I just hold on to the Garmin for six or seven years, by which time it's so beat to hell that it's time for a new watch anyway. But I'm wondering if the subtle message isn't aimed at Apple and not Garmin.
USB-C charging would be awesome, instead of Garmin's proprietary plug and a cable that's made from spider silk. I'd prefer, though, wireless charging like Apple. Never once have I pulled an Apple Watch off a charger and said, "WTF? Why didn't it charge?" Garmin, OTOH...
I'm no triathlete, but the "no swimming" kinda puts a damper on my enthusiasm as well.
I wish them well, I love the idea even if I probably won't buy one.
The charging situation with Garmin is terrible, enough that when Venu quits charging I might go for the Apple Watch or anything that takes a charge...
For me, I want an open API I can pull my data from. Last I checked, you have to be a business to use Garmin's API.
Apple certainly doesn't let you.
My goal is to have a cron that runs on my homelab that pulls my health data into a DB I own, from various sources, and visualize it in Grafana.
Polar has an API where you can get more or less anything out. That bit is fine - sadly you can't put things in (like virtual cycling, or any activities not recorded on the Polar).
you can use https://github.com/cyberjunky/python-garminconnect to pull your data from garmin, I've been using it daily with no issues
USB-C would suck. Part of the purpose of that proprietary plug is that it's very water resistant and very durable. Imagine getting mud or coarse sand in your USB plug and not being able to charge anymore.
Any "open ecosystem" product needs to be a competitive product out of the box, otherwise it's just a development toy. Developers aren't going to enhance your product to fill in all the gaps unless there are customers, and preferably paying ones.
They hardly even mention the software, but isn't that half the value of Garmin devices?
I do like the idea of USB-C, the garmin's power plug is nothing but annoying. It's really just a matter of battery life and what sort of software integration it has. Although, it's hard to beat the Garmin ecosystem.
I think battery life is the most important. My Garmin Instinct 2 goes about 3.5 weeks between charging (the older non-OLED screen). It has solar, so I usually go over a month.
But a watch, something people will wear swimming, sweaty, in the rain, etc, is something that should ideally follow the wireless charging standards, and not have a plug taking up space, and being a spot for leaks...
And I just bought a Garmin Forerunner 55, too. I'm still within the return period, will have to consider this...
Specs don't make it clear if it supports BLE sensors (HR strap, power meter,... ).
One of the tiles on the buy page says "HR BAND SUPPORT Connect compatible BLE chest straps". But one single connection type doesn't compare to Garmin's list of supported ANT and BLE accessories.
USB-C really does not make sense for such a device. It's significantly too bulky and is hard to get water proof
Is it hard to get waterpoof, considering that every modern smart phone is both usb-c and waterproof? Important to note that this watch doesn't claim to be waterproof.
2.5MB RAM, FreeRTOS!