A lot of times it's incredibly tough to sift out the noise of brand bias when you're trying to sift through the data, people's opinions of what device you should get for whatever reason. And that's the problem I ran into when I was looking between the Garmin 955 and the Apple Watch Ultra. I am brand agnostic. I don't care. I don't have any brand loyalty for anybody except the close personal friends if they run a business because it's the duties of the companies to serve you as the consumer.
not the other way around. So after trying to sift through all the crap, my conclusion came to, instead of the Apple Watch Ultra, the Garmin 955. So when you're buying a device, it's got to serve a couple of things. It's got to make your life easier in some way, and it's got to make your life less stressful. And that's exactly what I concluded and have realized with the Garmin 955 over the past month. My current training regimen is for me training for a marathon, doing triathlons, and eventually going towards a Ironman.
So that's incredibly important, the reasoning for my conclusion. Because number one, let's talk about battery life. The Apple Watch Ultra touts a 36 hour battery life if you're on low power mode and you're using GPS because they even advertise it that it's good for ultra marathoners and adventurers.
But that hasn't seemed to be true because a lot of people that use an Apple Watch device want the other functionality. Otherwise they would go towards something like a Garmin and especially this 955 solar that has not been charged in four days and still has half battery life and I'm using the GPS and I'm losing using a lot of the functionality that it comes with so 20 hours battery life still a ton of time but that is just a stressful annoyance that you have to deal with when you constantly have to put your Apple Watch on a charger I have with me my Apple Watch Series 7 that I've had to do that numerous times took it on a run today went right back on the charger just trying to test it out and this has been a common theme and problem with all Apple Watches throughout the years even back from an older video of mine. And the battery life actually relates to my next point, GPS accuracy.
This Apple Watch Series 7 has single wave GPS receiving signals. The Apple Watch Ultra, on the other hand, did switch to multi-band, which is what Garmin did with the 955 over the 945. Now, multi-band includes two wavelengths, which is 1L1, which is an old satellite signal. Still reliable, still accurate.
but has problems going through obstacles. The next one is L5, which is a more accurate signal. And that one is on this device, the Garmin 955 and the Apple Watch Ultra.
And that's supposed to help balance it. But. Going back to battery life, the Garmin is adjustable to receive GPS signals every second. Now, normally when you get it by default, it's every five to seven seconds. I can't find how often the frequency is for the Apple Watch to receive a signal, but I can tell you it's definitely not every second because one, that increases the file size and memory required on the device.
And number two, it's going to really drain your battery, which the Apple Watch already can't afford it. So... I found anywhere 5-10 seconds and even trying to look through their patents I still couldn't uncover what the frequency of getting the signal is but a number of patents to help try to triangulate based on the other hardware in the device like an altimeter and other positioning hardware to try to come up with the most precise and accurate location as possible for the user wearing the device. The Apple Watch Ultra because of this differentiation in signal frequency does still have problems cutting through buildings.
A great example is DC Rainmaker highly recommend his channel. when he was running through New York City, and it was still cutting across and doing some odd things. The Ultra's just off in the buildings by half a long block, essentially, so one regular short block, if you will.
The Apple Watch is still not on the level of Garmin, and you really can't blame Apple for doing that. They're trying to put and pack so much functionality in their devices, which is great for the average user. If that is all the functionality, the integration to the Apple ecosystem that you want, then I'm sure the Apple Watch Ultra is going to be a slam dunk for you. But if not, Garmin, time and time again, relied upon by people that are out at sea, out in the lakes, aviation, and even in your car, relies upon the technology developed by Garmin.
It is their bread and butter. And that's just... what they focus on. And that's not something Apple does.
They don't have their own division of GPS and trying to continually make it more accurate, whereas Garmin does. And it says on their site within 15 feet precision, which is absolutely crazy. Whereas there is a high level of inaccuracy that is allowed on Apple devices. And it gets a little tedious when you're talking about within 15 feet, within a hundred feet or whatever, but it definitely matters when you're talking about pace and everything else. Now.
GPS aside, one thing I will fully admit and I have done a video on it is the heart rate detection in the Apple Watch. fantastic. I think it is probably considered the best out of all wrist worn devices shown in a number of studies and the Garmin just isn't.
I had the Garmin Fenix 5 back in the day and it was just so highly inaccurate but for me when I'm doing heart rate training I'm relying on my heart rate I will always wear my Polar H10 which has 99.9 whatever percent accuracy and is just the gold standard. So for me that doesn't matter but if you don't want to use any external devices like a heart rate monitor and your heart rate training, then the Apple Watch is going to win in that front. Next thing I want to talk about is the planning, the connectivity, the training focus in this device is unbelievably fantastic.
I love Garmin Connect. I love the fact that I can go on the Garmin Connect website, get into the calendar and put my workouts and boom, it's in here. I don't have to make any adjustments.
There's probably some manipulation I can do with the Apple Watch, but like I said earlier, It's got to be easier, less stressful. I don't want to have to go research on top of getting the device and then paying for a third-party application to put on my device for it to handle all of the different things that I need to know, whether it's pace focus, heart rate focus, or whatever my training is going to be. Whereas right now I'm testing a AI-driven marathon training program.
It's completely free and it connects right to my Garmin Connect and all the programming goes right to my watch. And when I'm ready to run, it's all there, which is fantastic. Then it can take that device, whether in Garmin or in that third party AI, and just interpolate the data and give me great conclusions as to where my pacing is at. Now, that's something you can go on the Garmin and you can see actually what my current estimated times are based on my VO2 max, my performance metrics of things like my 5K, my 10K, my half prediction, my full marathon prediction.
and i'm able to continue to look at that as my performance increases gets better and those numbers drive down which is unbelievable focus again what the tool is for so right now it is running so there you have it that's the full reason why i bought the garmin 955 over the apple watch ultra and i'm telling you price does not matter like subscribe this video let me know other comparisons because there are coros that i'd love to try wahoo's device sunto a whole bunch of other fantastic companies making very competitive devices and i i want as much competition in the space as possible to give us the best devices as possible thanks for watching later