The article complains about Garmins closed ecosystem, totally ignoring the fact that developers cannot create watch faces for Apple Watch, but have free reign on Garmin devices.

Does Garmin charge $100 per year to developers?

Many legitimate grievances are described here, but I also have trouble understanding what triggered this post today. I'm loving the Pixel Watch 4. Maybe I am biased because I'm also on Google Fi and have a Pixel phone. Battery life has been great compared to the Pixel Watch 2. Using Google Maps and WhatsApp from the watch is quite convenient. The only pain points have been swapping Gemini for Google Assistant and the fact that Signal does not support WearOS.

If you're an athlete doing athletic things, get a Garmin. Apple with all of it's nearly unlimited budget cannot do what Connect does.

If you want an iPhone on your wrist get an iWatch. Garmin trades superfluous animations, apps, high frame rates, UI, and probably most promintantly: fashion... for utility.

but also... having a flashlight and compass on your wrist at all times and a 8 day battery life is also a great reason to have a Garmin.

I can't argue with someone having a frank blog on their opinion.

However you can't say on the one hand Garmin's a closed ecosystem as a bad thing, then say that its a good thing with Apple, saying Apple developed the "end to end" communication.

Yes I have an iPhone and Airpods and they work incredibly well together, better than anything else I've owned and that is partly due to the closed ecosystem and the control they have. But don't say a product isn't as good because its closed, then speak the merits of the same thing on another brand.

The only competition Apple has IMO is Garmin, not Google, not anything else. I had an Apple watch and it just felt like an extension of my phone, whereas I want my Garmin for fitness metrics and general body fitness/health and it excels in that market better than Apple. Those aspects are important and shouldn't mean that you pidgeon hole that product into a separate category that takes it out of contention.

Where does Pebble fit into all of this? I'm eyeing the Pebble 2 Round myself.

This rant has nothing of value in it. Don't waste your time reading it. It tries to claim the only smartwatch that's any good is the Apple Watch. When the author tries to address the obvious counter of Garmin's smart watch products the only product discussed is a strawman version of the large and expensive Fenix 8, which leads me to believe they are ignorant of the broad smart watch lineup which includes things like the Vivoactive and Venu, which are absolutely smart watches first and fitness devices second (so is the Fenix 8, in reality).

And of course the Apple watch only syncs with Apple devices. So also implied is iPhone or don't bother.

Don't bother with this blog post.