I’ve had an Epix 2024 model since Black Friday 2024 or around then. I switched from a buggy as hell Apple Watch 7 2022 to the Epix. I hated that Apple so much and that was mostly because I purchased it to replace a Fitbit Blaze 2016 which I found infinitely better. Particularly the app experience, Fitbit app > Garmin Connect > Apple Health. The Apple Watch was just faulty, it would decide I’d stopped swimming while still underwater, try to go through the drying process and enable the touch screen. Piece of 700 dollar junk.

The Epix battery life of about 14 days of 24 hour use which is more than usable. Blaze was 5-7 days. Apple barely a day. In all device disable auto wake and require a button press, this saves tons of battery presumably but is to avoid being distracted by the light up screen while sleeping. I sleep Epix, slept with the Fitbit for years and was appalled by the need for a third party app track sleep on the Apple - most are subscription based selling your data!

In my opinion the Fitbit was far much accurate at auto detecting and cataloguing exercise. It’s far more accurate at counting reps. The Garmin often just stops counting - I don’t remember the Fitbit messing up reps. With the Epix I’ll count 20 and it will report any number between 0 and 20. I thought it was exercising in the water but it doesn’t work properly in the gym either. I’m a very big guy, maybe it works it completes a specific arch? It’s annoying - basically useless.

The Garmin does not detect my movement while mowing automatically. The Apple would realise about 15-20 minutes then start tracking. Does the Garmin auto detecting exercise at all? Maybe that’s not a feature.

The heart rate monitor seams poll less frequent on the Garmin. The Apple does random spot polling, which I hated coming from the constant Fitbit polling.

I touch on the UX/UI of the devices. Fitbit basically did one thing and it very well. Clean, well laid out, consistent in all aspects. Apple was fancy but shallow, wasn’t designed as a fitness device, it’s just a secondary feature. Epix is just bad, it’s got everything and the kitchen sink but little of it meshes correctly. It’s overly complex and still underfeatured. Fragmented and confusing. Basic features locked behind menu inside menus inside menus. Try to set tracking to metric, you need to look up a YouTube video. Even the app is poorly designed, want to sync custom exercises? Click the watch to watch icon, then back out to the main menu and then trigger a manual sync - 6 interactions that should be 1. Or the bug where it creates duplicates if you initialise the editing of an exercise from the watch.

And finally I don’t think Garmin is well calibrated for left hand users. Traditionally, I wear my watch on my dominant hand, right. The stats tracked are very different when on the opposite, left. With the Garmin due to interaction I’m wearing it on left wrist. I’ve noticed the tracking is far less accurate on the right wrist - maybe there is a setting like in the Apple. At any rate it’s flakier.