Apple Watch vs Garmin Watch: Skiing Features Compared!
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- čas přidán 26. 02. 2024
- Many people track their ski (or snowboard) trips with their watches. They do so in all manner of sports profiles, from running to cycling to skiing. However, for both watches, there are features and apps that are catered specifically to skiing/snowboarding, that track things like number of runs, total descent, chairlift time, and even how you compare to your friends.
For this post, I’m specifically focused on downhill skiing/snowboarding. I’m going to call it ‘skiing’ from here on out, because that’s what I did. But there’s absolutely no difference between the two sports profiles from a watch/app perspective. Both track regardless of whether you’re on one board or two.
Now, from a watch perspective, at a high level, the Garmin watches have built-in features for skiing/snowboarding. Whereas the Apple Watch doesn’t have any built-in features, and you’ll need to use a 3rd party app that can run on the watch. I went with ‘Slopes’, as it seemed to have the clearest website in terms of Apple Watch features (I also briefly tried Snoww). Slopes has both a free version that covers everything you realistically need, and a paid version with extra features ($29/year, or $49 for a family pass with five people). It offers a 7-day trial of the paid features though, which might cover some ski vacations. A friend skiing with us had the free version, and from an on-hill standpoint, it’s basically identical to the paid version. Most of the paid features are around post-skiing analysis.
Finally, from a Garmin watch standpoint, most of their watches with barometric altimeters have skiing/snowboarding modes. Garmin has tweaked the ski mode a bit from last spring (2023) in terms of how it tracks chairlift time. Much older models don’t have those firmware update tweaks, whereas newer models do. I’m just going to show how all the newer models. Practically speaking you probably won’t notice either way.
#Skiing #AppleWatch #Garmin - Sport
I don't ski but who would not watch a video with Ray sitting in a ski gondola in his Amsterdam basement. 🤣 Legend!
That's the sprit!
Love my Garmin watch and especially for skiing. I recently upgraded to the Venu 3 and the altimeter was key in that decision. Many times I've been tempted to move to an Apple watch but the ability to track skiing all day, control my music and still have 65% battery life at the end of the day is something I can't leave.
Bobbie: where we going on holiday this year?
Ray: wait let me see what updates have been released 😋
Haha...I've actually been wanting to make this video for like 6-7 years (previously just on Garmin stuff). Every time I shoot it, I never get around to editing it. This time, I set a goal of within 2 days of getting home.
The video I've been waiting for! Great rundown. Also, beautiful venue! I've been using my Epix Pro Gen 2 since December for snowboarding out here in Colorado and find it an amazing experience. Ray covered everything I just have a couple anecdotes to add here.
First, if you practice using maps I do actually find them very useful on the mountain. Especially for us snowboarders trying to avoid catwalks I can easily fire up the map and make sure I cut over in time when up in the trees so as to limit my time / distance on the flatter sections. Also, zooming in, especially while on a lift, is very informative as it gives trail and lift names right on the watch. I have found this often more clear than the resort trail maps.
Second, I can only speak for my Garmin experience but I also use it all day on the hill to control my iPhone's music. This works great and I don't have to take off my gloves when I pause to talk with folks on the chair lift.
Third, the data page with the view of elevation changes during the day on the watch is awesome since it also gives total run time. This, along with some customization of the data pages and I'm in heaven up there.
Thanks, Ray! And I hope @DesFit is ready to ski w/ you! That would be an awesome collab for a video and/or @thefitfile!
Garmin is quality, icon of sport activity, icon of long life battery (like Nokia), icon of GPS accuracy, and many more definition
Interesting and making me look forward to skiing at Easter.
great video. I used Slopes with my iphone/apple watch and I have the snow sleeves of my jacket over it. So for me personally I can't really use the watch apps anyway, not without taking my gloves and the snow sleeve off.
I do like slopes, great insights and I love that I can see where my friends are and how often they can go down when I am still on my downhill. (I am a beginner so I am slooooow)
Hi Ray! Thanks for the video! Could it be possible to compare the indoor and outdoor track run modes of Garmin and Apple in a video like this?
Is there any difference between the slopes data from Garmin and Apple Watch? Slopes FAQ says it doesn’t include lift data and HR but not sure if this has changed now with the newer Garmin firmware?
Hi Ray. We just got back from a ski trip to the Engadin and my wife used the Downhill Skiing option on her Ultra. However I just looked and no maps, just overall time and HR. (She did hit 91 kph). So seems the Slope app you mentioned is necessary. I was using my Fenix 7 and it worked well. Thanks for all your reviews.
Yep massive fail on Apple behalf. No maps when using the workout app and selecting "Ski".
I just the workout app and select outdoor run, upload to Strava and then change it to "ski".
Was searching this and just so happened to find this 9 hours after upload lol
Boom!
You mentioned in your video that you only recently started using the app, and therefore didn’t have a lot of ski data, however, if you go into the Slopes app settings and then integrations, you can upload all of your ski data from Garmin, which is pretty cool.
Indeed, I gave it a whirl today. I pulled in up to 2020's date, but not before that. Not sure why exactly, but neat nonetheless.
Thanks for the video, the lack of any detailed analysis or logbook has always bugged me with GC.
As a side note, was supposed to go to Cham the same week as you but passed due to the poor forecast and crowds...looks like the weather and snow was good enough, with even "Pierre a Ric" open! Not the magnificent Pendant snow field though? Definitely going in April ;-)
Thank you
How did battery life with the two units? I use AppleWatch 6 with Skitracks and it won’t survive through the whole day :(
You're lucky Garmin released 15.77 before your skiing trip. Before that it was a mess, counting both ascends and descends towards total distance. Also, they still show wrong colors in GC mobile on Android.
Yes, the Garmin total distance calculation included lift distance for months and was a major mess. Huge thread on the Garmin forums with us complaining for them to fix it.
I had also wrong data in the descents and number of runs…but when I am lookimg now at the data from December which I knew was wrong, it seems updated now…13k descent instead of 20k, 35 runs instead of 74…seems they updated the algorithms and re-run the analysis in Connect…
@@tomashornyak6987 Only partly because when you filter your activities to show only winter ones, it still shows total distance with lifts :/
Was going to mention this precisely.
Counts rides and lifts in Strava, but distinguishes them on Connect.
I’ll have to check for the update then.
Garmin 265….
Apples ski app was shit aswell
Howdy Ray, Great video with lots of balanced and detailed information. BUT WHY was this shot in a gondola car at your place? You can't leave us hangin.... I am subscribed and have been for quite a while.
I would love to see your review on huawei watches, please do a video if you get a chance
Has anyone else tried to use slopes with a really old Apple Watch? It doesn’t seem to want to work on my series 3 anymore and if I try to just use the app on my phone it tries to connect to my watch and fails. So I just use Strava even though Strava doesn’t seem to know what a chairlift is.
The is EXACTLY what I needed!
I've been using Slopes for couple years and now I have an Epix Pro and was wondering what to use and how to preserve my history and at the same time switch to the Garmin. I didn't know you can link them!
Just 2 questions:
• when you link them, should you only start the Garmin app from watch and it will sync automatically to Slopes or you need to start slopes as well from the phone?
• Slopes usually automatically posts activities to Strava. Garmin does the same with activities. If you have both linked, would they create a duplicate activity?
Thanks a ton for the content btw, I went through a lot of your videos and there are plenty of useful stuff!
From what I see from the Slopes side of the integration, the info pop up says thay Garmin will automatically populate it's info to Slopes so I guess the answer to my first question is that recording from the watch should be enough. Unfortunately, I will have to wait quite a few months until I try it :D
I love Garmin watches and the information they have for my fitness journey but I keep on going back using my Apple Watch Ultra because I don’t need to take my phone with me for a run and I can stream any music and get calls in case of emergency, I wish Gammon would have a fenix with a cellular version (besides its easier to run with a phone in my hand)
I do believe such a feature is coming next. Because that's normal product evolution. Otherwise Garmin will be screwed in the not so distant future.
Buttons are underrated ⛷
7 buttons and touch screen is underrated? How?
@@pe3117 - I just mean that buttons are better than the general public consensus. People tend to want touch screens. Touch screens are great but I can operate the Garmin watches (5 buttons) faster than I can operate the touch screen options on the Apple watches. The way Garmin does touch screens and buttons is ideal. 👌
@Dcrainmaker Do you intend to review the Oneplus watch? Looks cool but I'm wondering about the fitness side of things and how it would fare compared to a dedicated watch
I’m looking at it. Gotta figure out how to get my hands on one.
Thanks a lot!@@Dcrainmaker
slopes is obviously going to win out here from a viewing your days (and histroical) runs, as it is a dedicated ski app. It would be good if Garmin could bring the feature set up though on Connect, but that doesn't stop you from just running with the slopes app on your phone and going from there. BTW, slopes is available on Android as well.
Hi. I need some advice on a purchase. I occasionally go on all-day mountain hikes and go to the gym daily. I need a sportwatch that will allow me to save all my hiking data including the map (like the apple watch does) and monitor parameters during my workout, as well as function as a smartwatch (I don't need functions like direct calls). I am undecided between these garmins with the prices I found:
Venu 3 (€449)
Forerunner 255 (259€)
Forerunner 265 (449€)
Forerunner 965 (579€)
Epix gen 2 (549€)
Fenix 7X solar (549€)
Suunto race (449€)
I have an Iphone
We want to hear the story!
I know the story. It's cool. Do it!
How about differences in heart rate ?
Have you tried the skiing on the Garmin 965? I believe it has rubbish stats/data compared to what is recorded on the 945.
Identical to what I showed here. In fact, one of the days is actually FR965 data. ;)
My problem with slopes on the Apple Watch is that it won't push natively-tracked HR in the activity to Strava because of "Health permissions". I usually just record it in the native exercise app on my watch as a bike ride, then convert it when it's in Strava.
Does the HR show up cleanly in Apple Health/Fitness? Meaning, is it Strava that's not pulling it in correctly, or Apple not recording it?
@@Dcrainmaker It shows up in the Slopes app when I look afterwards on my phone. When I push the activity to Strava, that's when I get the warning I listed above. I stopped recording it on the Slopes app on my watch because I kept running into that issue.
Noice. Have a snowboard trip coming up
I’m a bit confused. Apple workout has snowboarding and ski in their list.
I’ve used it before
Yeah, that mode is purely for just general categorization/calorie counting. It won't track any runs/lifts/etc. Akin to creating a mode for 'Cow Tipping', without actually tracking how many cows are tipped. I mean, not that I often cow tip.
Yea it does, but it doesn't measure anything expect calories and heart rate
@@Dcrainmaker I have my Strava linked and I can see the runs when I import the workout. Or more like the total amount of runs and the track of where I went on the mountain.
Usually I run the snowboard workout in the background then run Wikiloc recording as well so I can have a map ready to view as a real time bread crumb of where I went in case I like a particular run.
I’ll try this app on my next trip to compare.
@@josipbrstilo3338 there are some other basic things. Avg speed. Max speed. Elevation. GPS Tracks. Basically all the metrics I would get when cycling.
Just downloaded the Slopes. I like the Live Share location feature. I’ll give it a go
@@WillEDCI made a mistake. I was using the Apple Watch STRAVA app that shows the runs and tracks recorded. The native workout app doesn’t show this
I used my Garmin to upload Garmin Ski data to Strava. It served my purpose.
How was the snow in Chamonix?
Generally good, especially after the big snows late last week.
I skied whole day together with friend in Tignes last week
I used Slopes/Apple watch 8, and he used Garmin Fenix 7 sapphire solar
We got two completely different results:
He got 103.7km total km
I've got 58.8km total km
What is the difference, and which is more precise?
I almost was excited; but, then I realised that the review was about gravity-assisted Alpine skiing rather than proper Nordic skiing 😉
Skate or proper classic?
One might argue that using gravity to go downhill is a bit more...proper...than fighting against it. ;)
You should've done it with a forerunner 965 - had many problems with it while skiing! Completely messed up stats - double the runs, added distance and elevation gain
How about battery use in the end of the skiing day?
both would have more than enough after 12 hour ski day. Garmin will obviously have more.
Garmin will last the entire ski trip
@@anonymous134y I'm asking regarding real experience. I've got them both but skied only with my old fenix 6x. Just curious, as I will be selling my Ultra2 as this is completely pointless device
Apple has “downhill skiing”, “snow sports”, and “snowboarding” options. Why aren’t those used in this video?
Those sports profiles don’t actually do anything from a ski/etc tracking runs/lift standpoint. They’re merely used for categorization.
Because of cow tipping 😂😂😂😂
Very different experience with snowboarding app for me in Garmin FR955. Borderline unusable. 7 riding days over the past 4 weeks. My stats and runs do *not* in any way shape or form make any sense. Some days portions will be usable. Other days half of some runs are counted as lifts. The auto-pause doesn't function. And more, the stats and run between my watch and my wife's Venu SQ 2 (which has the activity profile but does *not* have altimeter) are absolute incongruous to point of looking like different trips/days (though we rarely leave one another). Worse, everything sent up to Strava is even worse. It's a tangle of nonsense.
Meanwhile, but brother's Coros Apex 2 pretty much is as picture-perfect for all of his days the past month+ and activities sent to Strava are just as good and useful.
I have sold the Enduro 2 and bought an Apple Ultra 2 .. jezus a really bad decision .. now waiting for Suunto vertical .. so ultra 2 + vertical
How’s the sunnto vertical ? Why do you hate the enduro 2?
I beg to differ. I wouldn't be surprised by anything you own. I figured you were just interested or doing a related tech review.
Slopes is unmatched
So do I hit like or subscribe to hear the gondola story?
Definitely subscribe!
Strory story story
Cross country skiing is insanely bad on Apple Watch ⌚️. It’s doesn’t record the mileage or give you any route at all. It’s really incomprehensible to phantom as they could just copy the running workouts and called it cross country skiing.
You've answered your own question. Just select running in the workout app and if you upload to Strava, edit it to Cross Country.
No nacho cheese, no sale
You should take better care of your jeans before filming 😉
Apple all day long
Lol. Apple and Garmin are complete "Polar" opposites
What watch strap do you have on the ultra in this video @dcrainmaker? Thanks!
It’s the Nomad straps, good stuff!
Appreciate the reply! That’s what I was thinking it was