New Apple Watches Yet Worth It For Serious Running?

Series 3 here. I did two easy trail 11-milers over the wknd. On the way up it was dry and I just ran smack dab in the middle of the trail. The AW recorded 11.12 mi. We stayed the night at the top of the mountain and it poured, so the run back was lots of zigzagging and wide off-the trail arcs through the trees to avoid ankle deep water. It logged 11.15. Yeah, no.

On the upside, I had iTunes on the whole way, took a couple of phone calls etc., and when we got home 30+ hrs later I still had 25% battery left. Also, no issues double tapping (relatively lightweight gloves).

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I about to get a Series 4 but got the Garmin 235 instead. (I have long been using iPhones with iSmoothRun app.)

I was pleasantly surprised that the Garmin works well with my iPhone over bluetooth, I get every text/banner on the watch a second after it displays on the phone, and shows me my calendar events for the day. I wasn't expecting any real smart watch functionality. So I don't feel I am losing much to the Apple watch for my purposes.

My college runner kid got one and won’t wear it for running- tried it but had the problems noted above. Uses Garmin 235 instead.visit teh site for more http://www.applesupport247.com/

I bought an Apple Watch 3 GPS a couple months ago and have had no real problems with it. The gps is close (it typically reads about ~2% long for most runs, which is pretty good when it comes to GPS watches. The heart rate monitor on it is pretty accurate. It occasionally loses signal when running, but 90+% of the time it gives me readings, all of which are pretty accurate. It also gives me cadence during the run which is nice, and using it to ‘track’ sleep is kind of helpful for my recovery.

Also, the main reason I bought it was for running with blue tooth headphones hands free and it works great for that. Takes a little while to sync playlists from your phone to the watch but otherwise it’s great.

I tried the Apple Watch 2 and 3, my wife tried the 3 and the 4, and none of them are worth a damn for running / cycling / hiking. Garmin 645 is just so much better for tracking actual activities.

My usual evening run is at a park that has a 2.25 km loop. I've wheel measured it (sure, I looked like a dork doing it), and sometimes the Apple watch would be right there to the hundredth of a meter, but more often than not it might read 2.18 or 2.30. My Garmin meanwhile is much more consistent, sometimes right on the nose 2.25 lap after lap. Still, I could live with Apple watch on this use case.

Now you go into the woods for a trail run...forget it. I have a 16km trail that has lots of turns and hills, and the Apple watch can be off by up to 800 meters when all is said and done.

It does not do either of those.

Is it ready for a serious runner? I have the series 3, 4, and garmin 935. As soon as someone says serious I automatically recommend the garmin...

For a hobby jogger, its improved a lot. I use it for most of my running now and have no issues. For a marathoner...not sure the battery will last, especially if its not fully charged and you are listening to music, have LTE on, etc. The garmin lasts for 1.5 weeks. GPS and HR are as good as a garmin if not better but it still has the GPS connect issue where it doesn't confirm when gps is connected.

I tried 3rd party apps for the AW and they were mostly terrible. ismoothrun, which I see recommended here was awful. Half of the features are just broken. I followed directions online, talked to the developer, and some things just wouldn't work...and I am in the tech industry; not a person that traditionally has problems just figuring out new tech. Tons of comments in the app review confirmed by issues.