Anybody got an Apple Watch and use it while out on their mountain bike? Any useful features or apps?

I’ve got some vouchers to spend in the Apple Store. I have an iPhone and don’t need a new one so was thinking of spending the vouchers on the Apple Watch.

My initial reaction is its not for me as I’m happy tracking my progress etc using my phone in my backpack. But just checking if there are any cool features of the Watch that could enhance the MTB experience.

I don’t like wearing any kind of watch whilst mtbing, just waiting to smash it into a rock imo

Likewise – when I wear (wore) a watch, it would dig into the back of my hand as my wrist flexed. Of course if you are used to wearing a watch then disregard my contribution.

if there are any cool features of the Watch that could enhance the MTB experience.

Erm not really it’s more of a remote interface for your phone. Way too expensive to go biking with it although it does record your HR. The biggest one is actually quite small as well

viewranger has quite a neat app I think. strava has one too.

I presume its the same on apple but viewranger on android will pop you as dot in the middle of an os map. Quite handy. Not a killer feature but better than looking at your phone while riding and navigating. I don’t much care for wearing a watch but there are various other accessible places for it.

Viewranger, Strava, etc, MotionX, HR, GPS tracking without needing your phone, distance, calories, etc, etc, etc.
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hammyuk – Member

Viewranger, Strava, etc, MotionX, HR, GPS tracking without needing your phone,

Doesn’t this all need your phone? The watch won’t do it standalone, as I understand it? The watch just acts as a display/controller….?

What is the battery life like on them now? An old colleague got bought one by his girlfriend and he would have to frequently charge it during the day. I imagine if it was constantly connected & running a mapping app the battery life would take a real hit?
That was an original (first gen) watch, he had; perhaps battery life has improved, but something to bear in mind….

jairaj – Member

I’ve got some vouchers to spend in the Apple Store. I have an iPhone and don’t need a new one so was thinking of spending the vouchers on the Apple Watch.

How about waiting until that speaker thing comes out? Admittedly no good for mountain biking, but perhaps a nice gadget to have about the house?

If trailforks/strava had a WatchOS app I would seriously consider it. Especially if it made a little blip noise or vibrated when I went passed a trail head start point. That would be really useful for finding new trails.

Just received an apple watch2 this morning from john lewis, so far i’ve only got viewranger on it so i’ll be interested to see what other apps folk use,

Watching a friend’s Strava who has the Apple Watch 2 (the first Apple Watch that is GPS standalone) the HR trace is highly erratic (way more so than either TomTom Cardio watch or Garmin watches) and the GPS is as poor as the one inside the Apple iPhones.

As an activity tracker great and for getting the mass of indoor types who aren’t very sporty to try some activity to keep fit it’s great, can’t fault it.

But as a decent GPS for sporty types and a training aid… it doesn’t look very accurate to me and 5 hours GPS battery life is sub standard against any of the TomTom / Garmin watches which both do 11+ hours of GPS.

I’m a huge Apple fan and bought my wife an Apple Watch as a watch. She uses a TomTom Cardio to do her running / cycling / spin activities.

I will get the Apple watch if they fix the lowly battery life and make the sensors much more accurate.

I know all watches / GPS devices and HR monitors aren’t medically accurate but relatively speaking the Apple one is one of the worst I’ve seen data from.

Very happy with both the TomTom and Garmin watch data on the whole. Very few times have they glitched on me.

I crashed with my Garmin Vivoactive HR, scratched the screen and casing a bit. It’s half as much money as an Apple Watch and I knew it was a possibility (I’ve also lost a Garmin mounted on the bike from crashing too so I figured at least a watch might stay on my arm rather than fly off in a crash). I’d be pretty gutted if it was an Apple watch I’d crashed with.

Before the Garmin Vivoactive HR I had the TomTom Cardio which my wife uses ATM, great warranty on that… it’s been back to Garmin twice and they replaced it with new ones. Poor button design, it stops working, but great customer service. That was the original cardio model. The newer design looks to be improved. They replaced it with the same model year each time. It’s out of warranty now so that was the last one we’ll get if it’s button goes again.

The Garmin Vivoactive HR has been awesome so far and I wear it everyday because the battery lasts all week. A GPS activity will take the most battery so depends how long a ride is. But I get 2 mid week rides easily. Then charge it for the weekend.

Do the Garmin watches link to your phone?

All the current Garmin watches link to Android / iOS via bluetooth to Garmin’s app then from there get synced to Strava, etc (if you want).

They still let you connect them to USB on a computer as a backup or if you don’t have a suitable phone.

about 75% of the time.

Lol 🙂

I’d have a watch to answer texts and whatnot more easily.. but having said that I hardly ever get them these days.

The Garmin watches receive texts and you can answer phone calls (it answers it on the phone, then you go hunting for it in your back pack!!) but you can’t reply to texts on it on iOS due to bully-boy Apple making that an Apple Watch only feature.

You basically get notifications on the Garmin from iOS. Sadly also you can’t completely control them.

And as molgrips said… connection is about 75% of the time.

No idea about Android’s capabilities with it.

If you want proper text / phone / camera connection with iOS buy an Apple Watch.
If you want better quality activity tracking… buy something else ATM.

Compromises either way.

I didn’t buy the Garmin for the notifications bit at all but they’ve proved useful enough.

For MTB specifically no

For cycling and cycle commuting in general yes
– apple pay
– reminder list on phone
– strava
– voice control for
— music
— calls
— texts

What is the battery life like on them now?

2 days from a charge here. takes way less than 2 hours to charge from dead.

I wear it when MTB’ing. It has Strava that can run just from the watch rather than the phone, so not need to take the phone out with you, but not the best idea. But having said that I don’t use Strava for tracking my ride, I use my Garmin which updates Strava post-ride. But no, nothing particularly good for MTB’ing. Pointless really, its not really convenient to look at something on your wrist – its a small screen and not very ergonomic, far better off with your phone.

The only problem i’ve had with it when running the fitness app is sometimes i’ve in inadvertently turned it off mid-ride – I assume by my wrist folding back and hitting the buttons, so I wouldn’t rely on it as a tracking device. Also when skiing earlier this year I became aware of it buzzing under my glove and I had inadvertently set off the SOS feature and I had a German guy trying to raise my attention and my wife was receiving text messages for the next two days updating her on my whereabouts and alerting her that I had been involved in some form of emergency, despite cancelling the emergency with the German guy. Nice to know that feature actually works though.

I like my Apple Watch, not a life essential, but a nice to have.

The watch will do any app standalone that has the iWatch app version. No need for the phone to be near it unless you want the text/call function.
HR and GPS have been spot on for mine so not sure what the poster above is on about.
Tracks fine and shows the same as the Suunto Traverse I have (which i now hardly use because of said iWatch)
2 days between charges at least – maybe in the evening if I’ve used it as a tracker via the app. – is within 1% of MotionX on the phone for distance but be warned it doesn’t auto-pause on activities so still thinks you’re doing stuff if you’re having a tea/wee/beer/break so you have to remember to manually pause it unlike MotionX or similar.

Thank you all for the feedback! Looks like it doesn’t really do much that would appeal to me. I think I’ll look for something else to spend the vouchers on.

apple store sells lots more than just apple stuff.

Had the first Apple Watch when it came out and although was happy enough it got to the point where I thought ‘I’m not using this so why bother’. About two weeks later I started regretting it and held off about 12 months before giving up and going for the newest version. It’s not ground breaking but it’s so blooming convenient!! The battery life is much improved, I can use it all day plus go for a few hours ride and probably only hit 75%. I’ve never seen how long it lasts because it’s second nature to put it plus my iPhone on a belkin stand each night. With the original watch water and nudges could cancel your Strava but with the new version and waterproof mode it takes turning the Digital Crown to ‘unlock it’. It has a GoPro remote so I can see what my GoPro sees and take photos remotely etc. Apple Pay is convenient but you never know if a shop accepts contactless so sometimes carry purse but I can see on a known route for shops and pubs etc it would be extremely handy. If I need to let me other half known I’m ok or how long I can ask Siri to do it. If he rings to ask me a question I can answer on the watch without chasing it around. I can reply to msgs either with Siri or drawing the letters. My OH particularly likes the nightstand mode where you charge t side wards and it alters to become like an alarm clock face. Lots of stuff that although not ground breaking, make my life easier.

If I had vouchers to spend I’d be getting some Bose or beats wireless in ear headphones because my cheap amazon set seal my ears too much and hurt a little as well.

I use mine a fair bit for shorter rides, where I don’t need the navigation of my Garmin edge 800 and just want to hop on the bike and go. I just use the standalone (no need for the phone) Strava app and like the fact that it’s uploaded to Strava before I get home, which my older 800 wont do.

Accuracy seems perfectly fine for keeping track of how long and where I’ve ridden. On the few times that I’ve run it and the Garmin together most of the segment times are the same within a couple of seconds too, which is good enough for me. I sometimes look at average heartrate for a ride, which can be interesting and seems to correlate well with how hard the ride felt, but I don’t care about the actual heartrate graph.

Of course I’ll fall off and smash it one day, but how else am I going to “justify” upgrading to the new model 😀

Used Apple pay for the first time today in my local co-op as i forgot my wallet when i went across the town, i felt like someone from the future 😉 , also found a really good/accurate weather app called dark sky weather and i’ve found that viewranger works surprisingly well on the watch and is comparable to the accuracy of viewranger on the iPhone.

Thought about getting an apple watch but my Garmin Vivoactive HR does what I want it to do better, but looks crap and cost half as much. Watch is connected to my iphone all day, put my phone in airplane mode overnight. Battery lasts a week vs a day or so with an apple watch.

If your focus is sports then get a sports watch, if you want to pose and be able to do apple type things with your watch then the apple watch is great. My ideal would be one of the new garmin Tri watches (935?) all the key features of a fenix but smaller and cheaper.

New apple watch does have GPS though doesn’t it, but I’ve always got my phone on me anyway.

I have a v2. Battery lasts two days

MTB specific apps / features – not so much. I have an Edge 520 which I use for tracking / nav etc.

General convenience and the ability to put phone in bag but still be able to answer calls / texts etc is very good.