What's the alternative for Android? After broken straps and finally a dead screen with my Fitbit Versa, I don't want to buy another Fitbit again. How about Garmin? Any other?
The one drawback to it is that on iOS, the notifications suck. I have no control over what apps can send notifications to my watch; its all or nothing. Back when I had a Pixel on Android, I could control which apps could send notifications to my watch. I'm assuming there is some API limit to 3rd party watches in the Apple ecosystem that prevents Garmin from being able to filter out notifications.
I have experience with Apple Watch since Series 3, and what you say about notifications isn’t true (if I’ve understood it right). If you go into the Watch app on the iPhone, then into Notifications and into the specific Apple app, you see a “Mirror my iPhone” and a “Custom” option. For third party apps, you see the list below (in the Notifications screen) with a toggle for mirroring your iPhone (or not). You can control this for each app. The scheme for third party apps is not (yet) as rich as it is for Apple apps, but you don’t have to suffer through every app on the iPhone where you have setup/allowed notifications also sending notifications to the watch.
I've been using a TicWatch Pro 3 and I'm pretty happy with it, although I'm not a "smartwatch poweruser", if there's such thing.
1: https://www.smartwatchseries.com/a-list-of-snapdragon-4100-s...
I don't think it's a great smartwatch, but I don't know because the last thing I need in my life is a device on my wrist with push notifications.
That part Apple does get right.
In the sense that they don't bother, by those standards. AFAIK Apple's watch that does everything is virtually comparable to the "watch that looks good" in its running analytics, cycling features, swimming connectivity, etc. Put another way, the mid-tier and above running-focused Garmin devices (can't speak for the other sports) should not be considered to be in the same class as an Apple watch for running.
The bands also last way longer than any fitbit I had.
Of course, you health data is probably going straight to CCP but then you already have Android.