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Comment by razemio | Hacker News Reader

Just checked the Garmin Fenix 7 and now I want to add one missing point to your list:

- affordable

You can get a similar experience to the Fenix (but without the higher end sports features) with other Garmin sports watches. The Forerunner 255 is well reviewed and very similar to the Fenix for about half the price.

And there are other lines like Venu, that are more focused on the smart part and are more affordable.

I don't think the Venu line is "smarter" than the others. It's more every day watch design and has an AMOLED touch screen, but the functionality is nearly the same.

You're right, what I mean is it puts less emphasis on the sport and fitness tracking features, compared to Fenix and Forerunner lines, and hence lacks some of the more advanced features and metrics.

Or buying older, second-hand Garmins. There is really no point to having the latest and greatest and the price of last year's model is basically half.

Yeah, although the Garmin Fenix 7 is an awesome watch, especially as an amateur athlete, it is ** expensive.

Features from the Fenix 7 which I value over Pebble (apart from the obvious):

- Materials: titanium and sapphire. Means it is indestructible. Great for hiking expeditions.

- Garmin Connect (SaaS fitness community).

- HRV (Heart Rate Variability).

- Regular, well tested updates.

Stuff that I miss:

- Hackability (I want to transfer my data directly to InfluxDB)

- Thickness (14.5 mm, which is 5 mm more than the Pebble)

- Community

another advantage on fenix is that you can use totp 2fa without keeping the phone connected - if the time ever drifts you can always sync it from satellites

The Forerunner 255 fits that bill. Or the other cheaper Forerunners. The Fenix line is more akin to the iPhone Pro Max.

Garmin has a wide range of watches, many of which meet most of those criteria. Except for hackable. I have a Vivoactive 4 and I've been very happy with it.

Are there projects reverse engineering them? Something like BangleJS?

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