Activity tracker / outdoors watch

[rodia77]

Inspired by @Sedi, I've started looking more seriously at the options for tracking my fitness/outdoors activities.

Points to consider:
- size (no satellite dishes)
- sleep monitoring (important)
- HR monitor (no point getting anything without it these days)
- battery (I don't want to have to charge it more often than every 7 days, solar-powered would be perfect)
- I don't want a smart 'watch' as a companion device for my phone (I don't need no texts, calendars, office suites or web browsers in it )
- the less over-engineered, the better (eg built-in torches come to mind; don't need those)
- no Google (including Fitbit), no Apple, no big tech as such in general, please

So far, I'm considering:

1. Casio Protrek PRW-35 + Garmin Vivosmart5 band

The good:
- can still wear normal watches + the band on the other hand and only use the Protrek for outdoors/cycling etc
- the band is small enough not to get in the way while sleeping with it

The bad:
- the band is not solar-powered and requires regular charging

2. Garmin Instinct 2

The good:
- looks like it has all that the two devices above combined
- solar-powered

The bad:
- I want to track my sleep everyday so I'm likely to wear it everyday, and including a full-featured watch rather than being 'just an extra band', it can bully my normal watches off my wrist

3. Garmin Fenix 7S

Looks like much of an overkill for my needs but I haven't crossed it out yet because maybe I'm missing something and it's still worth going for.

I haven't looked much into other brands (Suunto, anyone else?), but I happily will if someone points me in the right direction.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

[Sedi]

. A lot of the smaller Garmins have long battery life of about 10 days or more even without solar. So far I am not sure how useful the solar charging actually is. My Fenix 7X currently shows 22 days of battery left and that is with activated sleep-tracking, heart rate and blood-oxygen tracking at night.
The battery life between the three sizes is rather different but yes, the 7X is about the size of a saucer.
I needed quite some time to decide on the purchase and watched a lot of YouToube reviews. I decided on the Garmin Fenix 7X mainly because of the battery life. Even a current Galaxy Watch 6 has only 40 hrs! Even a smallish Garmin Venu SQ2 has 11 days! And the Venu has AMOLED. I think that is a huge plus. So far one downside of the Fenix (only in the normal version not the Pro!) is the display. I tried keeping auto light on all the time but that interferes with the "sleep mode" when the watch automatically switches off the auto light, so at night, if I wanna read the time, I need to touch the display or press a button. The Fenix "Pro" version has at least a light that adjusts to the brightness but still the auto light feature (by tilting your wrist) will be deactivated at night (when I would most use it -- kind of stupid honestly how they implemented that feature -- even a 20 year old solar Casio can use the solar cells to determine brightness and turn the light on when tilting your wrist -- or not, when it's bright enough).
But apart from that, I couldn't be happier with the features. And I love the Garmin Connect app. However, the new Apple Watch Ultra 2 looks pretty nice, too. I never looked into the features though. But titanium case, sapphire and "always on" AMOLED display seems cool. Battery life will certainly not reach Garmin levels though. Apple claims 36 hrs in "normal use" (and that is without an "always on" display). The Fenix 7X has 28 days in smartwatch mode. The 7S has up to 14 days with solar charging (3 hrs of 50.000 lux) and 11 days without (cloudy or inside, I guess) and 37 hours in GPS-mode.
I think what it boils down to is:
Garmin: longer battery life but slightly clunky software with some less than optimally implemented features
Apple: probably more user friendly but less battery life.
I opted for the longest battery life. The Instinct 2X solar has even longer battery life however and is not as heavy as the Fenix 7X. More like a G-shock. But pretty large, too. And the Fenix has the maps and touch screen. The "Pro" has a nicely improved display and better buttons (according to the interwebs) but the much higher price wasn't worth it for me.
Garmin holds a patent to integrate solar charging directly into an AMOLED display. That might be the new feature on the Garmin 8 which will probably be released this year.

[rodia77]

I haven't looked much into other brands (Suunto, anyone else?)

Just had a look at the Suunto site, and the Vertical seems to be the only one solar-powered: https://www.suunto.com/Products/spor...-solar-canyon/

But with its size and features it seems to be competing with the Fenix, so probably an overkill for my intended purpose, too.

[Sedi]

BTW -- if you go the Protrek-route, I'd recommend getting the older PRW-30 -- that was the model that has the steel lugs that are a part of the backplate. That was a genius idea by Casio and I don't know why they abandoned that again for plastic lugs. The only issue is the 23mm lug size which made it a bit difficult to find a fitting Nato strap but I found a "Zuludiver" that fits:
https://www.zuludiver.com/collection...t-pfs-original
The PRW-30 is definitely my all-time favourite Protrek model. Super comfy because it is rather smallish for a Protrek, finally has snooze alarm (which older models didn't have), has the super legible STN display and all the usual goodies like 24 hr timer and STW, timezones and ABC-features. That being said, what is still bothersome is the implementation of the barometer on Casios. They just show the surrouding pressure not adjusted for sea level. I much prefer the baro on my Suunto Core Steel or Garmin Fenix/Instinct.
You could have a look at the older Garmin Instinct 1 Solar. I have that one, too. It has impressive battery life, not as impressive as the Fenix 7X but still 56 days in power save mode. It is also far more lightweight for everyday wear. I already got used to the 51 mm beast that is the Fenix 7X but the Instinct 1 is much smaller and the monochrome display is easier to read in fact.

[rodia77]

^^^
Yep, before you came back we had a brief chat about PRW-35 and PRW-30 starting here. I also watched a very detailed comparison vid of both the models on YT.

[Sedi]

I read the thread -- the PRW-30/35 (same module) definitely has a super visible display. One of the best on a Protrek, I'd say. However, my PAW-500T also was legible from any angle and had no STN-display, not sure why they managed to do that on this old model but not on the ones following it.
The features should be largely the same as the PRW-1300 but the PRW-1300 had the "elevation profile" or altimeter-stopwatch, which the PRW-30 doesn't have, unfortunately.

[rodia77]

The features should be largely the same as the PRW-1300 but the PRW-1300 had the "elevation profile" or altimeter-stopwatch, which the PRW-30 doesn't have, unfortunately.

or I'll deem my PRW-1300 sufficient and won't buy a outdoors watch!

(TBF, it is sufficient and in perfect shape, it's just never felt comfortable on my wrist somehow ).

[Sedi]

Frankly, Casio's features didn't change all that much between different generations of Protreks. I love my Protreks but they largely all do the same thing. The underlying technology is the same when it comes to barometer and altimeter. The compass might be a bit faster on newer models and they added snooze alarm and better displays but that's about it.
A GPS-watch is a whole different ball game IMHO.
You might have a look at the GBD-H2000 or the new Rangeman which also have GPS. But the rest of the features seems downright anemic compared to a Garmin or an Apple Watch.

[rodia77]

vivosmart 5 it is.

[Mediocre]

vivosmart 5 it is.

How long have you had it? Curious as to your thoughts