Hello, friends. Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back to the distance junkie podcast, the official podcast of chase the summit. I'm your host, Dave. You probably know me if you watch the YouTube channel.
Dave:I haven't done a podcast in a while, and I thought, you know, next week, I'm going on, like, a family trip with the kids and the wife and friends, and we're gonna be camping all week, sort of a downtime, you know, during the summer just to chill out, relax a little bit. That's why I haven't really been posting too much on YouTube lately. But I thought it would be fun to sit down and talk about a few topics that have come to light recently. So today, we're gonna be talking about my race, the Vermont one hundred endurance race, that happened last weekend. A really disappointing day, generally speaking.
Dave:If you watch the main channel, you might have seen the video I made where I was, like, packing and showing you all the things I was bringing. Unfortunately, didn't go as planned. But on top of that, we're also gonna talk about things you probably care more about. Whoops. Debacle with the FDA.
Dave:They're currently in sort of an argument over their blood pressure insights, and what they're faced with and what it could mean for you, the user, ultimately. We're also gonna talk about Apple Watch OS 26, which is now kind of available. We're gonna talk about the Amazfit products that were really recently announced, and released about a month ago, the Amazfit Helio Strap, the Amazfit Balance two, and we will be talking about some of the other stuff that's come out, like the Garmin Venue x one here, my experience with it so far. Okay. Let's get right into it.
Dave:Let's let's rewind a little bit back to the Vermont one hundred. Like I said, if you watch the main channel, you might have seen the video where I was prepping for it, and I I looked very ready. And, honestly, I felt very ready. It's kinda weird. It's a weird situation.
Dave:Not like, not like I'm famous or anything, but I do put my face in front of a camera and talk about these things. And it does add some pressure, and, I hate to use the word embarrassment, but, that's kinda what I was feeling on that day. So like I said, the Vermont one hundred is a 100 mile long endurance race. It's an ultramarathon. It's something I've completed twice before.
Dave:In fact, right behind me here, if you look, if you're watching on YouTube, I've got two belt buckles along with my other 100 miler buckle. And, it's a race I love. I've been there, for several years. It's I've completed it twice, obviously. And it just it speaks to the community we have in New England.
Dave:You know, you don't think of New England as, like, this big trail running scene or ultramarathon scene, but we do have a really good community of people. And the more I go back, the more people in in in faces I remember and people I I have experience with out on the trail, and, I know their whole life story because we've spent 30 miles together in the middle of the night. So shout out to everybody out there that, you know, I've run with at the race if you're watching. What happened though is it's a long story. So the day before the Vermont one hundred is the pre race expo.
Dave:And the Vermont staff, the people that organized the race, and the race director, Amy, were kind enough to sort of allow me to be part of the race for the past two years as a sponsor. So I go in on the day before, like everybody else, where everyone else is picking up their bibs. And this year, they actually had to pick up a little timing chip that you wear in your wrist. And, you know, it's a good way of, like, just setting the tone for the day ahead. Everyone sets up their campsite, which you can do for free right at the starting line, which is really cool.
Dave:I don't do that, but, I do respect the people that do. And then, you know, there's a, like, kind of an expo. They have food there where you can, you know, eat and hang out with other runners, And then all of the sponsors are there. So I had a table set up with all the chase the summit gear, the hats, the T shirts, the buffs, all the things. And I got to meet and say hi to a lot of people that watch the YouTube channel.
Dave:So if you're watching now, thank you for coming by and saying hi. And a lot of people had some really amazing stories about how they got into running, and, it was just really cool to see a lot of friendly faces and and be reminded that people actually watch this channel. So I was out there in the sun. It was pretty warm out. It was a beautiful day.
Dave:But, like, I was supposed to be running a 100 miles on Saturday, but Friday, I was on my feet all day at the expo, and I was trying to stay hydrated. I brought some food with me. I was, you know, trying to keep up with my my nutrients and and so I'd be ready to run the race. But, yeah, you know, it's kind of a long day before a 100 miler nonetheless. In either case, the day went by.
Dave:It went great. Saw a lot of people, a lot of friendly faces. And then I packed up, went back to my hotel because I'm too bougie for camping, I guess. I I don't like the idea of camping in a tent the day before a 100. Maybe I'm getting old, but, like, I wanted to sleep on a bed.
Dave:So I got a hotel room that was, thirty minutes away. This is where things get interesting about the race. So I got to my hotel. I laid everything out. I had, like, my shirt, my shorts, my pack all packed up.
Dave:My everything was organized and ready to go. Because if you don't know about this race, Vermont starts at 4AM. It's a very early start. So my plan was to eat dinner at the restaurant right by the hotel. I was gonna get in bed early, try to get some sleep even though I had the nerves, the pre race jitters, everyone gets those.
Dave:But I thought I'd get an early night. I'd pass out, and then I'd wake up at around 02:30 in the morning to get ready and then drive back to the starting line, which was about a half an hour away. I went to the hotel restaurant, and I got some food. Particularly, I got seared tuna with, like, a ramen bowl. So I had some protein.
Dave:I had some noodles, carbs. And honestly, it was really good. It was pretty delicious. No issues there. And then I went to bed.
Dave:I talked to my kids on FaceTime briefly for, I don't know, half an hour just to say goodnight and that I'd be seeing them soon. And then I fell asleep. And that's where it all went downhill. So at like so I probably fell asleep at, like, 09:30 realistically. Right around midnight, I woke up and I had full blown digestive stomach problems.
Dave:I won't go into detail, but I was up all night. I was sick. I felt like I had, maybe a stomach bug or something. I didn't know if it was something I ate or something I picked up for my kids or a virus. I have no idea what happened.
Dave:But I was full blown sick from right around midnight all the way till, I don't know, 03:00 in the morning, at which point I actually fell asleep. And I slept through my wake up alarm to get to the starting line. So eventually, I did wake up at almost exactly 04:00 in the morning, which is what time the race starts. And in my head, I'm like, what do I do? So I jumped out of bed.
Dave:I had all my stuff laid out, which was great. I quickly got my stuff on. I got dressed to run. I got my shoes on. I didn't do all of the pre race things I usually do.
Dave:Like, I like to apply, lube and stuff to all the areas, which may be a problem, but I thought, hey. I'm just gonna get down there and see what happens, and maybe they'll let me run, and I'll address any issues like out on the trail while I'm running. So I scrambled, got ready, got in the car, drove to the starting line. And by the time I got to the actual starting line, it was about 04:30 in the morning. So I was around thirty minutes late.
Dave:There was a volunteer there, and I talked to her briefly, basically explained my situation, and she told me that I could still run even though everybody was already gone. They were probably, you know, three, four miles into the run already, and I was just getting there. She said, you could still run. So I had this moment where I was like, what do I do? I was super tired.
Dave:I was very worn out, and I was still having digestive issues with my stomach. I was not feeling good. I was, like, having a tar hard time just standing there functioning talking to this woman that was at the starting line. And that's kind of like when I just realistically put it all together. Like, so what's gonna happen?
Dave:Start the race, maybe make it, you know, 20 miles in. At this point, I'm chasing cutoff times at the first few aid stations. And I just I I didn't envision a scenario in which I'd be able to actually finish this race. There's pretty much no way. All hope was lost.
Dave:So instead of going through the process of running all the miles and then dropping at one of the early aid stations, I thought, I'm just gonna pull the plug now and decided to drop or not start the race. I handed in my chip, my little timing thing that I was supposed to wear, and went back to my hotel room. So, that's pretty much immediately where their regret kicked in. I, you know, I think everyone feels this if you didn't if maybe you dropped from a race or you didn't start the race for whatever reason, you think I should have just done it anyways. I keep thinking that now even a week later.
Dave:I'm like, damn. I should have just put one foot in front of the other and gave it a go. But I was probably right in not starting. I think I would have just put a strain on the the race infrastructure. They would have had to pick me up somewhere or, drive me back to the starting line, and I didn't wanna put them through that.
Dave:And I also genuinely felt awful. The idea of, like, stomaching 25 gels throughout the course of the race, didn't sound good to me. So long story short, I did not start the race. Still feeling pretty disappointed about it. I have been beating myself up all week and feeling pretty awful.
Dave:So I'm still there in terms of a mindset. Now I still have the fitness. Like, I trained a lot for this race. I was putting in 60 plus mile weeks for months leading up to this. I put in the work.
Dave:So now I'm trying to pivot and decide what's next for me. And I don't know if it's gonna be an organized race. I don't know if it's gonna be something a 100 miler or something like that or if it's going to be a personal project in the mountains, which likely it will be because all the races are either filled up or registrations closed. If you're a race director watching this, give me a shout. Maybe I'll jump in on your next thing in if it's in the New England area.
Dave:But realistically, I think I'm just gonna venture out on my own and do something cool, solo. Unsupported, bring a water filter, and and just get into the mountains. I I think I need that right now. But, it was a I mean, still a good experience. The pre race expo was awesome, and shout out to everybody I saw there.
Dave:And congratulations to all the runners that did manage to make it to the finish line. It seemed like some fast times this year. So congrats to all of you. So that's the race. If you were curious what happened, I spent ten minutes talking about that.
Dave:But I think some people I got some messages on Instagram and some comments on YouTube like, hey. What happened? You never explained. So that's the explainer. Anyways, moving on.
Dave:Let's move into some of the tech topics in this pod. So first up, we've got the WHOOP debacle. So about a week ago, I believe it was, let's see. July 14 was when WHOOP came out with a statement after the FDA essentially issued them a warning later a letter. So the problem is if you have a Whoop device, which I've got here, this is the Whoop MG.
Dave:This is the most expensive Whoop on the available right now. It's $359 a year with the subscription. And one of the standout features on the Whoop MG is the ability to pick up your blood pressure. They call it blood pressure insights. And the way this works is there's, like, a calibration process when you first get the thing.
Dave:You have to take measurements with a, medical grade blood pressure cuff that you wear and then document that in the Whoop app on your phone. And then after you do that three times, it sort of takes over and will start to generate an estimation of your blood pressure on a given day. Every morning when you wake up, you get a new blood pressure insight, and they call it blood pressure insight in quotes because it's not a medical thing. It's not medical grade. It's insights about your estimation of blood pressure, and that's a game WHOOP plays a lot of.
Dave:For example, they call this device the WHOOP MG. And MG is supposed to stand for medical grade, but they don't call it medical grade because it's not medical grade. So in order for a device to become medical grade, it has to go through a extensive review process with the FDA. They need to sign off on it. And then after that, you can call it a medical device, which WHOOP has not done.
Dave:So the issue here is that the FDA FDA issued a warning letter to WHOOP, essentially stating that the way they're incorporating blood blood pressure insights in the app should be considered medical, like a medical thing. And because of that, the FDA is pressuring WHOOP, to either get it reviewed as a medical device or to remove it from the WHOOP MG in the app the WHOOP app on your phone. Whoop has come back with a counterargument to the FDA, and they've made this public. They if you have a Whoop device, you probably got an email about it, where Whoop has stated that their incorporation of the blood pressure insight is not medical. And their argument is that the WHOOP device at large is not meant for people who have existing conditions.
Dave:So if you know you have blood pressure problems or you have other wellness or medical issues, this isn't a cure for that. What WHOOP is designed for is to help people optimize their health. Athletes, people who are interested in in how they could tweak little things to become better at what they do every day. Right? So their argument is that they're not selling a device for people who have known issues or or maybe think they have issues to try to diagnose themselves.
Dave:Their device is designed for the everyday person to optimize or get better at what they're doing. So they they're not trying it's a it's a murky waters that Whoop is playing with. So Whoop has issued the counterargument and FDA is they're just in a fight right now. It's inconclusive as to what's gonna happen, but you can read all of the details about this on both the FDA's website and WHOOP's website to see both sides of the conversation and draw your own conclusions. Now when it comes to my experience with the blood pressure insights, it's been okay.
Dave:Think, you know, for a while I was doing, like, daily readings with a blood pressure cuff and the device and comparing them side by side, But it is tough to do that because blood pressure is such a blip in time. Like, it can change from the time you wake up to the time you take the measurement. If you have any food or coffee or anything like that, that can skew it even more. So in my experience, the blood pressure insights on WHOOP were always a little bit elevated as compared to the blood pressure cuff. I keep pointing over there because that's where the cuff is.
Dave:But, you know, generally, it was in the right ballpark, and it trended in the same direction. So if I did have a day that was a little bit higher, the trend line looked similar. Now the question is, where does WHOOP go from here? If FDA really cracks down on this and they demand a conclusion or or some sort of, you know, action taken by WHOOP, I think that WHOOP's easiest course of action would just be to temporarily remove the feature from the Whoop app, and that's where things get tricky because a lot of people bought the Whoop MG devices, and one of the main selling points of this device is the blood pressure insights. Other than that, you get ECG functionality, which, to be honest, I think is less exciting than the blood pressure insights.
Dave:I'm not someone who takes an ECG reading on a daily basis. I don't know many people who are. So the blood pressure thing is something that happens automatically and passively in the background. So it is kind of a cool feature to look at from time to time where ECG is like you're committing to it. It's something you have to actively turn on in the app and then hold the device and or wear it on your wrist and hold it with your fingers to make ECG happen.
Dave:So if they remove blood pressure, the really the only selling point for an Whoop MG would be ECG. And the Whoop MG is considerably more money than the other subscriptions by over a $100. So I think there would be a lot of, enraged customers out there. I think Whoop would have to do something like offer a free gift card to the Whoop store to buy another band or or even some sort of compensation in terms of, like, free membership. Like, maybe after your one year subscription ends, you get an extra three months or something on the house because they took that feature out.
Dave:I'm not really sure. But I am curious if you're a WhoopMG user watching this right now, what you think and what you think a fair course of action should be for either party. Is the FDA in the right? Is is Whoop in the right? I I honestly don't know.
Dave:I'm, like, kinda torn because I get the argument on both sides. I understand where the FDA is coming from because if you're just like an everyday person and you're like, oh, that does blood pressure. I'll buy that. And there's really not a big disclaimer. There is in the app, admittedly, when you set it up, it does say, like, this is not a medical thing.
Dave:But, yeah, it's on the box. When you buy the thing, it doesn't tell you outright. So that could be another way to address this. Maybe there's more of a disclaimer. I'm not totally sure.
Dave:Let me know what you think in the YouTube comments down below. And if you're listening to the audio version, hop over to YouTube and let me know what you think. So that is my take on the whoop debacle right now. I'm, indecisive. Okay.
Dave:Next topic. Apple Watch OS 26. I've got the Apple Watch Ultra two here running the public beta because as of, I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before, the public beta became available for the Apple Watch, series 10, series nine, I think, the Apple Watch Ultra, Ultra two, SE, certain models like the newer generation, can now all run Apple Watch OS 26. It is in beta still, so I would not recommend you run out and install this because it does mean you need to also put your phone in beta for the watch to have beta. You you need to have both devices on the same page for it to work.
Dave:The main the big upgrade well, I wouldn't call it a upgrade, but the the main overhaul with the Apple Watch OS 26 is that they've incorporated some of the design elements from iOS 26 on your phone. In the what they're calling that is liquid glass. Of course, it's got a fancy name. And what liquid glass is is sort of like a new user interface design where everything looks a little bit different, more transparencies, more, like, kind of blurry glassy things that move around the screen. But to be honest, on the watch interface, it's really not all that different in a lot of ways.
Dave:You don't really notice all of the design tweaks unless you're in certain menus. For example, if you pull up the quick action menu, to, like, you know, turn off your Wi Fi or whatever, you do notice it there. You also notice it on the pin unlock when you go to unlock the screen after it's been off your wrist for a little while in a couple of other areas. But on top of that, there is workout buddy, which I've talked about in the the full blown video about, Apple watch OS 26, where they have, like, some encouraging speech during your activities. It'll tell you things like your training load is higher than average this week, or you just ran your fastest mile in the past thirty days or various other bits of information that'll come through your paired earbuds.
Dave:That workout buddy feature only works in a certain scenario. You have to have your Apple iPhone with you the entire time you're working out. So if you go for a run with just the watch, you will not get WorkoutBuddy, which is kind of unfortunate because I feel like a lot of people do that. So you need your phone with you, and your phone has to be a newer phone with Apple intelligence again or work about WorkoutBuddy will not work. And finally, you have to have earbuds in or some sort of wireless headphone paired to the watch for this to work.
Dave:Because without that, it won't just come out of the speaker on your watch, which I thought is a kind of odd limitation since these watches do have a speaker. And in the case of the Apple Watch Ultra two, it's actually a really loud speaker. So it would make sense to do that, but they decided not to do that. Now as in terms of how useful Workout Buddy is, I honestly don't know. I guess it's kind of encouraging, like, some of the things that will say telling me I've, you know, run faster on that, you know, week or I'm trending in the right direction.
Dave:Those are motivational things that could be useful. But largely, you know, I could get that information after the fact when I review the activity. So I'm kinda torn on how useful it is. Is it kinda fun? Yeah.
Dave:And, finally, the other big thing coming to Apple Watch OS 26 is notes. I'm actually using notes right now on my phone to do this podcast. Apple Notes is something I use all the time just for, like, little things. I actually use on my computer and on my phone. I use an app called Notion for a lot of, like, my scripts and stuff or, like, organization or finances or, you know, sharing notes with other people.
Dave:I really like Notion because it's got a lot more features to it. But if I'm just jotting down, like, a podcast script or bullet points to hit or something like that, I use Apple Notes for that. And it's a really useful tool because it syncs across all of your devices. So I can start a note on my computer or my iPad. It'll show up on my phone, and now I can view it on the watch as well.
Dave:So really handy, and I'm glad they added that. I'm surprised it actually took this long. So that's I Apple Watch OS 26. I almost called it iOS 26. In a nutshell, maybe I'll put out a video about it in the near future, but for now, just a quick talking point.
Dave:And if you do wanna try it out, you can install it yourself. But, again, just be very aware that it's in beta. It's not, like, polished and ready for everybody to use. So if you value if you're doing something important, you're you've got a race coming up or you're you just don't wanna, like, burn through battery in a couple of hours because the betas can do that, I would be very wary about installing it. But if you really wanna try it, you can give it a try now by downloading the the public beta.
Dave:Okay. Final topic here. Well, couple of topics. We've got a few devices that launched since the last podcast. There is the Amazfit Balance two, which I have a full review on the channel about.
Dave:That watch is surprisingly good for for the price point. And I think my YouTube title was, Garmin should be worried. Because if you follow Amazfit, they were like kind of a nobody brand years ago, kind of a brand. I I disregarded the brand in a lot of ways, because one of the first watches I reviewed on this channel was actually the Amazfit Stratos, I believe. And that watch didn't have very good GPS or heart rate accuracy.
Dave:The software is kinda clunky. The app was a little bit clunky. But, like, in the past few years of them developing Zepp OS, which is their proprietary software and the app on the phone, things have gotten quite a bit better. And now in a lot of ways, you can compare it to some of these, you know, well known brands like Garmin. So I I don't think my title was off by saying Garmin should be worried because the progression that Amazfit has made over the past few years, I I think it's hard to argue.
Dave:They're moving very quickly. They've got offline maps now. The maps are very detailed. They have, like, road names and trail names and bodies of water, And the software has gotten a lot better. The the watches are very responsive.
Dave:The design is nice. They look nice. The screens are very nice. They're very bright. So in a lot of ways, they've made a lot of headway.
Dave:But what shocked me about the recent releases from Amazfit is just how many people care. For example, I put out a video about the Amazfit Helios strap here, and that video has, like, 300,000 views now, and it's only been up for a couple of weeks. I did not expect that. I I was kinda shocked by that. It's a good thing.
Dave:Thank you for watching. The Amazfit Helios strap, if you didn't see that video, is basically a whoop alternative. So the the Whoop MG or the Whoop five point o or even the four point o, that's really where Amazfit was targeting their efforts here. But what makes the Amazfit Helio strap different? Well, what makes it similar to the Whoop is that this is a screen list device.
Dave:As you can see here, no screen, simple, you know, band. I've got the bicep band on it right now, but you can wear this on your wrist. And it's a screenless device. It tracks your sleep, your all day activity, your steps, your calories burned. And then they introduced a new feature called BioCharge.
Dave:Now BioCharge is essentially what Garmin does with body battery. Well, what they're trying to do essentially with with BioCharge in that when you go to sleep, you try to charge your your BioCharge back up, get good sleep, you could get up to a 100%. And then throughout the day, as your day progresses, depending on how active you are and what you're doing, your biochars will deplete deplete. So if you're on the couch all day, your biocharge may not change very much. But if you go out and run and then do a strength workout or something, you'll see your biocharge drop rapidly.
Dave:And bar biocharge is all based on your heart rate, your HRV, your sleep, and they kind of roll that up into biocharge. BioCharge, in my experience with it, is actually pretty impressive. And I say that because before BioCharge, Amazfit used a feature called the readiness score, and that was available on all their watches. And I always found that to be pretty unrealistic and unreliable because the readiness score, if you have an Amazfit watch, you probably know this, was always very optimistic. Like, I could get a really bad night of sleep.
Dave:I could be full blown sick with an illness with the flu and then barely sleep that night or get really bad sleep. I'd wake up and my Garmin would tell me I got terrible sleep and my body battery was, you know, 15% or something. And then I'd look at my readiness score in Amazfit, and that would be like, oh, you got decent sleep and you're at 70% when that just was not the case because I know my body. I know the way I felt. And the readiness score just was always very high.
Dave:It almost seemed like you couldn't get it below 70%. So that's where things change with this biocharge feature because it almost goes in the other direction where it's almost more aggressive than body battery. So on a Garmin watch, if you get a good night of sleep, you can get up to, you know, 90 or a 100%. And I've been using the biocharge feature more and more. I should probably make a follow-up video.
Dave:But on most days, it does line up pretty favorably with the way I feel and Garmin body battery. On some days, it's more aggressive, and my biocharge will be lower than my body battery. Now which one is right? I have no scientific or way to quant you know, it's it's really perceived. Right?
Dave:Like your body battery is trying to estimate how you feel, and there's really no quantifiable measure on feeling. Right? You feel how you feel. So the only real way to quantify how accurate these things are is by, like, looking at them, documenting your days manually, like in a notes app on your phone or just writing down, hey. Today, was kinda tired when I woke up, and by the end of the day, I was also kinda tired.
Dave:If you do that for a while and then compare those notes to the actual measurements from the devices, that might be the best way to quantify how accurate they are. For me, I do like BioCharge. I do think it's heading in the right direction, but I do think there is room for improvement on certain days. Now that gets into the other topic here with BioCharge and Amazfit in that it's only available right now on the Helio strap at the time of filming this podcast. So if you buy the new Amazfit balance two, even though it was advertised as having BioCharge, it doesn't actually have it yet because it hasn't been released in the firmware update.
Dave:The weird thing is I had the balance two prerelease, and I was testing the biocharge on the watch. I actually had biocharge on the balance two, and I was able to try it out. And to be honest, they worked just as good as the Helio Strap. So I'm not really sure why they're holding back on that. They but it seems like they are optimizing and polishing it behind the scenes before they roll it out to more devices.
Dave:So I guess long story short short, I'm impressed with Amazfit and what they're doing. I think they're heading in the right direction. Yes. I do think they still need to tweak some things, on both the balance two, the HelioStrap, and their software. Those are things like their sleep score.
Dave:That's still pretty optimistic most nights. Even though the raw data looks pretty good, the, like, sleep score is always very optimistic. And the exertion score, the new feature that came out, I also think could could use a little bit of work. But generally, like, they're moving in the right direction. And if you just wanna watch for, like, tracking your runs and getting a general idea on your health, it is they seem like viable options these days.
Dave:Another benefit to the Amazfit ecosystem compared to something like a Whoop is that you can use this, in conjunction with other devices. So if you buy a Helio Strap, you can also use a watch. You can buy the Helio ring, which is a smart ring. So depending on your situation in what you do and what you wanna wear at a given point in time, you can aggregate all the data together to get a kind of a gapless view of your data. Where on WHOOP, if you take the WHOOP band off, you're gonna have a gap in your data.
Dave:So, like, if you're a Garmin user and also have a WHOOP, so maybe you wanna use the WHOOP band to do all day tracking of your sleep and, you know, recovery and stuff like that. But then when you run, you wanna use your smartwatch. So you grab your Garmin, you put that on your wrist. The problem there is you've got two different apps with two different sets of data, one being all of your activity data, the other being all of your wellness data, but they're not tied together really. And that's where Amazfit has changed that because you can wear the band while you sleep and then wear a watch while you run and then maybe wear a ring when you don't wanna wear anything, and then still all have it in one app aggregating in the same place, which I think is really cool.
Dave:So I'm hopeful they can iron out some of the things, some of the sort of, you know, questionable things right now, like estimated v o two max on Amazfit has always been really bad. It still is today. But if they do that, yes, they're gonna be very competitive, especially with the prices because the Helios strap is $99 and has no subscription compared to the 359 subscription on a whoop band, which is very expensive. And now that you're losing or possibly losing blood pressure insights, TBD. Okay.
Dave:Where are we here? That was a ramble. Okay. Yeah. Garmin Venue x one.
Dave:This is another device that released recently, a few weeks ago, and I've gotten extensive use with this watch. I really like this thing. I actually I have a follow-up video about my extended time with it. But, man, it's so different. The Venue x one just you know, you look at it at face value.
Dave:You might have watched my review about it, and you think, oh, they're competing with Apple. They they wanted to make an Apple Watch. And I I think that sentiment is correct. But until you use it, until you get this thing on your wrist and you, you know, really put it through its paces, you don't fully appreciate the form factor in the display of this thing. The display is huge.
Dave:It's like a two inch AMOLED display, which might be, you know, subjectively in all the watches I have. It might be the brightest Garmin display I've ever tried. But because you have more real estate on the screen, you can just do so much more with it. For example, when you're out on a hike or a run or something, you can have one side of the screen be a map view, and then the other side of the screen be a bunch of data along with like a heart rate graph along the bottom. So you can see your navigation, you can see all of your metrics, you can see your distance, your pace, your heart rate, all on one screen without having to scroll through multiple screens, which is awesome.
Dave:And something that you can kinda do on Garmin's round watches, but just not as efficient as you can on the Venue x one. Another thing I like about this, like I said, the form factor is bananas. It is the thinnest Garmin watch at 7.9 millimeters thick, and it just feels so different on the wrist. Even compared to, like, an Apple watch, it's just so much more comfortable, both because it's very lightweight, but also because it's very premium feeling. It's got this, like, titanium backplate to it that just feels like really solid along with a sapphire display, which makes it feel even more premium and less prone to scratches.
Dave:And I just really like the overall package. But and this is a big but. The one Achilles heel of this watch is 100% the battery life. Now a lot of people move to Garmin from something like an Apple Watch because they want a more, like, sports centric kind of watch, and that makes a lot of sense. And another reason people move to Garmin from Apple is because they want more battery life.
Dave:So, typically, on a Garmin watch like this four hundred nine seventy I'm wearing here, you get, like, weeks of battery life. Or I guess, if you have the always on display on, you're not getting that much time. But if you have a Phoenix eight, for example, you're getting weeks of battery life. And that's great. And that's a big selling point to a watch for people who don't wanna charge it all the time or people who are doing, like, long multi day activities and you don't wanna drag along a battery bank to charge it up.
Dave:With my experience with this, Venue x one, it's pretty much a two day or three day watch. If you're using this watch to do, like, daily activities, I pretty much go for a run every day, and that could vary from, like, thirty minutes to a couple of hours on a given day. If you do that and you utilize all the features of the watch, you're only gonna get a couple of days on a battery charge. And at that point, you are falling back into the camp of something like an Apple Watch. And it just goes to show you, we can't have it both ways.
Dave:We can't have, like, a super slim, you know, sexy watch with a speaker and microphone and bright display and all the things that these watches can do and also get weeks of battery life. That's just not physically possible right now. And the Garmin Venue x one is one example of that. But even though it does have that limitation, I do think it's still a really compelling watch. The price tag is steep at $800 here in The USA, but again, comparable to something like the Apple Watch Ultra two.
Dave:So if you're in the market at this price range, you know what you're getting into. Of course, with the Apple Watch, you are getting cellular capabilities, in a lot of the smart features that come with Apple products along with, like, a billion different apps you can install on the watch. You are much more limited in those departments on the Garmin Venue x one here, and you don't get cellular connectivity. So if that is a must have, go with the Apple. But if you are looking for, like, a more sporty alternative to an Apple Watch, I still think the Venue x one makes sense for a lot of people.
Dave:It's just you need to keep in mind that battery life is not crazy good. Even with the always on display turned off, you're not gonna get weeks of battery life. It's just not gonna happen. The only way you will is by limiting a lot of the features and by not using it for GPS activities regularly. In that case, you might squeeze that out.
Dave:But in that case, why buy an $800 watch? That's just my 2¢ on it. Okay. That's, a lot of rambling. I just wanted to check-in, do another podcast, get this out there, get some thoughts out there on all the topics I talked about in this video.
Dave:I think we've made it to the end. We're forty one minutes in. And at this point, I just want to, thank you for tuning in, listening to your favorite podcast platform of choice. If you haven't yet, make sure to follow the podcast over on Spotify, Apple. Google Podcast is gone now.
Dave:Right? So whatever platform you use, search up distance junkie or chase the summit. Follow me over there, and make sure to give the podcast, like, a five star rating. That really helps me out. If you're watching here on YouTube, make sure to comment down below and let me know what you think of all the topics I talked about in this video.
Dave:Whoop, Apple, the Venue x one, my race falling apart, anything in between. Oh, yeah. Subscribe. Make sure to hit that subscribe button. Hit the thumbs up button.
Dave:And, I think that's all I've got for you this time. Hope you enjoyed it, and I'll, see you soon. There's a lot coming. There's a lot of things coming. Yeah.
Dave:I can't talk about them, but buckle up. Okay, friends. That's it now. Bye.