This is a relatively old review when the TicWatch was new. This watch easily outperforms the Galaxy Ultra and even Oneplus 2R and musters in 4/5 days of battery life (looks sadly at my GW 6).
Some did report its app being not as good as S Health or Google’s implementation. However it’s main Achilles heel is the update problem. Pixel Watches, IIRC, get 3 years and Galaxy Watches get 4 years ; but TicWatches are lucky to get one major Wear OS upgrade and that too, delayed. Which is a Shame because the hardware here easily equals last gen Galaxy/Pixel Watches and in terms of battery life, will stand for many years to come.
In my country, Wear OS forms a tiny share of the market and Samsung has the biggest pie of it (it doesn’t help that watches aren’t considered for trade in here, so if and when I do upgrade to a new watch, my current watch becomes e waste and I pay full price). I did consider the TicWatch but seeing it’s relatively poor software support went with Samsung. However, damn if I said that I love Samsung’s battery life or charging implementation. The WPC mechanism wastes so much heat and throttles itself to heck in hot temperatures.
My dad gave me his Samsung Watch 7 he got for free with his new phone. What a disaster it was. Couldn’t connect to anything other than a Samsung phone, couldn’t charge it while trying to make it work on my Nothing Phone because the device got too hot. Yeah… never a Samsung again for me, not even for free. He now uses it because ofcourse, it instantly paired to his S24 Ultra.
If my Garmin Instinct 2 dies, i would buy something simular. Or, if Garmin decides to aggresively pushing their subsribtion services in the (near) future or do anything other stupid, i would take take my money to Pebble:
https://store.repebble.com/
Huh, that shouldn’t happen. Whilst Samsung gatekeep certain features for its models only (like ECG for instance though one can bypass it by sideloading the SHM Monitor app from XDA), basic features do work fine with most models. I have a non Samsung device as well.
The watch getting too hot is a problem. I have seen it slowing down it’s charging speed (if not outright refusing to charge) in summers here.
Instinct gang! I got an Instinct 2S Solar after being fed up with "smart"watches with 1-2 day battery life, now I get 10-14 days realistically even when frequently training with GPS. I’ve also returned to Gadgetbridge recently and it’s an OK experience, minor bumps here and there, but definitely something I can daily drive in exchange for having control over my data.
What I find nice is that the Instincts don’t need the phone to see all data and can function pretty much autonomously - everything important can be checked on the watch itself. And the watch itself is so rugged (among other things, it has a 10ATM water resistance vs 5ATM for a lot watches, and pretty much all of the WearOS/general smartwatches like Huawei), I don’t have an issue taking it for swimming, which is very important for me.
I just wish there were more watches like Instinct that would also match the functionality these series have. But unfortunately, looks like most people prefer fancy displays over a watch being practical and not needing to charge it as often as your phone.