Apple Watch Series 10 vs Garmin Forerunner 745

🗓️ Release Year

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: 2024

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: 2020



🏃 Activity

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Apple Watch Series 10 offers an advanced fitness tracking system that measures steps, calories burned, distance traveled, active minutes, and elevation changes. It automatically tracks daily movement and provides real-time heart rate zone updates to optimize workouts. The Move, Exercise, and Stand rings help users stay motivated by closing daily activity goals.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Garmin Forerunner 745 is a purpose-built GPS smartwatch for runners and triathletes, offering detailed tracking of steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes with daily goals. It provides advanced running dynamics and performance monitoring tools essential for serious training.



❤️ Health Monitoring

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: Designed with comprehensive health tracking, the watch continuously monitors heart rate, blood oxygen levels (SpO2), and skin temperature. It includes high and low heart rate alerts, irregular heart rhythm detection, and AFib history tracking, providing crucial health insights. The Heart Rate Variability (HRV) feature assesses cardiovascular health trends over time.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: This device features continuous heart rate monitoring, advanced physiological metrics including VO2 max estimation, training status, and training load focus. It also tracks respiration rate, providing a comprehensive view of an athlete's health and recovery.



🔋 Battery Life

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Apple Watch Series 10 delivers up to 18 hours of battery life in normal use and up to 36 hours in Low Power Mode. Fast charging allows it to reach 80% in around 45 minutes, ensuring minimal downtime between charges.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 offers up to 1 week of battery life in smartwatch mode. For GPS-intensive activities, it provides up to 16 hours of tracking, which is sufficient for most races and training sessions.



😴 Sleep Tracking

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The watch tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM), offering personalized insights into sleep patterns. It also monitors respiratory rate and blood oxygen levels during sleep to detect potential disturbances, such as sleep apnea.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: Advanced sleep monitoring is included, analyzing sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and incorporating a Pulse Ox sensor to monitor blood oxygen levels during sleep, offering valuable data for assessing recovery and overall well-being.



📍 GPS Tracking

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: With precise dual-frequency GPS (L1 + L5 bands), the Apple Watch Series 10 delivers accurate location tracking for outdoor activities like running, cycling, and hiking. It provides real-time pace, elevation, and route mapping in the Apple Fitness app.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: Equipped with built-in GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, the Forerunner 745 provides highly accurate outdoor activity tracking without needing a paired smartphone. It delivers precise pace, distance, and route data critical for accurate training logs and race performance analysis.



🏋️ Workout Modes

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The watch supports over 100 workout types, including HIIT, strength training, swimming, cycling, rowing, and yoga. Advanced metrics such as stride length, ground contact time, running power, and vertical oscillation help athletes optimize performance.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 supports a wide range of workout modes tailored for running, biking, swimming, triathlon, and more, with real-time statistics displayed during activities and advanced metrics for post-workout analysis.



💫 Exercise Recognition

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Apple Watch Series 10 automatically detects workouts such as walking, running, cycling, swimming, and elliptical sessions, ensuring that activities are logged even if users forget to start tracking.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities like walking and running through its Move IQ feature, ensuring seamless recording of these basic movements within the overall training log.



🍎 Compatibility

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: Seamlessly integrates with iPhone (iOS 17 or later) via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It syncs with Apple Health and supports third-party fitness apps like Strava, MyFitnessPal, and Nike Run Club.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth for seamless data synchronization and smart notifications.



📲 App Support

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Apple Fitness+ app provides guided workouts, live metrics, and personalized fitness plans. Users can also sync with third-party wellness apps, including meditation and recovery tracking platforms.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: Synchronization with the robust Garmin Connect app is fundamental, providing detailed analysis of training data, performance metrics, and health statistics. The app allows for creating and downloading workouts, accessing training plans, and connecting with the Garmin community.



💡 Smart Features

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: In addition to fitness tracking, the Apple Watch Series 10 includes smart notifications for calls, texts, and apps. It supports Siri voice commands, Apple Pay for contactless payments, and music streaming via Apple Music and Spotify. The SOS Emergency Call feature provides enhanced safety by detecting severe falls and crashes, automatically notifying emergency contacts if needed.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: Beyond its primary focus on sports, the Forerunner 745 includes practical smart features such as on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It supports Garmin Pay for contactless payments and allows for on-device music storage with support for streaming services, enabling phone-free training with music.



💦 Water Resistance

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: With a WR50 rating, the watch is water-resistant up to 50 meters, making it suitable for pool swimming, water workouts, and showering. It also tracks swimming metrics, including stroke count, distance, and pace.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Forerunner 745 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a reliable device for triathletes and swimmers to track their aquatic training segments.



⌚ Display Quality

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The ultra-bright LTPO OLED Retina display offers sharp colors, deep blacks, and excellent visibility in direct sunlight. The always-on display ensures users can quickly check the time, notifications, and health data without raising their wrist.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 features a sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) color display. While not as vibrant as AMOLED, this display technology offers excellent readability in direct sunlight and is highly power-efficient.



👌 Ease of Use

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The watch features a responsive touchscreen, a Digital Crown for precise scrolling, and haptic feedback for smooth navigation. With customizable watch faces, users can personalize their interface based on preference.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The device utilizes a five-button interface, which is preferred by many athletes for reliable operation during intense workouts or in various weather conditions. The user interface is designed for quick and easy access to training data and key features.



✨ Design and Comfort

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Apple Watch Series 10 features a lightweight yet durable titanium or aluminum case with interchangeable bands. It is available in multiple sizes and finishes, ensuring a comfortable fit for all-day wear.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 features a compact and durable design with a comfortable silicone band, optimized for a secure fit during intense training sessions and suitable for all-day wear.



🩸 SpO2 Monitoring

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The built-in SpO2 sensor continuously measures blood oxygen levels, providing real-time insights into respiratory and overall health, especially useful during sleep and high-altitude activities.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep and spot-checks throughout the day, providing valuable data related to acclimatization and recovery.



💖 ECG Functionality

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The ECG app allows users to take electrocardiograms (ECGs) on demand, detecting signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib). Results can be shared with healthcare professionals for further analysis.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: It is important to note that the Garmin Forerunner 745 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.



🧘 Stress Tracking

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: With Mindfulness and Breathe apps, the watch offers guided breathing sessions and stress-level assessments. It tracks heart rate variability (HRV) to indicate periods of high or low stress.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The Forerunner 745 tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress and promote recovery.



🩹 Recovery Tracking

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: The Recovery Insights feature provides data on heart rate recovery time, sleep quality, and fatigue levels, helping users determine when to train or rest. Apple Fitness+ offers personalized recommendations based on recovery status.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: The device provides advanced recovery insights, including recovery time advisor, training status, and training load focus, helping athletes understand the impact of their training and optimize their recovery strategies to prevent overtraining.



💳 Subscription

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: ✅ The watch provides core health and fitness features for free, but Apple Fitness+ (optional, $9.99/month or $79.99/year) offers guided workouts, advanced training insights, and exclusive content.

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all features and data tracked by the Forerunner 745 are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for core functionality or advanced training analysis.



🏷️️ Price

1️⃣ Apple Watch Series 10: $399.00

Check Apple Watch Series 10 Price *

2️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 745: $499.99

Check Garmin Forerunner 745 Price *

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