Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Samsung Galaxy Watch 6
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: 2024
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: 2023
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Garmin Forerunner 165 is an accessible GPS running watch designed for new and casual runners, offering essential activity tracking. It precisely records steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes, with a strong focus on core running metrics like pace, distance, and cadence using built-in GPS. It provides valuable data for monitoring and improving running performance.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is a sophisticated Wear OS smartwatch delivering enhanced performance and comprehensive activity tracking. It accurately records steps, calories burned, heart rate, and distance, providing advanced fitness insights and detailed metrics for over 90 workout modes. Its capabilities support users in monitoring and improving their fitness across a wide range of activities.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: This device provides continuous wrist-based heart rate monitoring, stress tracking, and sleep tracking for insights into daily well-being and recovery. It includes Pulse Ox for blood oxygen saturation monitoring, contributing to a more complete picture of overall health alongside its running features.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: This device is a powerful health management tool, featuring continuous heart rate monitoring, SpO2 blood oxygen monitoring, ECG functionality for detecting signs of irregular heart rhythms, and advanced stress tracking. A key capability is the Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) sensor for body composition measurements, offering deeper insights into overall physical health beyond simple weight tracking.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 offers practical battery life for runners, providing up to 11 days in smartwatch mode and up to 19 hours with continuous GPS tracking. This ensures sufficient power for regular runs and daily wear without constant recharging.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 typically offers up to 40 hours (2 days) of battery life on a single charge, depending on usage and selected features. This provides sufficient power for daily use with activity tracking and smart features, though more demanding use cases may require more frequent charging.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: Detailed sleep tracking on the Forerunner 165 monitors sleep stages and provides insights into sleep quality and patterns, helping users understand their recovery for optimal training and daily performance.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Detailed sleep tracking on the Galaxy Watch 6 monitors sleep stages (light, deep, and REM), sleep duration, and provides a comprehensive Sleep Score and analysis through the Samsung Health app. It also tracks blood oxygen levels and detects snoring during sleep, offering valuable insights into sleep quality and potential sleep disorders, contributing to better sleep hygiene.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: Equipped with built-in GPS, the Forerunner 165 provides accurate outdoor activity tracking for running, walking, and cycling without needing a paired smartphone. It delivers reliable pace, distance, and route data essential for runners.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: With built-in GPS, the Galaxy Watch 6 accurately tracks outdoor activities like running, cycling, and hiking independently of a paired smartphone. It provides precise route mapping, pace, and distance data, essential for monitoring performance and navigating during outdoor workouts.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: While primarily a running watch, the Forerunner 165 supports additional activity profiles including cycling, pool swimming, HIIT, and cardio, providing relevant metrics for these exercises alongside its core running features.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 supports over 90 workout modes, covering a wide spectrum of physical activities from running and cycling to swimming, strength training, yoga, and more. Users can select specific modes to receive tailored real-time statistics and in-depth post-workout analysis.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities such as walking and running through its Move IQ feature, ensuring these basic movements are captured in your activity log seamlessly.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The smartwatch features automatic exercise recognition for common activities such as walking, running, cycling, and swimming. This ensures that workouts are logged seamlessly, even if the user forgets to manually start tracking, providing a more complete and accurate record of physical activity.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth for seamless data synchronization and smart notifications.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Running Wear OS Powered by Samsung, the Galaxy Watch 6 offers broad compatibility primarily with Android smartphones. Full functionality, including features like ECG and BIA, is optimized when paired with a Samsung Galaxy phone running the Samsung Health Monitor app.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central to the Forerunner 165 experience, providing detailed analysis of running data, activity metrics, health statistics, and sleep insights. The app allows for setting goals, reviewing training history, and connecting with the Garmin community.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Leveraging the Google Play Store, the Galaxy Watch 6 provides access to a vast ecosystem of third-party apps, enhancing its capabilities for fitness, productivity, communication, and entertainment. The Samsung Health app serves as a central hub for reviewing detailed health data, body composition analysis, and setting wellness goals.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: Beyond its running focus, the Forerunner 165 includes essential smart functionalities such as on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It also supports Garmin Pay for contactless payments (on the Music version, if applicable, but the data for 167 is just Forerunner 165, so sticking to basics) and allows for controlling music on a paired smartphone.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: As a full-featured smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 6 provides comprehensive smart capabilities, including on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, emails, and apps. It supports Google Assistant and Bixby for voice commands, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay for contactless payments, and allows for music streaming and calls directly from the watch (LTE models).
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Forerunner 165 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a durable companion for triathletes and those who incorporate swimming into their fitness routine.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: With a 5 ATM water resistance rating, the Galaxy Watch 6 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a durable companion for everyday wear and aquatic activities. It is capable of tracking swimming workouts with relevant metrics.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 features a sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) color display, offering good readability in various lighting conditions, especially bright sunlight, which is ideal for outdoor running. The display technology is also power-efficient.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 features a bright and vibrant Super AMOLED display with high resolution. This display offers excellent clarity and readability in various lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, making it easy to view stats, notifications, and app content.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The device utilizes a five-button interface, which is reliable and easy to operate during runs or workouts. The user interface is designed for straightforward navigation and quick access to running data and essential features.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The device offers an intuitive user interface with a combination of the responsive touchscreen, physical side buttons, and a digital rotating bezel for easy navigation through apps and menus. The Wear OS platform provides a familiar and user-friendly experience, enhanced by Samsung's customizations.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 features a lightweight and comfortable design with a soft silicone band, making it ideal for extended wear during training sessions and everyday activities, prioritizing a secure and comfortable fit for runners.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 features a sleek and refined design with an aluminum case. It offers a comfortable fit for all-day wear and comes with easily interchangeable bands for personalization, balancing aesthetic appeal with functional design for both fitness and daily use.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep and spot-checks, providing valuable data related to acclimatization and overall physiological well-being, complementing its health tracking suite.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Equipped with an SpO2 sensor, the Galaxy Watch 6 allows for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep and exercise. This feature provides valuable data for assessing respiratory health and overall well-being, contributing to a more complete health profile.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: It is important to note that the Garmin Forerunner 165 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 supports ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality through the Samsung Health Monitor app, allowing users to record a 30-second ECG to detect signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib). This feature provides valuable heart health data that can be shared with healthcare professionals.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress and promote overall well-being.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: The Galaxy Watch 6 tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability. It offers guided breathing exercises through the Samsung Health app to help users manage stress and promote relaxation, contributing to mental well-being.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature provides insights into the body's energy reserves based on activity, stress, and sleep data, helping users understand their physiological readiness for training or the need for rest, contributing to optimized recovery for runners.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: Recovery insights are provided through the Samsung Health app based on analyzed sleep patterns, workout performance, body composition data, and heart rate variability, helping users understand their body's readiness for further activity and optimize rest and recovery strategies.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all core features and data tracked by the Forerunner 165 are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for essential running metrics, activity tracking, or health insights, providing comprehensive value for an entry-level running watch.
2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: No subscription is required to access the core features and data tracked by the Galaxy Watch 6 through the Samsung Health app and Wear OS. Some premium features within specific third-party apps downloaded from the Google Play Store may require a separate subscription.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: $349.00
Check Garmin Forerunner 165 Price *2️⃣ Samsung Galaxy Watch 6: $450.00
Check Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you