Garmin Epix Pro Gen 2 Slate Grey Watch - 47 mm

I had been a Garmin fan before I switched to the Apple Watch Ultra but finally got fed up of charging my watch every other day. I was very busy at work and with family life at home, and completely forgot to put it on charge and ended up with my battery down to single digits!I was fortunate I had the time to put the watch on a top-up charge and then fully charge it the next day but that was the final straw and decided to return to Garmin!Quality is as you'd expect from Garmin and it, also, being such an expensive watch. I can only compare the weight against my other Garmin (Tactix Delta) and it feels lighter and I love the AMOLED screen. What a difference compared to the other screen and, coming from an Apple watch, I didn't think I'd get another watch with such ... MoreI had been a Garmin fan before I switched to the Apple Watch Ultra but finally got fed up of charging my watch every other day. I was very busy at work and with family life at home, and completely forgot to put it on charge and ended up with my battery down to single digits!I was fortunate I had the time to put the watch on a top-up charge and then fully charge it the next day but that was the final straw and decided to return to Garmin!Quality is as you'd expect from Garmin and it, also, being such an expensive watch. I can only compare the weight against my other Garmin (Tactix Delta) and it feels lighter and I love the AMOLED screen. What a difference compared to the other screen and, coming from an Apple watch, I didn't think I'd get another watch with such a good screen again but it is every bit as good and the touchscreen is responsive with no lag.A word of warning - you really need to spend a bit of time and set up the watch. This will help you quickly start tracking your activities rather than navigating your way through multiple menus and relying on default settings.You can also set up the watch exactly how you like it including what, and how much, data is shown during each activity and there are lots of watch faces you can choose from the Garmin store (both free and paid for) or you can, like me, simply design your own.The only area where the Garmin doesn't perform as well as the Apple Watch is in their apps. There are lots of apps in the Garmin store but not compared to Apple and not covering the same subjects. For example, I could set my home alarm and activate some functions on my car from my Apple Watch but not on the Garmin.At least I can listen to downloaded music from Spotify and control my phone's music player from my watch which was the bare minimum I had wanted to do, whilst training.All in all, I love the watch but it did take me a while to save up for it!

Awesome Upgrade from Fenix 6x sapphire

I bought this during Amazon Prime Day discounts ($899) and absolutely love it! I got the 51mm same as my Fenix 6x and really appreciate the amoled display, flash light is way more functional in ways I didn't realize and not a gimmick.To upgrade or not is a personal preference thing how you utilize these analytical super computers. If your outdoors logging mega miles biking in sunny areas, then the amoled display may not be needed, but does work great in sunlight.The display with touchscreen really improves certain efficiency to access the plethora of menus etc.The high resolution display is great when looking at exercise animations, super handy to learn yoga positions.Some may see this model as a little too smart watch but it's still an extremely heavy duty ... MoreI bought this during Amazon Prime Day discounts ($899) and absolutely love it! I got the 51mm same as my Fenix 6x and really appreciate the amoled display, flash light is way more functional in ways I didn't realize and not a gimmick.To upgrade or not is a personal preference thing how you utilize these analytical super computers. If your outdoors logging mega miles biking in sunny areas, then the amoled display may not be needed, but does work great in sunlight.The display with touchscreen really improves certain efficiency to access the plethora of menus etc.The high resolution display is great when looking at exercise animations, super handy to learn yoga positions.Some may see this model as a little too smart watch but it's still an extremely heavy duty workout machine with a bit more flexible features. It's not gimmicky at all.Garmin has lots of watch options that can meet your needs but I felt this model is loaded with features I like and an opportunity to motivate me with learning new features and additional workouts.I'm looking forward to the new Garmin Connect app which looks to really optimize the massive amount of techie data organized in a much more user consumable mannerNo regrets.

Battery life underwhelms and features overwhelm

I've been using my Epix Pro Gen 2 for over a month now. It was an upgrade from my trusty Venu 2, in part seeking longer battery life. I currently get about six days with my Epix Pro Gen 2, far below the 16 days I expected. I do record pulse ox each night, but I thought even then, I could get maybe ten days of battery life. It may be two days longer than the Venu 2, but I expected more, given the price difference. I have dimmed the brightness, and it is not always on (I have a medium sensitivity set), but I can continue playing with features to get better battery life, hopefully.The watch is extremely full-featured! I do love the extra features it has compared to my Venu 2, but I miss the easy responsiveness of the touch screen. It still works but is more limited ... MoreI've been using my Epix Pro Gen 2 for over a month now. It was an upgrade from my trusty Venu 2, in part seeking longer battery life. I currently get about six days with my Epix Pro Gen 2, far below the 16 days I expected. I do record pulse ox each night, but I thought even then, I could get maybe ten days of battery life. It may be two days longer than the Venu 2, but I expected more, given the price difference. I have dimmed the brightness, and it is not always on (I have a medium sensitivity set), but I can continue playing with features to get better battery life, hopefully.The watch is extremely full-featured! I do love the extra features it has compared to my Venu 2, but I miss the easy responsiveness of the touch screen. It still works but is more limited in many cases than the Venu 2. Setting a timer is cumbersome, having to use just the buttons to scroll and go back and forth. The Venu 2 interface was quick and easy with the touchscreen settings. Calibrating the treadmill distance is also super annoying, as again, I have to use the buttons to scroll to the correct distance rather than using a couple of quick taps on the touch screen. The number of features is overwhelming, and though I have looked through the manual, some instructional videos would be great to demonstrate how to use many of the advanced features and how they can be useful in training. YouTube has been great to fill part of this void, but Garmin-produced videos would be very welcome.All in all, I'm still pleased with my purchase, and I am holding out hope that I can increase battery life by a few days more and eventually master the advanced features of this watch.

Best In Class, but with a Learning Curve

Excellent battery life - double my Fitbit. The spotlight was a selling point and has not disappointed. I went with the 47mm as the 51mm just looked too big (and I did not need the extra battery life). One surprise was the annoying sound the find your phone gives out - much better than the little chirp of apple’s find my phone and makes it much easier to find your phone. Love the look, especially after installing the customized watch face. Activities were very accurate compared to fitbit and iphone. Includes detailed yet easy to read stats and are easily activated and stopped with one button. Sleep and steps are spot on and again, offer much more details that my fitbit or iphone. The watch loses a star as there is a steep learning curve due to the vast amount of ... MoreExcellent battery life - double my Fitbit. The spotlight was a selling point and has not disappointed. I went with the 47mm as the 51mm just looked too big (and I did not need the extra battery life). One surprise was the annoying sound the find your phone gives out - much better than the little chirp of apple’s find my phone and makes it much easier to find your phone. Love the look, especially after installing the customized watch face. Activities were very accurate compared to fitbit and iphone. Includes detailed yet easy to read stats and are easily activated and stopped with one button. Sleep and steps are spot on and again, offer much more details that my fitbit or iphone. The watch loses a star as there is a steep learning curve due to the vast amount of features (read the manual) and difficulty I had during initial set up. This ain’t no iwatch that just works out of the box. But this isn’t no iwatch with limited features and short battery life. As an example, I almost returned the watch as my customized watch face was replaced by an ugly bare-bones digital watch late one night. I finally figured out this was due to my sleep zone being set by default - which turns off certain features to save battery life at night. Great feature but not obvious. Highly recommended but with a learning curve/

Bright screen, clunky interface

I have owned Garmin watches in the past, which were actually easier to use and more configurable, such as the original forerunner 450, and used it as a cycling computer, programming that watch to scroll through three different screens continuously. For Its time it was a brilliant watch, but the main problem was the battery life and especially screen brightness, which are obviously relatedthe good news about the Epix pro is the brightness of the screen, this is an outstanding advance, undoubtedly related to better battery capacityThe bad news is that that previous Level of configuration is difficult to replicate with the Epix Pro As pro athletes we don’t need all the goofy “ training readiness” type stuff, so maybe it’s not the right tool for the job, and maybe ... MoreI have owned Garmin watches in the past, which were actually easier to use and more configurable, such as the original forerunner 450, and used it as a cycling computer, programming that watch to scroll through three different screens continuously. For Its time it was a brilliant watch, but the main problem was the battery life and especially screen brightness, which are obviously relatedthe good news about the Epix pro is the brightness of the screen, this is an outstanding advance, undoubtedly related to better battery capacityThe bad news is that that previous Level of configuration is difficult to replicate with the Epix Pro As pro athletes we don’t need all the goofy “ training readiness” type stuff, so maybe it’s not the right tool for the job, and maybe the “Pro” in the name is meaningless hype.The sleep function is cool, but not unique. The body battery doesn’t make sense to me yet. Furthermore, navigating through screens is exceedingly non-intuitive, and getting from viewing results or active monitoring versus setup is a random Hunt and peck exercise. One of my buddies on a recent climb in the Alps had the same watch, and he could not help me nor himself either. I’m going to try and look at some of the third-party cycling apps to see if there is more help there, And I acknowledge that buying a watch this complicated just before three weeks of hard climbing in the Alps is not an entirely fair testI really want to love this watch. It’s not completely terrible, but really falls a short of being a great watch. Kinda sad when the programming flexibility of a watch from the same company 10 years ago is better than what the current designers are putting out now, in the name of advancement. Keep trying Garmin!

Everything I hoped!

Switched to Garmin because of the battery life primarily but I have discovered all of the other features that the garmin Epix has that I was missing out on before. With 'always on' mode I get around 6/7 days out of this watch and with always on switched off it jumps to around 16 days! No more charging every night!I mainly use this as a running watch. My old watch (the big famous brand), despite featuring 'always on' mode, used to lock itself as a result of the tattoos on my wrist. This was a pain as I would have to type out my PIN code to unlock while I was running. Not easy to do with sweaty fingers or running gloves. The Garmin Epix stays on and features a large uncomplicated display with all of the metrics I need during my run. The display is bright and ... MoreSwitched to Garmin because of the battery life primarily but I have discovered all of the other features that the garmin Epix has that I was missing out on before. With 'always on' mode I get around 6/7 days out of this watch and with always on switched off it jumps to around 16 days! No more charging every night!I mainly use this as a running watch. My old watch (the big famous brand), despite featuring 'always on' mode, used to lock itself as a result of the tattoos on my wrist. This was a pain as I would have to type out my PIN code to unlock while I was running. Not easy to do with sweaty fingers or running gloves. The Garmin Epix stays on and features a large uncomplicated display with all of the metrics I need during my run. The display is bright and colourful and can be customised in ways that other famous products cannot.Body battery lets me know how much energy I gave for the day based on other metrics such as sleep data, heart rate, etc. It seems to match the way I feel and indicates when I can push myself or when I need to rest.I look forward to trying training modes and more detailed activity tracking.This is definitely a fitness tracking watch rather than a smartwatch and those who love rich and detailed data will appreciate the Garmin. I moved from a watch with cellular and so I have lost the ability to make calls and receive messages while my phone is at home (Garmin does not have cellular). I also need to download playlists to my watch before going for a run if I want to leave my phone at home and connect to the watch instead. For me, this was not a problem but for others it may be a consideration. It does sync with the phone for calendar and receives other notifications while connected.This Garmin Epix Pro 2 watch is everything I hoped and so far I do not regret making the move from to Garmin despite being a huge Apple fan. I have an iPhone, Air pods, MacBook and even an Air tag but now I have a Garmin Watch!

Inaccurate heart rate monitor and poor support from garmin

I have used this watch for about 11 months now and generally really like using a smart watch. This is my first smartwatch and I think once I got used to it and figured out how to navigate the watch and connect app I was able to find pretty useful information to help me improve my general health and fitness. What I liked most was the body battery reading and training readiness’s assessment. It was a big help in improving my recovery from general sport.The biggest issue and the reason for my 3 star review is with the lack of accuracy of the heart rate monitor. It seems the higher my heart rate goes the less accurate it becomes. I have compared heart rates with cycling buddies and my heart rate seems to be always unreasonably high, and when I have checked it against ... MoreI have used this watch for about 11 months now and generally really like using a smart watch. This is my first smartwatch and I think once I got used to it and figured out how to navigate the watch and connect app I was able to find pretty useful information to help me improve my general health and fitness. What I liked most was the body battery reading and training readiness’s assessment. It was a big help in improving my recovery from general sport.The biggest issue and the reason for my 3 star review is with the lack of accuracy of the heart rate monitor. It seems the higher my heart rate goes the less accurate it becomes. I have compared heart rates with cycling buddies and my heart rate seems to be always unreasonably high, and when I have checked it against my pulse on a spin bike it can be up to 30 beats per minute off.My other major complaint about this watch is the below average support from Garmin. Garmin referred me to some tutorials to improve the hrm accuracy and then gave some pretty weak suggestions that because I was gripping a handlebar my reading was off.My suggestion to potential buyers isif you get this watch and have any issues with it, bring it back to MEC within the 3 month satisfaction guaranteed policy otherwise you are stuck to dealing with Garmin.

It’s a fail for me! Watch is for the advanced.

I bought this to replace an old Forerunner 735xt that I had last used about 6 years ago. I’m 65 years old and about 15lbs overweight and haven’t ran for about 6 years or so except for an occasional run/walk attempt. I’ve recently decided to attempt a comeback of some sort, though my physical condition and now having arthritis in my knee makes this challenging but I’m up for it. For my current needs I’m mostly just interested in logging runs and some stats and later on using some advanced features. First, I found setup overly complicated for just doing basic stuff. Secondly, I abhor some of the word choices and suggestions used on the watch and in the Connect app. This is my main reason for the poor review and why I’m done with this watch. Mind you, I haven’t ... MoreI bought this to replace an old Forerunner 735xt that I had last used about 6 years ago. I’m 65 years old and about 15lbs overweight and haven’t ran for about 6 years or so except for an occasional run/walk attempt. I’ve recently decided to attempt a comeback of some sort, though my physical condition and now having arthritis in my knee makes this challenging but I’m up for it. For my current needs I’m mostly just interested in logging runs and some stats and later on using some advanced features. First, I found setup overly complicated for just doing basic stuff. Secondly, I abhor some of the word choices and suggestions used on the watch and in the Connect app. This is my main reason for the poor review and why I’m done with this watch. Mind you, I haven’t exercised in it seems like forever (beginner again) but every morning I get suggested workouts that I didn’t pick or can even do (see photo). Why? There seems no way to disable this feature. Also, when I select run on the watch, it again makes suggestions; so now I have to go in a menu and dismiss it just to be able to start running. Just annoying! How about not making suggestions unless I put it as a preference. Also there are some days I can’t run because I’m recovering, my knee is hurting, or I just have other things that need tending to. Seems like life right? Well, when I look at my day in the app, it says “Unproductive”!! What? My day has been very productive thank you very much! Just because I’m not out exercising doesn’t mean my day wasn’t productive! What a crappy judgmental choice of words about my day. How about just “no physical activity” or something generic. But this is why this watch is probably not good for a beginner or someone trying to get back into it. It makes you feel like you’re failing because there is no way you can live up to the expectations this watch and software puts on you. Even when my exercise readiness score is really low, it still suggests I run! This watch is obviously designed for an athlete that exercises every day and/or people that don’t have any physical limitations. Thirdly, the Connect app from when I used it 6 years ago has changed a lot and some of the changes are good but it seems like some of the features that I really liked are no longer available (unless I just couldn’t find them), like the animated run where it retraced your run on the map from beginning to end. Now it just shows my course on the map and that’s it. And yes Garmin, I’m being “unproductive” writing this review because I’m not exercising while I’m doing this!

Massively improved heart rate monitor

I previously owned the Garmin Epix 2. It was a good watch and I used it regularly for hiking.But the build in optical heart rate monitor was terrible. Very inaccurate - laughably so not just off by a few beats.This was not unusual for me. I've tried quite a few optical HRM watches over many years and none have worked well for me except the Apple Watch.The Garmin Epix Pro on the other hand has an amazing optical HRM. I did a hike and compared it to a chest strap HRM and it was off by 1 beat over the course of a 2 hour hike.It was so good I bought the smaller Garmin Epix Pro to wear as an every day watch to replace my Apple Watch. And the smaller one is also amazingly accurate. Probably as good if not better than the Apple Watch.The original reason for ... MoreI previously owned the Garmin Epix 2. It was a good watch and I used it regularly for hiking.But the build in optical heart rate monitor was terrible. Very inaccurate - laughably so not just off by a few beats.This was not unusual for me. I've tried quite a few optical HRM watches over many years and none have worked well for me except the Apple Watch.The Garmin Epix Pro on the other hand has an amazing optical HRM. I did a hike and compared it to a chest strap HRM and it was off by 1 beat over the course of a 2 hour hike.It was so good I bought the smaller Garmin Epix Pro to wear as an every day watch to replace my Apple Watch. And the smaller one is also amazingly accurate. Probably as good if not better than the Apple Watch.The original reason for upgrading to the Garmin Epix Pro from the 47mm gen 2 was the screen size and battery life. The 51mm Epix pro battery life is outstanding. The extra screen size is useful though not a reason for buying the watch on its own.The build in flashlight, which I thought would be a bit rubbish is actually quite good.It's a lot of money but I'm really pleased I upgraded to the Epix 2. The massive improvement in heart rate monitoring and the battery life are what really sells it to me.

Never again!

Never again will I try another smart watch to monitor my exercise and activities. I had been a long-time user of all things Garmin (heart rate monitors, bike computers, warning systems for road biking, upland dog hunting, etc…) and made the dumb decision to try the new Apple Watch Ultra out when it was announced. I almost regretted that decision immediately, as I noticed the battery life was not even close to comparable. There were a lot of other reasons, but I will focus on what I liked about this watch after recently switching back to the Garmin epic Pro (Gen 2). First and foremost, the battery life is unbelievably good. I do not use the “always on” display, but the glance suits my needs very easily as the watch responds amazingly. Once fully charged, it will give ... MoreNever again will I try another smart watch to monitor my exercise and activities. I had been a long-time user of all things Garmin (heart rate monitors, bike computers, warning systems for road biking, upland dog hunting, etc…) and made the dumb decision to try the new Apple Watch Ultra out when it was announced. I almost regretted that decision immediately, as I noticed the battery life was not even close to comparable. There were a lot of other reasons, but I will focus on what I liked about this watch after recently switching back to the Garmin epic Pro (Gen 2). First and foremost, the battery life is unbelievably good. I do not use the “always on” display, but the glance suits my needs very easily as the watch responds amazingly. Once fully charged, it will give me 31 days without a need to recharge! I use the GPS and activity tracking features 4-5 times per week on different activities. Recently, I have used it for Golf, Running, Road Biking, Hiking, Snorkling, and HIIT workouts. At this point, I have gone for over 2 weeks and still had more than a 50% charge with those battery draining activities. The display is super bright and vibrant, the touch screen responds well (and accurately). I love the ability of being able to customize the activity screens with the data that you want to see. In addition, the data available during and post workout are fantastic and provide anything/everything an athlete would want to access their fitness or training. For the longer runs, I wanted to try and download some music to the watch which would allow me to run phone free. It was super easy to download playlist from Spotify, and I had my Bluetooth earbuds connected in less than 1 minute. The last feature I will mention is the one that I did not even consider when purchasing the watch, but I am not sure how I lived without it. The flashlight on the top of the watch bezel might be the greatest feature ever added to a watch :)! It is unbelievable how many times a day that I use the flashlight feature. The user can adjust the flashlight to a strobe feature, which I have not used yet, but is great for exercising around roads in dim light hours for safety of the athlete. I expect this would put a dent in the battery life, but I am impressed with how fast the watch charges. I learned my lesson on trying a different brand that wanted to try and take on Garmin in this athletic smartwatch space. Never again !