I find the Garmin UI to be awful, and the Pebble UI to be a breeze. Also, Garmins are pretty bulky compared to Pebbles, and many of them don't have buttons that can be used to control music, for those of us who find touchscreen interfaces to be lacking.
If you don't want to use the touchscreen (I'm in the same boat, totally get it) you need to avoid their "lifestyle" ranges (Venu, Vivoactive, etc) and stick to the "outdoors"/"sport" ranges (Forerunner being the most entry-level of these), these have 5 side buttons (3 left/2 right) and the UI is designed around button-only use.
Man I wish the Garmin UI was better. I have a vivomove luxe that looks absolutely gorgeous (more hybrid smart watches PLEASE!) but the UI is so hard to navigate that I wear my ugly old Apple Watch much more.
Huh? Are you sure you aren’t thinking of another brand? Literally every garmin watch I can find on their site has buttons.
The size is also very much watch specific. They will all be thicker than a pebble, but they’ll also all have far more features. Like pulse ox, which is one of the main drivers of thickness.
Nope, some are touch screen only or with only 1-2 buttons. The Garmin's with 5 buttons (eg: Forerunner 55 at ~$170) are decent once you get used to the button-mechanisms, but pebble's UX for "productivity notifications" has always been top-tier.
I seriously cannot understand how to see old notifications on my Garmin. On the Pebble it was just "scroll up" (or down, I don't remember). But on the Garmin it's like multiple button pushes, and even then the list of notifications is not complete. I basically figure if I don't see a notification when it comes in I won't be able to find it in the Garmin's history.
Appreciate the help! That contains some notifications, but not all. For example, none of my text messages or emails are there. It's mostly a bunch of alerts from my security system/cameras, for some reason.
Garmin Lily 2 Classic (shazam!). Certain Venu and VivoActive seem like 1-button or 2-button.
And also by "touch screen only", I mean like: "can you set an alarm with the buttons like a CASIO from 1982?" ...if you have to use the touch-screen for swiping like a monkey in a one square inch area to set (or turn on) an alarm, then the watch "doesn't have buttons" IMHO.
Pebble had Up/Ok/Down on the right side, and "Android-Back" on the lower-left. So you just generally navigated tree-like menus, and you could set shortcuts to long-presses of up/ok/down (ie: start/request Uber, next train from nearest station, music controls).
I can't wait to have it again, as while Apple says "you don't need to be tied to your phone!" with their watches, Pebble actually delivered on it. You still needed your phone nearby or in bluetooth range, but you could comfortably "leave it" on the table, or in the bedroom or whatever and not worry about missing an important phone call, and still get "just enough" connectivity to drip out of the internet that you didn't need your phone unless you were transitioning into "using your phone for a task".
When I was looking a couple years ago, most Garmins had at least 2 buttons, but only those with 5 supported music control via buttons.
I think I have used the pulse oximeter maybe 1x/year, and that's counting during COVID shutdowns, when people talked about pulse ox more than in normal times.
I will keep my Garmin and will use it when exercising. But I would never buy another one as long as I can get Pebbles instead.
