Lifestyle

I ditched my Apple Watch for the Garmin epix Pro (Gen 2)

It’s not my ideal type, but it’s everything I’ll need

Published

December 4, 2023

MJ Jucutan

I remember wanting an Apple Watch when I got into fitness. Everyone around me kept saying the Apple Watch is the best smartwatch for Apple users. I’ve seen most fitness enthusiasts in my gym and obstacle parks wearing an Apple Watch.

Add to the fact that a former flame also used an old-generation Apple Watch, I felt happy to wear one and enjoy features that connect me with him and other Apple users.

I was giddy using the walkie-talkie and other apps that helped me further the connection. But when it came to personal growth, it was limiting. I looked at competitive athletes in my chosen sport, and saw them wearing a Garmin smartwatch. Some use the Instinct, Venu, and Forerunner variants.

Now, a Garmin smartwatch isn’t new to me. I know them all too well, but I never pegged myself as an athlete to wear one. That all changed when I decided to take on an elite category for my Spartan races.

I just badly want to be better than who I was yesterday.

Why the change of heart?

Back in June, I set my sights on the Garmin epix Pro after an event at the Manila Padel Club. Everyone was gushing over the Garmin fenix 7 series but I’ve always had my eyes on the epix Pro. It didn’t seem bulky and I was enticed with its OLED screen.

After competing at the elite heat of Spartan Stadion, an explosive type of obstacle race course stretching 5 kilometers inside a national stadium, I ditched my Apple Watch Series 8. I decided to get the Garmin epix Pro.

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I was thrashed with my performance; I was ill-prepared and believed that I wasn’t strong enough. The Apple Watch couldn’t give me other data necessary to help me improve. Even with a personal coach to aid my strength and conditioning training, I still needed a smartwatch to boost my performance.

It’s precisely why a lot of athletes use a Garmin smartwatch. The data I needed are stacked inside the smartwatch and the Connect app which is compatible with both iOS and Android devices.

Life also took another 180, shifting my priorities to loving myself more and focusing more on improving in the sport I love. Garmin’s “beat yesterday” ethos resonated with me as I took on a four-month hardcore training regimen before my next competition.

Understanding my body’s readiness

When I switched to the Garmin epix Pro, I was overwhelmed by the amount of data readily available meant for an athlete. Gone are the data and features that urge you to become more active in achieving your fitness goals. That’s what the Apple Watch is for.

Having the Garmin epix Pro provided me the insights I need that my coach and I can use to improve my performance. Of course, you can find the usual metrics such as sleep activity, heart rate, step count, respiration, and stress levels. However, there’s more to it since it’s not your regular smartwatch.

At a glance, I can check my Body Battery status which gives me a glimpse of how much energy I can still spend throughout the day. It helped me determine if I should still proceed with my training or if I should prioritize resting for faster recovery.

Sleep contributes to a big factor in making sure that my Body Battery gets fully recharged. This also affects the Training Status and Training Readiness, allowing me to proceed to my training sessions at a pace that I can handle.

A bunch of preloaded sports can be tracked using the epix Pro. However, my main focus — which I added on the shortcuts — were Strength Training, Running, Treadmill, Trail Running, and Adventure Racing.

Combine all of these and all the data work hand-in-hand in providing you an accurate report, especially in the morning.

Are you ready to put in the work?

There were inconsistencies when it came to sleep tracking. Plenty of times, the epix Pro didn’t record the extra hour I slept in whenever I suddenly woke up at four o’clock in the morning.

Nevertheless, it comes with a morning report that gave me insight into my sleep quality, the weather outlook, and other data I need. Most of the time, the morning report tells me if my body’s ready for a workout.

Nine out of ten, it says I’m not ready. My Heart Rate Variability (HRV) status indicates my ability to perform, which usually changes if I sip a little alcohol in my body or I’m just getting a lot of stress from work and my personal affairs.

Being an athlete, it’s not always a physical battle that you endure. The mental and emotional anguish take a toll on how you can perform. It’s just the epix Pro’s sensors are enough to track the changes in your body.

It’s like someone noticing the small changes in your behavior when you’re going through something, simply because they know you all too well.

Tell your friends you’re out for a run

Living on the slopes of a mountain range, my training ground has never been ideal for Zone running. Every quick run became Threshold training since I needed a lot of power to run uphill.

I didn’t realize that continuously training on the mountainside would push my VO2 Max to 57. That number is counted as ‘Superior’ since I finally belong to the top five percent of my age and gender.

In case you didn’t know, VO2 Max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen you can utilize during intense exercise.

When participating in a race, a lot of contestants enter Zone 5 of their heart rate, which uses your VO2 Max. The higher the score is, the better your cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance are.

Since I’m always training on an uphill whether on a road or a trail, it trains my VO2 Max. It improves along with my Hill Score and Endurance Score on the Garmin epix Pro.

As of writing, the smartwatch tells me that I’m in one of my best condition as I’m well-trained for endurance races.

Going on races

With the race predictor feature, the smartwatch used my current running data to give an estimated finish of every distance I could run.

Currently, it estimates a 23-minute finish for a 5K run and a 52-minute finish for a 10K run. A half-marathon would take 2 hours, and a marathon would give me a four-hour and 30-minute finish.

Of course, race predictors are only based on the data your smartwatch has. Since I transitioned from the Apple Watch, it didn’t know my previous data which means I can go faster than my smartwatch’s race predictions.

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After all, you still decide how fast or great you want to be. It’s not a smartwatch’s job to give you the results you need to work for.

During the Xiaomi Pop Run, I brought the Garmin epix Pro while wearing the Xiaomi Smart Band 8 on my other wrist. I didn’t attempt to do a SUB-1 finish.

Instead, I used Garmin’s workout plans and customized its settings to provide me with a heart rate zone that I could use at certain distances.

Sometimes, I use races as a simulation for a time trial of how much I’ve improved. And most times, I use it as an additional mileage for an even bigger competition. In this case, the Garmin epix Pro helped me manage my heart rate when participating in a race, which would eventually help me in my future (and more competitive) races.

Made for the trails

Don’t be bewitched by the Garmin epix Pro’s appearance. It is a multi-sports smartwatch, but it’s also made for the trail, just like the fenix series.

I brought it when I was trail running every other weekend in Mount Ayaas and Mount Parawagan in Rodriguez, Rizal. It did wonders in helping me improve my trail running.

At some point, we got lost when we headed to Tuay Falls, a 3-kilometer trail after Mount Ayaas. We didn’t want to do a backtrail and tried doing the secret river path, where we followed the whole river until it led us to the end where the river merges with a basin going to the Marikina River.

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That time, we had nothing but our water and energy gels that were only appropriate for a 10-kilometer trail. We capped a total of 17-kilometer trail for almost eight hours.

In a place where cellular reception is nonexistent, Garmin’s Multi-Satellite Support came into play and helped in navigating the secret river. We made sure that we were following the trail through the scrollable map. Thankfully, the AMOLED touchscreen made it easier for me to check the maps even when running.

However, using the GPS mode throughout the trail drained its battery. We were lucky enough to be back in the town right before the epix Pro shut down.

It’s everything I dreamt of

As I transition into becoming a recreational athlete who aims to stand on the podium one day, the Garmin epix Pro is the smartwatch I’ve always dreamt of. I was misled into thinking that the Apple Watch would suit my needs. I still think of the Apple Watch from time to time. It’s got looks that would be perfect for everyday life.

But the life I’m living and the future I want to build would require me to wear a non-fashionable yet functional smartwatch. It’s not my ideal type, but it’s everything I need. I think that’s what matters — both in smartwatch preferences and in our love life.

The Garmin epix Pro is my GadgetMatch of 2023, and it deserves the GadgetMatch Seal of Approval.

The epix Pro Sapphire 42MM and 47MM retail for PhP 62,780. Meanwhile, the epix Pro Sapphire 51mm is priced at PhP 69,050. It’s available at Garmin’s official stores and online channels.

Features

GadgetSnaps: Westminster Abbey

A thousand years of history, unfolded with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra

Published

August 4, 2026

MJ Jucutan

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

Westminster Abbey isn’t just another stop on the London tourist trail.

It’s the stage for coronations, royal weddings, and burials that span nearly a thousand years, all still playing out under the same vaulted ceilings that have been standing since before most countries had names.

Once you get past the crowds and the audio guides, a quieter version of the abbey starts to show itself: worn stone steps, poets resting a few feet from kings, light that shifts across the nave like it’s in on the performance too.

While losing track of time in Poets’ Corner (yes, me, playing amateur historian for an afternoon), I unfolded the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and decided the abbey deserved more than a quick tourist snap.

All photos captured using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra.

Features

The Death of BMI: Why the world’s most popular health metric is lying to you

Muscle mass, body fat percentage, and visceral fat tell you more about your health than BMI ever could, and your watch can finally measure them.

Published

August 3, 2026

MJ Jucutan

Step on a scale at a doctor’s office and your health usually gets summed up in one number. Weight divided by height squared. That’s your BMI, and it’s been the default health metric for almost 200 years.

It was never built for that job. BMI was invented in the 1830s as a statistical shortcut for studying populations, not for telling an individual person anything meaningful about their body. It can’t tell the difference between a muscular athlete and someone who’s out of shape but happens to weigh the same. It ignores bone density, body water, and where fat actually sits in the body, which matters more than most people realize.

The metrics that actually matter are the ones BMI was never designed to catch: how much of your body is muscle, how much is fat, and where that fat is sitting.

The muscle question BMI can’t answer

Skeletal muscle is the body’s metabolic engine. It’s what keeps your resting metabolic rate up, what protects your joints, and what determines how well you move as you get older. Losing it quietly, without knowing, is one of the bigger blind spots in how people track their own health.

Fat isn’t one thing either. Subcutaneous fat, the kind just under the skin, carries far less risk than visceral fat, which wraps around internal organs and is directly linked to cardiovascular problems. A person can lose weight and still be carrying dangerous levels of visceral fat. BMI has no way of showing that.

This is also why short-term weight drops can be misleading. A lot of what shows up on the scale in the first week or two of any diet is water loss, not real change in body composition. The number moves, but it doesn’t mean much yet.

Why this is showing up in headlines right now?

Part of why this conversation is happening now, rather than five years ago, comes down to the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound.

GLP-1, or glucagon-like peptide-1, is a natural gut hormone that signals fullness to the brain. These medications mimic it, slowing digestion and dulling appetite, which lets people eat significantly less and lose weight fast.

That speed is exactly what exposed the problem. Rapid weight loss burns fat and muscle together, not just fat. Lose 20 pounds on a GLP-1 drug, and both the scale and a BMI calculator will call it a clean win.

If a meaningful chunk of that was skeletal muscle, metabolic rate drops, joint support weakens, and the risk of physical frailty goes up, none of which shows up in that one number.

Dr. Hon Pak, Head of Digital Health Globally at Samsung Electronics, has pointed out that with GLP-1 therapies in the picture, raw weight lost can’t be the metric that defines success anymore. The focus has to shift to what kind of weight is being lost.

Kevin Duffy, CEO of iFit, has made a similar point: BMI stuck around because it’s easy to calculate from just height and weight, not because it’s the right thing to track. Muscle mass and body fat percentage matter far more, they’ve just historically been hard to measure outside a lab.

What your watch can measure now

Getting real numbers on muscle mass and visceral fat used to mean an expensive clinical scan. That’s the part that’s changed.

Samsung has built Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis sensors into the Galaxy Watch, sending a low-level microcurrent through the body to estimate skeletal muscle mass, body fat percentage, body water, and basal metabolic rate, all from your wrist.

For anyone losing weight, whether through a GLP-1 medication or a more traditional route, that gives real visibility into whether the weight coming off is fat or muscle.

It’s the kind of feedback that lets someone actually adjust, adding resistance training or upping protein intake, instead of finding out the hard way months later.

Samsung pairs this with Samsung Food, which uses AI to look at what’s actually in someone’s kitchen and suggest protein-forward meals that support muscle retention.

Karthik Poriya, Head of Product at Samsung Food, has noted that people tend to fixate on small day-to-day food decisions when what actually moves the needle is the trend over weeks and months. AI is what makes it possible to zoom out and see that trend instead of getting lost in it.

Combine body composition data with sleep tracking, activity monitoring, and a broader Energy Score, and the whole framework shifts. It’s no longer about getting lighter.

It’s about getting stronger, protecting muscle, and extending healthspan rather than chasing a number that was never built to measure any of that in the first place.

Features

Your wearable could warn you about illness before you feel a thing

The next big AI breakthrough isn’t a chatbot. It’s your heartbeat.

Published

August 3, 2026

MJ Jucutan

Most of the conversation around artificial intelligence right now revolves around chatbots. Tools that write your emails, summarize long PDFs, or spit out blocks of code in seconds. That is the AI most people interact with daily.

Behind the scenes in health research labs, however, a profound shift is taking place that has nothing to do with words.

Scientists are training AI models to read raw human biology instead: optical heart rate signals, ECG readings, movement patterns, and sleep data. The goal is teaching AI to understand what is happening inside your body long before you ever feel sick.

During Samsung’s panel discussion on the future of Connected Health at the Pan Pacific London, Otavio Penatti, Samsung’s Head of Health AI R&D, captured this vision simply: “Your body speaks, Samsung Health translates.”

So what makes this different from your average fitness app?

Most health apps you already use run on basic rules. Your heart rate crosses a certain number while you’re resting, so the app sends an alert. That’s about as sophisticated as it gets.

These new models work on a different level entirely. Researchers feed them massive amounts of raw biometric data without labeling any of it first.

No doctor has to sit there and tag every second of heart rate or movement data by hand. The AI figures out the patterns on its own, essentially learning the basic language of how a human body functions.

Once a model has been trained on millions of hours of this kind of data, it can then be fine-tuned for a long list of specific medical uses.

And it’s not just watching for one odd spike in your heart rate. It’s cross-referencing your heart rate variability, skin temperature, movement, and sleep patterns all at once to build a detailed picture of what’s normal for you specifically.

One night of sleep data, over 130 diseases

Here’s where it gets interesting. Researchers at Stanford built a foundation model trained specifically on sleep data, using both raw polysomnography (the kind of detailed sleep study done in a lab) and data from wearables.

When they compared just 24 hours of sleep data against years of longitudinal health records, the model was able to flag onset risk for more than 130 different diseases. From one night of sleep.

Dr. Hon Pak, who leads Digital Health globally at Samsung, described where this is headed: “We are collecting data right now in which we have clear signals of things to come. We just don’t know what it is right now. But through the work that we’re doing, we’ll be able to share these insights early and in the right, meaningful way.”

The missing link: your wearable talking to your medical chart

Right now, your Apple Watch or Galaxy Watch has no idea what your last blood test looked like. Your wearable data and your actual medical records live in two completely separate worlds.

That’s the real opportunity here. If continuous biosignal data from your wearable gets linked with your actual health records, prescription history, and lab results, AI could start catching subtle shifts in your body that even your doctor might miss during a routine checkup.

Not because your doctor isn’t paying attention, but because a once-a-year appointment simply can’t compete with data collected every single day.

Instead of catching a heart attack or a metabolic crisis after it’s already happened, the idea is to catch the early warning signs years before that. It’s a shift from reacting to illness to catching it early enough that it might never become a crisis at all.

It’s worth noting that most of this is still in research stages. How it eventually shows up in the health apps on your phone will depend a lot on how these companies handle the data, and how accurate these predictions actually turn out to be in practice.

But the direction is clear enough: the next major leap in AI might not be about how well it writes. It might be about how well it listens to you.