Samsung’s Working Coach on the left, and Apple’s Exercise Buddy on the suitable.
Nina Raemont/ZDNET
Apple simply launched its latest Apple Watch software, the general public beta for WatchOS 26, and one function I used to be desirous to attempt is lastly accessible. Workout Buddy is an AI-powered function that provides spoken encouragement, stats, and a number of metrics on the Apple Watch, and works together with Apple-owned earbuds like AirPods or Beats.
It delivers sporadic bits of knowledge, tries to encourage you, and declares while you’ve closed your Rings throughout your exercise. Inside 12 hours of putting in the brand new software program, I jumped on the likelihood to go on a morning run with it.
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However Apple is not alone with this sort of function. Samsung launched Running Coach, an analogous AI-powered function with the Galaxy Watch 8, its flagship smartwatch that launched earlier this summer season.
Whereas they’re really fairly totally different in performance, Working Coach and Exercise Buddy share some similarities: they’re each AI-powered, they information you thru your exercise with stats, and so they announce your health information again to you. I wore each watches on my morning run this morning to see which I most popular and which health companion labored higher. This is what I discovered.
What units Samsung’s Working Coach aside
Let’s take a look at Samsung’s Working Coach on the Galaxy Watch 8 first. Whenever you first use it, it establishes a baseline in your working potential with a 12-minute check. It then assigns you a rating out of ten, and supplies you with a customized working plan you possibly can comply with to stage up your rating.
After I took the check, Working Coach created a coaching plan for me that consisted of 4 runs per week with each high and low depth interval coaching, hill working, and lengthy jogs. Throughout every session, Working Coach supplies me with a goal tempo and length and pings me once I’m behind, at, or forward of that tempo. After every coaching session, Working Coach scores out of 100 and supplies me with detailed analytics of my run.
What I favored higher in Working Coach
Working Coach appears designed for newbie runners, and supplies them with loads of steerage for getting on the pavement. It additionally does an excellent job at utilizing information already being collected on the watch, together with your vitality rating and coronary heart fee information, for a extra personalised health plan.
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The notifications that I used to be forward, behind, or assembly my goal tempo had been useful motivators, particularly for novices who could not know what a 12-minute versus 10-minute tempo appears like. Moreover, having all of the heavy lifting of making and following a coaching plan achieved for you in your smartwatch makes me extra motivated to proceed utilizing it.
After my run, I went into the Samsung Well being app to see all of the superior metrics Samsung collected on my run. There are lots, and so they’re tremendous useful. I am not speaking simply tempo and distance, however asymmetry, contact time, flight time, regularity, vertical, and stiffness are all rated on a scale of Enhance, Good, or Nice, with accompanying drills for honing these abilities.
What units Exercise Buddy aside
Exercise Buddy is accessible within the Health app on Apple’s WatchOS 26. It is accessible for a number of exercise sorts, together with Outside and Indoor Run, Outside and Indoor Stroll, Outside Cycle, HIIT, and Purposeful and Conventional Power Coaching. Whereas I ran this morning, Exercise Buddy introduced my tempo per mile, my common coronary heart fee, once I closed my Health Rings, congratulations on finishing a exercise, and what number of miles I’ve run this yr. It additionally sprinkled encouraging feedback all through my run.
What I favored higher in Exercise Buddy
I favored Exercise Buddy’s notification supply way more. Working Coach’s notifications are a bit extra insistent — reminding me of my splits and once I was on or off my goal tempo in a manner that was annoying whereas I am already huffing and puffing. If I wasn’t on tempo, it could notify me, which might then drive me to hurry up. Then it could inform me I am working too quick, so I might decelerate, and on and on.
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Conversely, Apple made Exercise Buddy extra customizable to notification supply and places the onus on the consumer to allow the function and which stats they’d want Exercise Buddy announce.
Moreover, having Exercise Buddy announce stats and reminders by way of earbuds is much extra intuitive than the watch’s speaker. The earbud supply makes each announcement clear and audible, in a manner that wasn’t all the time the case with the Galaxy Watch 8.
Lastly, I loved the extra human tone of Apple’s Exercise Buddy, in comparison with Working Coach, whose voice sounded extra robotic. I do not need a robotic to inform me to maintain working, however a soft-spoken coach? Effectively, that is one other story.
Who I might suggest Working Coach for
Possibly this goes with out saying: however newbie runners would get probably the most use out of Working Coach. I’d suggest it to Android customers coaching for a race and wish their sleep, vitals information, and health information multi function place. It is a stellar function that makes working, an already accessible exercise, much more accessible.
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Who I might suggest Exercise Buddy for
iOS customers who need some extra stats and motivation delivered by way of their Apple earbuds will like Exercise Buddy extra. It is a delicate, non-annoying method to obtain your tempo, splits, and coronary heart fee information with out consistently checking your watch. Plus, it is accessible for eight totally different train sorts, so it is a far broader use of this train companion tech than Samsung Working Coach.
