Apple Watch Series 12 vs Garmin Forerunner 970
Dead heat — 84 vs 84. Your use case is the tiebreaker.
Both are strong — the call comes down to what you prioritise:
- Apple Watch Series 12 — You're on a Series 9 or older and want the most accurate wrist heart rate Apple has made, plus a readiness score you can use to steer clients' training, with no subscription.
- Garmin Forerunner 970 — You coach or train for endurance and triathlon and want maps, the full readiness and load suite, and data you can use to manage clients' weekly volume.
Apple Watch Series 12
The new Health Sensing System is the real upgrade: heart rate every five seconds, far more frequent HRV and a daily Readiness score, with testers finding it close to a chest strap. Battery is still rated at 24 hours and the design is unchanged, so Series 11 owners can skip it.
Garmin Forerunner 970
The most complete Forerunner yet: a brighter AMOLED under sapphire, a flashlight, speaker and mic, ECG, a Gen 5 heart-rate sensor and new load tools such as Running Tolerance. It also costs about 135 EUR more than the 965 we reviewed, and smartwatch battery drops from 23 to 15 days.
Compare side-by-side
| Apple Watch Series 1284Scorefrom€434Review → | Garmin Forerunner 97084Scorefrom€624Review → | |
|---|---|---|
| Form factor | — | — |
| Battery life | — | — |
| Screen | — | — |
| Sleep tracking | — | — |
| Recovery / HRV | — | — |
| Subscription | — | — |
| Water resistance | — | — |
Prices are our researched reference points.
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