Samsung’s Working Coach on the left, and Apple’s Exercise Buddy on the fitting.
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 wanting to attempt is lastly accessible. Workout Buddy is an AI-powered function that provides spoken encouragement, stats, and a bunch of metrics on the Apple Watch, and works along with Apple-owned earbuds like AirPods or Beats.
It delivers sporadic bits of information, tries to encourage you, and declares once you’ve closed your Rings throughout your exercise. Inside 12 hours of putting in the brand new software program, I jumped on the probability to go on a morning run with it.
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However Apple is not alone with this type of function. Samsung launched Running Coach, an analogous AI-powered function with the Galaxy Watch 8, its flagship smartwatch that launched earlier this summer time.
Whereas they’re truly relatively completely 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 knowledge again to you. I wore each watches on my morning run this morning to see which I most well-liked and which health companion labored higher. Here 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 on your working means with a 12-minute take a look at. It then assigns you a rating out of ten, and offers you with a personalised working plan you possibly can comply with to degree up your rating.
After I took the take a look at, 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 offers me with a goal tempo and period and pings me once I’m behind, at, or forward of that tempo. After every coaching session, Working Coach scores out of 100 and offers me with detailed analytics of my run.
What I preferred higher in Working Coach
Working Coach appears designed for newbie runners, and offers them with loads of steering for getting on the pavement. It additionally does job at utilizing knowledge already being collected on the watch, together with your power rating and coronary heart price knowledge, for a extra personalised health plan.
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The notifications that I used to be forward, behind, or assembly my goal tempo have been useful motivators, particularly for learners who could not know what a 12-minute versus 10-minute tempo seems like. Moreover, having all of the heavy lifting of making and following a coaching plan executed 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 rather a lot, 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 varieties, together with Outside and Indoor Run, Outside and Indoor Stroll, Outside Cycle, HIIT, and Useful and Conventional Power Coaching. Whereas I ran this morning, Exercise Buddy introduced my tempo per mile, my common coronary heart price, once I closed my Health Rings, congratulations on finishing a exercise, and what number of miles I’ve run this 12 months. It additionally sprinkled encouraging feedback all through my run.
What I preferred higher in Exercise Buddy
I preferred 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 method that was annoying whereas I am already huffing and puffing. If I wasn’t on tempo, it will notify me, which might then power me to hurry up. Then it will inform me I am working too quick, so I would 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 person to allow the function and which stats they’d favor Exercise Buddy announce.
Moreover, having Exercise Buddy announce stats and reminders by earbuds is much extra intuitive than the watch’s speaker. The earbud supply makes each announcement clear and audible, in a method that wasn’t at all times 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 would advocate Working Coach for
Perhaps this goes with out saying: however newbie runners would get probably the most use out of Working Coach. I’d advocate it to Android customers coaching for a race and wish their sleep, vitals knowledge, and health knowledge multi functional place. It is a stellar function that makes working, an already accessible exercise, much more accessible.
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Who I would advocate Exercise Buddy for
iOS customers who need some extra stats and motivation delivered by their Apple earbuds will like Exercise Buddy extra. It is a delicate, non-annoying approach to obtain your tempo, splits, and coronary heart price knowledge with out consistently checking your watch. Plus, it is accessible for eight completely different train varieties, so it is a far broader use of this train companion tech than Samsung Working Coach.
