I biked 12 miles with the Apple Watch 10 vs Garmin Vivoactive 6 — here's the winner

Tom's Guide

04-06-2025

I test a lot of smartwatches, and two of my favorite recent releases are the Apple Watch Series 10 and Garmin Vivoactive 6. Starting at $399 and $299, respectively, each device sports a bright and responsive touchscreen paired with physical controls.
Comfortable, slender and brimming with holistic sensors and safety features, either of these top smartwatches is a great choice for keeping tabs on your overall health, sleep quality and workout habits.
But which is the more accurate fitness tracker? When I recently tested the Apple Watch Series 10 versus the Garmin Vivoactive 6 in an 8,000-step walk test, Cupertino's device came out on top. Will the result be the same when the event switches from walking to cycling? Read on to find out.
But first, it's worth noting that the Apple Watch Series 10 has one potential advantage over the Garmin Vivoactive 6 regarding workout tracking accuracy. While both devices sport onboard GPS for location data, only the Apple Watch has an altimeter for precise elevation tracking.
The Garmin still provides hill climb data for outdoor workouts, but from my testing, its measurements tend to be conservative. For example, the Vivoactive 6 undercounted my elevation gain in prior head-to-head walk tests versus the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 and versus the Apple Watch 10.
This inner-urban bike ride included a considerable amount of uphill pedaling. So did Garmin's data do my efforts justice? What about Apple's? Read on.
The Garmin Vivoactive 6 is a lightweight and comfortable smartwatch with tons of workout training tools, impressive sleep tracking insights, solid battery life and a useful smattering of smart features.
The Apple Watch Series 10 boasts a bright and beautiful touchscreen with improved viewing angles, a slender and easy-wearing design, and more smart features and available apps than nearly any other smartwatch available today.
To fight the Sunday scaries and get in some cardio, I embarked on a 12-mile bike ride around Seattle, Washington's Lake Union. Cruising through no fewer than 10 neighborhoods, as noted, this ride involved lots of elevation changes — Seattle is quite the topographically diverse city — and plenty of people watching and sightseeing.
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With the exception of getting stuck at one of the two drawbridges along my route (not bad for a beautiful and busy Sunday), the ride went smoothly. Even Seattle's mostly mindless drivers were passing with caution and ample space.
I wore the Garmin on my left wrist and the Apple Watch on my right. As a control, I ran Strava on my iPhone 12 mini mounted on my handlebars. Here's how the results compare:
Apple Watch 10
Garmin Vivoactive 6
Strava
Total distance
12.26 miles
12.22 miles
12.35 miles
Total elevation gain
682 feet
664 feet
690 feet
Average speed
9.8 mph
11 mph
11 mph
Max speed
19.6 mph
24.2 mph
25.9 mph
Average heart rate
156 bpm
156 bpm
n/a
Max heart rate
176 bpm
178 bpm
n/a
Total calories burned
689 calories
760 calories
n/a
Battery drained
11%
7%
n/a
Distance data is a near-match across the board, though the Apple Watch's mileage is slightly closer to Strava's tally. Elevation data is a different story. As I suspected, the Vivoactive 6 undercounted my hill climb efforts by a notable margin. This is almost certainly due to the lack of an onboard altimeter.
As I suspected, the Vivoactive 6 undercounted my hill climb efforts by a notable margin.
Apple, meanwhile, marked my climb at just 8 feet shy of Garmin's measure, an impressive and reassuring result. In a previous head-to-head versus the Garmin Instinct 3, the Apple Watch 10's elevation gain data was waaaaay off. Fortunately, that appears to be an anomaly rather than the norm.
While both Garmin and Strava calculated an 11 mph average speed for my ride, Apple reported a slightly slower average pace of 9.8 mph. More notably, Apple's max speed measurement is significantly slower than Garmin's and Strava's, something that is both frustrating and difficult to account for.
I know this route well and bike it often, almost always with some form of tracking. While I'm no speed demon, there are several spots along the trek where it's easy to reach speeds of 25 mph without too much effort. With that in mind, I'm convinced that Apple's top speed stat for this particular ride is lower than it should be.
I'm convinced that Apple's top speed stat for this ride is lower than it should be.
Fortunately, heart rate data is oh so clean between the Series 10 and the Vivoactive 6. This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, given both Apple and Garmin's reputation for heart rate tracking accuracy.
It's worth noting that the Vivoactive 6 isn't using Garmin's latest/greatest sensor array. However, based on this test and previous head-to-heads, Garmin's older holistic tech seems just as reliable as Apple's latest.
Despite logging a slightly further ride with more elevation gain, the Apple Watch 10 estimated 71 fewer calories burned than Garmin. Finally, my 1 hour, 7 minute bike ride resulted in 11% battery drain for the Apple Watch versus 7% exhaustion for the Garmin.
This was a pretty close one. Both devices turned in impressively accurate distance measurements for my ride, but Apple was slightly closer. More importantly, Apple's hill climb data is off by only 8 feet compared to 26 feet for the Garmin.
As an avid cyclist in a hilly environment, accurate ascent data is a must for me. As such, I likely won't be using the Vivoactive 6 to track future bike rides in the Emerald City; the device consistently undercounts my climb efforts, whether walking or biking.
Truth be told, I probably won't reach for the Apple Watch Series 10, either, based on its wacky max speed data in this test. So, what's my go-to smartwatch for bike rides in 2025? The same as my go-to for snowboard tracking, the rugged and long-lasting Garmin Instinct 3.