I have an Apple watch and part of the reason why I bought it was that while I hiked I could leave my phone in the car or in my backpack. I explicitly got a service plan for it for this reason. I’m sad to report that it seriously only works not even 50% of the time 
Highly recommend the watch for fall detection and the other features it offers, but I’d recommend also keeping your phone on you so that your watch will stay connected to it.
I have one and that is my experience also.
I bought mine last summer when I had to replace my 6 year old phone and watches were half price if you bought one then.
Works great with the phone on you or somewhere in the house, just not too far away.
It lets me know when phone rings, as I am hard of hearing and rarely hear it ring and also may miss vibrating.
I used to miss calls/texts, they are hard to miss on the watch.
Not reliable on the O2 or heart rhythm, those numbers are all over the place, to far from real ones by other gadgets, like finger pulse/oximeters.
Can’t tell about the fall feature, have not set it off yet.
I’m looking to get a new watch this fall and am debating between the Venu 3 and the Fenix 7.
Does the riding activity on the Fenix 7 track horse specific things (ie. time at each gait) or just the human info?
If it’s horse specific I might be swayed to spend the extra $$$ for the Fenix.
None of the Garmins will track time in gait specifically but the Fenix can track your pace so you’d be able to get basically the same data. The Fenix allows you to set up riding “activity profiles” just like you’d have for running or cycling. The Venu series doesn’t allow you to have a riding profile so you’d have to record it as general cardio and then update the activity in the app afterwards to mark it as a ride; I’m not sure if you can set a cardio activity to track your pace.
I think the Fenix is worth it if you do other sports you want to use the watch for and want specific data, but if you’re just looking for something for riding and general stuff like step tracking you’d be fine with one of the cheaper models. The only way you’ll get specific time in gait data is with one of the trackers designed for riders.
Thank you, you just saved me some money. I’ll probably pick up the Venu.
I already ride with an Equisense that tracks the horse data, so I don’t really need another horse tracker, but also didn’t want to feel like I missed out if the Fenix did the job.
I can’t speak to the Venu 3 or Fenix 7, but I have a vivoactive 4s and there is a horseback riding activity app that you can download via connect iq (basically garmin’s app store) for the 4s and probably also for the venu. It uses gps to track location and pace, though neither is particularly accurate when indoors or jumping, but it’s pretty easy for me to ignore the outliers. It doesn’t track time in gaits or even gaits as far as I know, but I find it useful enough, though I think it probably is best suited to trail rides.
The free app Equilab tracks time in each gait (and a ton of other stuff too). There is a paid subscription for the premium service which (I think) includes an audio “coach” that will tell you at set intervals (mine was always left at 5 min but I think you can change it) “you have been riding for 25 minute you have walked 10 minutes trotted 10 min and cantered 5 minutes” which I find super helpful. I can use it through my Apple Watch or through my phone (which has to be carried while riding but that’s NBD for me as all my breeches have thigh pockets now). If using my Watch, I am not able to simultaneously track a workout (for me). There may be a workaround but each time I’ve tried to do both, it doesn’t capture the workout.
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