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tegyriusFor the last two years, I've been tracking my runs with a Suunto Ambit 2R GPS sports watch, which I also wore as an everyday digital watch. The Ambit itself has been reliable but in the last six months, both the charging/sync cable and the chest strap for the heart rate monitor have needed replacement. I'm also not a fan of the user interface on Suunto's associated exercise data site, Movescount.
About six weeks ago, I picked up a Garmin Forerunner 235 as a possible replacement for the Ambit. I'd gone around and around on this versus a couple of other products. What finally sold me on the 235, quite frankly, was my annual REI dividend - enough to effectively get the watch for free. But the feature set was one I wanted in an upgrade: Bluetooth sync so I wouldn't have to jack with a cable after every run, an optical heart rate monitor to remove the need for a separate chest strap, and notifications from my iPhone.
Was it worth it? Yes.
Run Tracking
For the first two weeks, I wore the 235 and the Ambit for my runs, one on each wrist. GPS accuracy is acceptable - which is to say, not appreciably worse than that of the Ambit. Mileage with the 235 was about 1% lower than with the Ambit, which is not a bad thing. I'd rather undercredit myself than overcredit.
Heart Rate Tracking
While I was wearing both watches, I also wore the Ambit's chest strap. While reported heart rates during runs were within a couple of percent across the two devices, the 235 was slower to react to decreasing heart rate during cooldowns. This is probably due to differences in the two technologies. Chest straps sense the electrical activity of the heart muscle's contractions, while optical sensors like the 235's detect the movement of blood in vessels close to the skin's surface. Regardless, it was close enough for my purposes. Also, the 235's user interface is far better than the 235's for monitoring my heart rate zone to ensure I'm not pushing into heart rates too high to yield actual benefits.
As an added bonus, the 235 can be used for persistent heart rate monitoring during the day. I haven't dug into the data too much but the overall trend seems to be that my resting heart rate is around 60-65 bpm, which is not awful for my age.
Activity Tracking
For about a year over 2012-2013, I experimented with one of the earlier FitBit activity trackers. It was useful data but ultimately not that exciting or life-changing, so I dropped the habit. The 235's onboard accelerometer allows it to function as an activity tracker, so I've left that function enabled - I'm already wearing it as a watch, after all. My results there have been mixed.
The good part is that if it senses me not moving for an hour, it'll thrown an alert (mine is set to vibrate with no audible alarm) and tell me to move. This has been good for getting me to stand up from my desk, which all the trendy health articles say is necessary.
The bad part is that, because of the range of motion it needs to sense, a wrist-worn activity tracker doesn't seem to be as accurate as one clipped to the waist. It doesn't sense motion as walking if I'm pushing a lawnmower or grocery cart, so my step counts are low for those activities. It's annoying but not a deal-breaker, as this isn't the primary reason I bought the watch.
Sorta-Smart Watch Notifications
I've been eyeing this as "cool to have" for a while but I was unsure if it would be useful or intrusive. Useful. Oh, gods, so useful. On iOS, Notification Center settings control which alerts are pushed to the watch. As with the movement reminder, all my alerts are set to vibration-only. This allows me to casually glance at my wrist and determine if something needs immediate attention without pulling my phone out of my pocket. It's more socially acceptable and I find myself wasting less time on the phone for emails. Currently, I'm using notifications for phone calls, texts, emails, and calendar events. which is damn near perfect for my needs. I don't ever want to go back to a watch without this capability.
(Aside: despite being heavily invested in Apple products for the rest of my personal IT, I've avoided the Apple Watch. I can't stand the styling and it lacks onboard GPS, which would require me to rely on my phone's battery-sucking GPS for tracking runs.)
Battery Life
So far: 3 runs a week and daily use of notifications along with constant heart rate and motion tracking, and I'll see 50% battery consumption in a week. I'm good with that. Charging is easy; topping it off takes maybe a couple of hours.
Aesthetics
It's a black digital watch. It's not as obviously "athletic" as the Ambit, as it benefits from a couple of years' advances in miniaturization, particularly in the GPS antenna. On the other hand, it doesn't scream "smartwatch." No one has commented on it, which is good - I want something like this to be unobtrusive. It doesn't feel as robust as the Ambit and I find myself a little more careful about banging it into stuff.
Screen resolution is not what I could hope for. After a couple of years with iPhone Retina displays, going back to visible pixels on a personal electronic device is a bit of a let-down. Critically, the screen quality is not good enough to run an analog watch face that doesn't look like pixelated crap, so I'm sticking with the default digital display. Hopefully, the next couple of generations of these and their competitors will update that aspect. But that's my biggest bitch. The digital mode looks fine and it is a color screen, which is an upgrade from the Ambit. It doesn't wash out in sunlight and the accelerometer-triggered backlight is plenty bright and usually pretty accurate.
About six weeks ago, I picked up a Garmin Forerunner 235 as a possible replacement for the Ambit. I'd gone around and around on this versus a couple of other products. What finally sold me on the 235, quite frankly, was my annual REI dividend - enough to effectively get the watch for free. But the feature set was one I wanted in an upgrade: Bluetooth sync so I wouldn't have to jack with a cable after every run, an optical heart rate monitor to remove the need for a separate chest strap, and notifications from my iPhone.
Was it worth it? Yes.
Run Tracking
For the first two weeks, I wore the 235 and the Ambit for my runs, one on each wrist. GPS accuracy is acceptable - which is to say, not appreciably worse than that of the Ambit. Mileage with the 235 was about 1% lower than with the Ambit, which is not a bad thing. I'd rather undercredit myself than overcredit.
Heart Rate Tracking
While I was wearing both watches, I also wore the Ambit's chest strap. While reported heart rates during runs were within a couple of percent across the two devices, the 235 was slower to react to decreasing heart rate during cooldowns. This is probably due to differences in the two technologies. Chest straps sense the electrical activity of the heart muscle's contractions, while optical sensors like the 235's detect the movement of blood in vessels close to the skin's surface. Regardless, it was close enough for my purposes. Also, the 235's user interface is far better than the 235's for monitoring my heart rate zone to ensure I'm not pushing into heart rates too high to yield actual benefits.
As an added bonus, the 235 can be used for persistent heart rate monitoring during the day. I haven't dug into the data too much but the overall trend seems to be that my resting heart rate is around 60-65 bpm, which is not awful for my age.
Activity Tracking
For about a year over 2012-2013, I experimented with one of the earlier FitBit activity trackers. It was useful data but ultimately not that exciting or life-changing, so I dropped the habit. The 235's onboard accelerometer allows it to function as an activity tracker, so I've left that function enabled - I'm already wearing it as a watch, after all. My results there have been mixed.
The good part is that if it senses me not moving for an hour, it'll thrown an alert (mine is set to vibrate with no audible alarm) and tell me to move. This has been good for getting me to stand up from my desk, which all the trendy health articles say is necessary.
The bad part is that, because of the range of motion it needs to sense, a wrist-worn activity tracker doesn't seem to be as accurate as one clipped to the waist. It doesn't sense motion as walking if I'm pushing a lawnmower or grocery cart, so my step counts are low for those activities. It's annoying but not a deal-breaker, as this isn't the primary reason I bought the watch.
Sorta-Smart Watch Notifications
I've been eyeing this as "cool to have" for a while but I was unsure if it would be useful or intrusive. Useful. Oh, gods, so useful. On iOS, Notification Center settings control which alerts are pushed to the watch. As with the movement reminder, all my alerts are set to vibration-only. This allows me to casually glance at my wrist and determine if something needs immediate attention without pulling my phone out of my pocket. It's more socially acceptable and I find myself wasting less time on the phone for emails. Currently, I'm using notifications for phone calls, texts, emails, and calendar events. which is damn near perfect for my needs. I don't ever want to go back to a watch without this capability.
(Aside: despite being heavily invested in Apple products for the rest of my personal IT, I've avoided the Apple Watch. I can't stand the styling and it lacks onboard GPS, which would require me to rely on my phone's battery-sucking GPS for tracking runs.)
Battery Life
So far: 3 runs a week and daily use of notifications along with constant heart rate and motion tracking, and I'll see 50% battery consumption in a week. I'm good with that. Charging is easy; topping it off takes maybe a couple of hours.
Aesthetics
It's a black digital watch. It's not as obviously "athletic" as the Ambit, as it benefits from a couple of years' advances in miniaturization, particularly in the GPS antenna. On the other hand, it doesn't scream "smartwatch." No one has commented on it, which is good - I want something like this to be unobtrusive. It doesn't feel as robust as the Ambit and I find myself a little more careful about banging it into stuff.
Screen resolution is not what I could hope for. After a couple of years with iPhone Retina displays, going back to visible pixels on a personal electronic device is a bit of a let-down. Critically, the screen quality is not good enough to run an analog watch face that doesn't look like pixelated crap, so I'm sticking with the default digital display. Hopefully, the next couple of generations of these and their competitors will update that aspect. But that's my biggest bitch. The digital mode looks fine and it is a color screen, which is an upgrade from the Ambit. It doesn't wash out in sunlight and the accelerometer-triggered backlight is plenty bright and usually pretty accurate.