Watches for your workouts

Smart Watch, Fitness Watch, Pulse Watch, Exercise Watch, Health Watch ... there are many names for watches that track your steps, workouts and health parameters. 

So far, I have used three different brands: Fitbit, Garmin and COROS. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and in this post, I will explain my experiences using them. I am not paid by any company to do this.

Fitbit

I got my first smartwatch about 2016. My regular wristwatch was broken and when I looked around for a replacement, I realized that I would like a watch that could do more than showing time. I settled for a Fitbit, the price was not too high, and it had an alright look. I can't remember the model's name anymore, but it was a fairly simple version, I think it costed about 120 dollars.

It tracked my steps, heartrate and automatically sensed when I was walking and running and gave distance and speed. It also monitored my sleep and gave a daily sleep score. 

It was a big help to get this watch, I did not know what I was missing until I had it, and I will never go back to a regular watch. I got real data about my own body, and I use it to monitor my health. I learned that a good night's sleep results in a lower resting heart rate. When resting heart rate is high, something is wrong, I could be exhausted, overtrained, need more sleep or getting sick. Increase in resting heart rate is a sign that it is time to slow down. It is also fun to see my runs and walks and get time, distance and speed recorded. It became a great motivator to try to beat myself. Max and average heart rate during workouts also tells me something about my own effort.

The Fitbit was very reliable, but quite early on, I got a crack in the plastic face cover. This was a model that I could not swim with, so it did not matter, the watch worked anyway, but it did not look very good with the crack. 

Garmin

When I retired from paid work in 2018 and started to train much more seriously, I upgraded to a Garmin Forerunner 735X, I think I paid about 350 dollars in 2019.

With the Garmin, I could record my swims, and it had a built in GPS, which were the reasons I changed from the Fitbit. Now I did not have to bring my phone on the workouts, and I got distance and speed, even on the open water swims. 

Even better, Strava segments showed on my watch as I was doing them! Approaching a segment, it counted down the distance to the start, and on the segment, it showed me if I was ahead, or behind, my own PR. This was fantastic when I was in the mood for record speed. After a while, however, I found it a bit stressful to be constantly reminded that I am not at record speed... which is most of the time. It was mentally quite difficult to resist trying to go full out on every segment, even if that was not the purpose of the training. I became Strava segment slave.

I loved the Garmin, but after a year, the watch got very difficult to charge. I tried to rectify it, cleaning the contact points and going through some procedures recommended by the manufacturer, but it did not help. I was in contact with Garmin about this problem, but as they also could not resolve it, they sent me a replacement watch for free, which I appreciated.

All well, I thought, but already after a few weeks, the plastic face cover cracked, just like it had done on the Fitbit. A swim with the cracked watch finished it off. My husband had meanwhile, had two different Fitbit watches, and suffered the same cracked plastic face cover with both. I know active people that has NOT had the plastic crack, so I think it has to do with my husband and I being fairly keen gardeners, although we are not aware when we would have damaged the watches.

This time I was determined to have a watch with a stronger glass face. I was keen to continue with Garmin, it is a big brand and interacts well with various other programs (like Strava) and their customer service had been good. Many of my friends have Garmin and their watches have worked without problems for years. But their cheapest glass model was a Fenix costing over 900 dollars and I was not willing to spend that.

COROS

I found Coros, a smaller brand developed in the USA, popular with runners. For less than 400 dollars, I got an Apex 2 with a strong glass face, loaded with functions and a mega battery. The battery endurance is heads and shoulders above any other watch I tried, and there is no risk it will run out even on a full Ironman. Last summer I went away a week to northern Sweden to swim over the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the charger for the watch. No problem, battery was going the whole week and my swim got recorded! I also appreciate that the watch can record cross country skiing, and many other sports. A negative is that my model cannot handle pool swims very well, the GPS is too slow at the lap turns. I swim at an even pace and the laps will have wildly different times, although the average speed is correct. 

To sum up: 

I like all three brands, but for different reasons. 

Fitbit is by far the best for monitoring sleep. It also automatically picks up on you being active and you don't have to consciously activate the watch.

Garmin Forerunner 735X is an allrounder, good at everything, easy to use and interacts seamlessly with other programs like Strava. It is a big advantage to get the Strava segments on your watch while being active. The swim function works really well, even in pools.

COROS Apex 2 strongest feature is the extremely long-lasting battery. The watch also charges really fast. It has a lot of features for the money and is the most affordable with a strong glass face cover. The Apex model has not been able to correctly record my lap swims in pools.

This is just a fast overview, all three watches had many functions and features I have not discussed, I have focused on the big issues.