Garmin has been the leader in GPS watches but now they have taken it up a notch with the Garmin Fenix. Built in GPS with Altimeter, Barometer, and Compass. It will connect to Tempe, Hear Rate, Smartphone, and Bike Speed/Cadence sensors. It’s being marketed as an outdoor adventure watch that you can throw yourself into the wilderness and walk back out by marking waypoints. Yes for the triathletes there is the run pace, distance, hr, and bike feature but what is nice about this watch is it is waterproof up to 50 meters. The battery life is suppose to be great compared to previous Garmin watches with up to 50 hours of battery life in GPS mode or 6 weeks in watch mode. This watch has me really excited and looking forward to when it goes on sale in the fall. You have to admit it’s also a great looking watch.
Say hello to a sleeker GPS and heart rate monitor watch, the Polar RCX3. Its low profile makes for a better fit on wrists while keeping track of your heart rate, pace, distance and more. GPS should last up to 20 hours and after training, upload your data via DataLink USB transfer to Polar’s online site to analyze your workouts. Also compatible with optional cycling and running sensors.
Here’s an affordable watch to keep track of training days, race days and PRs. This 100 hour chronograph has customizable menus, counts laps and split times, has a 30-lap memory recall and 24 hour countdown timer with stop and repeat capabilities. Set alarms to wake yourself up with a 5 minute snooze backup. Its easy to read with oversize digits. Indiglo night light makes seeing your information in the dark easy. It can also note anniversaries, birthdays and even includes a golf score keeper. Water resistant up to 200m.
Suunto’s Quest Running Pack has all the equipment you need to track your training sessions. Create custom displays, training programs, settings and then upload the data to Movescount.com. It features dual time settings, alarm functions, stopwatch, interval and lap counter, heart rate monitoring, running cadence tracker, real time speed and distance tracking and nine language display options. Water resistant up to 100ft/30m and the pack includes the Suunto Quest watch, Movestick Mini, Dual Comfort Belt and Suunto Foot POD Mini.
Swimovate designed the PoolMate watch just for swimmers. This lightweight, flexible strap watch has an easy to read display with backlight and stainless steel buttons to keep track of your laps. Its software measures the movement of your wrist during the swim to recognize the stroke and calculate lap information based on it. Compatible with freestyle, back stroke, breaststroke and butterfly with an accuracy rate of over 99.75%. It also stores session time, average strokes, speed, distance, calories and efficiency. Forget the days of forgetting how many laps you just did – just hit the start button and swim.
Here’s something to put your fingers on. Garmin’s Forerunner 610 features a sleek glass surface touchscreen that you can tap, touch or swipe to navigate through settings and data. The watch is GPS-enabled, water-resistant, and allows for customizable screens, training plans, vibration alerts, and virtual race partners. It is also the first available with a run/walk alert, which keeps Auto Lap and other features active even when it detects you’re walking and Firstbeat’s Training Effect…
Is your watch not providing enough data for you data junkies? Garmin has updated their 310XT model, the Garmin Forerunner 910XT. Twenty-five percent slimmer than it’s orange and grey predecessor, its new features include tracking your laps in the pool, stroke count, Swolf score, a barometric altimeter for more accurate elevation, ascent, decent and grade data, and a power meter support. Compatible with ANT+™ sensors and also the Tanita BC-1000 body composition scales, you’ll sure spend just as much time on the computer analyzing your latest stats with this gadget as you are on your bike trainer.
