My Fancy Running Watch

I treated myself to a fancy new running watch before Christmas. It's a Garmin 630, and it is very cool.

This is a smart watch, meaning it talks to my iPhone. Actually, mostly it listens to my iphone, receiving texts, notifications, weather, and a few other stats. But mostly it doesn't go back the other way - it doesn't send messages, except for uploading my activity information to the phone.  Also, I believe I can control my phone's music from the watch, though I haven't actually tried it. (That's because the version of music I have on my phone presents a screen telling me to do a free trial of Apple's streaming service and there is no way to move off that screen without signing up.  So I'm not using the music on my phone.)

I can download apps, some free and some paid, that could add some more features. So far, I've experimented with different watch faces (I like to see moving watch hands, not a digital read-out).

It's a great running watch. What makes it a running watch is the built-in GPS.  I wear a chest-strap heart rate monitor (and I had to upgrade to the newest one to use with this watch), it it's so smart it does a bunch of running dynamics - more than you could ever want to know about how you move when you run. It does stride length, steps per second, how high I bounce, how left/right symmetrical I am, how long each foot stays on the ground. It can measure stress through heart rate variability. It prescribes a recovery time after every run. It reports your maximum oxygen uptake rate and your lactate threshold, both of which can be improved through training.  

The watch is also a daily activity tracker, counting steps, attempting to calculate total calorie burn, and measuring sleep.

I love data, and what is more interesting than data about me? So obviously I love this stuff.  But, it's not all that accessible. The numbers are reported out on the watch, and with poking and swiping and pushing of buttons everything can be found, but it's not that easy.  There is an iphone app that shows daily stats and more detailed stats about specific timed runs. The app is pretty, but I'm not wild for it. There is also a computer dashboard.  I love the analysis of the runs. The trend information is less interesting.

Garmin world, like Fitbit world, allows you to make connections and do challenges and see how others are doing. But it doesn't seem as cool as fitbit, the way you interact with friends.  I don't have any actual friends on Garmin, so perhaps that's part of the problem. 

I'm still wearing my fitbit, and they are coming out with a smart watch version soon.  Garmin has a gajillion activity trackers, including some cool looking ones. I won't abandon fitbit, for one main reason:  There is no good data export on the Garmin for activity tracking.  They have improved the export from two years ago, but you can't get daily data for more than a week at a time. The data comes out labeled "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..." so if you do several weeks repetitively, you end up with a bunch of identical spreadsheets with no identifying marks. I want to be able to review and summarize my data, and daily totals is the minimum level of detail that I want, and Garmin just doesn't make it easy.  Fitbit is much better, exporting several variables for wider date ranges, and well labelled.

BTW, the crystal on the Garmin cracked, for no apparent reason. I assume it will be covered by warranty, but I've not heard back from customer support yet.

Toys!  It's part of my motivation to get me off the couch. Whatever works.