Maybe they haven't updated the list? Sounds like it just uses the accelerometer.Originally Posted by Drang
Maybe they haven't updated the list? Sounds like it just uses the accelerometer.
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
Do maps work with the 42mm? 51mm is a touch too big for me. Everything I've found so far says no.
Last edited by Mike C; 06-26-2017 at 01:29 PM.
Everything I've read so far says emphatically no. It looks to me like the limiting factor is the storage, with the 5 having only 64 MB and the 5x having 16 GB.
Thanks dove. I guess I'll have to live with a frisbee attached to my wrist after all.
I have one on the way, mostly for the timing features.
I'm not doing any running or swimming right now. From what I'm reading, it seems like a lot of the activity tracking features are centered around aerobic distance based exercises like those, e.g. the training load feature seems to need regular vo2max estimates to function properly. Is anyone doing any strength training with one? I'm having a hard time understanding if there's a reasonable strength training workflow for it beyond manually using the stopwatch/countdown/interval timers. I'd be willing to try a chest strap HRM if that'd offer something interesting.
Also, is there anyone tracking shooting stuff with it: dryfire, livefire, matches? I guess I could vaguely see some utility to having my dryfire and livefire sessions timed and plotted on a calendar or something. I could maybe see some room for more interesting tracking of USPSA, but I'm grasping at straws here. I saw someone mentioned a shot timer too.
Just snagged one of these myself and have been very happy with it. Upgraded from a FitBit Blaze.
Jeff Martin
I have the Garmin FR235, which also has an optical heart rate sensor. I believe it's the previous generation of the one in the newer Fenixes (Fenii?). When I first got it (last May), I did a few test runs with both it and my Suunto with HRM strap. Heart rate measurements on the optical sensor were within a couple of beats per minute of the HRM. The optical sensor was on about a 5-second delay in picking up changes.
I've seen it lose my heartbeat maybe twice in normal sitting around the house. It's never happened on a run or bike ride. However, as my drag exceeds my speed even on good days, I may not be the best test case.
Last edited by Notorious E.O.C.; 07-05-2017 at 08:26 PM.
Ive been running "smart watches" and fitness trackers since fitbit came out with their first product.
At first, I thought that having integrated heart rate (charge HR) was a necessary feature and something that I would get great use out. As time went on and my workout's became more of an integrated part of my lifestyle I stopped caring. The fitbit had WAY better activity tracking features than the Garmin which I very quickly found out was absolutely useless. Im not a runner, if I was, this thing would be gold but I dont run. I found the "activity tracking" to be absolutely terrible on the garmin and the heart rate while mostly accurate was useless to me. I dont workout to hit target heart rates and whatever metrics I might find with the data are again, useless. If anyone wants to chime in and advise as to what they're actually tracking and why the data is important I'm all ears as im curious to see how other people are using their devices.
The heart rate feature on the Garmin has soured me a little bit. A buddy of mine has a standard fenix 3 and his battery life is measured in weeks, not the measly five days I get out of my watch. I bought this as a durable watch to wear at work and as an "outdoorsy" watch i find it to be absolutely useless considering the battery life is so short. Should i ever find myself out in the wilderness for whatever reason without access to a charger, the watch as a survival implement is not going to work as the battery life is way too short.
In short, I basically use the watch as well, a watch and a pedometer. The rest of it to me is useless and eventually, once i can sell my fenix 3 HR, i will be downgrading to a fenix 3 when i can find one at a reasonable price point.
Ah, after a year of use, ive gone through one band so far which isnt bad. The HR model with its sapphire screen and ion bonded (nitrided) bezel has held up extremely well. Its definitely a durable watch, i just wish the battery life wasnt so bad.
The Fenix 3HR is a Prime Day sale. $385
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
Here's a list of features that I want in a watch, some more important than others:
- Durable
- Water resistant enough for swimming
- Stopwatch, readily accessible
- Countdown timer, readily accessible, easily set (without digging through menus like on the Core), hours minutes and seconds all individually settable
- *** Vibration alert for countdown timer, alarms, etc.
- Interval timer
- Always-on display
- Battery life at least multiple days
- Automatic DST
- Automatic time setting (GPS, atomic, internet, etc.)
- Smartphone notifications w/ vibe (willing to waffle on this as it totally changes the name of the game, but highly desirable)
- Aesthetic preferences: black, negative display, big round face, closer to the Core the better
I did a lot of digging looking for the above. The Casio GD-350 was the only normal watch I could find which came close, and that still has to sacrifice on a few of those. The Garmin Fenix series nails all of these in spades, and I'm not sure there are any other smart watches that do, especially not non-Garmin watches. Really, my only complaint is the battery, as I'd prefer something with normal-watch battery life, say a year. But, I'm wiling to trade that for the smartphone notifications.
Now that I have the Fenix, I'm enjoying it and finding some uses for the other features. I have a dryfire mode setup to show me the elapsed time, the timer, and it buzzes me every 10 minutes. It's cool that my dryfire time, workouts, etc. are all being logged somewhere automatically in a more easily processed format than my training journal here. I could have continued to live with just the stopwatch and countdown timers for these things, but the luxury is nice.
At some point I'll be running and swimming again, at which point I think it's obvious the Fenix shines.
I wish the fluffy features were more relevant to strength training. The Garmin community seems to think "training" "workout" "exercise" and so on all basically mean "running". This is pervasive throughout the device, even down to how it calculates recovery HR, and doubly so for the training metrics. Again, I don't need anything more that stopwatch, countdown, and interval timers with vibe for strength training, but it'd have been nice to make more use out of a $700 "fitness" watch.
I'm having fun with the steps, sleep tracking, and 24x7 heart rate...Ultimately I don't know what I'm going to do with any of that or how long that interest will last. I'm hoping to use the Move! indicator to keep a little more active at work, and I'm interested in people's claims about resting heart rate trends and health/stress. I think the sleep and HR stuff is cool, but even if it can tell you you're sick or stressed or not sleeping enough, it's not clear to me what function that has. I'd probably already know that from the way I feel. But, I'm still interested in it from a proprioception angle.
At the end of the day, I'm a bit surprised that if you want some relatively simple timing features, you need to buy a.......$700 smart device? I felt like an idiot googling "wrist timer", because apparently that's not what watches are. If someone know of other devices that have all the features I listed, let me know. I'm happy with the Fenix, and part of the reason for buying it was certainly the cool factor. Additionally, I'm interested in experimenting with programming it for certain things and leveraging the mapping features. So, I probably would have bought one eventually either way, but it still confuses me that I couldn't find any meaningful competitors to it on my very simple base feature desires alone.
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