Smart Watch for kayaking

[jruiz]

Originally Posted by JohnMckroidJr

Good points Mitch.



Seeing your trip routes is nice Ben. I like the Forerunner 245 and ordered an unused 245 Music for $150 on Offerup. The seller discovered the battery would not hold a charge so he canceled the sale. Adding a compass to the yak is a good economical option.



Thanks for your input John. Garmin recently came out with the Instinct 2. The instinct has most of the features of Garmin's higher-end watches but at a fraction of the cost and with much better battery life due to having a monochrome screen instead of color. I like the Instinct 2s.

It seems like Garmin has the sports monitoring and GPS aspects of the smart watches well covered, but like many of the brands, the health monitoring features lack accuracy. Still undecided, but leaning towards getting a compass and a Fitbit watch.

A note on the HR accuracy; I had a stress test done last year and from rest up to about 160bpm, the watch matched up well with the hospital's equipment. If you have it loose on your wrist, it will under-read at higher heart rates. Regarding step counting. I have friends with fit bits, apple watches, and garmins. We engage in the same activity and the step counts are all over the place. If i really wanted an accurate step count I would turn on the gps tracking on my watch and track the distance travelled, then divide that by my stride. Whatever you decide, get one with a long battery life. Having to take off the watch every night to charge gets old and you lose the benefit of sleep monitoring.

[JohnMckroidJr]

Originally Posted by BenCantrell

Yeah, if your arm is moving (running or paddling), the heart rate data from Garmin watches is pretty much garbage.

Yes, it becomes harder for any watch to measure HR under heavy movement. For those activities, it becomes more critical that the watch is well secured. The newer Garmins are actually rated pretty well for HR monitoring.

Originally Posted by jruiz

A note on the HR accuracy; I had a stress test done last year and from rest up to about 160bpm, the watch matched up well with the hospital's equipment. If you have it loose on your wrist, it will under-read at higher heart rates. Regarding step counting. I have friends with fit bits, apple watches, and garmins. We engage in the same activity and the step counts are all over the place. If i really wanted an accurate step count I would turn on the gps tracking on my watch and track the distance travelled, then divide that by my stride. Whatever you decide, get one with a long battery life. Having to take off the watch every night to charge gets old and you lose the benefit of sleep monitoring.

Good to know and concurs with other reports regarding newer Garmin's HR monitoring. It's other health measurements, such as sleep monitoring that I wish Garmin did better. I found a Fitbit Sense NIB for 120 on eBay. They claim 6 days between chargings and that in 12 minutes it can be charged for a whole day's use. I have heard mixed reviews regarding waterproof, so bought a square trade warranty. I will be testing it out next week, and since Google bought Fitbit, it might be a taste of the Google Pixel watch that is to be released later this year.

[FrankMCG]

I vote for Garmin too. Got Fenix 5 for 2 years, best watch ever as said above! Now it's possible to buy it for $200!