Not All Smartwatches Are Created Equal

My wife and I are training to climb Mt. Rainier this summer and that means we are exercising daily. I am using my smartwatch to help with my training and the more I use it, the more I like it. There are specific features I didn't know about but have now discovered and really facilitate my training. At Christmas I got my wife a smartwatch and we are discovering that not all smartwatches are created equal. Once you become accustomed to certain features, it is tough to go without them.

My smartwatch is the Suunto Baro 9 and came with a rather expensive price tag. Fortunately I could use my significant discount and I didn't have to pay the list price. I let my wife pick out her smartwatch but probably should have helped her more than I did. She decided on the Garmin Lily 2. As a sailor, I am a huge fan of Garmin products. Their GPS devices are second to none in accuracy. Unfortunately the Lily 2 smartwatch does not have a built-in GPS and relies on the Bluetooth pairing with your smartphone to get position information. While it sounds good in practice, it doesn't work very well. My wife is constantly not getting correct exercise information and is frustrated to the point she wants a new watch for Mother's Day.

This has me looking at the features of all the different smartwatches available. I know a lot of people swear by their Apple smartwatch but they lack a lot of the features that are necessary for an exercise aid, primarily battery life. They are also really expensive for what you get. Naturally I started listing out the features my wife wants in a smartwatch:

• Built-in GPS
• Built-in altimeter (not the same thing as a GPS)
• Heart-rate Monitor
• Heart-rate shown while exercising (a Garmin software update turned this off on the Lily 2 and my wife spent a lot of time with Garmin customer support turning it back on)
• Don't cost as much as a new smartphone
  
• Small watch face

The small watch face is what drew me to the Lily 2 and pretty much eliminates most of the smartwatches on the market. When you are buying a watch specifically for exercise, I think manufactures assume you won't mind the extra weight on your wrist and make watches very large. I love mine but it still won't fit under any of my long-sleeved-dress shirts.

I've searched a number of sites that claim to have reviewed all available smartwatches only to find some of the reviews are out-of-date. There is also the problem of trying to cater to everyone. If you live in Kansas, you don't need an altimeter. When you are climbing mountains, it is a critical piece of your gear. I don't know how many times I have found a watch that should work only to have my wife remind me that it doesn't include the altimeter.

Ultimately I think we have decided on the Garmin Venu 3s. The "s" means small as it has a smaller watch face than the regular Venu 3. Fortunately there is a sale for Mother's day and it is $50 less than usual. It is still an expensive watch at $400, especially since I can't return her old one I got at Christmas.