Last Friday I received a nice surprise before leaving to do some hiking in Zion National Park. My replacement smartwatch arrived from Suunto even though I was told not to expect it until Monday. It showed up and I had time to charge the battery before the drive down to Cedar City, Utah. That means I left my cheap temporary replacement at home. I haven't used it since I took it off.
I will admit that I did get used to one or two features of my $49 smartwatch. First it is very thin compared to the Suunto. Of course it doesn't have a GPS and that does take up space. It also is noticeably brighter but that comes at a battery cost. It also had a tendency to light up the room in the middle of the night when I went to check the time.
The thing I missed the most on my Suunto is all of the various sport modes. We hiked around Zion on Saturday and it recorded our path. I can then go back and look at where we walked on my Smartphone app. It also recorded average and maximum heart rate. I never figured out how to do that on the temporary watch. Yesterday and today, I hiked and skied Alta. There is a ski touring setting that records all of the stats one could possible want, including time going up, time skiing down, vertical feet climbed, heart rate information, and a lot of other data that can help determine if you are getting stronger or not. I really missed not having all of that information. It may sound useless until you start to use it and then you find you can't live without it.
One nice thing about my temporary watch is that it does have an off button. I have charged the battery and will put it back in its case. Then I can use it should my Suunto have to go back to the service department in a year or two. I do hope it is longer than that though.
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