Hi everyone, I\'m looking for advice on GPS watches. I\'ve used a garmin for 10 years and had a brilliant experience with the Forerunner 305 and more recently a terrible experience with the Forerunner 610 - strap kept breaking and the battery wouldn\'t recharge properly. I\'m looking to get a reasonably simple watch that has accurate GPS and a heart rate monitor. In an ideal world, I\'d like to be able to transfer my data to the computer without having to upload it to a web-based service, but not sure if this is possible anymore?! I was wondering if anyone has a good recommendation? I\'ve been looking at Polar and TomTom brands but not sure if their GPS ability and would appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance,
Niamh

Hi Niamh,

I don\'t know anything about the Polar or TomTom but I have a few observations/comments on Garmin, in case those are of any use to you.

Like many orienteers I used to use a Forerunner 305. I now use a Garmin Fenix 3. It\'s fine, if a little expensive, but it is robust, can be used as a watch, and has good GPS battery life (20/50 hours depending on setting). It has a lot of features, most of which I do not use (Bluetooth for example). It does not have a touch screen and I would be very reluctant to buy a GPS watch for orienteering which does. I also have the HRM strap which provides a lot of additional data (well beyond what you got with the older HRMs). Unfortunately the Fx3 HRM straps are rubbish. Both straps I\'ve had for the Fenix have split at a weak joint between two materials. My theory is that sweat is dissolving whatever glue they are using to join the pieces of the strap together.

Like you I don\'t want to use the web-based services. I have little doubt that these companies want you to sign up for these services so they can harvest, and use, your personal data for marketing, etc. Although Garmin no longer provide apps you can run on your computer there are third party apps. available. On MacOS I use rubiTrack 4 Pro (It\'s now up to version 5). It\'s not particularly cheap (€50) but it works well and has a lot of features for analysis of your data, including showing you the track superimposed on satellite imagery whcih is often useful when the map is not available on routegadget. you can edit the track data as well, to remove data recorded when you forget to stop your GPS at the end of a run. You can also import/export your tracks for uploading to Splitsbrowser etc. or just to keep a copy of the data that can be moved elsewhere. Import from Garmin works well, but you need to make sure that the Garmin is mounted by the computer before you launch rubiTrack otherwise it doesn\'t seem to see it. It\'s supposed to be able to import data from most well-known brands of GPS but I haven\'t used any others so YMMV. If you are on PC then I\'m sure there must be some similar products.

If you like the Forerunner 305 and want to stick with it I see there is one for sale for €20 on Adverts.ie, although it doesn\'t have a HRM. Coincidentally, I was just getting ready to sell my own 305 (which does have a HRM).

I have used two Garmin watche,  an older one (205/305) and a recent 235

The newer one is way better - lighter, smaller (doesnt look out of place as a normal watch) , built in HRM rather than chest strap. Only downside it takes a few minutes to lock on. I use it more for pacing training runs than for O so I can\'t comment on the software but I think the files load straight into attackpoint. And there are colour coordinated straps readily available.

Hi Niamh
I got a Suunto Ambit 3 to replace my old forerunner 205. I\'m pretty happy with it, it\'s a rechargeable watch that I can wear all the time. It came with a chest HRM but I\'ve never used it. It\'s pretty accurate for route tracking, I\'ve used it cycling as well as running and orienteering. It has lots of functions including step counting, calories used, recovery time, etc., but I haven\'t played with them. It connects to a PC via a custom USB cable, which also charges it. Only thing missing, for mapping, is it doesn\'t have a Mark Waypoint function that the garmin had, but Ive used the lap function instead and it\'s worked OK.  Seeing as it\'s a Finnish company I was a little dissapointed it didn\'t have orienteering as one of it\'s built in sports.

If you are thinking of getting a GPS, then you can get all the information you need from DC Rainmaker.

A word of warning about the HRM:  Many watches come with an optical HRM built-in (e.g Forerunner 235).  Most of these are (apparently) useless as they are greately affected by your running cadence.  The chest strap HRMs are generally very accurate.

Martin