smart watch for triathlon

aidanki

I guess some of the serious athletes here use a smart watch for training.

Thinking of getting one at the min, what models do people recommend ?

EC1000

I guess it depends by what you mean by smartwatch? The right watch for you will depend on your choice of sport and your needs - i.e. do you need swimming also? Open water? Training with power on the bike?

Have a look at DC Rainmaker's review which compares all of the current crop of multi sport watches.

Milk_Tray

I got the Garmin Fenix 5 (Sapphire) and its absolutely brilliant. Does everything and I would be lost without it

joey100

Depends what you want it to do too. If you have a bike computer you probably don't need it for the bike and then it depends if you want to use it for swimming or not.

I have a fenix 3, currently away being repaired. If I were buying again I'd buy a basic enough run one. I already have a bike computer so don't use it for that. I use the pool clock when I'm swimming and if it's in a race I never check it anyway. The majority of stuff on the fenix I don't use anyway, so for me at least a basic run watch would do the job.

peter kern

i guess for some smart watches are brilliant for others they are a burden. its donst matter wheather you are serious athlete or not.
if i were you buy a cheap 2nd hand garmin 920 and if you dont like it you can sell it on (.
for me a 10 euro casio is more useful and at the moment i hardly ever use it and to be honest i enjoy it more. ( thats of course just me but its not uncommon to see this happening , you can start to chase the numbers to much and that was for instacne the reason sebastian kienle had stopped using a power meter for a few years )
what a good smart watch is really good is to download training on computer.

everything has pros and cons so you just have to find out what gives you the most pros like i dont have the patinece to wait for a signal comming on , dont like charging stuff . i am not really interested what i do and much more interested how the training feels .

other people get motivated by chasing the numbers and of course i do that to but for that i have session on places where i know my times over a few years of training and a stopwatch tells me the same for that.

what iam trying to say dont think you cant be a seriuos athelte without a smart watch. it might be easeir with it or it might be harder with it depending on who you are.
and as a coach i have seen good imporvements with some people when i told them to get rid of them , as they got to hung up ( overall triathletes are obsesive people and yu will read in every 2nd ironman report my garmin or powermeter did not work in the race ...and then they are lost ) i have seen people getting better with them and push a bit harder ( usually the more lazy type of athelte) and for most it makes no real difference .

Kurt.Godel

Casio is fine but let's be honest its limiting. Can't tell pace when running, can't log distance, etc etc. Useful things to know when training unfamiliar routes.

Before buying a watch, ask yourself what your minimum requirements are and go from there. At a minimum any good tri watch should have:
Run: Pace, distance. Mapping is nice to look at afterwards.
Bike: Ditto. If you use a PM then obviously Wattage, cadence etc are required (and more so if you train on turbo a lot).
Pool: Having tried a few watches I rarely bring one to the pool now. Any of the fancy Garmin swim metrics are of limited value IMO as they are often skewed. As others said, pool clock and count your lengths is more useful. A watch is useful however when swimming longer TT's as its easy to lose count. Likewise a pacing beep can be helpful for longer TT's but I'm on the fence as regards using them as they are illegal in swim competition so maybe better getting a natural feel for pace.
OW: Fun to look at your route afterwards, and I guess helpful to determine if you swim straight lines, but not a lot of use during the race.

Heart rate tracking is as important as you/your coach makes it, so thats a consideration too. FWIW I use a Garmin 935 and its the best I've ever used. You can forget its there, it picks a signal fast, the wrist HR tracking seems pretty accurate, and uploads seamlessly to Garmin Connect. But I got on fine with a cheaper 910 for years.

Any watch won't make you faster than dropping a couple of kg will, but if using the watch helps you drop those kilos and encourages you to hit your sessions, then its earned its place in your toolbox.

peter kern

why would it be limiting to not know once in a while how fast you go?

didnt you just learn that focusing on the process is much more important than focusing on the outcome and panic!