I was part of the TomTom sports watch development team, we were all laid off at the end of 2017 and they have been selling off old stock since then.
The watches are still supported but don’t expect any new features or improvements.
PS the swim turn detection algorithm always worked well for me, but since I co-wrote it and provided much of the example data, you would expect that !
The key to getting good data from it is to give a strong push off and to swim consistently, it doesn’t work well if you do drills or change strokes part way through a length
Cheers all,
I think i’m coming down on the side of Fenix… DCrainnmaker seems to imply & the comparison table also suggests that “pro” features typically roll down to the base model each iteration i.e. Fenix 5 Pro basically has the same feature set as the Fenix 6.
Looks like I can get a Fenix 5 Pro for £150+ cheaper than a 6 at the moment with an almost identical feature set.
I want to do some more digging and see if the hardware has changed that much (optical HR sensor looks different) & battery.
(& yes I remember the timex… I still have an original forerunner that took up most of your forearm)
In my n=1 experience the wrist hr is sh!t. Mine seems to read fine for day to day stuff, but the moment i tie up my shoelaces it doesn’t know what it’s doing.
Yeah I generally don’t use HR and haven’t for a long while… but if it’s there then it’s maybe interesting… if it’s a problem I can dig out a chest strap.
Again DCR seems to give reasonable feedback on it whilst acknowledging the issues.
I’m actually getting good results with the 945 OHR. My HRM-Run seems to have gone utterly haywire since returning from travelling. It was fine for Malaga, was fine for the first couple of runs back I did in early Feb, then suddenly just started reporting numbers in excess of 200 when cruising. I’ve tried all Garmin support suggestions (new battery, battery in the wrong way around for a minute to force a hard reset), but it keeps going wrong. It worked for one run, then went wrong again. So I’ve had a few runs where I’ve turned the chest HRM off after less than a km and relied on OHR, and that has tracked quite well with expectations.
It’s also given reasonable numbers whilst swimming too.
Personally, I’d never get a Fenix simply because of the size and weight. But I have fairly small wrists.
I’ve only recently started using the OHR as I’d previously been happy with chest strap, but lately it won’t stay in place until I get a bit clammy.
This is typical of what I get running with the OHR. A period too low at the start then it sorts itself out but with the odd weird spike occasionally.
Mine used to be fairly accurate (though low) tracking of HR - so it would go up when i was going uphill, down when i go down etc. Just about 10-20 beats too low. But lately it’s just making it all up. It had me at 140 odd bpm climbing a 15% average hill for over a km. I know i was about 184-187 as i’ve been using the chest strap for about 7 years now, so i have a pretty good handle on what’s going on.
That said, my chest strap has started messing about lately as well. Keep dropping out etc … could be the battery, though i don’t think it’s that old. Maybe i’ll try the reset trick.
Haha - no the chest strap just keeps dropping out. Then it reads ‘normal’ again. But it gets annoying and a bit pointless if i’m missing x% of the data.
If those two measures are right … then i need to book into A&E pretty quickly!!
My 945 OHR isn’t too bad, but I think it gets a bit excited when I’m running hard, and I also think it overreads when I’m resting, but it’s a useful guideline.
I stick with the chest strap when I remember it and for races.
Stenard, when my strap started doing that I think I had to replace it, although I had another one where it was the replacement battery that was duff so it might be worth trying another battery.
Yeah, I’ve tried a separate battery. And tried the pod on a couple of different straps. I’ve tried wearing two straps at once and switching the pods. On the trainerroad app you can see all nearby sensor information at the same time, and so I can see how the one HRM pod (which is the Garmin running dynamics one) is just totally off from other pods and the OHR on my watch. So I don’t think it’s a battery or strap issue … I just think the pod has got corrupted somehow and isn’t interpreting the strap signals correctly for some reason.
There has been some rolldown of new features from the fenix 6 series to the forerunner 945 (which was released slightly earlier). Pacepro for example.
But the fenix 6 series (at any level) has plenty of features which the fenix 5 will never get. Some because hardware changes obviously can’t roll down (e.g. sony gps, admittedly not necessarily an upgrade), some because of licensing issues (some firstbeat metrics are licensed per-device line and Garmin doesn’t license old devices e.g. body battery, training load) and some because even though they are software based it would be a commercially daft thing to roll down the new features (like climbpro). Wrist based HR for swimming is another one, but I don’t know which of my categories that fits in.
Fenix 5 might suit you, but don’t buy it under the misconception that some feature or other from the 6 has been or will ever be rolled down.
Battery life (crazy expedition options on 6 & of course solar option)… 32hrs is probably plenty or 85hrs ultra-trac
Music (standard on 5+, only on 6 Pro)… not a requirement for me
SOS message & crash detection (6 only)… getting livetrack on a running watch is a step up for me
Pacepro (6 only)… maybe a fun to have feature
Navigation bits (standard on 5+, only on 6 Pro) - would never want to be reliant on this for nav but nice to have
Swimming HR … never needed it before but recording swim sets generally was useful on 910xt
So then it’s down to hardware improvements (GPS chipset, both seem okay… optical HR set up… has it changed… certainly looks physically different haven’t compared the reviews for performance) and other more detailed features you mention which aren’t on the DCR list.
Either way, much like upgrading my phone… a Fenix 5 is generations ahead of 910xt and a lot cheaper than cutting edge Fenix 6 so it’s unlikely I’d be disappointed unless there’s a showstopping issue… which I haven’t found yet.
w.r.t wrist HR, mine is rubbish unless it is tight, borderline very tight. I tighten it for every run and then loosen again afterwards. Its not uncomfortable, but it is tight. Whenever anyone complains about the wrist HR I do wonder how tight it is.
Mine is tight all the time. I hate a jangly watch. Wirst based HR just isnt very accurate a d varies between people. Some can get quite good results, others get a load of crap.
I use my Garmin 235 for running but day to day, swimming and gym I use my Huawei GT2, battery life on it is roughly 10 days and I use it to record hour long swims 3 times a week and 4-5 x 2 hour gyms sessions, really a shame that it doesn’t link up to strava as then it would be tested on runs as well.
