Smart watches

It seems these thingos can do a lot of things and have piqued my interest. So tell us, what have you got/had?, and the pros, cons, loves and hates.

It's ocean usability is a given.

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rockmagnet said..

Buster fin said..
It seems these thingos can do a lot of things and have piqued my interest. So tell us, what have you got/had?, and the pros, cons, loves and hates.

It's ocean usability is a given.

Apple watch with the velcro strap. Helps if you in the Apple universe. I use it for Apple Pay loyalty cards, picking up chicks..

+1 Apple Watch way better than Garmin for smart stuff. Garmin wins on battery life and toughness.

garmin instinct. i use it angle grinding, welding, chainsawing, digging holes, working with fibre glass, etc etc.

serioulsy its tough as nails, works good for water sports stuff and i never need to take it off. It also tells the time, date, and sunrise/sunset times which are the most useful features i never thought i needed.

I actually bought mine because im a bit deaf and often dont hear my phone ring/ping for messages etc. It vibrates a little when i need to check the phone, which is very good for me. Blutooth connects to the phone from about 10 m away which is enough range most of the time.

All the fancy heart rate / GPS lap times / step counter / mapping stuff are nice but you get bored of that stuff pretty quick i found. Maybe if you're an endurance runner or competing in the sydney to hobart that could be good.

But sunrise times are the bomb if you do dawn missions a lot :) or want to work out what time to sneak out of the office and sitll ge a decent arvo session

Yeah, I get that charge it at night concept but it is just one of those extra things I need to do. My Fenix on power save mode can last for 45 days without a charge. If I am away camping or the like it means I still have my functioning watch and don't need to fuss with taking chargers (battery), solar converters or the like.

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rockmagnet said..

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Apple watch with the velcro strap. Helps if you are in the Apple universe. I use it for Apple Pay, loyalty cards, walking, cycling ,paddling , swimming,surfing, phone ,picking up chicks.. followed by heart rate ,arrhythmia, and emergency feature to call an ambulance.

I had the velcro band. It stays wet and gets a bit stained and grubby. It hooked onto my wetsuit sleeve and peeled open. I noticed and caught it just before it was going to fall off.

I liked that my missus could see where I was and in an emergency I could call for help. It's way more convenient and useful than a PLB.

You have to lock the screen when you're in the water. The drops activate the screen and make the watch do stuff. When you finish a session it is a pain to get it to respond until your hands and the watch are dry.

Battery life sucks. I could only record one session before the battery would be close to flat.

I had 3 Apple watches. One died and was replaced under warranty. The other brushed against the wall and smashed the screen. Apple sold be a new one for $248 I think. That one died too.

If I got another Apple watch I might go for the sapphire glass. That is much stronger than the normal glass. I have read that the next version of Apple watch will include a rugged model with longer battery life.

I have a Garmin Fenix 3. That is indestructable and has excellent battery life. I can record 3 days of sessions. The charge lasts about a month with the GPS off. I have had it since May 2016. I wear it all the time. It has sapphire glass.

I don't use apps. I think they're useless. You're stuck with doing whatever the app does and most of them do it wrong. Trying to look at a screen while you're out on the water is a bit pointless.

I just record my sessions and occasionally look at the duration or speed. I upload my sessions to Garmin Connect on the web. I can look at them and analyse the tracks and work stuff out.

If I want to do any detailed analysis I export the tracks. I can load them into a spreadsheet or other web tools. It's easy to graph speed and filter out all the crashes and gybes and stuff and be left with useful data.

Good thread

i have the rip curl 1 surf watch it's been good and given good surf data over 3-4 years the battery stopped charging fully and after 2 hours in water would go flat.

have been dancing around buying the rip curl 2 surf watch but I think at 400 bucks I should look at others that might Be as good if not better

what other watches are people using for surfing and are they better or as good as the rip curl one??

Razz - I had the Rip Curl Search GPS 1. Got it for $150 at one of their outlet stores because it was white and no one wanted white. Battery was on the way out when I sent it in for a new watch band after about 18 months (which I had them replace with black - $80). They pretty much refused my request to replace the battery (at my cost). About a 18 months later, which was only a few months ago, the watch just died. Would power up when attached to the charging cable, and die the moment I took it off.

Sent it back in - apparently the GPS module failed. Would be $150 to replace, but they no longer have the parts, so sold me the Rip Curl Search GPS 2 for the cost of the module. I'm not complaining at all!
The functions of the watch are heaps better than the 1, but it doesn't have that nice soft silicon band anymore. New band is a bit stiffer, but more resistant.

If you were happy with the 1, and paid the typical retail of about $350 for it (and were happy with that price), then the extra features of the 2 are worth the coin (sunrise/sunset times; moon phase; stopwatch; sync to surfline for forecast - although I find that can be a bit fiddly; GPS tracking that's not just for surfing). That said, in my eyes, the $400 is a bit steep compared to a 'smart' watch that can do all that and more.
Nonetheless, I'm stoked with mine that I paid $150 for.