New Watch, New Stats – Garmin Forerunner 235

Goodbye Old Friend

My wife’s Fitbit has been giving her fits lately. The first one she received had the band break in about 2 months. Fitbit replaced that unit without any trouble. She continued to wear the old band until it fully broke.

This week she finally got me to set-up her new band. She had used it for about a week and was complaining of battery life. I thought it might be because it was unpaired and not set-up.

I was wrong! The set-up did not help any. The 7 day battery was barely lasting 24 hours. I graciously offered her my Fitbit Charge HR.

Two are not always better than one…

One of my biggest complaints with my Fitbit was having to wear it and my Forerunner 310xt on a run. The two were never comfortable on the same wrist. I tried wearing my Garmin on the right wrist but it was hard to see the screen. My loss of vision on the right made that problematic too.

I also grew accustomed to having the 24 hour heart rate monitoring of the Charge HR. I That feature was so wonderful.

Welcome New Friend

I made the decision to combine the two features into one device. Welcome, Forerunner 235!

THis watch is truly the best of both worlds. It combines 24 hour wrist based heart rate monitoring and step counter with a proven GPS running watch.

Pros

• Wrist based heart rate monitoring 24/7. – Easy Resting heart rates
• Step Counter – No longer need two devices.
• Color Screen – I LOVE color 🙂
• LOADS of additional statistics
  • Cadence
  • Heart rate based calorie computation
  • VO2 max est.
  • Time in Zones
• Easier GPS acquisition – It finds it much quicker than the 310xt.
• Better watch face
• GPS turns off automatically when not tracking a run. – This is almost seamless.
• Easier save of workouts.
• Lighter and thinner than 310xt.

Cons

• Shorter GPS battery life. (sort-of) – The watch does last longer than the Fitbit for step counting but it does have a shorter life compared to the 310xt for exercising. The 310 has a 20 hour life to the 9 hour life of the 310. I feel this is offset because the ability to turn off GPS when not tracking a run makes the overall life much longer.
• No wireless sync to computer. – To sync wirelessly, the watch must sync with the Connect phone app. It will connect to ANT+ accessories but will not connect with the dongle.

I will have more to share after I use it a little more.