Watch advice

Triathlon Forum
1

I have had the Garmin Swim 2 for a few years (I have retired from Tri, so didn’t need multisport option and it was a reasonable price). However it is starting to annoy me, it often takes ages to find GPS and I also can’t feel vibration notification under water.

Considering upgrading, I have 2 questions;

Will upgrading solve those 2 issues? Is it worth it or should I just muddle on?

What would suit me best? I have small wrists so would like something the size of the Swim 2. I mainly use it for swimming (pool and OW), running and cross country skiing. Was thinking maybe 265S? Doesn’t have to be Garmin.

Thanks

2

The latest watches get a GPS lock very fast, like around 5 seconds most times. So, upgrading would probably help you there.

The Garmin 265S is an incredible watch. It does almost all of the multisport stuff of the top watches in a very small package.

3

I highly recommend the Coros Pace 3 watch.

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4

Definitely the Garmin 265S. The screen alone is well worth buying and battery life is great. IMO quite a step up from the rest of the market.

5

The latest watches get a GPS lock very fast, like around 5 seconds most times. So, upgrading would probably help you there.

The Garmin 265S is an incredible watch. It does almost all of the multisport stuff of the top watches in a very small package.

Same experience with my 965, incredibly fast to connect to GPS.

Just did my first two open water swims with it, very accurate tracking.

Buy the garmin…or buy a coros/wahoo/suunto, and then end up re-selling those and buy the garmin… :wink:

6

Thanks.

Just been for a run and watch wouldn’t find GPS again, waited for ages. Eventually started without, used Apple Watch as a back-up, both said the same thing at the end - so seemed to work despite not being “ready”. It was always slow to find GPS as I live in a valley, but was never this bad, and Apple Watch has no issues.

Have a week swimming in Croatia next week, so I’ll get to see if it’s the watch or my location that’s the main issue. Might treat myself to a 265S when I get home.

7

Update: watch found GPS fairly fast in Croatia and Italy, yet isn’t going green at home in the mountains at all. Guess it’s a location/sat problem more than the watch, not sure if a newer watch would solve this. Don’t really want to shell out a lot of cash on a new one to have the same issues. Despite it not going green, it does still seem to map my route accurately.

Another issue I’m having is the lack of ability to edit pool swims. Today due to someone asking me the time and me pressing the wrong buttons, I added a drill of like 4500m. There is no way in Garmin connect to delete this. I can alter the total lengths in the session, but the drill still shows, and Strava still shows the incorrect distance. Do any other watch brands allow you to edit errors in pool swims? This is a major flaw in Garmin Connect in my opinion.

8

I got the 265S. It was on sale at 20% off at the weekend.

I was worried that I’d splash out on it and that it wouldn’t solve the issues I was having with my Swim 2, also that I wouldn’t make use of the extra features. But so far it is awesome! Just with the stuff I already use, it is so much better than the Swim 2. It connected to GPS much faster on my first run with it.

Do people usually sleep with their watches? I’m not convinced I’ll find it comfortable.

9

I don’t usually sleep with mine on. Occasionally if I need an alarm and I don’t want to wake anyone else up. Or if I’m backpacking - it’s one less thing to find a place for.