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April 14, 2008
What's nice about a GPS watch?
Joe Hall asks why one would want a GPS-enabled watch. Roughly speaking, there are three features I want:- Altitude measurement (though note you can get sports watches with a barometric altimeter, which is actually more accurate, at least when you want to measure elevation gain;/lost).
- Speed and distance. It's nice to be able to get some sense of how fast you're running and I find the GPS more convenient and comfortable than the foot pod pedometers that are the alternative.
- Performance comparison. For my money, the coolest feature of a GPS sports watch is that you can get real time display of where you stand compared to a previous performance on the same course, which is a lot easier than remembering your time at multiple checkpoints. I can't figure out whether this is really useful—in fact I suspect it encourages you to push your workouts too hard to beat your previous pace—but it's still pretty sweet.
In principle a gizmo like this might be useful for getting you un-lost, but the fact that you don't have a real map, just a view of where you've been, makes it pretty hard to use for anything other than backtracking. If, for instance, you're doing a loop and there are multiple trails but not a dense enough network that you can just vector in on your start point directionally, than without a trail map a GPS is pretty useless. Pretty good for out and back trips, though.
Posted by ekr at April 14, 2008 10:01 PM | Filed under: Gear, Sports
Comments
I would say that the fact that it encourages you to push your workouts harder is the best feature, isn't it? ;-)
Posted by: Laptop GPS World at April 15, 2008 2:51 AM
You would think, wouldn't you? But a lot of your workouts should just be done on an easy pace and so pushing them is actually counterproductive.
Posted by: EKR at April 15, 2008 6:29 AM
Its all about information isn't it? I mean we struggle day in and day out for data to back up our claims or propose new solutions - its nice to a gadget like this even if its completely irrelevant for work.
I recently purchased the Edge 305 which is the biking equivalent of the Garmin 305. The main feature I like about it is that it gives me an accurate idea on how far I've gone as in "WTF I've only gone 4 miles?!?!"
The secondary features are comparing workouts over the course of the summer and the altitude measurement - I didn't know I drop some 120 feet between my home and my present client which explained one or two things (at least for me).
Posted by: tim at April 15, 2008 6:30 AM
Thanks, ekr! Altitude would be pretty wicked... my weekly hill bit is a bitch of a set of hills and I've always wondered what the various gains and losses were (although, as a 6'2", 230lb. former triathlete, I'm never happy with my workouts anymore knowing what I was able to do in the past... prolly should get over that quick!).
I do wish the 405 et al. were a bit more water-resistant in case I get the crazy idea to swim more... I suppose my HR monitor will have to suffice.
Posted by: joe at April 15, 2008 2:11 PM