From tick tock to click click. 10 days with a fitness watch
13.8.2018
Translation: machine translated
An amateur sportswoman tries out a smartwatch for the first time and describes her impressions in a diary.
Are smartwatches just for nerds? The manufacturers think not, of course. The Suunto Fitness 3 is aimed at people who enjoy exercise and want to optimise their fitness, but are not exactly top Olympic athletes. That sounds right up my street! That's why I'm testing the Finnish manufacturer's smartwatch here as a normal person with no prior knowledge.
I am 24 years old, female, a small person, play football (two to three times a week at a not very demanding level) and sometimes take the bike instead of the bus for three to four kilometres. After a long night of dancing, the sofa and Netflix can be my best friend for many hours.
Since everything here revolves around a clock, it makes sense to present my experiences in chronological order.
Day 1: First impression
The time has come: I put down my trusty analogue watch and put a smart watch on my wrist for the first time. My heart rate rises - the watch notices this immediately - and my curiosity is no longer contained
Unpacked, foil removed (the best part of the whole thing) and immediately put into operation - I don't want to waste any time. Without studying the operating instructions, of course, as the watch is supposed to be smart enough. The Suunto 3 Fitness impresses with its stylish and unbreakable case and its light weight (my IKEA kitchen scales actually only say 36 grams). But as we all know, it's the inner values that count. After running my sausage fingers over the screen ten times, I realise that there is no touch screen here. With just a few clicks, I can set the basic settings such as date, time, desired hours of sleep or my daily target for steps. The structure of the menu (which somehow doesn't even exist) is so confusing that I decide to make the little booklet my nighttime reading anyway. Fortunately, it only feels like three sentences long and at least it explains the purpose of the four buttons visually and tells me how to power the watch. And as befits a smart gadget, I had to look up more information on the internet, which I wasn't too lazy to do.
Day 3: What it can do
Although I still have a little trouble pressing the right buttons and feel slightly inept at times, I am always amazed at what this Suunto can do. I have now received my seven-day fitness programme from it (this is where my first euphoria meets my inner bastard), have been able to study my first sleep records and constantly check my heart rate. The watch creates the fitness programme based on my vitality data, which it measures itself. I think the prescribed amount of exercise is pretty realistic and I'm convinced I can do it in a week. The data is merciless and I have to realise that even a trivial flight of stairs makes my heart beat faster. How romantic...
Nonetheless, the hour has struck: energised, I complete my first jogging route. I've forgotten to explicitly tell my watch that I'm now "going for a run", but I'm not too worried about it - after all, it's smart. After all, you can set thousands and thousands of sports from sailing and roller skating to racquetball and telemarking (what's that?!). But despite my high heart rate over a long period of time, the watch didn't notice my first training session and didn't take it into account, let alone recognise it. Pure disappointment. I explain this by the fact that the watch itself doesn't have a GPS tracker. But you could pair it via smartphone, which I didn't do. At least I was able to add my first beads of sweat to the app, but this information was not forwarded to the watch and calorie consumption, distance etc. were not calculated.
This means that I have a different training status on the watch than on the app - bravo. Apart from that, I find the whole process pretty straightforward. The watch doesn't have too many programmes that could confuse me (and I never forget to press the start button).
Day 5: Charging
Half time! Both the batteries in my watch and my physical resources are running low - and the Suunto 3 Fitness shows this perfectly. Based on my activities and the heart rate recording, it shows me whether and for how long I am active or stressed and what my current resources (in per cent) look like. Hallelujah, today is a rest day and a training break, the smartwatch tells me. That means I should go to bed early and relax. But the watch on my wrist gets on my nerves so much during the night that I take it off rather nastily. And I might even throw it around - I can't remember exactly what I did while I was half asleep. In any case, it's not the model, but the fact that jewellery is generally uncomfortable for me at night. During the day, I never feel the need to part with the watch. Thanks to its water resistance, I can even wear it in the shower. And into the swimming pool.
Day 7: A part of me
How time flies! I've got used to my watch and am still as happy as a child when it beeps to let me know that I've reached my daily target of 10,000 steps (as a real office dork). A football match is on my agenda today. The watch accompanies me to the pitch, but has to leave me before kick-off as the rules state that no jewellery may be worn. Crap, yet another sports session that doesn't count. But it's not so bad, because I've already achieved my goal for the day by the half-hour run-in.
The watch tells you exactly what pace, intensity and heart rate range you should be training at in order to improve your fitness in the long term. However, as a warm-up (despite the football setting) is characterised by both short, intensive and longer, relaxed exercises, my Suunto was very dissatisfied. It felt like it was beeping every minute with messages such as "you're too fast - slow down!" or "too slow - step it up a gear!". I acknowledge this with an angry laughing emoticon, because after every sports session she asks me how I'm feeling and I can choose between an excellent pince-nez smile and a bright red hothead.
Day 10: Conclusion
Over time, I've come to understand the watch better and better and have reconciled myself to it, but I still want to put it through its paces over a longer period of time. The impression is mostly positive. I didn't like the somewhat illogical menu, the difference between the Suunto app and the watch, the lack of a GPS tracker and the somewhat inaccurate or complete lack of measurement of my sweat-inducing activities. On the positive side, I like the look and the fact that it is not too professional - and still provides me with the information I need to improve my fitness. <p
I'm a soccer fanatic, the kind who will hold up the first beer I find to celebrate a win. I love riding my bike and dogs. I'm a glib talker, love to talk to people, curious as anything. I'm crazy about travel and can't wait to get away.
Sport
Follow topics and stay updated on your areas of interest
