$199.99

As a triathlete of sorts, I am always looking for technology to help me improve my performance. You don’t need to be a triathlete, however, to take advantage of technology that’s built to help you lead a better life. My latest acquisition is the TomTom Multisport Watch, which can track your performance running, swimming, biking and even on the treadmill. You may remember the TomTom brand from their GPS (global positioning system) devices built for cars. As consumers have reduced their purchases of separate GPS devices for their cars and instead have been largely relying on their smartphones, GPS device manufacturers have moved into other spaces to leverage their technology; one such space is GPS watches that measure performance. Garmin, another GPS device maker, offers some of the best of these types of watches, although they can be $400 or more in price. TomTom is a much more recent entrant to the space and, in order to gain market share, listed its watch at a price of $200.

What’s Good About the Watch?

If you’re a data geek like I am, you will love how it tracks your runs (I haven’t had a chance to test swims or biking). My three runs with the device on have proven to be tracked quite accurately, give or take a tenth of a mile. The time recorded seems reasonable given my previous performances. Once you start the watch (and it takes a little digging to figure it out), you simply start running and it keeps track of your run, minutes and distance. What is particularly useful for me is that it will buzz at the 50% complete mark (if you selected a specific time or distance) and at the 90% mark as a form of encouragement. I noticed that the buzzes did help me to push harder. After you have completed your run and stopped the tracking, you can pop the watch out of the watch band and plug it into its USB recharging device.

Doing that will serve two purposes: to recharge the watch and to download the information from your run. The downloading process is quick, perhaps 30 seconds, and the recharging is also quick (though it takes longer than 30 seconds.) Once the download is complete, the TomTom Web page for this watch is launched (if you are connected to the Internet) and you can see your workout in greater detail. You can view a map of your run and review estimated calories burned, minute per mile pace as well as a mile-by-mile breakdown of your run with times. The last feature in particular helped me to identify my weak miles and improve them. The first two times I ran with the watch, I ran eight miles in total, turning around after mile four. Using the TomTom allowed me to identify miles five and six as the two worst of the whole run both times. After focusing on improving this, my third run showed the time for miles five and six to be similar to those for the rest of the miles. Without the watch, I wouldn’t have had such specific information to help me direct my improvement efforts.

You can also find a history of your workouts on the website, which is a useful feature to keep track of everything you’re doing. Since you can take the watch in the pool, it is waterproof up to a depth of 50 meters. Additionally, for those people who never tire of examining their data (like me), you can also link your account to outside services such as Mapmyfitness. While the data may not be much different than in TomTom’s software, some users prefer using multiple apps to view their data in different ways.

The TomTom screen is reportedly scratch-resistant, although I have yet to put that to the test. The screen is big and the numbers are easily legible during any activity.

What’s Bad About the Watch?

The menu is a little confusing and it took me some number of attempts before I became even minimally competent. It would probably help to read the user’s guide, but it’s a watch and I think the user interface needs to be cleaned up a bit. It’s adequate but not much more.

My biggest complaint, though, is with the GPS. It is supposed to be quicker than competitors, but often I often find myself having to wait to start a run because the watch hasn’t picked up a signal yet. Usually it finds the signal within a minute and I can get on with my workout. On a decent day, it’s not a big deal, but when its 20 degrees outside and you just want to get your run in, standing around for a minute waiting for the watch to pick up a signal can seem like an eternity. Additionally, one time the watch never picked up a GPS signal so I cancelled my run out of irritation.

Additionally, reviews on Amazon.com have pointed to GPS problems in a swimming pool. I’m kind of dreading testing the GPS in the pool now, given my problems getting a GPS signal on my runs.

Summary

The TomTom Multisport GPS Watch is a lightweight, attractive data collector that can help you improve your workout performance. The excitement I feel when I’m running and measuring my performance and then seeing that data immediately after downloading the information is very rewarding and worth the money I spent. I expect this watch will push me to new levels of performance going into 2015. Despite some of the irritations, such as a temperamental GPS and a menu that left me lost sometimes, I would recommend this watch. Although it lists for $199.99, you can find it for $149.99 on Amazon right now without a heart rate monitor, which costs extra. Sometimes you can find it cheaper on ebay.com.