Smartwatches, the Jewel of the 21st Century
Many believed that smartphones displaying the time would relegate traditional time-telling jewels to the drawer. However, the potential interactions between your smartphone and watch were not taken into account. Consumer electronics specialists like Samsung, Garmin, Apple have all created a range of smartwatches. These jewels of miniaturization offer almost endless possibilities:
- heart rate sensor,
- step counter,
- sleep analysis,
- GPS chip,
- accelerometer,
- barometer,
- altimeter and more.
Now, you can even pay anything with your watch thanks to contactless technology or store your music on your watch to listen to MP3s.
If your smartphone usually resides in your pocket, your smartwatch remains constantly accessible on your wrist. The watch becomes an interface for your smartphone, displaying notifications directly on the screen without the need to take your phone out of your pocket. A smartwatch is a true miniaturized computer: processor, memory, storage capacity. It is even possible to add apps to watches thanks to operating systems like Google's Android Wear, Apple's Watch OS, or Garmin's Connect IQ. They can interact with most smartphones: iPhones running iOS or Android smartphones. You can even install apps on these high-tech smart bands.
Classic Functions of the Smartwatch
Smartwatches offer numerous features and also have the ability to update to add new ones. They accurately record all your physical activities such as running, cycling, swimming as well as mountain biking, trail running, or hiking. Indeed, they collect a lot of data from your activity. But outside of these sports activities, they record continuously your heart rate to estimate the number of calories burned throughout the day and night.
Sleep tracking and analyzis is also generally included in most of the latest generation trackers. You can know the exact duration of your sleep as well as its quality. These smartwatches allow you to discover the different phases of your sleep: light sleep or deep sleep. Waterproof, they never leave your wrists and accompany you during your swimming sessions or in the shower.
These watches are equipped with screens made up of many pixels. Thanks to customization, you choose from the many available time displays: old-fashioned hands or a very complete view with a maximum of information like sunrise and sunset times, the number of steps taken in the day, your real-time heart rate, calories burned...
Benefits of Connected Sports Watches
The main function of the sports watch is to record the data of your sports activities. In the case of running, it measures your heart rate, identifies your GPS position, and calculates your pace or speed, stride length, as well as the distance traveled, the time of the last kilometer, and many other parameters that result from it.
Once the sports activity is finished, all the data are transmitted to the online service associated with your watch, like Garmin Connect for Garmin or Polar Flow for Polar. On these platforms, you consult all the data through numerous graphs and geographical maps. You then analyze your accelerations, areas for improvement, or simply your consistency. This way, you are able to better understand your training and your effort management.
These online services also serve as a memory to see your progress over time. Before, runners kept a journal where they noted each of their training sessions: duration, distance, details of the training session but also feelings. No need for all this anymore, the online service accumulates all the data for you: number of kilometers per week, number of training sessions over the month or week, as well as an analysis of your training load over the last few days. You visualize additional elements like an estimate of your VO2 Max and its evolution over time. This allows you to judge the effectiveness of your training.
Managing Your Training
If you are following a specific training plan with the aim of achieving your goal (like a marathon or a long-distance trail), you are likely doing very specific sessions of short or long intervals or even pyramid sessions. This type of session is often complicated to set up and you are forced to do it on an athletics track to easily measure your distances.
With a connected sports watch, it's much simpler, you record the entirety of your session in a program and the watch gives you indications throughout the session: acceleration or recovery while telling you the heart rate to maintain or the pace to adhere to.
No need to be on an athletics track, the distances are measured precisely by the GPS capabilities of the watch, it warns you at each change of pace and informs you if you are not respecting the programmed ranges.
This type of tool has truly revolutionized training and made it accessible to runners outside of athletics clubs.
In addition to managing a specific training session, the watch is capable of managing your schedule by recording a complete training plan. Some models are capable of informing you about your aerobic and anaerobic capabilities and give you advice on the type of session to perform. It also proposes recovery times at the end of each session.
Numerous tools that accompany you daily in your running practice.
Different Straps
Choosing your strap depends on your taste, whether it's leather or silicone, it's up to you. Most models offer the possibility to easily change the strap without needing precision equipment like in watchmaking. This is the case with the QuickFit system created by the brand Garmin.
We have selected for you different models of connected sports watches.
