Watches for climbing?

Desert Rock Sports wrote:

Pulse Ox seems to be off for some. Optical HR for training is a known issue with ALL wrist based optical HR options. Everyone suggests a chest strap if your serious about using HR for training. If you just want optical HR for like resting HR trends, or rough estimates, etc... its totally fine. If you try to use it in strenuous training it will give you bad data, like a peak HR you know to be 20 bpm higher than you have ever done, etc... Map zoom, pan is not as nice as it could be, but much better now with touch screen for panning on the 7, still not touch for zooming. 6 didn't have touch screen at all, so panning x, y, and zooming took a whole lot of button presses and time.

Everything else is pretty great.

Main thing for me with Fenix 6 or 7 over Coros or Suunto is the topo base maps with trails and points of interest. I don't want to have to pre-load maps to my phone and keep it accessible. I can just scroll to the map on my watch and see which way to go at a fork.

Edit: pat, reading your previous post: For training Garmin also bases it on running or probably cycling. Acclimation seems to be based on time spent at elevation and how your resting heart rate changes because of it. You can turn on all day or night only pulse Ox to see for yourself how it changes with time at altitude, but I don't know if it factors that in, since it seems to do acclimation estimates fine without it. For training effect / status you need to run (or probably cycle) occasionally. I don't know how many over what period of time, probably something like 3 or 4 over 2wks would be sufficient. Hiking and climbing activities will have aerobic/anaerobic loads calculated and factored it, but something about FirstBeat's algorithm that Garmin uses behind the scenes needs occasional runs. Even if they are really easy run/walk at low HR. VO2max will be calculated and look low for very easy runs like that, and only tend to look good for faster continuous runs. If you are doing a lot of aerobic base building it will tend to estimate your VO2max to be decreasing, which it incorrectly correlates to fitness, just keep in mind it doesn't understand the why. Fenix series have many activity profiles you can use, and they can be customized to a great deal. Too many to list. For ones that use GPS you can select the GPS accuracy, you can track 3D speed if you want, etc... Many watch faces, both pre-packaged and available for download.

Thanks for the information, that is interesting. 

I spent the weekend with a friend and his new garmin 6.  The two watches (coros vertix 1) seemed roughly equivalent.  Actually they looked strikingly similar physically.  I suspect all the manufactures use pretty much the same hardware with software being the biggest difference.  Like you said, the garmin maps were better, both of us had noticed problems with heart rate and the garmin watch faces seemed prettier although both suffer from the problem that the hands on the 'analog' watches cover the data when they overlap (they could easily draw the layers in another order so the hands are on the bottom and the data always visible).   We were both disappointed that there were not a few dress up watch faces that looked really good for a night on the town.   The coros battery life was is much better but I suspect that will become more equal in the next generation of watches.  His watch did not have the O2 sensor so we could not compare that feature.

About the heart rate issues.  I think that many people think the reported heart rates are good but people who have a lot of time training can easily tell when the heart rate is messed up. On one hike my heart read 30 beats/minute higher than it was for at least 10 minutes; that is useless for training.  Often my watch reports 1.5x and 2x my actual heart rate.  I got a polar h10 heart rate strap almost immediately after I used the watch for a few times because it was obvious the heart rate information was poor.  

I am pretty sure I would have been a little less disappointed with a garmin but still not happy with it.  I am value driven, what do it get for the money spent and my friend got his garmin for 60% off so I would have been much happier at that price point.  I doubt I would be very happy with the high end garmin fenix 7 for $1000+ with the flaws.  These watches have a long way to go before they full fill the possibility.  Hopefully when this one dies the state of the art will be more in line with my expectations.

There are several posts in this thread that say heart rate is unimportant for climbing.  In some sense they are right but if your climbing goals include big alpine objectives a lot of your training needs to be endurance training (for hiking and climbing with a pack on)  and heart rate monitors are very useful for training for that goal.  In my local climbing area the vast majority of the climbing has a over an hour approach, some approaches are 4 hours so endurance is key.  If you a sport climbing 10 minutes from the road then endurance training is not very important.  

climber pat wrote:

Thanks for the information, that is interesting. 

I spent the weekend with a friend and his new garmin 6.  The two watches (coros vertix 1) seemed roughly equivalent.  Actually they looked strikingly similar physically.  I suspect all the manufactures use pretty much the same hardware with software being the biggest difference.  Like you said, the garmin maps were better, both of us had noticed problems with heart rate and the garmin watch faces seemed prettier although both suffer from the problem that the hands on the 'analog' watches cover the data when they overlap (they could easily draw the layers in another order so the hands are on the bottom and the data always visible).   We were both disappointed that there were not a few dress up watch faces that looked really good for a night on the town.   The coros battery life was is much better but I suspect that will become more equal in the next generation of watches.  His watch did not have the O2 sensor so we could not compare that feature.

About the heart rate issues.  I think that many people think the reported heart rates are good but people who have a lot of time training can easily tell when the heart rate is messed up. On one hike my heart read 30 beats/minute higher than it was for at least 10 minutes; that is useless for training.  Often my watch reports 1.5x and 2x my actual heart rate.  I got a polar h10 heart rate strap almost immediately after I used the watch for a few times because it was obvious the heart rate information was poor.  

I am pretty sure I would have been a little less disappointed with a garmin but still not happy with it.  I am value driven, what do it get for the money spent and my friend got his garmin for 60% off so I would have been much happier at that price point.  I doubt I would be very happy with the high end garmin fenix 7 for $1000+ with the flaws.  These watches have a long way to go before they full fill the possibility.  Hopefully when this one dies the state of the art will be more in line with my expectations.

There are several posts in this thread that say heart rate is unimportant for climbing.  In some sense they are right but if your climbing goals include big alpine objectives a lot of your training needs to be endurance training (for hiking and climbing with a pack on)  and heart rate monitors are very useful for training for that goal.  In my local climbing area the vast majority of the climbing has a over an hour approach, some approaches are 4 hours so endurance is key.  If you a sport climbing 10 minutes from the road then endurance training is not very important.  

Just so you know, Coros released the Vertex 2 last year, and thus far I’ve only heard good things about it. Maybe they’ve fixed some of the issues that you’ve had?

Jaime Navarro Gutierrez wrote:

Hello,

Just wondering about everyone's opinion on watches to track your fitness. Since all my training in the last few years was for Sport climbing, I never felt the need of getting a watch. Now I'm more focused on climbing longer and harder multi pitches and alpine routes and I'm training to become a Mountain Guide so  I would like to track how I'm doing aerobically, recovery etc.

Questions are:

 What's your opinion on watches? 

Which one is your favorite and why:

Do I need a fancy one with climbing features? 

Is buying a used one worth it? HR monitor worth it?

I recently purchased an InReach mini 2 and I'm wondering if there's any benefit on sticking to Garmin to connect the two.

Thanks in advance guys!

Cheers,

For GPS tracking for the approach and decent, just about any big name GPS watch out there can do the work. 

For tracking heart rate, all watches worn on the wrist do NOT provide accurate readings, and it's even worse, much worse, while climbing (due to way too much wrist movement). Eliud Kipchoge, the sub-2-hour marathon record holder is (currently) sponsored by Coros, which is also worn by many elite athelets, but he wears a chest strap HRM, so that tells you something.

The most accurate recreational heart rate monitoring can be achieved by wearing an optical HRM on upper arm using a nylon armband (no slippage). The strict criteria leaves me with only two options: Polar OH1 (now Verity Sense) and Apple Watch, which is the only watch for which you can purchase Braided Solo Loop (example) that allows for stretching and no slippage. Silicone bands will not work.  Even the chest strap HRM gets interference with any bumps (e.g. by the climbing knot) on the chest and may have too many artifacts in the data. You can see the distinct heart rate pattern measured on upper arm in this post. However, the clear (beautiful in my eyes) HR pattern shown is only seen with gym climbing where you thoroughly relax while belaying, which is the reason for the distinct contrast. When tracked in the outdoor multipitch climbing settings, the heart rate peaks and troughs become less obvious, even though they are accurate. Just too much is going on while hanging on a vertical face.

These days. I use my Apple Watch to track all my activities for its impressive GPS tracking and accurate heart rating reading. (I can make these bold statements after countless side-by-side and overlay comparisons with many devices.) It offers a "Climbing" type workout, but I only use it for indoor climbing as it does not invoke GPS. Outside, I leave it on Hiking type all day. When out climbing, with diligent disablement of non-essential features, I was able to stretch the battery to 12+ hours of GPS+HR tracking on my watch. There are many GPS/HR watches out there that can offer much much longer battery life, but I've yet to find one that has compatible nylon/stretchable armband that allows me to wear it on the upper arm. 

I personally have not seen any integration of InReach (mini 2) with the rest of Garmin ecosystem. Maybe I missed the feature, but it does not appear to be important as InReach is only meant for SOS in my mind.

I always felt that having the watch around the pack strap near  your upper chest was the best. It is less in the way, and scratches on the rock less than when worn on your harness, and you can see it while climbing without using your  hands. 

I love my Garmin Solar Instinct. It's made for the outdoors. After repeatedly breaking a number of smart fitness tracking watches I got the Instinct and love it. It's pretty indestructible (it has some military grade rating), waterproof, has an insane battery life (> 54 days) and you can charge it with the sun. It has a GPS, altimeter, compass and navigation mode, HR monitor, thermometer, pulse ox (though I haven't been able to really make that work), and speedometer, if you change sports and want to track your speed for running, snowboarding, cycling, etc. It also tells me when I'm ovulating or going to get my period. Also, I've had really great experience with Garmin's customer support--unlike Apple, Garmin support their products forever, even as newer, fancier products come on the market. I will say the watch (or Garmin) is not the best for tracking sport climbs just because it doesn't really have a specific feature for that, but if I use it in the gym, I usually just track my heart rate, calories burned, etc. If you're doing bigger objectives outside, I think it would probably be great for that, since it can map your routes, track distance and altitude and is super durable. The data (especially the maps) are pretty fun to review. The other watches I've tried just break way too easily. 

Mark Casey wrote:

Old timers with basic analog watches did the same objectives you folks are.  Heart rate?  I don‘t know why you need it but take a radial pulse.  Compass?  If you need a compass in the mountains you haven’t done your research and probably shouldn’t be there.  Altimeter?  If you have terrain above you need to keep going up.  Those fancy watches are just compensating for skills that are lacking.

Even-older timers did the same objectives without watches. It’s fine to supplement your skills and abilities with other tools. 

Mark Casey wrote:

Old timers with basic analog watches did the same objectives you folks are.  Heart rate?  I don‘t know why you need it but take a radial pulse.  Compass?  If you need a compass in the mountains you haven’t done your research and probably shouldn’t be there.  Altimeter?  If you have terrain above you need to keep going up.  Those fancy watches are just compensating for skills that are lacking.

Old timers did the same objectives with boots, hemp ropes, pitons, no helmets, and no chalk. Doesn't mean technology is useless just because somebody could do without at one point in time.

The sensors on fitness bands and even or especially the Apple Watch are hot garbage, and the wrist is not a good spot for readings.  Met with the designer of an actual research grade device once and when we asked him about the sensors in the Apple Watch he burst into laughter.  

The very first climbers carried barometers and took readings if you want to get all 1800's.  I admit a barometer watch is nice to have in the alpine, snigger if you want, sometimes I do wear my Casio on the approach.

Biometric sensing is super cool, but the good stuff and best form factor is not a watch. Whatever you use, it better have open access to the raw data. If it's a proprietary black box, and it's a consumer device, at this point in time their algorithms are fudging numbers to make it look like it's working right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY2n9tJO_8U

My coros died after about 9 months.  Instead of continuing the poor experience by dealing with their warranty and getting another piece of junk, I bought a Garmin 945.  The difference is night and day.  Just about everything works on the Garmin.  The training software needs help and suggests workouts that are not very well tuned to the condition of the wearer but are fun to play with.   The spo2 sensor is better than the coros but not very good.  Everything else seems to work great.  The hr monitor works 99% of the time without the need to shave my wrist, the sleep monitor seems reasonable, the maps are really good.  I get about 7 days between charges. 

I'm pleased with the watch. 

Bots are now mining old threads? Awesome.