I Traded My Garmin for a Coros Health Watch, and Right here’s What I Cherished (and Hated)

Garmin dominates the operating watch market, whilst runners have an growing variety of different choices to select from, together with Suunto and Coros. I’ve lengthy been a devoted Garmin person, however I wished to offer considered one of these opponents a good shake, so for about six weeks (together with the total month of July), I made a decision to check out how properly a Coros may function my fundamental operating watch.

So I set my each day put on Garmin Forerunner 265S apart in favor of a Coros Tempo 3 and Tempo Professional, swapping between them because the temper struck me. Whereas I did not come out of it a convert, I did be taught quite a bit. Here is what I cherished and hated—or at the very least discovered irritating—alongside the way in which.

How I began the swap from Garmin to Coros

I usually use Garmin to retailer all my private operating information. (For some folks that could be their Strava account, however mine is sort of a rubbish pile of information, as many of the watches I take a look at for critiques sync their information to it, which suggests a bunch of my runs are double- and even triple-logged there.)

I made a decision that, for the size of this take a look at, I’d solely use the Coros app, and never Garmin. (When the take a look at was over, I synced my runs again over to Garmin so I’d nonetheless have correct information once I wanting again at my month-to-month and yearly totals.) 

Earlier than I may begin the experiment, I wanted to maintain my footwear. I’ve three pairs in rotation, and I exploit the Garmin app to trace their mileage. One in every of my pairs has over 900 miles, and I’m attempting to get it to 1,000 simply out of stubbornness and spite, so correct monitoring is vital to me. 

I appeared up every shoe’s mileage within the Garmin app, then added it to the Coros app with the suitable beginning mileage. (Coros perk: I used to be capable of set my path footwear because the default for path runs, and my street footwear because the default for normal runs. Garmin solely allows you to set one shoe because the default for all sorts of runs.)

I arrange Coros to sync to Strava, and disconnected Garmin from Strava. I additionally familiarized myself with the Coros coaching hub, an online interface for downloading and analyzing run information that is much like Garmin Join’s net model. If I had been switching completely, I’d have exported all my run information from Garmin and imported it into the Coros hub. Coros has step-by-step directions for doing that right here. 

The Coros and Garmin fashions I in contrast

Each Coros and Garmin provide a number of fashions of operating watches, and options differ from mannequin to mannequin. My on a regular basis Garmin is a Forerunner 265S, and I additionally generally use a Forerunner 570. These served as my fundamental reference factors for evaluating options, since they’re stable choices in the course of the product vary. (I’m additionally aware of a number of different fashions, together with the entry-level 165, and the barely older however nonetheless glorious 255.)

On the Coros facet, I had two watches to play with: the smaller, lighter, and barely older Tempo 3, and the considerably newer and fancier Tempo Professional. 

Right here’s my finest stab at rating these fashions, from essentially the most fundamental to essentially the most full-featured: 

• Garmin Forerunner 165 ($249.99): an entry-level watch with a vivid AMOLED touchscreen however no dual-band GPS. A few of the extra superior analytics are additionally lacking. One dimension (43 mm).

• Garmin Forerunner 255 (round $240 today; initially $349.99): Extra options than the 165, and extra correct GPS, but it surely has the older model reflective MIP display. Is available in small and enormous sizes (41 and 46 mm).

• Coros Tempo 3 ($229): Much like the 255 in each options and show kind (MIP). The Tempo 3 has a touchscreen, although, whereas the 255 requires buttons for navigation. One dimension (42 mm).

• Garmin Forerunner 265 ($449.99 however typically on sale): Like a 265 however with an AMOLED touchscreen. Is available in small and enormous sizes (42 and 46 mm).

• Garmin Forerunner 570 ($549.99): Like a 265 however with voice calling, warmth acclimation, and another handy options like computerized end line trimming. AMOLED touchscreen. Is available in small and enormous sizes (42 and 47 mm).

• Coros Tempo Professional ($349): Doesn’t have the voice options or a number of the analytics of the Garmin 570, but it surely does have onboard maps, which aren’t accessible on any Garmin watches in its worth vary. AMOLED touchscreen. One dimension (46 mm).

• Garmin Forerunner 970 ($749.99): Like a 570 however with maps and an LED flashlight. AMOLED touchscreen. One dimension (47 mm).

The Coros Tempo 3 is a bit more fundamental than the Garmin 265 and 570 I’m used to, and the Coros Tempo Professional is arguably just a little nicer—primarily as a result of it has maps, which turn out to be useful on my path runs.

Now that we’ve obtained our bearings, let’s go for a run. 

Accuracy and different fundamentals are glorious on each Garmin and Coros

I do know that my job is to uncover the minute variations between completely different fashions of health tech, however truthfully, for many functions any of the watches will do the job. If the world solely had Coros, you wouldn’t miss Garmin, and vice versa. 

I do know from reviewing each units of watches intimately that they each make glorious operating watches. Let’s slender down the secure to simply the Forerunner 570 and the Coros Tempo Professional. Right here’s what I already know:

Each watches have glorious GPS accuracy. On paper, that’s as a result of they connect with a number of networks and have dual-band capabilities for higher accuracy amongst bushes and buildings. In the actual world, I do know they’re good as a result of I’ve pored over maps after operating with each, and so they all monitor my precise path very carefully. 

Each watches have good coronary heart fee accuracy. An optical sensor won’t ever be excellent, however anytime I’ve a very good comfortable match on the watch, I get coronary heart fee readings which can be almost equivalent to what I get from a chest strap, my gold commonplace. I’ve generally discovered that bigger watches don’t match me as properly, thus giving barely glitchier information. This could be a minor caveat to the Tempo Professional, which solely is available in a bigger dimension. (The Tempo 3 is smaller, and the 570 is available in two dimension choices.) That mentioned, I nonetheless get good readings from each of those. 

You’ll be able to pair a chest strap to both watch. When you’re so taken with accuracy that you simply care concerning the delicate variations between watches that each one do the job properly, what you actually need is to pair {an electrical} (not optical) chest strap. All the Garmin and Coros watches I’ve examined can pair to just about any chest strap in the marketplace. I exploit a Coospo. 

Each shows are legible in just about all lighting situations. AMOLED watches present their very own mild. They’re nice in dim to medium situations, and OK in vivid daylight. MIP watches mirror brilliantly in vivid daylight, undergo a bit in shadow, however can be utilized with a gesture-triggered backlight at nighttime. The Tempo 3 has a MIP display, and the Tempo Professional and the 570 are each AMOLED. If you wish to dig into the variations between these show sorts, I’ve an in depth breakdown right here. Backside line, each are good. 

With the fundamentals taken care of, let me inform you concerning the issues that stood out to me as new and completely different (both in a very good or dangerous means) between Coros and Garmin.

Hated: Coros can’t management the music on my cellphone

I’ve by no means cared for onboard music on a operating watch. I’m going to deliver my cellphone with me anyway (for security, if nothing else) so I don’t have to retailer music on the watch. Many Garmin watches, together with the 570, can obtain playlists from Spotify (though they cannot stream immediately). Coros can solely play MP3 information that you’ve got loaded onto the watch.

Once I’m listening to music on my cellphone, the watch has one perform: I like having the ability to see what music is taking part in from the watch, particularly if I’m shuffling a giant playlist. Garmin can do that and not using a drawback, and gives controls to pause, play and skip; so can the Suunto Run I examined. However these two Coros watches can solely play their very own music, not show or management what my cellphone is taking part in. 

Cherished: Coros provides you maps at a a lot cheaper price level than Garmin

Throughout my summer time of Coros, I ended up doing a number of path operating. The paths are shady and relatively cool when it’s scorching all over the place else, and the native path operating group had a enjoyable problem going. To take part, I’d obtain GPX route information created by the group, and comply with them by the woods. 

All the Garmin and Coros watches I discussed above can do fundamental navigation. The method is identical on each manufacturers: obtain a route file in your cellphone, use the share button to “open” it within the Coros or the Garmin app, save the route, after which inform the app to ship the path to your watch. While you begin a run, you possibly can choose a saved path to comply with.

With the essential show (on the Forerunner 570 and beneath, or on the Tempo 3), you simply see a line on a black background displaying the route you’re speculated to comply with, a unique coloration of line displaying the place you really went, and a marker displaying the place you might be proper now. On the 570, for instance, the route is pink and my very own path is white. In order I’m operating, I simply should look down at my wrist, and so long as the pink and the white traces are monitoring collectively, I’m on the suitable path. 

On this view, neither watch is aware of the place the paths really are. I’ll get an “approaching proper flip” alert when the trail I’m following turns proper, whether or not or not I’ve an choice to go another means. If the path branches into two forks, and my path is kind of straight ahead, the watch doesn’t know I’m attempting to decide, and gives no assist. 

On a watch with maps, you get extra assist. It nonetheless might not know the entire trails within the space, however at the very least it’s simple to inform whenever you’re speculated to cross a street or cross a giant apparent landmark like a pond. The Tempo Professional is a $349 watch that offers you full-color maps proper in your wrist. Within the Garmin world, you don’t get that function on a brand new watch until you splurge on a Forerunner 970, for $749.99, greater than twice the worth of the Tempo Professional. 

Hated: Coros pauses the run after your exercise is completed

This can be a tiny, itsy micro-peeve that I’m nearly embarrassed to notice right here for a way minor it’s, however MY GOD COROS CAN’T YOU LEAVE THE ACTIVITY RUNNING AFTER THE WORKOUT FINISHES??? Garmin spoiled me for this. 

Let’s say you’re utilizing a Garmin to trace a structured exercise that covers 3.5 miles or so. After you end the exercise, you jog an extended cooldown since you’d like so as to add some extra mileage to your day, so why not? Garmin simply begins a brand new lap when the exercise finishes, in order that whenever you get to the tip of the run for the day—let’s say you went 5 miles—you will see a 3.5 mile exercise and a 1.5 mile cooldown logged in the identical exercise. 

Coros, against this, pauses the exercise when the exercise finishes. On a number of events I heard the end-of-workout beep and thought nothing of it. I stored operating, having fun with my cooldown, solely to understand 5 or 10 minutes later that my final 5 or 10 minutes of operating hadn’t been logged in any respect.

If I had been skilled on Coros and moved to Garmin, this wouldn’t trouble me. However coming from Garmin, I stored forgetting that I wanted to renew my exercise after it “completed.” I misplaced some miles in my monitoring. I’m mad. That’s all. 

Cherished: Coros’s coaching standing feels much less insulting

Right here’s one other subjective one: I like Garmin’s coaching standing, however principally as a result of I chase the joys of incomes a “productive” standing, and get disenchanted each time it tells me I’m simply “sustaining.” (I wish to get a very good grade in Garmin, one thing that’s each regular to need and doable to attain.) 

Garmin’s harsh judgements are the stuff of memes, but it surely does sting generally to be advised that your laborious work isn’t transferring the needle. Coros additionally has a coaching standing function, with comparable phrases, however they appear to be outlined otherwise. 

Right here’s Coros’s clarification of its coaching standing phrases. “Sustaining” continues to be in there, however I didn’t see it present up on my watch fairly often. Extra typically, I’d get “optimized,” offered I’d been working fairly laborious. That clarification from Coros additionally exhibits how one can have a look at your coaching standing in a number of other ways from the coaching hub dashboard: In case your load influence is larger than your base health, you’re doing fairly good. Garmin doesn’t have graphs like this, or at the very least, nothing really easy to entry and skim. 

Finally, does this have an effect on my coaching? Not likely. However I discover Coros’s strategy extra attention-grabbing and extra encouraging.

Hated: Coros doesn’t have an app retailer

Garmin’s ConnectIQ retailer is a spot to search out watch faces, but in addition little mini-apps to do particular jobs. Most individuals gained’t obtain many apps, however whenever you want one, it’s very cool to have the ability to seize the suitable one. 

For instance, to make use of the Core temperature sensor that I’m utilizing to observe my warmth tolerance, I went to Garmin’s ConnectIQ retailer and downloaded the information discipline created by the builders on the firm that made the sensor. I did should manually add it to the actions the place I wished to trace my temperature, however then it was there. I may see my core temp, pores and skin temp, and warmth pressure index all on one display, and this information was logged in my exercise outcomes. 

The Core sensor additionally works with Coros, however not almost as properly. I can view my core physique temperature through the run, however not pores and skin temperature or warmth pressure index. (The warmth pressure index is essentially the most invaluable to me, and I missed having it accessible at a look.) There is no strategy to obtain an app for extra performance.

There are nonetheless loads of watch faces and helpful instruments constructed into the Coros app and the units themselves, however it might be good if there have been third-party prospects on the market too. 

Cherished: Coros watches lock the show in a nicer means

The Tempo 3 and Tempo Professional each have a scroll wheel. Each of them, by default, use a display lock that requires you to both maintain within the scroll button, or—my choice—scroll the wheel one full flip earlier than having the ability to do something on the watch. 

I just like the scroll model. I simply begin scrolling up, and because the watch unlocks, I can preserve scrolling and see my widgets, which is usually what I’m unlocking the watch to verify. (You’ll be able to flip off this lock when you don’t need it.) You’ll be able to nonetheless see the time whereas it’s locked or whilst you’re within the strategy of unlocking.

Garmins, alternatively, don’t have fairly the identical function. You’ll be able to activate the machine lock, however then any time you faucet the display or push a button, the time disappears and also you see a message telling you to unlock the machine. It’s also possible to set a shortcut to show off the touchscreen, which is helpful when you preserve bumping it whenever you don’t imply to.

I just like the Coros model higher.

The underside line

Garmin and Coros each make nice watches. I used to be neither disenchanted nor excited to return to Garmin on the finish of the month. I’m glad the exercises gained’t finish with out me urgent a button anymore, and I like that I’ll be simply capable of see what music is taking part in. However I’ll miss the maps on the Tempo Professional, and the kinder and extra clear coaching standing.