Garmin’s latest smartwatch can play music during your run

Yes, you can listen to music on a smartwatch without keeping your phone nearby, but that usually means settling for relatively simple fitness tracking. Garmin may have a solution that eliminates those compromises, however -- it just introduced the Fo...

Garmin Forerunner 10 is a GPS watch designed for outdoor fitness, we go hands-on

Garmin Forerunner 10 is a GPS watch designed for outdoor fitness, we go handson

Having a svelte design is paramount to the success of any fitness accessory -- a desire to avoid hassle often prompts those of us who opt for purging calories without the convenience of a climate-controlled gym to leave smartphones, and even watches at home. That means nifty contraptions like Garmin's new Fenix all-in-one wearable don't make it to the jogging path, making a compact dedicated running watch a more desirable pick instead. That's the idea behind the Forerunner 10, which Garmin is pushing as a dead-simple GPS-equipped wristwatch for runners, joggers and walkers. Water resistant to 50 meters (for ocean-floor sprints?), the gadget tracks essentials like pace and calories burned, while also keeping tabs on your coordinates, letting you download stats like distance and speed through a USB adapter and Garmin Connect.

We weren't able to go for a jog, sadly, though we did spend some time with the Forerunner 10 in an office setting. The watch seemed very straightforward, which you'll find to be quite helpful as you push to match a pre-set pace, without worrying about distractions. It comes in black, green or pink, and while the company suggests that you can wear the watch for non-exercise purposes as well, both colored designs seemed a bit too bright and flashy for regular use. The Forerunner 10 is rated for up to five hours of battery life in training mode, or five weeks in power-save mode (for regular time-keeping purposes), and is available to purchase for $130. You can check one out for yourself at Garmin's Chicago retail location, or you can take a peek in our hands-on photos just below.

Continue reading Garmin Forerunner 10 is a GPS watch designed for outdoor fitness, we go hands-on

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Garmin Forerunner 10 is a GPS watch designed for outdoor fitness, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garmin Swim watch tracks your water workouts, we hit the pool (hands-on)

Garmin Swim watch tracks your water workouts, we hit the pool

Garmin is adding a new product to its line-up of fitness watches, and this one is dedicated to workouts of the aquatic variety. The $150 Garmin Swim tracks your distance swum, average pace, workout time and more, and it uploads those stats to the web to help monitor your progress. Though it's meant to be a part of your exercise routine, the Garmin Swim watch looks like your average plastic digi-timepiece. The watch has six buttons with functions for viewing the time of day, scrolling through the menu options, controlling the timer, viewing the menu and entering workout mode. The setup takes some getting used to, but the illustrative icons on the watch helped us get into the rhythm quickly.

Getting started with the Swim simply entails entering the size of your pool, with options to measure in yards or meters. Once that info is uploaded, you press the swim button and are ready to get splashing. We spent a solid half-hour doing laps, and the Swim duly recognized and recorded that we varied our strokes. Stopping the timer each time we took a break created a new interval for our workout, with a rundown of the elapsed time, distance in meters, number of strokes, type of stroke, total laps, average speed and calories burned. That's a lot of data to pore over, and Garmin lets you wirelessly upload it all to the Garmin Connect site. To do this, you have to pair the watch with your computer using a USB ANT stick: once it works, it's an efficient, easy way to review your workout, but it took us a few tries before our laptop recognized the watch. Garmin says the watch's battery will last a full year, which is plenty of time to log some serious laps. For more about the Swim, check out the press info past the break.

Continue reading Garmin Swim watch tracks your water workouts, we hit the pool (hands-on)

Garmin Swim watch tracks your water workouts, we hit the pool (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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