Watches Out There?

[DavidNH]

I suggest the Timex Expedition watch. About 50 bucks. best watch I've ever had. Keeps time without fail, water resistant, velcro wrist band.

[Connie]

+1

I have a Timex Expedition watch. I have the one with a tan watch face, calendar date, Indiglo (press the winder stem to illuminate) and it is a manual wind up watch. (I never could replace the battery properly.)

It had a plastic watchband, I replaced with a velcro "The Band" brand watchband that cost almost as much as this wristwatch.

[Kookork]

I bought a SUUNTO Ambit 2. I trusted outdoorgearlab for their review about it( they have never dissapointed me with their review). GPS,altimeter,barometer ,compass and myriad of features( plus heart monitor) but I was hesitant because of the high price. So when I found it for 185 dollars I pulled the trigger.

GPS feature can work for 50 hours straight and since I am carrying battery power bank and solar charger then recharging it should not be a difficult chore. ( with my 5200 mAh power bank I can charge the watch around 7 times).

[tflaris]

Fennix 3


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[Wanderingventurer]

Like many, I don't wear a watch daily but I like having one when I am hiking. Between sweating a lot and having the band interfering with the wrist strap on my poles, I like watches on caribeaners. If I'm going to carry the weight, having a compus and altimeter built-in makes the watch more multifunctional. The only watch that I've found that meets all of the above was the HiGear AltiTec 2 and its cousins the 1 and 3. Unfortunately, I loaned mine out and it was broken beyond repair; and HiGear has "gone hiking"!

Does anyone know of a similar caribeaner watch that is currently available on the market?

[Puddlefish]

Like many, I don't wear a watch daily but I like having one when I am hiking. Between sweating a lot and having the band interfering with the wrist strap on my poles, I like watches on caribeaners. If I'm going to carry the weight, having a compus and altimeter built-in makes the watch more multifunctional. The only watch that I've found that meets all of the above was the HiGear AltiTec 2 and its cousins the 1 and 3. Unfortunately, I loaned mine out and it was broken beyond repair; and HiGear has "gone hiking"!

Does anyone know of a similar caribeaner watch that is currently available on the market?

I don't wear watches on my wrist either. My current plan is to buy a watch, throw away the band, and mount it to a trekking pole. My poles have a bonus foam grip below the main grip. Since I don't use that extended grip, I'll just carve a watch shaped notch in the foam, and "sew" the watch to the pole, whipping the thread ends together with a drop of epoxy. By mounting the watch face upside down, I'll have a handy "wall clock" for my tent as well, since I use it as an internal tent pole as well.

It's all experimental at this point, I figure it will be a repetitive shock test for the watch. This may end up being a terrible idea.

Amazon has a pile of carabiner watchers, a few with altimeters and compasses. Few have any kind of decent reviews, so you'd be taking your chances.

[Pedaling Fool]

Be careful with H/R monitors, some can be very inaccurate. I do believe the most accurate are either ones that measure HR via the finger tip or the old fashion chest strap. There are a lot of watches out there that use optical-sensing technology thru the wrist and while this sound nice, because who wants to wear a strap they can be very inaccurate. See here, there's a cool video on the link of them doing tests with an EKG machine.

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-accurat...rate-monitors/

Excerpt:

To accomplish these readings, optical sensing requires you to hold absolutely still -- no talking, no moving, no muscle-tensing, no sweating, no smudging allowed. Thankfully, these devices will tell you when you're too active for them to work. (Three of the devices we tested flashed warnings to enforce peace and quiet during testing.)

There's another complication, too. By the time blood reaches the capillaries in your wrist, it has already slowed down to a rate that doesn't necessarily reflect your true heart rate -- especially, as Dr. Zaroff explained, at BPMs above 100. (Interestingly, and as we found in our tests, the arterial vessels in our fingertips do accurately reflect our heart rate, even at very high BPMs.)

Kind of a funny story, but I don't believe they have a case, seems like there would be a disclaimer that will protect the company. However, this issue of using LED lights to detect HR is not new; I've heard tons of people that are not satisfied with their activity watch (Fitbit or otherwise -- that use this LED light technology), because they either don't detect or don't accurately display HR.

BOTTOM LINE: You need to wear a chest strap if you want to monitor H/R.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...te-heart-rate/

Title: Lawsuit claims Fitbit devices dangerously underestimate heart rate

With some Fitbit devices, every beat may not get counted, according to claims in a proposed nationwide class action lawsuit filed Tuesday.Three plaintiffs claim that their Fitbit wrist-based heart monitors, “Charge HR” and “Surge,” do not and cannot accurately measure heart rate as advertised. Those sales pitches claim that both products, which are sold for around $150 and $250, respectively, can continuously and accurately monitor heart rate, even during exercise—under tag lines such as “every beat counts.” But the lawsuit claims that the heart rate monitors, which tout “PurePulse Tracker” technology, seem particularly incapable of accurately measuring elevated heart rates, often reading dangerously underestimated rates during workouts.

In the lawsuit, plaintiff Teresa Black, of Colorado, claimed that her Charge HR device was off by 78 beats per minute (bpm) during one workout. Her personal trainer recorded her heart rate at 160 bpm, while her Fitbit read 82 bpm. “Plaintiff Black was approaching the maximum recommended heart rate for her age, and if she had continued to rely on her inaccurate PurePulse Tracker, she may well have exceeded it, thereby jeopardizing her health and safety,” the lawsuit stated.

Another plaintiff, David Urban, of Wisconsin, reported similar problems with his Surge device. Compared to readings from a chest strap-based triathlon monitor, Urban claimed that the Surge consistently under-reported his heart rate by 15-25 bpm as he was exercising and never displayed a reading above 125 bpm. Due to a family history of heart disease, Urban reported buying the device to ensure his heart rate didn’t exceed 160 bpm, as recommended by his doctor.