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Gear Sport... How good is this watch for sports tracking and running ??

(Topic created on: 18-12-2017 01:36 PM)
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smiley
Troubleshooter
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Hi Guys,

 

I previously purchased a Gear S3 frontier... although with my intended use being as a running watch and sports tracker I was sorely disappointed.    I ended up returning the Gear S3 Frontier watch within a month for refund as it was not fit for my purpose... although with the new Gear Sport being the replacement watch for the S3, I wondered if it is any better for these issues below ?   Any comments from anyone that uses this watch for running would be appreciated :smiling-face:

 

  • I found with the gear S3 that the heart rate monitor was inaccurate... and often gave me HR values of 220-240 BPM... a level that would raise concern and I would never realistically get to... these spikes were clearly not a genuine reading from the optical sensor.
  • I also found the GPS would take a very long time to get a position fix, and without any visible screen indicator to show that the sports app was in a healthy fix status to start running... I would regularly start my run after standing around for a few minutes and then find at the end of the run, due to the watch taking nearly 10 minutes to make a position fix, that the first 6-8 minutes of the run would be missing from the tracking ... what is needed ***** is a message like many of the running watches to state 'Ready to Run' or 'GPS Position Obtained'.  
  • I had an instance whereby mid way during a run that the position fix was completely lost and then stopped tracking distance during this down time period.   This lost me 0.8 miles / 6 minutes in the middle of my run.  

My other experiences with the watch were all good...and the golf distance tracking, music player, smart phone features were all good and I enjoyed using.   However this watch was let down by the sports accuracy of it's features...

 

These were all items that I felt should work in a premium priced smartwatch and although this is not exactly designed as an out and out running watch, i believe that if you are selling a product with HR monitor and GPS positioning that it should work correctly.   I am a big Samsung fan with an S8+ and I enjoy the samsung gadgets... I am sure if I knew this watch worked well enough for running that I would buy one asap.   However I have my concerns that many of these issues above have not been resolved despite regular feedback from consumers to Samsung on these issues and similar...

 

Please let me know how your experience is with the gear sport watch :smiling-face:

 

Smiley.  

- Smiley
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12 REPLIES 12
Mammy
Student
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I'm bitterly disappointed with it as a running watch.  

Live pacing is woeful,  though it is giving accurate feedback at each km, the pace showing can be 50% out either way.  eg   7minutes passed at 1km (I didn't say I was fast) but throughout that km my pace was showing as 10:40.   Another day running 5k, my pace was showing as 4:20 throughout  (if only).  5k finished in 36 mins with accurate feedback at end of each k, so some dodgy software?    I'm working on my pace so want to know how fast I am going  not how fast I went. 

Also can anyone please tell  me how to use this watch for interval training?    Samsung health app no help, 3rd party apps not syncing with watch

smiley
Troubleshooter
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Alas I think this is the story with the samsung smart watches for sports usage... it appears to be a bit of a 'jack of all trades... master of none'.

 

I don't believe there is any interval training function with the Samsung Gear series.  

 

As I was concerned of the function of the Samsung Gear sport... I personally ended up opting for a Garmin Vivoactive3. This is  smartwatch that is great for running... good HR and GPS tracking... the downside is the inability to play music directly... so i now have to take my Galaxy S8 plus out running with me for music playback.     I do use this Garmin for Fartlek intervals and add my own profiles for other interval training routines.

 

In summary, if you were in need of some more smarter functions for running...the Samsung gear is not the watch for you.  

 

Smiley

- Smiley
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SAMSUNG S23 ULTRA 512GB SM-S918B/DS

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro SM-R920 in Grey Titanium
Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro SM-R510 in Graphite
nehvey
First Poster
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Hey guys. I hope my discovery would help somebody, who experiences GPS accuracy issues.

I am riding electric skateboard very often (3-4 times per week, usually 25-30km rides) and I always track my GPS data, at least because I need to predict when my battery is going to be empty. Another reason why I do it on every single ride is to track my perosnal records.

 

Long story short - after using Garmin Forerunner 10 and iPhone Endomondo simultaneosly for more than 1 year, I am more than convinced, that my GPS data is accurate (there is never discrepancy more than 100m out of 25km ride between Garmin and Endomondo). Yesterday I used Samsung Gear Sport together with Garmin and Endomondo, so I was tracking with 3 devices simultaneously. I was VERY disapponted to discover that Samsung Gear Sport gave me totally wrong data!!! comparing to other 2 devices (~1km less distance .after riding 5km in total). Was thinking to send my watch back and ask for refund.

 

BUT, once I switched to BICYCLE mode, I got VERY ACCURATE data for the rest of my ride.

There is only 1 reasonable explanation - when you use RUNNING mode, Samsung Gear Sport tries to correlate accelerometer data with GPS data. Either to prolong the battery life when using GPS (it's much cheaper to use accelerometer data) or just trying to make it more accurate.

 

Advice - try to use BICYCLE mode when running. Yes, your battery may last less, but I suspect, GPS accuracy will be better.

 

Please report here back about your experiments and what results you get!

Landy006
First Poster
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Yes unfortunately the sport functions of the Gear Sport are very disappointing. The heart rate measurement while running always shows 20-30 beats too high and while cycling I have most of the time no heart rate signal at all. Also the GPS speed measurement while running is completely unreliable. I used a fitbit surge before and that worked great as a sports watch including the heart rate monitoring. Now I bought the Gear Sport mostly for the swimming ability but even there I'm disappointed. It measueres about 25% too many laps in the 25m pool. (How's that possible ??).

 

So as smartwatch ok, as sportwatch not useable at all.

 

Anonymous User
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Yes, I fully agree with the posts above. The Gear Sport is good looking, an excellent smartwatch, quite stable from the software and not as bulky as Gear S3.  But the name 'Sport' is absolutely misleading; the watch has rather no good sports tracking abilities and is totally unreliable, also the Samsung Health app is poorly designed. My wife and I owned several Garmin devices and their devices are much more accurate and present that data in their app in a better way.

 

I bought this watch in November 2017 to accompany me during running, cycling and gym exercise.and I deeply regret that I bought it soon after it was released - I should have waited for unbiased user reviews to understand that. Even after several software updates the heart rate function remains unreliable; chest strap cannot be paired with the watch so there is no useful data.

 

GPS is still not reliable and sometimes even during one hour outdoor running the watch did not manage to get a GPS signal and does not track any heart rate; that needs to be fixed by a reboot. But even then the watch drops out of GPS signal, leading to unexplainable pace leaps during running.

 

Even until now I did not understand the running display and do not know how to control my pace properly. With the Forerunner of my wife that is no problem and we can control our pace all the time during the race.

 

In contrast to the Health app, the Gear Sport does not even feature a gym training mode. Every competitor at least offer some basic gym training. I do not want rep counting but I want to be able to start gym training tracking from my watch and have the heart rate data. As it is not present in the watch features, I have to start it on the phone and then will have no heart rate data. Is that the meaning of a Gear Sport?

 

So, Gear Sport is a nice smartwatch, looks absolutely gorgeous and simply does not do what it is supposed to do during exercising. This is not what I paid for! I will give it to my nephew and buy a real sports watch from the competitors who focus on sports monitoring.

WillDub
First Poster
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Hey Guys, 

 

My Gear Sport has started doing something odd.... when I start a run from the app it starts to countdown immediatly and then starts... but it doesn't have my location (green location dot) confirmed.

 

Prior to this, it would find my location first and when I had the green confirmation I would then click start and it would count down from there which was fine.

 

So currently I'm having to start the watch timer and wait until the location marker turns green BEFORE moving off... this can add lots of additional time onto my run which is totally ridiculous! 

 

Can someone help? Do you have a fix?

 

Cheers!  

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Anonymous User
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Hi,

 

just get a real watch. Gear Sport will never be a sports watch and will always drive you nuts with its stupid software flaws:

 

1. Yes, I have a similar problem: The watch has plenty of problems to find my location when starting to run. Often standing around like an ***** and waiting 2-3 minutes to have the location found.

2. Even if the location is found, the watch often loses the location although just running under clear sky. How is that possible?!?

3. Pace is always mixed up because of the problem described at 2.

4. How *****ic this watch is can be easiy seen when running and then sprinting shortly after you run your last kilometer (e.g. 50m). The watch (or better Samsung Health) will simply take it as a full kilometer and then radically drop your average pace - that is really elementary school software programming.

5. Swimming: Watch annoys me to death because I can never see my lap times. Instead of lap times it is always asking if it shall look for bluetooh connection or not. WTF?!? I am swimming and need to carry my phone? So I never can see how many laps I have been swiming until I finished the exercise because obviously nobody has ever tested this software.

 

To reply to your posting: No, there is no fix and this watch (and probably) all Samsung watches will ever make the transition from smart to sport watches. As smart watches they are nice but totally useless and full of bugs as a sports watch. In addition Samsung also does not provide an app that provides any useful data that will help you to improve your fitness by additional data.

 

If you want a top notch sports watch, buy a Garmin watch. My wife uses one since years (Forerunner 645) for semi-professional sports and the functions and application are lightyears ahead of what you get with Samsung. Display not so nice but very energy saving and no touch screen - but all the sports data you would like to have, super stable GPS tracking and very powerful app and website behind it. Not so rudimentary like Samsung...

 

Cheers

 

smiley
Troubleshooter
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I entirely agree. 

 

I owned a Samsung gear 3 frontier for just a month.   I expected to use it for my running, cycling and swimming and was bitterly disappointed.

 

Heart rate monitoring continually showed spikes up to 220 BP which was ridiculous.  

 

Running was equally poor which was disappointing as a runner.  Same issues as explained above. 

 

I actually sent mine back to amazon as 'not fit for purpose' and bought a Garmin Vivoactive 3.  This is perfect for all of my sporting requirements including golf and other running activities such as interval training amongst others.

 

Best thing I ever did.  I am a Samsung fan... have an s10+, gear VR, DeX and lots of other samsung items... but what they do not do well is a proper sports watch.   The Gear S3 frontier was a lovely watch for everything but what I needed it for... and would never replace a Garmin sports watch for function 

 

Kind regards

Smiley

- Smiley
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SAMSUNG S23 ULTRA 512GB SM-S918B/DS

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro SM-R920 in Grey Titanium
Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro SM-R510 in Graphite
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Anonymous User
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Hi Smiley,

 

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. I love all my Samsung Gear but my Gear Sport never kept the Samsung promise. At best it can be voted mediocre and I am afraid all other smart watches are based on the same basic kernel and perform nicely as a smart watch but do not deliver what is supposed to be a sports watch experience.

 

I learned my lesson, will keep on using Samsung phones but skip watches - they as well as the related apps do not deserve the Samsung branding.

 

Cheers,

 

Bobopopo

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