Is anyone happy with their 235??

Operative word in what I wrote is "seemingly"; as we tend to believe it's rained recently upon seeing wet ground and puddles, I figure there must be some reason people are coming from activity trackers / fitbits to the 235. The casual cyclist reference was referring to folks who, as I do, also do a bit of cycling in addition to running, but really as a cross training activity rather than a goal sport. If Garmin had no intention of such use there would not be a cycling mode.

Anyway, since Garmin lists it as a "GPS Running Watch with Wrist-based Heart Rate" shall we now advise non-runners to return their 235s and use something else if they're not satisfied?


As to monitoring a medical condition with a consumer electronics device.... I won't give medical advice, but I sure as heck wouldn't be doing that. Especially one that uses optical HRM technology.

Ok, I'm a big fan of connect IQ, as well as a developer of CIQ apps, and the thing some to be missing is that with Connect IQ, new activities CAN be added to the 235. But if you're new to a watch with CIQ, that might not be clear (people think of watchfaces and data field as CIQ, but that's only part of it!)

There might not be much in the app store right now for the fr x3x devices, as they are new, and from experience, the shape of the display makes things a bit interesting to port - it's not rectangular, and it's not round, like the other devices.

I guess people are coming to the 235 as there isn't a huge choice in wrist based devices that do GPS activity recording, optical HR, activity/steps tracking, smart notifications, 24x7 HR monitoring, sleep tracking , calorie counting, ANT device pairing, LiveTrack, BT uploads, extensibilty through Connect IQ etc etc. Phew!

Cir

I guess people are coming to the 235 as there isn't a huge choice in wrist based devices that do GPS activity recording, optical HR, activity/steps tracking, smart notifications, 24x7 HR monitoring, sleep tracking , calorie counting, ANT device pairing, LiveTrack, BT uploads, extensibilty through Connect IQ etc etc. Phew!

Don't forget waterproof!

I guess people are coming to the 235 as there isn't a huge choice in wrist based devices that do GPS activity recording, optical HR, activity/steps tracking, smart notifications, 24x7 HR monitoring, sleep tracking , calorie counting, ANT device pairing, LiveTrack, BT uploads, extensibilty through Connect IQ etc etc. Phew!

Spot on! In fact I'm not aware of anyone else who does this. All the more reason to capitalise on this and make a good product. No point in adding features in a half hearted manner. That will only damage reputation and lose customers. Bugs aside, the hardware appears to have the capability to perform the 24*7 HR monitoring activity. Surely it's not that difficult to have an option to increase sampling frequency?

TIMGROSE, do you have a steer if Garmin are looking at this?

Thanks,
Paul

Mine arrived yesterday and spent last night setting it up. It updated to 3.20.
Did my first walk/run with it and was right on the money for a 2 mile run. I know the exact spot for my first mile to the foot and it flipped to 1 mile right at that spot. Fooled me as I was expecting a bit of a fudge factor. I only did two miles so I could check the accuracy and it hit 2.0 within a step or two.
Heart rate was right on the money compared to my 305. It went up as I increased my running pace and dropped back down when I went into a walk. Then I went from a 16 minute pace to and 8 minute pace and my heart rate came up quickly into the 127/128 bpm range from a 90 bpm. Let it drop into the 80's and cranked it up and the heart rate came up into 129/130 bpm's as I kept my faster pace.
No syncing problems at all
Realize it is only one day, but so far so good.
Tomorrow AM I will do the same two miles with an increase in running to see what the heart rate does and the GPS accuracy.
My battery afterwards was at 80% but I did not turn it off overnight.

> TIMGROSE, do you have a steer if Garmin are looking at this?
Sorry missed this the other day. Don't have a particular steer on this but I'll do some analysis of my own 24x7 data and feedback any comments from myself and the rest of the forum.
I imagine the problem is balancing advertised battery life with sampling frequency.
That said the RHR have seen so far for myself seem fine and that always struck me as the major point of 24x7 recording.

> TIMGROSE, do you have a steer if Garmin are looking at this?
Sorry missed this the other day. Don't have a particular steer on this but I'll do some analysis of my own 24x7 data and feedback any comments from myself and the rest of the forum.
I imagine the problem is balancing advertised battery life with sampling frequency.
That said the RHR have seen so far for myself seem fine and that always struck me as the major point of 24x7 recording.

Tim,

As you know I've looked quite extensively at my monitor data. Also I received some monitor fit files from Ian who is still on 3.10. As said before, max sampling time difference seems to be 15 minutes on 3.10 and on the newer FW. Difference beeing having a lot more of those consecutive and identical values with the new FW (which could also mean a lower sampling frequency but the FW still writing records every 15 mins with the previous value).

Would be interesting to hear your findings. maybe you want to post this over in the 24/7 thread.

As for battery life, when not duing any activities I meanwhile have no doubt I can almost reach the advertised 9 days of battery life in watch mode (been withouth activities since the last charge exactly 3 days ago and have drained 25% so far).

No

The watch quality is good.

I use it as an activity tracker and the step counter is great.

The heart rate monitor Im not convinced is correct.

Notifications are great. Glance at the watch to see a message or email. Saves taking my phone out of my pocket if its not important.

It does not sync with myfitnesspal as they both claim. Plenty of complaints about this on here.

Battery life about 1 week with HR on constantly and GPS off.