Garmin Forerunner 920XT

The Garmin Forerunner 920XT is a GPS watch that tracks going for walks, biking and swimming. The watch also counts steps, tracks sleep and may be paired with a coronary heart price display that enables you to check your pulse as you exercise. The FR920XT is designed for severe athletes and affords superior metrics for all three sports activities it tracks. Runners can use the watch to investigate pace, cadence (strides in step with minute), ground touch (the amount of time your foot remains at the ground in keeping with stride) and vertical oscillation (vertical up and down movement, or "leap"), in addition to other metrics. Cyclists and swimmers can use the watch to song particular statistics for his or her preferred sports activities, as nicely.

It must come as no surprise that such a sophisticated tracking tool prices a lot greater than health bands that handiest reveal steps taken, calories burned and nightly sleep. but at $490, the FR920XT is also extra costly than some different multisport GPS watches available on the market, inclusive of the TomTom Multi-sport cardio, which retails for $250 on Amazon. I used the FR920XT for approximately a month; carrying it on runs, swimming with it inside the pool or even strapping it on for some bike rides (though admittedly, i am now not a cyclist). right here's what i found:

The Forerunner 920XT is the cream of the crop with regards to multisport GPS watches. Its capacity to song advanced jogging metrics, which include vertical oscillation and floor contact time, units it apart from other products in this category.

not like a few triathlon watches, though, the FR920XT can not reveal your coronary heart price underneath water, and the watch is also a bit too cumbersome (and unpleasant) to put on as your regular watch.

The FR920XT is a large watch. It measures 2.2 inches (55 millimeters) across and weighs slightly more than 2 ounces (fifty seven grams). In comparison, the Fitbit Surge, a GPS-enabled watch that tracks jogging and other physical activities, is simply 1.34 inches (34 mm) extensive. if you're searching out a small, understated GPS watch, the FR920XT is not it. but, the watch is enormously slim, sitting simply zero.five inches (12.7 mm) off the wrist, so it can easily slip beneath a wetsuit or suit internal a glove in the course of bloodless-weather runs.

regardless of its bulk, the FR920XT is secure to put on. The rubbery strap is adjustable, and that i had no hassle taking it on and rancid. And though it is no light-weight, I barely noticed the load of the FR920XT on my wrist while i was working out. but, the watch appeared so massive on my wrist that I couldn't carry myself to wear it as a normal accessory.

a part of the motive the FR920XT regarded impractical as an everyday timepiece had to do with its shade. I examined a black unit with blue accents across the show display screen and the wristband. The watch also comes in white with red accents, but both color alternatives are sporty and, in my opinion, a chunk unpleasant. I pick the monochrome appearance of some other sports watches, like that of the white Suunto Ambit3 recreation.

looks apart, the FR920XT's design is practical for running out. The watch's 4 buttons have tiny notches, making them clean to press, even while you're under water or exercising inside the rain. And the show display is straightforward to examine each indoors and outside.

like every multisport GPS watches, the FR920XT has plenty of functions, which means that you'll want to get to realize the watch earlier than you start the use of it to music anything. fortunately, the education guide that comes with this tool is easy to recognize. The Garmin website, in particular the employer's FAQ page, is also a great useful resource, whether or not you are getting started out with the FR920XT or in case you come upon any problems with it. I especially appreciated the web site's short videos, which display you how to set up and navigate the watch.

however you may now not want video tutorials to discern out the FR920XT, due to the fact no matter its many functions, the watch within reason easy to navigate. The show screen shows you the time of day (all the way down to the second one), in addition to the date and day of the week. on the top, there's a battery icon, so it's smooth to see whilst it's time to plug the watch into the charger. i discovered that I not often had to fee the watch, which lasts for as much as 40 hours in UltraTrac (strength-saving) GPS mode. In normal GPS mode (training mode), you may rise up to 24 hours of battery life. And if you in no way activate the GPS characteristic, you may use the watch for four months with out charging it, in line with Garmin.

The watch shows your daily step assume the principle show display, and has Garmin's signature move bar — an icon that looks on the screen in case you've been inactive for extra than an hour. in case you hold to take a seat around after the flow bar appears, the watch will buzz your wrist to remind you to arise and pass around. a whole lot to my pleasure, you can turn this feature off. you could additionally flip off the traumatic beeping noises that sound every time you press a button on the FR920XT, in addition to the alert tones that chirp loudly whenever you begin or pause the stopwatch.

to start the usage of the FR920XT, you want to down load Garmin's software program and join the watch to your pc the use of the provided charging cradle and USB cord. you could then create a Garmin connect account, so that you can permit you to see the records your watch collects on-line or on a cell app. not like maximum wearable gadgets i have examined, you can sync facts from the FR920XT to the Garmin connect app via wi-fi, as well as thru Bluetooth. whilst I had no problem syncing the watch with my phone via Bluetooth, I appreciated knowing that, if Bluetooth connection failed, there was any other, wi-fi way to get statistics off the watch and onto my cellphone. if you're not the usage of a cellular device to view your information, you could set the watch on its charging cradle and plug it into your computer to upload your workout stats to the Garmin join internet site.

As an amateur athlete, I wasn't acquainted with a whole lot of the metrics that the FR920XT tracks. a number of the greater basic records fields — pace, pace and elevation — are pretty obvious and smooth to place into context without any outdoor records. but for the greater advanced metrics, like cadence and vertical oscillation for running, or swim efficiency (SWOLF) for workouts inside the pool, I had to do some studies in order to analyze my facts.

Garmin does try to put a number of this records into context for users. After strolling, you could log in to Garmin join to analyze graphs that display your cadence, vertical oscillation and ground contact time over the route of your run. those graphs are shade-coded to mirror the proportion of runners (specially, runners who participated in a hard and fast of trials performed by using Garmin) who performed comparable outcomes. as an example, crimson shading within the cadence graph way that your strides per minute are on par with runners who ranked in the ninety fifth percentile inside the Garmin trials. In other phrases, if your strides in step with minute fall in this pink variety at the graph, your cadence is equivalent to that of a very skilled runner. you could get more facts about the color-coded graphs on the Garmin connect internet site by using clicking at the question mark icon next to the graph name. there's additionally additional statistics about the color system, and walking metrics in widespread, on the agency's internet site, together with links to a few insightful FAQs.

Like maximum excessive-quit GPS watches, the FR920XT can be paired with a number of unique sensors that make it even extra useful for athletes. And not like the Suunto Ambit3 sport, which most effective connects to such add-ons thru Bluetooth clever, you could connect heart fee video display units and different sensors to the FR920XT through ANT+, every other wi-fi era that sends information from the sensor in your watch. Garmin has a complete listing of like minded sensors for the FR920XT on its website (inside the phase marked accessories). you may additionally explore the specs tab at the same page to discover more approximately the watch's features for going for walks, swimming, cycling and activity monitoring.

I paired the FR920XT with a Garmin heart fee sensor to screen my pulse even as i was jogging and cycling. The information the watch gathered appeared correct based totally on how fast i was walking and how a ways along i was in my workout. I additionally in comparison the watch with a separate wrist-worn monitoring device with a integrated heart price sensor and discovered that the FR920XT become a good deal more unique in monitoring dips in my coronary heart fee (specifically after I had stopped going for walks).

i discovered the GPS statistics that the FR920XT supplied to be very accurate. Like most GPS watches i have examined, the watch had trouble choosing up a signal when i used to be in an urban location surrounded by using tall homes. but in more open urban landscapes (i.e., parks), the watch always picked up a GPS signal inside 30 seconds. It turned into even quicker at selecting up a sign within the suburbs.

one of the most important selling points of multisport GPS watches is their water resistant score. Like most triathlon watches, the FR920XT has a water score of 5 ATM, which means that it can resist strain equal to what is experienced 50 meters (about 164 toes) under water. you can use the watch to song both indoor and out of doors swimming, though GPS monitoring is best to be had in open-water swimming mode. [Best Fitness Trackers for Swimmers]

I examined the FR920XT in a pool, and it as it should be tracked my laps, strokes consistent with lap, overall distance, swimming performance (or SWOLF rating), tempo and energy burned. The watch additionally did a very good task of figuring out which of the four main strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly) i was swimming, and i had the choice of putting the watch into drill-logging mode each time I used a kickboard. The capability to log drills without having to just pause the stopwatch is a function that is lacking from most different multisport GPS watches. however, the FR920XT would not allow you to reveal your coronary heart rate below water. in case you need to gather coronary heart charge facts within the pool or in open water, you'll need to test out the Suunto Ambit3 game or the Polar V800 GPS watch.

even as i was using the FR920XT to music my workout routines, I every now and then felt a light buzz on my wrist, notifying me that I had earned a new "badge." Like Fitbit, Garmin sends users digital badges when they've reached certain health milestones. as an instance, I got a badge after monitoring my longest run so far with the watch and some other one after attaining my highest elevation benefit on a bike experience. whilst those little awards regarded a bit stupid after I first commenced using the watch, i can see how they may become more significant after you've been the use of the watch for some time.

Garmin connect seconds as a social media network for anybody with a Garmin join account. through the app or website, you may search for human beings you already know who also use a Garmin product. you can additionally request to connect to Garmin users you have by no means met. however, you can not search for different Garmin users on your vicinity as easily as you may with Suunto Movescount, the accomplice app for Suunto's GPS watches. however like Movescount, Garmin connect helps people stay prompted with the aid of letting them be part of on line corporations with other customers. And the app additionally lets you partake in challenges, in that you compete in opposition to different Garmin users round the sector.