READER QUESTIONS
• The smartest sportswatch Apple has engineered £849
Q How do I choose the right triathlon watch?
A Be honest with what you want out of a watch. Just distance, pace, heart rate and time? Go budget or mid-level. Advanced training information? Go mid-level or advanced. Just remember that a long feature list inevitably results in a higher price. Don’t be blinded by a setlist that, deep down, you won’t use.
Q What can I get on a budget? A A multisport watch can’t claim that moniker unless it offers the option of multisport mode and tracks each discipline, plus transitions. That naturally means you’ll need GPS to monitor the fundamentals of distance covered and at what speed. One of the cheapest is the Kiprun GPS 500 by Coros, at £129.99, albeit we can’t quite tell whether it offers a ‘multisport’ mode or simply the separate three disciplines. Q Which triathlon watch is best for Ironman?
A Battery life when you’re using many draining modes, including GPS and heart rate, is vital and must cover at least up to the 17hr Ironman cut-off. The higher the battery life when using GPS, the better. A watch that connects to a power meter’s a fine idea, too. Q Are wrist-based heart-rate readings reliable?
A Before answering that, it’s relevant to understand how they work. Wrist-worn heart rate monitors shine a green pulsing light into your blood vessels. The LED light penetrates your skin and reflects off your blood. The degree to which your blood absorbs or reflects light varies according to whether your heart is contracting (beating) or relaxing in between beats. When your heart contracts, it pumps blood to every part of your body, including your wrist. The greater bloodflow in your wrist causes more light to be absorbed, rather than reflected, from the LED light. Studies have shown that while these are fairly accurate at steady speeds, as workout intensity increases they can begin to suffer. This is simply due to the movement of the device against the skin. Moisture doesn’t help, either, which is why they’re not great in water. But they do have their place and, as technology improves, so hopefully will the accuracy of those readings in these data-detrimental situations.
The Apple Watch Ultra is without doubt the finest smartwatch here. But does that make it the best watch for triathlon? Well, it’s bulkier than previous Apple watches but remains the most stylish on test. At 49mm, the display is Apple’s largest watch face to date and is crystal clear on the swim, bike and run thanks to a bright screen that’s constructed from flat sapphire crystal and housed in an aerospace-grade titanium body. On the right side is a dial and button; on the left is an ‘action’ button and speaker.
One of the biggest killers to Apple’s attempts at infiltrating the endurance-sport market has been battery life. This has been much improved with the Ultra now delivering at least 36hrs of everyday use between charges, which cranks up to 60hrs in low-power mode. Vitally for triathletes, you’re now also getting 16-20hrs in GPS mode, which should be sufficient for most Ironman athletes. Yes, it’s not up there with the likes of Coros and Garmin’s top-end efforts but it’s heading in the right direction.
That battery life’s been matched by durability. In the past, the Apple Watch just felt too lightweight and deluxe to put through the rough and tumble of tri. Not now, though. So, what about sport features? Well, the good news is that there’s an automatic transition function that works brilliantly, accurately picking up our change from swim to bike to run. You can customise these workouts to create your own brick efforts, or pick from built-in sessions.
So, that’s good. As are the myriad run metrics, which include deep-dive analytics like vertical oscillation, ground contact time and stride length. You’re also given power data, which will please many.
The swim’s not bad, either, as it’s pool- and open-water swim friendly. In all honesty, the winter test period means we can’t give you an honest appraisal of its outdoor swim capabilities but we’ve read good reports on its accuracy with the major gripe being a lack of distance alert. In the pool, it proved pretty spot on with distance while also providing things like calorie count.
It’s the cycling aspect that arguably needs work as there’s no power connectivity – a big omission for the outlay. Another aspect to work on is a lack of offline mapping and navigation, which again seems remiss at this price.
Beyond tri-specific features, we’d need another 20,000 words to cover the rest. You can play music stored in your Ultra, control music in your iPhone and stream music from Apple Music; monitor ovulation patterns; let off a loud siren if you get into trouble; and much, much… more. The Apple Watch Ultra still needs refinement for committed multisport athletes but it’s certainly on the right track.
Coros has gained a foothold in the multisport watch market with three biggies: a great price, strong feature list and long battery life. You only have to look at the Coros Pace 2 for evidence of that impressive trinity.
The price is in Garmin Forerunner 955 and Polar Vantage V2 territory and, visually at least, it doesn’t match their slightly more premium aesthetic. It’s sleek at 53g but the nylon strap, which is comfortable and usable, is flimsy looking.
But what lies beneath? More precisely, what’s been upgraded since edition one? Well, Coros has upgraded to multi-band GPS, meaning better satellite pick-up and retention. This certainly proved the case on our Severn Channel exposed runs but wasn’t quite as impressive in the sheltered streets of Bristol. Okay, though not a gamechanger.
The heart-rate sensor’s changed, too, and now features a five LED system with four photodetectors. In theory, the more LEDs the better, and it was accurate enough, although occasionally wandered on harder efforts. The Apex 2 Pro also comes with heart rate variability (HRV) data, which, unlike many that work in the background, is manually done. Simply wake up, take a quick measurement and see how prepped you are for the day. Like many features, the more you use it, the more useful it is for gauging training readiness.
You can also check your blood oxygen levels (SpO2), which is useful for seeing how you’ve adapted to altitude. That said, we’re sceptical of its accuracy, as SpO2’s typically measured via a pulse oximeter clipped onto the finger rather than via shining a light on the wrist and there’s a lack of independent support.
Impressively, you can add up to 10 courses on the Coros app, which you can load to the Apex Pro 2 one at a time. You can then move the map around via touchscreen, albeit that’s the only time you can use touch. For the most part, you’re utilising the highly usable digital crown. Like many Coros watches, it features a tonne of training information to feed back into your performance. There’s general Training Status, SevenDay Training Load, Training Focus and much more that’s useful on the watch but taken to another analytical level on the extremely usable Coros app.
You can use it in the pool and open water. It performed solidly in the pool but we didn’t have chance to use it outdoors. From other user reviews, it’s okay but reportedly becomes confused when treading water. On the bike side, it has Bluetooth so you can pair it with most power meters, but there’s no ANT+ so some might miss out. The run data includes power, which’ll appeal to many.
Finally, battery life comes in at 75hrs for standard GPS, but this drops to 26hrs when using multi-band GPS.
The Wahoo Elemnt Rival launched two years ago and is Wahoo’s sole foray into the world of triathlon watches. The key to this debut was usability. They stripped out features they deemed redundant to focus on ones that they deemed useful. After a long test, our opinion was split – we appreciated them not overloading the watch with superfluous features but felt the audience would expect a little more physiological and performance insight for the money.
Fast-forward to today and a suite of software updates has significantly altered the original proposition. First up, you can now measure your sleep quantity and quality via its Sleep Beta function. The Beta aspect highlights that this is a work in progress but visually, at least, on the Wahoo app, it looked similar to many. Honestly, we don’t pay too much credence to this info as wrist-based sleep trackers are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to stages of sleep data.
More usefully for triathletes, it now includes Lap Swimming Drill Mode that keeps track of your distance and swim pace in the pool when using other strokes beyond freestyle. This is appreciated as triathletes like to vary stroke choice in practice. The Rival now integrates with the STRYD Running Pod, too, if you’re looking to run by wattages.
Another update to the original is the smart notifications, which now includes calls, texts, emails… which will appeal to many. If that’s not you, it is possible to switch these off.
Of course, it also retains the positives that made the Rival a hit with so many triathletes. The key one is Touchless Transition Tracking, where you don’t need to press one of the five buttons to signal you’ve moved from swim to T1 to bike to T1 to run. Instead, it gauges your body position to determine discipline. It’s a cracking idea and, on the whole, works well, albeit it’s much quicker recognising the move from T2 to run than T1 to bike. If it’s not accurate for some reason, you’re given the option to correct splits before downloading to the app.
Another fine trick is syncing to a Wahoo bike computer so you can see your swim split and bike data as you pedal. During testing, we also had access to the latest Wahoo Kickr Bike, which connects seamlessly for wristbased control. In fact, Wahoo’s become masters at dialling in their products to one performance-based and highly usable ecosystem. As we mentioned in test one, GPS can still be a little slow on the uptake in built-up areas but generally it’s good.
All in all, these upgrades add more triathlon appeal and value for money, but given the fact it’s over two years since the Elemnt Rival came out we’re hoping a new multisport watch will be on the horizon soon. Watch this space…