Yesterday I took my smartwatch out for a test drive and I was amazed, so were the other golfers with me.
I looked at different watches before getting one that offered me the features I enjoyed from my Garmin S2 Golf watch. When playing Golf I was wearing two watches, one for distance to the greens on the golf course and one that would tell the time and count my steps, a Withings Activite Pop.
I have purchased a “Garmin Vivoavite GPS smart watch, it tells the time, it monitors steps and calories burned; while synced to a smart phone, it give the weather, lets you know when you have an incoming phone call and emails with a gentle vibration plus loads more.
Now the really clever stuff, it monitors Running, Cycling, Swimming, Walking, and most important for me Golf. Now, as I do not “Run, Cycle or Swim” they are not of much use to me; but the Golf feature is amazing, as with my Garmin S2, it gives me access to thousands of golf courses all over the world, showing distance to the green (Front, Middle & Back), it also gives layups and to my surprise it monitors your strokes so you don’t need a score card, it must be able to detect the ball being struck to do this, but we were all amazed at it accuracy when I used it for the first time yesterday. When I finished the round I told it the round was complete and it offered the total number of strokes taken and because it is paired to my iPhone it automatically uploaded the data and a hole by hole score card was waiting, my phone was in my golf bag for the duration of my round.
You will be right in thinking I am very pleased with my purchase, I paid only £130 for my watch, (I got a really good deal) and because it uses GPS not the mobile network I am not relying on a 3 or 4G signal. I will now be selling my Garmin S2 GPS golf watch and my Withing Activite Pop watch, both of which work very well, but the new smart watch does the job of both of them so they are now no longer required.
If you are reading this and you want to know more go to www.garmin.com and look at the Vivoactive smartwatch I’m sure you will agree its a great bit of kit.
bloomingyeovil 