In my trip across Route 66, every meter is meaningful, and now I can’t run without a GPS watch tracking my every move.
Part of testing tech means reviewing affordable, feature-sparse products as well as the top-end devices, and in terms of wearables that often means I’m pivoting between super workout-monitoring watches, and low-cost fitness trackers that… well, aren’t too good, let’s leave it at that. There’s nothing wrong with cheap fitness trackers, as the low costs makes them accessible to more people, and I used to be a champion of affordable gadgets. But that’s started to change. When I embarked on my Route 66 running challenge, in which I have to run the distance of Route 66 over two years by tracking each workout using tech, my opinion on various fitness gadgets started to change, and in particular, wearable GPS is my newest concern. Most low-cost fitness trackers and wearables use connected GPS — this means you pair them to your phone via Bluetooth, and the wearable uses that device’s GPS as its own. I used to think that was fine for workouts, but now I’m not sure. Now I’ve used a good few GPS watches — by that I mean, devices with their own built-in GPS — I’m questioning what I thought about wearables. The more my review schedule has brought me into contact with GPS-enabled watches, the more I’ve started to notice the subtle differences between dedicated and connected GPS — and regularly recording my workouts for my Route 66 challenge has made this especially important. Connected GPS isn’t inaccurate, and I don’t want to be seen accusing it of being ‘bad’. But I’ve found dedicated GPS can be more reliable with distance tracking, whereas connected GPS often returns results in a narrow range.
