Fenix 3 HR

After a few months with troublesome syncing cycling activity from Fitbit to Strava, I just replaced it with new Fenix 3 HR which compare to the old one is kind of upgrade from Nokie 3310 to an iPhone. This is a few days early experiences note for comparing later.

I started choosing a new watch after few months with a few requirements that it needs to reach, the most important is Heartrate monitor like my old Fitbit Charge HR. The other thing that made me choose this watch is the appearance of the watch, this might be subjective and depend on people but I will wearing this whole day so Fitbit Blaze and Fitbit Surge is nothing I will go. The next one is GPS. This is actually an optional because with the old Fitbit charge I'm fine with the phone GPS. It just help me don't need to pickup a phone and start the activity two places.

So all the requirements above come down to the one and it just arrived last week, here are the feed back after 5 and a half days used

• The watch screen is really huge. It's one of my concern when I went to see the old Fenix 3 at the shop but after a few days I'm already used to it now. I think it's like the first time I upgraded phone from iPhone4 to iPhone6. Maybe I can't go back now.
• From the specs, the watch is around 80g compare to my old Fitbit Charge HR is around 20g this increases a lot. Also, after a few days I'm used to it too and feel the increased weight benefit the HR sensor when I'm cycling.
• More sensors, more data. I just realized it has thermometer after a few days, it might not really accurate but atleast can tell me that in the office, weather in the room is not that cold compare to my room when I turn on air condition even I feel colder.
• The GPS is slow getting signal than I thought. The first boot took like an hour before it can sync the time and in Singapore CBD area, some time my location is jumping because it cannot get GPS signal.
• The problem that I have with Fitbit is solved. (Actually it can solve by upgrade charge HR to Fitbit Blaze too but I hate there design!)
• Another surprise is it has Wifi for syncing data. So instead of using phone, it can go online and upload activities data by itself.
• In the dark, somehow Charge HR screen is more useful than Fenix 3 HR, the light is slower to light up and the screen is hard to read under it own light compare to LED light on the Fitbit.
• Garmin Connect IQ is very hard to use and not reliable compare to Fitbit. I'm getting 500 error with Java stacktrace very often when I want to see my activity after finish cycling. The dashboard itself is also complex with a lot of click and remove panel before I get what I want. Only one thing that Connect IQ is better than Fitbit dashboard is data especially heartrate.
• There's App Store with few apps and watch faces to choose or can write watch app and put to the phone by myself. The programming language for writing watch app is called Monkey C which similar to C#. Garmin also provides SDK for iOS and Android application. I didn't explore on the sdk much but from the API docs, seems do quiet a lot.
• It's not supported other languages than english yet! All the notifications comes in other languages (in my case is Thai and Chinese) cannot read.
• It's really expensive as 🍎⌚️.
• Here is more detail review: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/02/garmin-fenix3hr-review.html

PS. Here are my decision chart