Walking Watch Gadgets

I've been testing a gaggle of walking watches. Some are variations of pedometer watches, while one controls your iPod. Here are the first two.

Let's start with the Heart Rate Monitor/Pedometer Watch for Dummies. It arrived promptly after ordering it online, but with a dead battery. Luckily, the vendor had an easy way to do an exchange and in another couple of days I had a working model. With this watch, you don't need a chest strap heart rate monitor or a hip pedometer. You take heart rate readings on demand by placing two fingers on the pads of the watch. I wore it with a Polar chest strap heart rate monitor and the readings were exactly the same every time. That is huge -- and surprising! I've never had luck with fingerpad heart rate monitors before. The pedometer is actually counting arm motions rather than steps. If you walk without any arm motion, it won't count steps. I found it to be reasonably accurate for walking with an easy arm motion. All pedometer watches I seen so far must be turned on to start counting, and will turn themselves off after a period of inactivity. As such, they are designed to track walking workouts rather than total daily steps -- unless you are obsessive about turning on the pedometer watch each time you get out of your chair. With that caveat, I am very pleased with the Heart Rate Monitor/Pedometer Watch for Dummies and I think I'll be using it as my primary sports watch until its battery dies. Another caveat: the battery is not easily replaced, you would need to take it to a jeweler to do it. I know, I tried with the first dead watch and failed.

My second gadget is the Timex Ironman iControl Watch. It's a great sports watch that comes in a variety of colors. It has a receiver you plug into your iPod's dock connector and then you can control play, pause, volume, and track advance from your watch. This allows you to store your iPod safely inside your fanny pack or the pocket of some version of iPod carrying clothing. You wouldn't need to access it for those basic functions. However, you can't fast forward or reverse within a track with the watch. Since I listen primarily to podcasts and audiobooks rather than music, that's a big drawback. I would still have to fish out my iPod to do those functions from the iPod itself. Another drawback is that the receiver will drain your iPod's power faster than usual, as it is transmitting wirelessly to the watch. If you are already running short of battery charge time, it wouldn't be wise to use the iControl. And a third drawback is that you can't use this at the same time as the Nike+ iPod Sports Kit or with an iPod charger as those gizmos must also plug into the dock connnector. I think the Timex iControl is a good solution for those who want a great sports watch and want to leave their iPod stored safely away in their clothing or pack. The watch itself has interval timers, stopwatch/chronograph, big display, great Indiglo backlight, alarm and more.
Photos © Wendy Bumgardner 2008