Timex Fitness Tracker Pedometer Watch

Timex Fitness Tracker Pedometer Watch Tracks Speed and Distance

The Timex Fitness Tracker uses a hip pedometer that communicates wirelessly with a Timex sports watch. You can view your step count, speed, distance, and exercise time in addition to the time of day. The system is designed to track walking workouts rather than total daily steps, as you must turn it on and off to view and record the pedometer information. It does not upload to your computer.
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The Timex Fitness Tracker uses a hip pedometer pod to sense walking steps. The pedometer pod has no display of its own. It has an on/off switch to save battery life. When you wish to track your walks, you turn on the switch on the pedometer and then press the on/off button on the watch. An antenna icon blinks until it registers the pod, then it is steady. The pedometer pod should be on the same side of the body as the watch, as the signal has a range of about three feet.

I had difficulty with the watch registering only about 2/3 of the steps that other pedometers did during the same workout. I don't know whether this was a loss of signal between the watch and the pedometer pod or that the pedometer was just not registering as many steps. The transmission to the watch seemed not to be continuous, it jumped in increments of several steps. I saw about the same effect when I had on a jacket or didn't have any clothing between the watch and the pedometer.

The watch has a calibration function for both running and walking. You can have it automatically calibrate itself for your stride over a measured 100 feet. Or, you can manually enter your stride length and steps per minute to calibrate it.

Pedometer Display: You can cycle through step count, distance, speed in miles per hour, pace in minutes per mile, activity time, calories, steps per minute, and steps remaining towards a step goal. The watch was preprogrammed with a 10,000 step goal, which you can set to your desired goal.

The watch has large numbers and the Indiglo backlight system, which I've found excellent for viewing the watch at night.

The basic display shows day of week, date, and time including seconds. You can set two different time zones for easy viewing. It has an hourly chime and a daily alarm if you want to use those features.

Chronograph: The chronograph feature allows you to count 99 laps and store the data for 50 of those laps. You can also see your total elapsed time and total activity time.

Interval Timer: This feature is very useful for interval training. You can set a single timer and program it to repeat a chosen number of times. You can also set an interval timer with up to five different interval times.

Recall: The memory feature is for the Chronograph mode. But if used with the pedometer active, it will show not only lap times but also total and lap distance, average and lap speed, average and lap pace and total calories.

Water Resistance: The watch is water-resistant, but it is not a swimming/diving watch.

Battery: The battery in both the watch and pedometer pod is user-replaceable.

Style: The watch is large, but not huge. It is comfortable to wear during a workout. You'll also get some interesting tan lines from the cutouts on the strap.

While it is nice to be able to see the step counts and activity on the watch, this system doesn't get away from having to wear a pedometer on your hip. It is more of an alternative to the shoe pod accelerometer systems. I would think it would be more reliable than a watch pedometer that uses arm motion to sense motion, but the unit I got drastically under-counted steps vs. two different watch pedometers. The watch pedometers matched my traditional hip pedometers within 10% while the Timex Fitness Tracker varied by over 30%. Without the step count being accurate, none of the other data for speed or distance will be accurate either.

The memory features are also lacking for pedometer users. You can see the previously tracked workout, until you clear the watch for the next workout. I like to have a 7-day memory.

This system is designed for tracking individual workouts rather than for counting total daily steps. The watch is an excellent sports watch.