TomTom Spark 3 Multi Sport GPS Fitness Watch - Large Strap, Black

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We put it up against a Polar H7 heart rate monitor chest strap for several runs and the sample below of the data compared to the H7 paired with Runkeeper shows it's still a reliable monitor. Mixing things up with some high intensity training yields similarly good results. The Spark 3, like the original Spark, houses one of the best optical heart rate monitors we've tested.

TomTom Spark 3: Essential tips and tricks - Wareable

We've spent a lot of time running and working out with the Spark 3, so if you are looking at ways to get more from the sports watch, we should be able to help. Given the impressive options for setting up and planning runs on the Spark itself, it would be great if there was an option to create a training programme, or even just a one-off session, in the app and sync it over. It would be less fiddly than setting it on the device. How often am I going to have to charge it?With so many color screens doing the rounds you could argue the 22 x 25mm grayscale (144 x 168 pixel) display looks a bit dated, but, while slightly boring, we’d rather have practical features than bling any day of the week. When compared with a chest strap on a competitor device, the Spark 3 held its own. Heart rate was accurate, but I did notice a little lag when out. Doing hill runs, for example, meant spikes in heart rate that the watch struggled to display immediately. Alan has been writing about science, tech, games and politics for a decade, with a period in game production in the middle.

TomTom Spark 3 Review | Trusted Reviews

When you return within range of your phone, you can sync up your activities to the TomTom MySports iOS or Android app, or PC or Mac software.Still, I’m more inclined to trust the heart-rate readings from the TomTom, which showed a high of 174bpm and an average of 153bpm. The Fitbit, monitoring the same period, came up with a rather dubious-sounding high of 146bpm, and an average: 135bpm. Another area that is desperate from some improvement is when it's time to review your data. There's still a MySport web app, which offers the same data as the smartphone app along with a couple of extras. You can drill into all of your activities to see aspects like splits, heart rate graphs, mapped running routes and details on pace and stride rate. Other modes include cycling (indoor and outdoor), a stopwatch for timing sessions, freestyle mode and gym mode, which makes heart rate monitoring focal key metric. These are features where previous TomTom sports watches have really excelled and it’s more of the same for the Spark.