t10
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
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When Nike released the whole Nike+Ipod pedometer system, it sparked my interest, but the imprecision of pedometers did not sit all too well with me, plus being a fan of Asics myself, I knew I would have to swap out the sensors, and mount them on the laces and not underneath the shoe soles, which would mess with calibration even more.
Come GPS to the rescue for the problem imposed on me by Nike+Ipod marketing conglomerate.
Woah, beefy lil fellah:
First time use:
A bit intimidating, vast and vast amount of customizability. You get to select how many fields of data do you want to be monitored/displayed on each screen (Ex: Screen 1 is Running, Screen 2 is Biking, Screen 3 is Skiing..) and what each field do you want to be on each screen (Sat. resolution, Speed, Max Speed, Avg Speed, Heading, Distance, Elevation, Pacing, Time, Lap time, cals burnt etc.. the actual list is much longer). One thing I liked is that each sport has 3 dedicated screens. So even you can only view 4 inputs on a single screen, the other 2 screens are still updated in real time, giving you a total of 12 things you can track simultaneously.
You get to put in your weight, and age (I assume the weight modifies calories burnt monitor, and similar). You get to choose your units metric or imperial, also speed can be chosen in pacing or kph/mph.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, you can set up courses, laps, virtual partners, home locations, satellite tweaks etc..
Once you are outside you get to sync your unit. Takes from 20seconds to over a minute. This has to be done every time you turn on your unit, meaning every time before each run. Once you sync it, signal virtually never gets lost. Outside accuracy/sat resolution is 6-9m, I live in an area with many high trees. If I go into my house, into the basement, it does not loose the signal, but accuracy drops to ~90m.
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
Some semi scientific Testing:
I tested the unit with my car of course. Drove 10k. Difference between speedo and Garmin was 0.4 km at 10KM mark. Very pleasing. At about 50kph and higher Garmin was consistent with my speedo but slightly lower by about 2kph. At lower speeds below 35kph Garmin was consistently lower by 3-5kph than my speedo. If I stopped, speed on Garmin dropped to 0kph immediately, so that was reassuring.
First run.
I am outside staring at my Garmin waiting for it to sync, neighbors looking at me as I stand still there for about a minute and a half. I feel dorky but I don’t care. We got sync, off I go. (I now figured out that you can simply leave it on the windowsill to sync while you are dressing up; then grab it and run outside, it will not loose signal, and signal strength will be just the same as if you started the sync process from outside). Anyhoo, I did my usual light 10K jog, Garmin although bulky was not tiring at all. Plastic is very soft, and was very comfortable, I did wear it very loose though.
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
1404 cals? This can’t be right
PC sync process:
Absolutely painless, one click of a button. Pictures are worth a thousand words so here they are:
Garmin Software Screencap
Another Screencap
If Garmin map is not detailed enough, you can use Motion based website to upload your garmin history and view it on a Google based map, which is very cool, and free of charge.
Motion based website integration
Overall, I am quite happy with the unit, it does exactly what I wanted it to do.
Concluding thoughts:
+Excellent Build quality
+Water resistant to some ISO (insert buncha numbers here) standard
+Buttons are very firm, thus not easy to reset the unit by accident.
+Very accurate, map is spot on.
+Keeps signal very well
+For competing trainers, this could be an invaluable tool, with the addition of virtual partner.
+High Degree of customizability.
+Surprisingly comfy for being fairly bulky.
-Would have been nice if it synced quicker on cold start.
-Max speed is glitchy in the software
-Cannot be integrated with your DAP (alerts you only by beeping, hard to hear a beep in UM2s
-Calorie count seems awfully high
Hopefully this will be of help for those who may be interested in a similar device
Come GPS to the rescue for the problem imposed on me by Nike+Ipod marketing conglomerate.
Woah, beefy lil fellah:
First time use:
A bit intimidating, vast and vast amount of customizability. You get to select how many fields of data do you want to be monitored/displayed on each screen (Ex: Screen 1 is Running, Screen 2 is Biking, Screen 3 is Skiing..) and what each field do you want to be on each screen (Sat. resolution, Speed, Max Speed, Avg Speed, Heading, Distance, Elevation, Pacing, Time, Lap time, cals burnt etc.. the actual list is much longer). One thing I liked is that each sport has 3 dedicated screens. So even you can only view 4 inputs on a single screen, the other 2 screens are still updated in real time, giving you a total of 12 things you can track simultaneously.
You get to put in your weight, and age (I assume the weight modifies calories burnt monitor, and similar). You get to choose your units metric or imperial, also speed can be chosen in pacing or kph/mph.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, you can set up courses, laps, virtual partners, home locations, satellite tweaks etc..
Once you are outside you get to sync your unit. Takes from 20seconds to over a minute. This has to be done every time you turn on your unit, meaning every time before each run. Once you sync it, signal virtually never gets lost. Outside accuracy/sat resolution is 6-9m, I live in an area with many high trees. If I go into my house, into the basement, it does not loose the signal, but accuracy drops to ~90m.
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
Some semi scientific Testing:
I tested the unit with my car of course. Drove 10k. Difference between speedo and Garmin was 0.4 km at 10KM mark. Very pleasing. At about 50kph and higher Garmin was consistent with my speedo but slightly lower by about 2kph. At lower speeds below 35kph Garmin was consistently lower by 3-5kph than my speedo. If I stopped, speed on Garmin dropped to 0kph immediately, so that was reassuring.
First run.
I am outside staring at my Garmin waiting for it to sync, neighbors looking at me as I stand still there for about a minute and a half. I feel dorky but I don’t care. We got sync, off I go. (I now figured out that you can simply leave it on the windowsill to sync while you are dressing up; then grab it and run outside, it will not loose signal, and signal strength will be just the same as if you started the sync process from outside). Anyhoo, I did my usual light 10K jog, Garmin although bulky was not tiring at all. Plastic is very soft, and was very comfortable, I did wear it very loose though.
Couple of more Pics
Couple of more Pics
1404 cals? This can’t be right
PC sync process:
Absolutely painless, one click of a button. Pictures are worth a thousand words so here they are:
Garmin Software Screencap
Another Screencap
If Garmin map is not detailed enough, you can use Motion based website to upload your garmin history and view it on a Google based map, which is very cool, and free of charge.
Motion based website integration
Overall, I am quite happy with the unit, it does exactly what I wanted it to do.
Concluding thoughts:
+Excellent Build quality
+Water resistant to some ISO (insert buncha numbers here) standard
+Buttons are very firm, thus not easy to reset the unit by accident.
+Very accurate, map is spot on.
+Keeps signal very well
+For competing trainers, this could be an invaluable tool, with the addition of virtual partner.
+High Degree of customizability.
+Surprisingly comfy for being fairly bulky.
-Would have been nice if it synced quicker on cold start.
-Max speed is glitchy in the software
-Cannot be integrated with your DAP (alerts you only by beeping, hard to hear a beep in UM2s
-Calorie count seems awfully high
Hopefully this will be of help for those who may be interested in a similar device
