COROS - PACE Pro GPS Sport Watch

I’ve had and loved garmin forerunners and a coros pace. Slight preference for coros over garmin for battery life. Slight preference for garmin for multi-app interoperability.  I’m actually planning to buy an Apple Watch because it’s fine as a fitness tracker and has better health tracking capabilities on top of the fitness stuff. 

Garmin and Coros are the top of the industry for heart rate and fitness watches. Frankly Apple Watches aren’t even comparable. That being said there has been some research that shows heart rate wrist monitors on these watches aren’t accurate all the time. The new ones with the latest technology seem to be pretty damn accurate in my experience. If you’re interested in heart rate training I highly suggest a garmin or coros and then pair it with a chest monitor. You can get a chest monitor and pair it to your watch for like $75-150 bucks but like the watch it should last years. Smart watches are not BIFL IMO

I use Form Goggles or a Coros pace watch. The Coros track well and can do structured workouts. And having access to my distance, pace, heart rate, and workout time available is really cool

For me I use Training Peaks for collecting all my data. I have a coros pace watch for tracking strength workouts, running, and open water swims. I have a garmin for riding the bike out side. On the bike I have a garmin cadence and speed attachments. And for my peddles I have polar power meters. A Tac X Neo for training on the bike inside. Form goggles for tracking my pool swims. For structuring workouts I use Training peaks for a ATP (year plan). TrainerRoad for bike workouts, Form goggles for swimming workouts. And for the strength and running I enter them into the coros watch app. I’ve gotten the gear over time. If I had to start from scratch I would just use my Coros Pace 3 to track everything and pick up one thing at a time as I got the funds.

coros pace pro! does everything a garmin does for a fraction of the price

I love my Coros as a navigation tool.  My phone very rarely comes out for navigation now.

Garmin seems to stop supporting their watches with new features within around 18 months of release. Also with the new Garmin connect subscription service, who knows how many things they will decide to lock behind a paywall in the future. The Coros Pace Pro processor is also better than the one in the FR--lots of people complain about the Garmin lagginess when moving around the maps. And for me personally, I'm trying not to support any US based companies due to the current administration.

If you do any treadmill running, Coros handles those better. The Pod 2 is quite accurate, and if you chose to enter the treadmill distance at the end of a run Coros recalculates the distance/pace for all your splits. Garmin only modifies the total distance for calibrations made after ending your run.

I've just moved from a Pace 3 to a Nomad and, honestly, they're cracking pieces of kit. I've not had any issues with them since moving to Coros watches in February. For trails I would lean towards at least the Pace Pro or the Nomad/Apex 4 (they're basically the same) simply due to offline maps. Either way, Coros or Garmin, there's a device that meets your needs at a price you are willing to pay.

I got a Coros pace pro, it's been brilliant. If I had to get a new one today I'd probably go for the Coros pace 3, 90% of the features and everything I need for just over half the price.

They are a Chinese owned brand, if that matters. I have found it to be really accurate and reliable and a huge improvement on my old Fitbit charge 4. They undercut the market, which is good because the price of some of the other brands watches is kind of insane. And there is no need for a subscription or anything. The data that is available, dashboards etc. are all in the app and don't need any additional money to be paid to access them. At least not yet. I would recommend them, but obviously do your research and make a decision. DC rainmaker is a YouTuber who seems fairly reliable and makes good reviews videos. Though to be honest, it's kind of hard to go wrong. Whatever is your budget, whatever brand you go with. Especially if you're new to it, it is highly probable that you will only use a fraction of the features available so you'll be satisfied with whatever you go with I think. The build quality of the pace pro is good, lots of different watch faces to pick from, feels really premium. Had it a few months now and I'm happy with it. Should last a few years.

Oh and the battery life, I rarely charge more than once every 10 days if I'm really active. 2+ weeks if not using the gps on runs/cycles