TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio review: A feature-rich GPS watch for endurance runners and cyclists

Last year saw a spurt in the number of fitness tracking devices that were launched. We had fitness trackers going from Rs 999 all the way northwards of Rs 30,000. While a lot of the players that have entered the space are relatively new and trying to ride the crest, players such as TomTom have been around since the last 5 years. TomTom is also a well known name when it comes to portable GPS navigational devices and software, since the early 2000s. Since 2011, TomTom has also been consistently releasing GPS sports watches for the fitness enthusiasts. It has watches in four main categories - Running, Multi-sport, Fitness and Golf. We got the Multi-Sport cardio GPS watch for review. Read on to find out if this is that watch you need as your training companion. Build and Design: 7.5/10 TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio sports watch is first and foremost a GPS watch and it looks the part. Considering this is not a watch that you are expected to wear all day, TomTom has not gone ahead with trying to unnecessarily make it into a fashion accessory. And the design works for fitness enthusiasts who will willingly forego stylish looks for a functional design. It does offer multiple strap colours - black, red and dark gray with green accents. The 1.88-inch display sporting watch unit is housed within a rubber jacket which has large watch straps. The straps have multiple holes on them, ensuring that the watch can fit any wrist type. TomTom has thoughtfully added three semi circular protrusions on the edge of the attaching strap to fix the connecting strap, so that it is not left hanging. It is a much better implementation than having a velcro strap. It does take a second or two longer to wear the watch, but once worn properly, you do not need to bother about it coming off loose or the strap coming off altogether and other concerns while you are performing your activity. Ensure that you do not wear the watch too tight as that can be uncomfortable with long training sessions. Also the watch needs to be worn with the watch on the top of your wrist and not underneath it as that disturbs the heart rate monitoring. Features: 8/10 The TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio GPS watch offers pretty much most of the features that you expect from a high end fitness tracking device. The watch apart from showing time (duh!) offers to calculate the distance you ran or walked or cycled or swam, calories burnt, the GPS on the watch is able to track your running route which you can later view on the desktop or mobile app overlaid on a map, active heart rate monitoring and more. Since it offers to track your swimming as well, the watch is water-proof up to 50 metres. The Multi-Sport Cardio comes with a one button solution to navigate the watch when you are out and about. Although it’s a single button, you can navigate along the four directions to go up/down/left/right to select the right option on your display. The Multi-Sport Cardio sports a 1.88-inch display with a 144 x 168 pixel resolution. It is a monochrome display. It houses an optical heart rate monitor which monitors your heart rate by using light to measure the changes in your blood flow. There are two green-coloured LEDs which are constantly illuminated when your activity and heart rate monitoring is on. This is done by shining light through the skin on to your capillary veins just under the skin and then detecting the changing light reflections. There are multiple heart-rate training zones on offer such as Sprint (most intensive), Speed, Endure, Fat Burn and Easy (least intensive) which can be selected according to your preference. As is the case with most fitness devices, the TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio also comes with a companion app called the TomTom MySports mobile app which can sync your watch data to the app via Bluetooth connections. This is in addition to the desktop app which you will need to connect your Multi-Sport with before you can proceed with the mobile app. Software and Usability: 7/10 The TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio GPS watch requires some getting used to, if it is the first time you are dealing with the watch. There are many modes and it will be a good idea to spend some time navigating through the different menus, training zones, different watch display styles and so on; before you begin your activity. The initial setup and syncing of the Multi-Sport cardio watch review unit was cumbersome. For some reason our test unit would just not sync with the downloaded TomTom Sports app on the phone. I also tried connecting the watch unit in the charging cradle which was connected to my PC via the USB port to sync the watch with the desktop TomTom app. But there was still an issue. I tried a factory level reset and then things worked fine. Figuring this out took considerable time as the manual provided wasn’t of any help. I had to eventually call up the helpline. Having tested many fitness trackers, I think the setup on the TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio was frustrating. But once done, things were quite easy. Maybe TomTom could have a troubleshooting guide on their site for setup related issues or at least have a mention of these on the manuals provided. If you get a brand new piece, you will first need to download the TomTom MySports Connect application on your desktop and connect the watch via its charging cradle to your computer to sync it. You need to ensure that you have the latest watch update downloded for your watch, it is a matter of clicking Update on your MySports Connect app. This setup is mandatory before you download the TomTom MySports mobile app and try to set that up with your watch. The TomTom Multi-Sport cardio, after it has been set up and synced with the desktop application, ensures all your data is on its servers. After that when you open your mobile phone app, sync the watch via Bluetooth to it, you have access to your older data from TomTom’s servers as well as any new data that needs syncing from your watch. You need to regularly keep syncing your watch with your devices lest it loses data. You can find out the storage capacity levels from the home screen on the phone. The data is divided neatly into your activities according to the dates. Going into a particular activity gives more granular data. For instance in the running activity above, you can see a map with the route overlaid on a map, splits level data according to pace, speed and heart rate and a graphical representation of your data across your entire activity timeline. Hovering over the kilometer range highlights a section on the graph which lets you analyse critical peaks or drops in the graph. This gives you insights in areas where you need to improve or take it easy. Performance: 8/10 The TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio sports watch performs as expected. Of course, there is a definitely learning curve involved if this is the first time you are handling a GPS watch, but once you get the hang of it things run smooth. But on many occasions we noted that the GPS locking took at least half a minute or more, even on open roads without any tree branches or overhead distractions and despite being still. Also, the heart rate monitor and GPS only work for running and cycling modes and not for the swimming mode. Among the activities offered, you have Run, Cycle, Swim, Treadmill, Freestyle and Stopwatch. Before you start an activity such as Run, Cycle or Freestyle outdoors and want to track GPS, the watch will first hunt for the GPS lock, once it gets a fix then you get a message ‘GO’ on your watch. Hitting the right navigation button begins the activity. To pause the workout, you need to hit down navigation key to pause the workout and then you can go back to finish it. I tested this watch primarily for running. The best part about the watch are the multiple heart rate zones and the multiple training zones. For someone who is training for the marathon, these modes are as good as having a coach running along side you, well almost. The Heart-rate training zone for instance lets you select a zone and whilst training gives you indications in the form of mild vibrations with upward or downward pointing arrows (indicating you need to speed up or slow down) to ensure your heart rate is within the limits of that particular zone. How the TomTom watch comes up with the range is dependent on your height, weight and resting heart rate. So it will be different for different people. The heart rate monitor will require you to warm up for a couple of minutes so that it’s easier to start recording the heart rate. The training zone also lets you set goals for your runs based on distance or time. You also get modes such as Treadmill which only offers heart-rate monitoring without GPS, Freestyle mode which offers GPS and heart-rate monitoring and stopwatch mode, which disables GPS and heart rate monitoring. It’s all up to you which mode you want to select and how you want to monitor your heart rate training. You can even race against yourself for instance, in case you are not happy with the preset goal settings in terms of distance and time. The display looks good and neatly offers you a quick glance at your performance while you are in the middle of your activity. You just need to tap on the three dots on the right hand side to light up the display. It is easily legible in bright outdoors as well and it also offers the night mode where the display is constantly on, which definitely hits the battery life to some extent. Battery Life: 7/10 Unlike fitness trackers which you wear all the time, the TomTom Multi-Sport Cardio isn’t a watch that you are expected to wear all the time. It is meant more as a watch to be worn only when you are doing the respective activity - running, swimming or cycling. It offers a battery life of around 8 hours on average. If you are training for the marathon, it will be good enough for three 20km practice runs before running out of battery. The standby time isn’t that great, so don’t expect to practice one day, and then come back after a week and expect the Multi-sport Cardio to hold enough charge to monitor your current run. Charging takes 90 - 100 minutes at the most and you will need to remove the watch component from the wristband jacket and put it in the charging cradle which has the USB cable attached to it. Verdict and Price in India I tested this watch primarily while running and it is clearly a good GPS watch when training. For serious runners who are into running marathons and ultra-marathons, this watch provides enough incentives over the FitBit Charge HR or Jawbone UP3 in terms of usability and the sheer amount of data on hand. Sure, unlike Jawbone UP3, you need to be able to make sense of the data that is at your disposal. It is wonderful for monitoring your strengths and weaknesses. Zone training modes really do improve your running performance if you are a diligent with your practice. The nifty up/down arrow indicators which nudge you to speed up or slow down to maintain the range of the heart rate in a particular zone makes for an interesting mix in your training and cuts out the monotony, at the same time throwing up challenges. If you enjoy running like I do, you will love trying out the different heart-rate training zones. Even if you haven’t selected any zone, you do get a graphical output at the end of your run as to how you performed in different zones. At Rs 23,499, it is certainly targetted at a niche audience who is very serious about training and fitness. But since TomTom has recently announced a new line up of Spark GPS watches which also let you store music on your watch, the Multi-Sport Cardio is selling on Amazon for Rs 16,499 which is not a bad price at all if you are heavily invested in the three sports that the watch caters to.