TomTom Spark 3 Multi Sport GPS Fitness Watch - Small Strap, Aqua

Product Information

You’ll also earn new Fitness Points based on your Fitness Age. The more intense your workouts, the more Fitness Points you’ll accrue. It’s designed to make you want to run more than just walk, as an example. Finally, there will be Personalised Workouts, covering running and cycling, available to follow from your wrist. The updates are expected to roll out in September and look to be welcome improvements.

The key takeaway is that running with music without carrying your smartphone along for the ride is awesome. We relish the freedom every time we hit the roads for our training runs, and along with the top heart rate performance, is why we recommend the TomTom Spark again and again. But there's still definitely some work to be done to make music support more seamless – and our dream of a Spotify enabled running watch is yet to be realised. The ability to stream music from your watch without your phone continues to be a feature that gets overlooked by the likes of Garmin and Polar (although that has been remedied with the new Polar M600 Android Wear running watch). The Apple Watch Series 2 and Android Wear watches let you do it, but nobody has really nailed the concept on a GPS running watch yet. The Spark 3 has enough storage for about 500 songs, but getting them onto your wrist isn’t as simple as we’d like.And although I came at the Spark 3 from a runner’s perspective, it also has plenty to offer treadmill warriors, cyclists and swimmers – in the case of the latter, it’ll measure strokes, lengths and speeds, with waterproofing to 40 metres. It’s Bluetooth-compatible too, so you can add extra accessories like a chest belt for better heart rate accuracy, though sadly there’s no room for ANT+. And with a recent software update the versions with heart-rate monitors can also calculate your Fitness Age, a simple metric showing how your hard work and exercise is paying off. The Spark 3 is also an excellent ally in the pool. Once you’ve set the length of the pool, the Spark 3 will tally lengths, strokes, strokes per minute, total distance and calories.

So what this means in practice is that as soon as you start your run, a little icon appears on a blank screen saying “home” on it. A line is then drawn covering the directions you run in, with each twist and turn being shown on the screen like an etch-a-sketch drawing taking shape.[gallery:3] It's a similar story for cyclists if you want to capture more ride data by connecting an external cadence or speed sensor. TomTom has tested its own sensor and the Wahoo Blue SC setup as well, but it should technically work with all Bluetooth Smart compatible sensors as well. You need to head into the Sensors menu again and this time go to Bike to get things paired up. Give Spark 3 a rebootFor treadmill training, the Spark is pretty good at matching the totals you’ll see on the equipment and you can adjust distance easily afterwards. It offers most of the same workout options as when outdoors, so you can set up interval sessions and the like in the warmth of a gym come winter time.