While it seems absolutely ridiculous when you see other people doing it, there’s something deeply satisfying about looking down at your fitness watch and seeing that you’ve hit your steps for the day. 10,000 steps! Oh the places you’ll go! Having a fitness watch that tracks daily step counts is helpful for anyone looking to improve their fitness by increasing their amount of active time each day, but for multi-sport athletes that hit 10,000 steps before breakfast, a simple fitness watch just won’t do. Enter the TomTom Adventurer GPS Outdoor Watch. Not only does the recently-realesed gadget track your daily step count, it gives you a cheerful alert when you reach your goal, and most importantly, it tracks the good stuff — like calories burned, miles logged, heart rate activity, and even sleep stats.
MSRP: $349.99
Pros: The Tom Tom Adventurer isn’t just a one-trick pony. While many fitness watches only track steps and active time throughout the day, the Adventurer features multiple outdoor sport modes that support trail runners, road runners, cyclists, gym rats, hikers, cyclists, swimmers (the Adventurer is water resistant to 40 m), and even skiers and snowboarders. Each mode provides real-time stats which are stored in TomTom’s easy to use app that syncs the watch up to your phone and computer. The app allows users to set goals and manage them, and also houses GPS information from your outdoor activities, and even allows you to import new trail maps to your watch. For outdoor enthusiasts tackling trails and slopes, the Adventurer logs important info like altitude, vertical drop and speed. For those closely monitoring heart rate activity during workouts, the Adventurer tracks that, too, providing real-time info during the workout, and post-workout stats that show how effective your workout was as a whole, and which parts were the most beneficial. And if you’re like me, a key component of a good cardio workout is music. The Adventurer includes an integrated music player which stores up to 3 GB of music, all which can be synced with the wireless headphones that come with the watch, making it easy to customize and rock your own workout jams to keep the energy level high.
Cons: Unlike some of TomTom’s other fitness watches, the wrist strap on the Adventurer is a bold, bright orange color — which is pretty badass on the trails — but a little too loud for everyday use. Luckily, the wristbands are interchangeable, and mellower colors can be purchased through TomTom’s website. The Adventurer also isn’t 100 percent accurate. Some days I wake up and reach over to put my watch on, only to see that I’ve already burned a significant amount of calories. Phantom calories burned are great for the ego, but not necessarily good for staying on course with your training goals. And while I love the fact that the wireless headphones and music player eliminate the need to carry a bulky phone or iPod during your workouts, only music downloaded from iTunes can be uploaded to the watch. As an avid Spotify user, this makes the watch slightly less fun. Big emphasis on the slightly.
Where We Took It: Everywhere. From the grocery store, to morning runs, to spin class, to my favorite hiking trails in Colorado and beyond.
