Resolved Any runs on series 4?

[Fthree]

has anyone on the forum competed a run on the series 4 yet? Any good details (gps accuracy, battery drain, etc)

Thanks!

 

[Monkswhiskers]

Interested in this also as well as optical hr data.

 

[fate0311]

Interested in hearing feedback as a potential watch buyer. I have ran into constant reliability issues using my iPhone X and 3rd party apps to track my runs. Mileage is always inconsistent despite running same route at times and the satellite connection is always sub par.

 

[Pewpewpew]

I’m interested also. I have it on my wrist but got a bloody calf strain at the moment. Would love to know if the GPS and optical heart rate monitor is improved.

 

[Fthree]

I picked one up this evening. (44mm Lte/gps) fingers crossed it’s ok to run in the am. I’ll let y’all know I’m going to wear it and the Fenix 5 to compare mileage. I had to sign up for Apple Music though (from Spotify) not liking the app/playlist making. I didn’t own a series 3 so I’m excited to see how the lte works out on the run.

 

[Fthree]

so first run wasn't bad. I liked not carrying around a phone or an iPod touch with me. I wore both my Fenix 5 and my AW4 for this one. Didn't realize the start stop difference between the AW and the F5 as with the F5 stuff starts when you hit start and on the AW it starts like 4 seconds later. not a huge biggie I guess when you are only going to wear one or the other. heres a breakdown on the two:

Time- AW- 30:36, F5- 30:27- kinda odd on the AW part but def a start delay as I didnt know about the countdown
Distance- AW- 3.60 miles, F5-3.59 miles- a little awkward that the AW is higher and started after..
Avg Pace- AW- 8:27, F5- 8:31- Same intrigue as the distance/time above
Ele Gain- AW- 54 ft, F5- 85 Ft- Garmin has been known to have issues with this- I didn't run a particularly hilly route
Avg HR- AW- 150BPM, F5- 151 BPM- Both pretty much spot on
Cadence- AW-187 SPM, F5-191 SPM- Traditionally I avg 180-190 so nothing extreme here

I am clueless on how to get the AW to sync to Strava (which is a big deal for me). I love the IDEA of having a phone on my wrist without having to carry one. I also like that I can use a quality music streaming service and make playlists that automatically sync (garmin has some i heart radio or something not AMusic or Spotify) Slightly concerned about the elevation on the AW but have heard reports that Garmin struggles there soooo. All in all the Distance seems relatively close which is good as Garmin is known as a quality GPS tracker. Im doing the Chicago Marathon next month and if I plan to use the AW4 I need to figure out the 3rd party apps part of it (Strava, Training Peaks) anyone that could help me in that department would be great! Thanks!

 

[NightStorm]

so first run wasn't bad. I liked not carrying around a phone or an iPod touch with me. I wore both my Fenix 5 and my AW4 for this one. Didn't realize the start stop difference between the AW and the F5 as with the F5 stuff starts when you hit start and on the AW it starts like 4 seconds later. not a huge biggie I guess when you are only going to wear one or the other. heres a breakdown on the two:

Time- AW- 30:36, F5- 30:27- kinda odd on the AW part but def a start delay as I didnt know about the countdown
Distance- AW- 3.60 miles, F5-3.59 miles- a little awkward that the AW is higher and started after..
Avg Pace- AW- 8:27, F5- 8:31- Same intrigue as the distance/time above
Ele Gain- AW- 54 ft, F5- 85 Ft- Garmin has been known to have issues with this- I didn't run a particularly hilly route
Avg HR- AW- 150BPM, F5- 151 BPM- Both pretty much spot on
Cadence- AW-187 SPM, F5-191 SPM- Traditionally I avg 180-190 so nothing extreme here

I am clueless on how to get the AW to sync to Strava (which is a big deal for me). I love the IDEA of having a phone on my wrist without having to carry one. I also like that I can use a quality music streaming service and make playlists that automatically sync (garmin has some i heart radio or something not AMusic or Spotify) Slightly concerned about the elevation on the AW but have heard reports that Garmin struggles there soooo. All in all the Distance seems relatively close which is good as Garmin is known as a quality GPS tracker. Im doing the Chicago Marathon next month and if I plan to use the AW4 I need to figure out the 3rd party apps part of it (Strava, Training Peaks) anyone that could help me in that department would be great! Thanks!

Supposedly strava is working to revamp their HealthKit integrations... until that comes out, I use an app called HealthFit to sync AW workouts to Strava (and other services).

 

[gsucyclist]

Use Healthfit app to sync to Strava. It works like a charm

 

[alent1234]

so first run wasn't bad. I liked not carrying around a phone or an iPod touch with me. I wore both my Fenix 5 and my AW4 for this one. Didn't realize the start stop difference between the AW and the F5 as with the F5 stuff starts when you hit start and on the AW it starts like 4 seconds later. not a huge biggie I guess when you are only going to wear one or the other. heres a breakdown on the two:

Time- AW- 30:36, F5- 30:27- kinda odd on the AW part but def a start delay as I didnt know about the countdown
Distance- AW- 3.60 miles, F5-3.59 miles- a little awkward that the AW is higher and started after..
Avg Pace- AW- 8:27, F5- 8:31- Same intrigue as the distance/time above
Ele Gain- AW- 54 ft, F5- 85 Ft- Garmin has been known to have issues with this- I didn't run a particularly hilly route
Avg HR- AW- 150BPM, F5- 151 BPM- Both pretty much spot on
Cadence- AW-187 SPM, F5-191 SPM- Traditionally I avg 180-190 so nothing extreme here

I am clueless on how to get the AW to sync to Strava (which is a big deal for me). I love the IDEA of having a phone on my wrist without having to carry one. I also like that I can use a quality music streaming service and make playlists that automatically sync (garmin has some i heart radio or something not AMusic or Spotify) Slightly concerned about the elevation on the AW but have heard reports that Garmin struggles there soooo. All in all the Distance seems relatively close which is good as Garmin is known as a quality GPS tracker. Im doing the Chicago Marathon next month and if I plan to use the AW4 I need to figure out the 3rd party apps part of it (Strava, Training Peaks) anyone that could help me in that department would be great! Thanks!

Strava has a AW app and it records runs

 

[Pewpewpew]

I did my first run with series 4 and look at the map in the activity app it cut a lot of corners but the actual distance wasn’t too far off. Strange! Would also like to export to Strava.

 

[Monkswhiskers]

Healthfit is what you want. One off small cost, works great. Strava app isn’t great, although it used to record cadence pre-watchOS5, so I would sometimes use it.

 

[misanthrophy]

Sometimes it showed my route a little bit off road, like 20m. Within the first 200m it lost a few times the connection with the GPS signal, maybe due to bad weather, was really cloudy and windy.

Regarding voice feedback: in the deepest setting directly, you can choose the interval of MINUTES for rolling or average pace. When you then go back to it says KILOMETERS.
That being said, I set it to 6Minutes (for a short run I wanted to monitor average pace of 10km/h.) so after I finished my 30minutes of running, I never had a single voice feedback, because I guess I did not breached the 6km.

See need to observe that in future runs.

For now not so impressed, because FITIV (app) is here more flexible regarding voice feedback, for pace, distance, heartrate, etc.

 

[Monkswhiskers]

I’ve seen some horrible gps tracks (as well as some fine) with the Fenix 5, I think it’s a bit of a ‘jack of all trades’ watch. I would be interested to see the series 4 up against a proper running watch like the forerunner 645.

 

[Fthree]

Healthfit is what you want. One off small cost, works great. Strava app isn’t great, although it used to record cadence pre-watchOS5, so I would sometimes use it.

Thank you, pardon my ignorance but do i need to download it to my phone and watch?
[doublepost=1537651498][/doublepost]Just an update... its 4:24pm and my watch is at 6%. eh on the battery life

 

[Monkswhiskers]

Thank you, pardon my ignorance but do i need to download it to my phone and watch?
[doublepost=1537651498][/doublepost]Just an update... its 4:24pm and my watch is at 6%. eh on the battery life

Download it to your phone and it should appear on the watch, it’s under Healthfit in the App store.

 

[TDIDawg]

The Aluminum Series 4 with stock Workout app performed just as poorly as it did on my Series 3. Disappointing.

Stats from a run with my Garmin 935 and AW S4 on a well-known route:

Time: 935 - 1:23:26, AW4 1:23:24
Distance: 935 - 9.07 mi , AW4 9.24 mi
Avg. Pace: 935 - 9:12 min/mi, AW4 9:02 min/mi
Avg. Heart Rate - 935 - 131, AW4 - 131

The 935 was much closer to the actual distance, and the 935 GPS track itself was noticeably more accurate than the AW GPS track. The AW stock workout app is not great if you need accurate pacing for a race or PR. However, pairing the AW with iSmoothrun and a Styrd footpod makes it a serviceable option.

Joseph

 

[Fthree]

Interesting seems as if the only thing the watches has consistent is the HR monitor? Any significant amount of trees or buildings near you that could throw it off? (Not likely but possible) How much battery did a 1.5 hour run run out of it?

Mine was officially dead at 530pm. Didn’t do an excessive amount of power using stuff I don’t think. Just my run, tracked a arm workout (30 mins) made a couple calls, responded to some texts was about it.

 

[PatrickNSF]

I just did a quick comparison of the AW SB vs a Fenix 5+. I was stunned at how much smoother the AW tracks are when loaded into mygpsfiles compared to those from the Fenix (set to GPS + GLONASS).

I was planning to continue to use a Garmin for running (better intervals, always on screen), but the AW 4 looks like a winner as far as GPS tracking goes.

 

[Fthree]

I just did a quick comparison of the AW SB vs a Fenix 5+. I was stunned at how much smoother the AW tracks are when loaded into mygpsfiles compared to those from the Fenix (set to GPS + GLONASS).

I was planning to continue to use a Garmin for running (better intervals, always on screen), but the AW 4 looks like a winner as far as GPS tracking goes.

Wow those lines are smooth! Interesting
[doublepost=1537659666][/doublepost]

Ye


Download it to your phone and it should appear on the watch, it’s under Healthfit in the App store.

Should I get the paid version? (2.99)

 

[PatrickNSF]

Wow those lines are smooth! Interesting

I know. And check out this corner. Not sure what they're doing this go around (other than the ceramic back), but it seems to be an improvement over Series 3.

Also, for a point of reference, I had a Styrd foot pod giving the distance on the Garmin, and the AW with no phone (to make sure it was using the AW GPS). The Garmin with Stryd measured 2.12 miles, the AW 2.11 miles.

 

[borez]

I know. And check out this corner. Not sure what they're doing this go around (other than the ceramic back), but it seems to be an improvement over Series 3.

Also, for a point of reference, I had a Styrd foot pod giving the distance on the Garmin, and the AW with no phone (to make sure it was using the AW GPS). The Garmin with Stryd measured 2.12 miles, the AW 2.11 miles.

Just got my AWS 4, and initial sense is that the HRM is much more accurate vs the Series 2.

I would caution against taking these initial results as conclusive, as the watch needs sufficient calibration data to get started. For existing watch users, I would also reset all prior calibration data and start from scratch.

For me, my “initialization protocol” would be to do a few 30 min runs, with just the Watch. This will ensure the Watch GPS is being utilised, rather than the phone’s.

 

[TDIDawg]

Interesting seems as if the only thing the watches has consistent is the HR monitor? Any significant amount of trees or buildings near you that could throw it off? (Not likely but possible) How much battery did a 1.5 hour run run out of it?

Mine was officially dead at 530pm. Didn’t do an excessive amount of power using stuff I don’t think. Just my run, tracked a arm workout (30 mins) made a couple calls, responded to some texts was about it.

Yes, a line of trees parallel with the running path. Note the Garmin (orange) most closely follows the path while the AW4 GPS track (blue) has me on the opposite side of the road (~45 ft from actual position) and seriously cutting corners. Also of note the AW4 completely missed 2x35ft climbs across a bridge (image attached) while the Garmin was spot on.

I started the run with AW4 battery at 100%, by the end of the run battery was at ~65%. I was listening to music (LTE streaming and local) the entire run.

 

[Fthree]

Yeah im not going to look at my initial results too conclusively as the calibration period can be a couple runs. I Ill be using my Fenix 5 on the next few runs along side the AW4 to keep comparing. These results are looking ok though. I really hope this watch pans out I finally have one that id like to switch from garmin to with the cellular and music ability.

I also downloaded healthfit. Does that app automatically send the workouts to the platforms i choose?

 

[Monkswhiskers]

Once you’ve linked your Strava account then simply select the workout in the phone app and press the Strava icon at the bottom.

 

[Nozuka]

Didn't realize the start stop difference between the AW and the F5 as with the F5 stuff starts when you hit start and on the AW it starts like 4 seconds later.

Just for future use:
You can tap on the countdown and it will skip it