Is GPS a necessity or do you just want your movement to be tracked?
Apple Watch can do everything you said, without needing a phone.
GPS is pretty necessary as I want accurate times. I am pretty sure the apple watch doesn't have GPS. How does it play music without iPhone. (I don't want to carry it around)
The pedometer is accurate enough for movement tracking, the Nike+ crowd has been using it for years. May be a few hundred feet off during a long run, but GPS isn't as accurate as we think.
The Apple Watch has two gigs of onboard storage.
I understand that you essentially want a bluetooth-equipped Garmin with onboard music storage, but that watch doesn't exist (yet).
I tried the iPod nano and it was way off.
Okay, and you calibrated it? It's definitely better than Nike+.
But seriously, the watch you're looking for doesn't exist. BT+ GPS cannot give great battery life.
I tried calibration and it didn't help. I am pretty happy with the iPhone nike + app; it is pretty accurate...but I just want to avoid the bulk.
How does the apple watch play music? Maybe I can try that device for calibration and compare to GPS to get it right.
Through the music app?
I don't have one, I just read that it does.
Do you know if the watch by itself will still track distance without a foot sensor? If I can get the calibration right eventually then it might be a good option and then wait for version 2 to have GPS
Yes, it won't track where you start and stop, but it will track the distance you travelled.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2916821/what-can-your-apple-watch-do-without-your-iphone.html