A runners review of the Sony Smartwatch 3

So I finally got my hands on one of these. Bought it on eBay for $171, which is much more approachable than the $249 list price, plus tax. I gently nudged DC rainmaker to do it, but he wasnt able to. See, for runners, these watches are a whole different ball game. Responsiveness, accuracy, and multitasking are much more important. We dont want to have problems mid way into a run. So here goes.

 

Sony Smartwatch 3

I got the watch on a saturday, and immediately noticed the watch was dead. Makes sense since it shipped over 5 days. Apparently, only has a 48 hour life *if you arent running gps concurrently*.  I charged it and paired to my phone. You will have to have an android phone and install android wear. Once installed, go to settings and scroll all the way down to phone info. Update. Currently the watch is 5.0.2.

I then went through the very painful process of adding music. For some asinine reason, Android wear did not enable USB transfer. I would have been so simple. No, instead, you have to open up Google Music, and transfer albums, and only albums one at a time to the watch over bluetooth. You do so by clicking the download icon above the songs. You would think it would re-download them to your phone, but thank God it doesnt.  It just sends them to the device. Of course, individual song selection would also be all so common sense.

Once I got some jams on the device, I downloaded runkeeper. It seems to have the best interface. My tracks and Google Fit were both, essentially fail. BTW to get apps on your device, you need to open Android Wear manager scroll all the way down and “sync all available apps.” Note that this may put apps on your phone you dont want, which you will have to individually delete later. Whew!

Alright, next sync a pair of bluetooth headphones, which is great, because I hate wires. If you have a wired headphone set, youre out of luck. No 3.5mm jack. Bluetooth only.  Next open Google Music on your device and start some music. Then find Runkeeper and open. Interestingly, when you do this the music stops until the app is open. Theres a glitch there for sure. But keep moving, the music will play again when the app is open.

Finally, its time to run. Press Start on runkeeper and your stats are moving. I found the GPS pretty accurate and stable. Ive used several GPS watches in the past, and note that when you start off on a run, or pause, the GPS can fluctuate wildly, eg 30 minute miles tapering down to 8 again. No so with this watch. Its pretty quick to figure out what youre up to. Big perk there. The display is nice and bright and clear, easy to read while jogging. It has a yellow tinge when viewing whites, but really only shows up full white occasionally. The battery did drain 20% on 5 mile run while using GPS and bluetooth for headphones.

Now for on the fly music changes. I was listening to an album with a few less then desirable tracks, but still meant to be played in order. I went to skip over a track and ended up at the beginning again, wtf?  Then I paused the run and changed albums. Big NONO, this ended my runkeeper session. SHIT.  Be careful with that. Google, please get the music thing down. Its bad enough this thing only has 4GB ( and BTW only 2.6 are usable), you cant find that information ANYWHERE on the web. Trust me, I tried. Most apps are 5-10MB, so you end up with 2.5GB for music. Boo, hell even the MOTOACTV had 8 and 16GB, and it was made in 2011.

When not using the watch for running, its a nice sidekick to an android device. Nice watch faces are available from the play store. It keeps a pretty good charge, about 48 hours or so. It stalks you gives you Google Now updates. As for the display, its definitely better than B/W displays of Tomtom, Garmin, etc.

Oddities, Charging is a awkward. You insert a USB at 90 degrees under the watch. You have to plug it in while trying to concurrently remove the rubber usb gasket. Its a little tricky. Poor design, imo.

Coming soon to the device. NFC and wifi. You cant access them yet, but they do future proof the phone to some degree. Android wear software has to catch up to this device.

The verdict. Sucks for music, great for runs (especially on sale).  I’d keep my ipod and use this only for GPS tracking or runs. Music is a total failure in delivery, storage, and transfer. That said this is the only Android watch that even comes close to acceptable for runners who wanna get out without their phone. No other Android Smartwatch even has GPS, seriously in 2015, wtf? On the other hand, if you’re not a jogger, just wait until the next generation comes out.

-Merican Dreamer