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

Product Information

When compared with a chest strap on a competitor device, the Spark 3 held its own. Heart rate was accurate, but I did notice a little lag when out. Doing hill runs, for example, meant spikes in heart rate that the watch struggled to display immediately. With so many color screens doing the rounds you could argue the 22 x 25mm grayscale (144 x 168 pixel) display looks a bit dated, but, while slightly boring, we’d rather have practical features than bling any day of the week. Find your device in the list below to see if an out-of-warranty repair is possible and what the fee would be.

TomTom used to be a company synonymous with add-on satellite-navigation systems for cars. Gradually, as GPS technology became more affordable and included in even the most budget of smartphones, satnav systems became less popular and TomTom needed a new plan. Its answer: scale down from cars to people, and enter the fitness market. It’s rudimentary, and doesn’t take into account topography, but we found it incredibly useful on a series of wooded trail runs. If, like many people, you’re guilty of doing the same few routes time and again, this is a great way to explore and add interest, especially if you’ve got longer training runs to do. Adding a route Alongside the Spark 3 TomTom has released the Runner 3, which is exactly the same device except that it’s sold in running shops has different-coloured straps available. Whatever you call it, the Spark/Runner 3 is just about the best friend a runner could have. TomTom has put some much-needed work into their app over the past year and it has undoubtedly been improved, giving a decent breakdown of your activities, with splits, a map and an adjustable graph that can show heart rate, elevation and pace.It’s a headline grabbing list of features for any sports watch, but has TomTom done enough to tempt both first-timers and fully fledged fitness freaks away from brands like Garmin and Polar? Design

Once home,you can review all the details in the TomTom Sports App or export the data to your favourite apps like Strava or Runkeeper, which you’ll probably want to, because the TomTom app isn’t quite up to those standards just yet.It's not 100% perfect. You will see the odd outage, perhaps twice in a two hour run, but this is absolutely a problem with chest straps as well. What you get with Spark 3 is a responsive and relatively lag-free experience that means you can effectively and reliably manipulate your heart rate to the right zone during your training – and that's what it's there for. Then there’s pairing Bluetooth headphones. There’s no volume control on the Spark 3 itself, so you’re reliant on adjusting volume using your headphones. Only problem is, some headphones, more often than not the new wave of ‘truly wireless’ headphones, don’t always have integrated volume controls and thereby rely on you adjusting the volume from your source device. The Spark 3 beats Garmin, Polar and Suunto for offering the ability to stream music from your watch. You just need to get yourself a pair of headphones to get up and running. It should play nice with most Bluetooth headphones, but if you're in doubt, TomTom has a list of supported devices here that work depending on which wrist you wear the watch on. 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.

It’s a shame you can’t link up sports for triathlon training, however. There are workouts you can activate to work on targets, such as running a 26-minute 5K pace or a 3-mile run in under 25 minutes, for example. These have you racing against a virtual partner, with the screen showing if you’re ahead or behind and by how far – a really great motivator to keep your pace up. What you get instead is a watch with a simple greyscale display, large battery and robust design – something that feels like it can take a battering whether you’re getting it wet, dirty or both. 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. First off, you’ve got to do it on a PC or Mac – there’s no way to sync music from your phone to the watch.Nobody is ever going to accuse the TomTom Spark 3 of showmanship. The simple, uncluttered design is difficult to hate, but equally hard to lust after. Then there are the many different modes you can use to guide your run. You can plan interval sessions, or set the Spark 3 to buzz every time you stop running at a certain pace or exit a given heart rate zone. But it's not just a meaningless update. TomTom has added route exploration for the first time, building in a compass sensor to make it easier to find your way home or discover a new running trail. The square watch face is slightly rounded at the edges, and the whole unit is controlled by a rectangular four-way button that protrudes through the strap from underneath the screen. The whole watch face pops out of the strap for charging, but don’t imagine that means you can get a more fashionable strap for it. There are a number of third-party straps available, but I wouldn’t call any of them stylish. They still need to house its heft, after all. The screen is quite dark, but it uses power-saving reflective LCD tech, so it’s always on.

That said, on looking at the data when synced afterwards, it appeared to have recorded accurately. In fact, since most people are likely to train in zones, rather than looking at tiny heart rate detail variations, this shouldn’t be an issue; zone movements appeared to keep up.The trails support is also fantastic. I moved house and so didn’t really know the running routes around here, which always makes you a little apprehensive about going out for a longer run. Thanks to the .GPX route support, I just jumped online and used PlotARoute to generate a predetermined distance based on my starting point, which can also be a circuit. You can also use MapsToGPS in conjunction with Google Maps to easily generate a .GPX route to load onto the watch. Still, I’m more inclined to trust the heart-rate readings from the TomTom, which showed a high of 174bpm and an average of 153bpm. The Fitbit, monitoring the same period, came up with a rather dubious-sounding high of 146bpm, and an average: 135bpm. The main reason you'd consider upgrading from the Spark to the Spark 3 is the new route exploration feature. This basically means you can now go out on a big run and the route will be mapped out on the watch screen, helping you navigate your way home a little easier. You can now add routes to the watch as well, which is handy if you want to run an approximate distance or just freshen up your running routes. It's a feature that usually crops up on more expensive sports watches, so it's definitely a positive to see it appear on the Spark 3. After fully charging the Spark 3 on a Monday night, I wore it for an entire week, using it for three 40- to 50-minute GPS activities. I streamed music from the watch during two of these workouts. By Saturday, the watch beeped at me that it was low on juice. Bottom Line