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

Product Information

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. For treadmill training, the Spark is pretty good at matching the totals you’ll see on the equipment and you can adjust distance easily afterwards. It offers most of the same workout options as when outdoors, so you can set up interval sessions and the like in the warmth of a gym come winter time.

The TomTom Spark 3 is a comprehensive offering that works well and is offered at an affordable price, which makes for a very compelling GPS sports watch indeed. 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 So with my favourite truly wireless buds, the only option is to have the volume at maximum, ruling them out. In fairness, it’s not a problem if you use the bundled headphones that come with the TomTom Spark 3 Cardio + Music bundle, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you already have your own favourite running headphones. 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.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. 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. You’ll also earn new Fitness Points based on your Fitness Age. The more intense your workouts, the more Fitness Points you’ll accrue. It’s designed to make you want to run more than just walk, as an example. Finally, there will be Personalised Workouts, covering running and cycling, available to follow from your wrist. The updates are expected to roll out in September and look to be welcome improvements.

The strap design tweak along with a few more colours to choose from still makes this every bit a sports watch, but it certainly feels a lot more svelte than what you can get from Garmin or Polar. It doesn't try to masquerade as something more stylish, and that's fine with us. For now. It's light, comfortable, still has a really intuitive user interface and is very easy to use. Will it be enough to convince Spark owners to upgrade? That really depends on how much you value the option to mix up your running routes. We certainly enjoyed having it and it'd definitely come in handy taking the watch abroad or into unknown territory. We think it's a great addition, and it works well.That feature is cool, but if you’re after more structured training programmes, Garmin or Polar watches offer more than the TomTom Spark 3.

It’s a running watch that I’ve found has largely stood the test of time. Its feature set for the money still makes it great value, with reliable GPS, heart rate monitor and extensive battery life. While its design is probably beginning to look more dated than ever, the four-way controls do work a treat when you’re out running and simultaneously trying to interact with the watch whilst dodging pedestrians. I can see why TomTom has been so averse to giving it a proper design overhaul. Aside from setup, you need the PC software for when you want to upload playlists to the Spark 3, so you can stream music directly from the watch to a pair of Bluetooth headphones. You can't just drag and drop the files, though; you need to pinpoint and upload them using the app. Mac users have to use iTunes as a middleman to add music through the Connect app. It's a slow process, and I wish you could just upload files through the mobile app.That’s not to say there aren’t any flaws, though. The screen is low-res and could be brighter, removing the watch from the strap to charge is annoying, and we’d have liked some customisation for the watch faces. 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. 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. 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.