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Motoactv Review
by Troy Surritt
The new Motorola Motoactv watch has been out since November. I got mine a couple of weeks ago and have been using it along with my Garmin. For a company just starting out into the GPS watch market, they have included a lot of bells and whistles in the first watch. Some work great, some not so great. Motorola has been putting out new updates almost every month. They are listening to what runners want and have been implementing new software updates. The following is what I have learned about the Motoactv while wearing it, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
On the GPS portion of the watch the good part is that you can set up a custom screen for each workout. You can define up to 4 different sets of information you want to display, like pace, distance etc. During a workout if you click on any of the information you have showing you can get more detailed information. If you are wearing a headset the virtual coach talks to you on each mile split to give you the pace for the mile, total mileage, average pace, and the predicts what you will do on the next mile for the workout. You can set the splits for either distance or time. The bad part is the virtual coach voice could be a little louder; I missed it completely on the first mile. The GPS mileage is a little off but has improved since the last upgrade.
The smart MP3 player is one of the best features in conjunction with the GPS. The good part is it was very easy to download my music onto the watch, just drag and drop. It works like a usb flash drive. I have a blue tooth stereo headset that works with the watch so I don’t have any cords to get in the way. I like that I only have to carry the watch and the blue tooth headset to get a lot of functionality without any cords. The smart part of the player is it uses your pace to find out which songs motivate you. When you have it set up for a hard workout it will play the songs that get you to move faster. It creates playlists of songs that motivate you to run faster, most recently add songs, songs you pick most often. These playlists are easy to access. The bad part is that when you are using the wireless headset it leaves the stereo plug in uncovered. So you have a 3.5 mm hole in the side of the watch that water and/or dust can get into. They have a cover for the USB port; they should have included a cover for the headset hole. Also to pick up the FM radio, you have to use a corded headset because it uses the cord as an antenna.
The watch can also sync with Motorola phones. The good thing is that I can sync the watch to my phone and upload my workout to the website after a run and have it uploaded before I go home. The bad thing is that it sometimes takes a long time to sync. The screen is just a simple static display in text. It would be nice if they would put some kind of progress indicator to let the user know how much longer it is going to take.
The map is a good idea but it does not let you zoom out far enough to see your whole route during workouts. It has 3 zoom levels but they are too close together. It would be better if the user would be able to set the diameter of each zoom level in the settings menu. This would allow the user to have more control over the zoom levels without changing the map interface for workouts.
Most people have a different watch that they wear when they are not running. The Motoactv has a function that can make the face of the watch resemble a watch with digital hands. You can also pick from several watch faces or have it display the time digitally. No bad part on this.
Since my watch did not come with a heart rate monitor, I tried to use my Garmin one and it worked! The watch picked up my heart beat with no problems. I have only tested this with the Garmins 305 heart rate strap, which is based on ANT transceiver technology, but it is nice that you would not have to buy a new one. It is odd that the protocols are the same between competing companies. It also works with the Garmin shoe pod as long as the Motoactv device is in indoor mode. My preliminary test was outdoors with the watch on indoor mode. I will be doing an indoor test with the watch stationary to eliminate any signals from the built in accelerometer and any possible signals from GPS. So I want to eliminate any signal telemetry other than what information it is getting from just the shoe pod.