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Epson began its foray into the wearable market with the SF-810, a GPS running watch with a built-in heart-rate monitor and a fairly high, $349 price. The SF-110 is the company’s low-end watch, at $139, and it comes with many of the same pros and cons of its high-end companion. Too bad this watch pales in comparison to Garmin’s similarly priced device.

Design

The Epson Runsense SF-110 fits comfortably (provided it’s not too tight — see below). Unlike the Garmin Forerunner 15 and other sports watches, it’s not bulky or heavy, and it won’t get caught on sweater or jacket sleeves. The watch comes in black, blue or green.

Credit: Jeremy Lips / Tom’s GuideBe careful if you wear the watch tightly, though. After a few days of wearing the SF-110 consistently, I had small cuts on my wrist. The SF-110 instructions warn about this — “Prolonged wearing of the product without proper care could lead to skin irritation or rash” — but I was still surprised to see cuts and not just a rash. To keep this from happening again, I wore the watch more loosely when I wasn’t running.

Setup and Interface

The Runsense SF-110 requires quite a bit of setup. After charging, the watch asks you to enter your language, units of measurement (miles or kilometers), height, weight, date of birth, the current data, and the date format.

All that’s before you even set the time. As with the Runsense SF-810, the SF-110 requires a GPS signal in order to set the time. While this will provide an accurate time reading, it also means you may have trouble setting the time on the SF-110 while indoors.

The SF-110 comes with a set of instructions to walk users through charging the device, pairing it to a smartphone, installing the Epson Run Connect software or setting up the watch to track steps.

The instructions are helpful, as the watch interface isn’t intuitive. To start a workout, for example, you hit the Menu/Lap button, scroll down to Workout and then hit the Set/Display button to start searching for a GPS signal. To view data, you must hit the Menu/Lap, scroll to Recall and then scroll to Workout.

Performance

On both sunny and cloudy days, in both rural and urban settings, the SF-110 picked up a GPS signal quickly — before I’d even finished my pre-run stretches, in fact. If the SF-110 fails to pick up a signal within 2 minutes, the watch display will read, “Failed,” and you have to try again. Navigating back and forth on the watch interface does add steps, but it beats looking on as your watch battery dies while the device tries to get a GPS signal for 45 minutes.

The Epson Run Connect app is without a doubt the SF-110’s biggest shortcoming.

In the middle of a run, hitting Stop will change the display from dark text on a light background to white text on a dark background. I liked this feature, until I realized that you can easily invert the display. It could also be disconcerting if you’re used to a watch that shows a Pause symbol when you hit Stop in the middle of a run.

Once a run is finished, you can upload data from the SF-110 to your smartphone or computer. The computer is a much easier option. To sync the watch with your smartphone (in my case, a Samsung Galaxy S5), you must navigate to the Bluetooth screen on the watch: Menu/Lap > Smartphone > Connect. What’s more, you must do this every time you sync the watch to the phone, and not just on initial setup. This gets frustrating quickly.

The SF-110 itself does not include a heart rate monitor, but it will connect to Bluetooth-enabled chest straps such as the Polar HRM. The SF-110 is 5 BAR water-resistant and can be worn for shallow water swimming. Epson recommends against wearing the watch while diving and against pressing the watch’s buttons while it is underwater.

App

The Epson Run Connect app is without a doubt the SF-110’s biggest shortcoming.

Take viewing data from your latest workout. You select View Workout Data from the main menu, then Workout and then select your most recent workout. That’s three navigations to find a piece of information that should be front and center. In the process, you bypass Trekking Results (which, by default, is blank and can’t even be used with SF-series watches) and Target data (which is also blank by default and requires you to set mileage targets).

When you eventually get to a workout, Run Connect will display a map of your route, a graph of your pace and a breakdown of information by lap (split time, pace per lap and even calories burned per lap). This is great information; it’s just buried in too many menus.

The Web version of Run Connect is very similar to the mobile app in navigation and information availability. In most cases, this type of unified user experience is a good thing; in the case of Run Connect, though, it’s a bad thing.

The app did two other strange things. First, when uploading workout data, Run Connect didn’t number the runs in chronological order — my most recent run was “workout 10,” while “workout 19” was the first run in the last batch of 10 that I uploaded at the same time. Second, it used a different date format, time format and unit of measurement than the ones I initially set on the watch. I had to go to App Settings to change all that.

The SF-110 can transfer data to popular running apps such as MapMyRun, Runkeeper and Strava. If you use the SF-110, pair it with one of these other apps instead of the Epson app.

Battery Life

Out of the box, the SF-110 took 3 hours to charge. Epson said the watch supports seven days of fitness tracking and 10 hours of GPS recording when the device is on. Conveniently, the watch shuts itself off when not in use.

Photo: Epson After about 3 hours of GPS recording over four days, the battery was down to 40 percent. Since I also had to sync the watch data to my computer, I charged the SF-110 for an hour before going to the office, and the battery was back up to 80 percent.

As with other Epson watches, the SF-110 comes with a bulky charging cradle. On a small desk, this cradle can take up quite a bit of space. This is a shame, because connecting to the computer to upload watch data is much easier than using Bluetooth to connect to a smartphone. More often than not, I charged the SF-110 by plugging the cradle’s USB into a standard charger on the floor instead of a laptop.

Step Tracking

The SF-110 can also be set up to track steps. This is helpful for anyone who doesn’t want to wear a step tracker plus a watch on every run.

After a few days of wearing the SF-110 consistently, I had small cuts on my wrist.

Once step tracking is set up, hitting the Set/Display button brings up activity data: steps, calories burned and miles covered. There’s also a progress bar that tracks how close you are to hitting your daily step target (the default is 10,000).

The SF-110’s step tracker is pretty accurate. On my walk to the grocery store, the watch measured 500 steps as 476; 350 steps as 357; and 500 steps as 498. Unlike a lot of wrist-based activity trackers, tasks such as washing dishes or folding laundry didn’t count as “steps.” Just loosen the watch if you plan to wear it for long-term step tracking.

Bottom Line

As with the SF-810, the Epson Runsense SF-110 is a good no-frills watch with bad software. The device finds a GPS signal quickly, collects good running and step-tracking data, and lasts a long time on a charge.

Unfortunately, the SF-110 suffers from the poor design of the Epson Run Connect app, which isn’t intuitive in the browser or on the smartphone. While you can send data from the SF-110 to other running apps, the smart design of the Fitbit, Garmin, and TomTom apps shows that, in 2016, it’s not too much to expect a watchmaker to know software as well as hardware.

Get This Garmin Instead

Available from Epson for $139, the SF-110 is $20 more than the Garmin Forerunner 15. The Garmin watch is a bit bulkier, and it’s not Bluetooth-enabled, but Garmin Connect is much easier to use than Epson Run Connect and also connects to the larger Garmin user community. If you’re in the market for a low-cost GPS watch, we recommend the Forerunner 15 over the Runsense SF-110.

Traditionally, Polar’s products have been intended for serious fitness fans, triathletes and bikers. Part of the company’s ethos was an insistence that to properly measure an athlete’s heart rate, the only accurate method was to use a chest strap that directly monitors the electrical impulses of the heart. But improvements in optical sensors—and the growing popularity of wrist bands like those from Fitbit—prompted the company to offer its own wrist-bound fitness tracker with a built-in heart rate monitor, the $199 A360.

Polar has done a generally excellent job, packaging an accurate, helpful fitness device into a watch that’s thinner and more comfortable to wear than competitors such as the Garmin vivosmart HR. There are only two downsides: the Polar A360 doesn’t measure running distances and its wristband can be tricky to secure.

Design

The Polar A360 has a color TFT LCD display that’s impressively legible in a variety of lighting conditions. Its 1.06 x 0.51-inch screen is larger than that of either the Fitbit Charge HR or Garmin vivosmart HR. The added real estate helps to reveal additional data so that, with a swipe on the touch screen, you can check your day’s progress, your heart rate or begin a training session (running, swimming, cycling, walking, weight training, group activity or other outdoor activity). The screen displays the time and date with remaining battery life whenever you shake your wrist.

Like other wrist-based fitness trackers, optical sensors on the underside of the A360 gauge your heart rate. The sensors measure your blood flow, and from that, the watch calculates a pulse rate. The A360’s sensors are slightly more flush with the bottom of the watch than those of the Garmin vivosmart HR, making it considerably more comfortable to wear. Better still, unlike just about every other fitness tracker, the Polar A360 uses a common micro USB port for charging, so you don’t have to remember to bring a separate, proprietary charger along with you wherever you go.

While I found the size and rubber band of the Polar A360 more comfortable than other fitness/activity trackers, I did have one gripe with the design. The Polar strap uses a loop-through band with a dual-pronged snap to hold it in place. Securely fastening it takes practice, and even after weeks of use, there were occasions when I discovered I had not properly clipped it in place, leaving it dangling in my sleeve.

After charging the watch, I also had some trouble resituating the watch housing, which can be snapped in or out of the rubber band. Last, I noted that the USB cover can easily be separated from the A360 and potentially misplaced.

Features

Unlike Fitbit’s Charge HR and to a degree Garmin’s vivosmart HR, the Polar A360 is not trying to be all things to all users. It does not have a built-in food/calorie intake counter, for example. And while it uses a Bluetooth connection to sync to iOS and Android smartphone apps, it’s not designed to handle phone calls or control your music like some smartwatch-oriented devices. It will deliver notifications about incoming texts and posts, but it doesn’t have built-in GPS, so runners looking to trace routes will have to rely on a paired smartphone.

The Polar A360 is intended to track your active states, follow your workouts and sporting activities, and accurately measure your heart rate. I tested it for several weeks, running, weight training and doing regular daily activities (including shoveling snow and hauling wood). It’s waterproof-rated to a depth of 30 meters (just shy of 100 feet), which means it will survive everything but scuba diving.

The watch itself will prompt you with vibrations and on-screen messages such as, “Time to move!” (which usually occurred after I’d been driving for over an hour without interruption). You can also use the watch to check calories burned and activity levels for the current day.

Activity and Sleep Tracking

While it cannot assess REM versus shallow sleep times, the Polar A360 accurately monitored total sleep duration. I found it comfortable enough to wear at night (although I still prefer removing it). The A360 is also intelligent enough to recognize that you’re lying down, so it won’t send you vibrating alerts to get up and move in the middle of the night.

The Polar A360 has a color display that’s larger than the Fitbit Charge HR and Garmin vivosmart HR.

In general, I found the A360 was accurate on walking distances, even if I did occasionally feel short changed (I walked more than 40 blocks one day — the equivalent of more than 2 miles — but only got credit for 1.7 miles). If you’re running on a treadmill, you’ll rack up zero miles, since the A360 doesn’t track running distance. As with most fitness trackers, the A360 also won’t automatically recognize that a training session, like cycling or running, has started. You have to initiate and end them by tapping on the appropriate on-screen icon on the watch.

Heart Rate Accuracy

To check the Polar A360’s heart rate monitor’s accuracy, I tested it under a wide variety of conditions against several other devices I knew to be accurate. I compared the A360 to an older Mio Alpha, a Garmin vivosmart HR, a Pear chest strap monitor, and even a pressure cuff blood pressure/pulse rate device, the Panasonic EW-BW30.

For a wrist-based heart rate monitor, the Polar A360 did an excellent job. In all instances, it was within a few beats per minute of the other devices. The A360 can display your pulse in real time, even during strenuous workouts that generate a lot of perspiration. It did tend to take a few seconds to get an accurate reading and often lagged behind the Mio Alpha by a couple of beats at peak heart rate times. Otherwise, during periods of rest, it matched the measurements taken by the pressure cuff Panasonic blood pressure and heart rate device.

Syncing and Mobile App

Syncing results from the watch to your smartphone is not automatic. But all you have to do is press the single side button on the band to sync it with the included smartphone app.

To fully analyze your activities, the Polar Flow app will record and track your status over time. A daily graphical dial shows your status as it relates to active and less active times. It’s a cute, but not terribly helpful infographic. Fortunately, directly below that is a traditional analog breakdown of your lying down, sitting, standing, walking and running times. Swipe down and you’ll find a bar measuring your progress toward your daily goal, the number of calories burned, steps taken and suggestions about how to meet your goal that day. Most of the ideas border on the humorous, such as 4 hours and 14 minutes of dish washing, or bowling for 1 hour and 31 minutes.

Credit: Samuel Rutherford / Tom’s GuideLike others of its ilk, the Polar A360 delivered typical words of encouragement. “Congratulations!” often popped up on the screen along with a trophy icon at the end of a day. “Wow. A lot of activity. You did not sit for very long which will help you to stay healthy,” was a typical post at the end of the day. (Of course, it also meant that because I wasn’t sitting for long I didn’t get much work done that day.) Other days, the app was less sanguine: “You were sitting for quite a few hours. Try to break it up tomorrow.”

I found the weekly calendar view in the app the most helpful because it pinpoints the times of day you tend to be too sedentary.

The Polar Flow app also allows you to flip back to previous days or look at weekly or monthly charts. I found the graphs to be a little cramped, even on the large LG V10. To really get an idea of how you’re progressing, Polar delivers all the information automatically to a free online portal, where you’ll find more activity scores that rank sleep, sitting, walking and running. I discovered what I already suspected: I don’t sleep enough, I sit for too long, but my running boosts my score overall.

There are monthly, daily and weekly views, with time spent exercising, sleeping and remaining sedentary. I found the weekly calendar view the most helpful, because it pinpoints the times of day you tend to be too sedentary, contrasted with the best or most convenient times for you to exercise.

Battery Life

Assessing battery life on fitness trackers depends a lot on what kind of activity you’re involved in, how often you toy with the screen data when you’re bored and how often you sync the watch to your phone. Polar states that the A360’s battery can last for “up to 2 weeks,” but I found real-world results fell considerably short of the maximum.

During the first few days, when I tended to play more with the A360’s features, I found the device lasted for about 48 hours before I had to plug it in. After the novelty wore off and it became part of my daily routine, the A360 could go for about four days between charges. That’s about a day or so less than the typical battery life of the Garmin vivosmart HR and Fitbit Charge HR.

Bottom Line

The $199 Polar A360 is comfortable, waterproof, accurately measures your heart rate in real time and delivers helpful information about exercise, sleep and periods of rest. The screen is possibly the easiest to read among comparably priced fitness watches, and it’s svelte enough for women to wear without discomfort.

On the other hand, runners will be disappointed that the Polar A360 lacks distance tracking. Our favorite fitness tracker remains the Garmin vivosmart HR, which doesn’t have a color display, but costs $50 less and offers more features. But the Polar A360 brings a lot to the table.