I liked the Fossil Neutra and then saw it’s from Texas, so… My research started. A quick glace through a search engine didn’t return anything… Hence, I’m asking you
Polar and withings are the only ones left. Polar has better biometrics tracking. Withings is a style brand. A guy does a to. of comprehensive heart rste comparisons with the Polar H10 gold standard ECG. He also now does sleep tracking correlations with EEG.
Sadly that is it. Some guys in India I believe just released an open source HealthyPi Move, which is getting closer.
You can also take the route of buying a supported watch by Gadgetbridge which at the very least will get rid of the data mining and constant location tracking of some non-EU smart watches.
Depending on budget and preferences.
The closest to your Fossil is probably Withings (French)
The two most serious brands for sport watches Polar and Suunto (both Finnish)
Of you want something more affordable that looks reasonable, you can look at Nothing/CMF.
At least some of the Withings and Nothing CMF are compatible with Gadgebridge, an open source alternative to the manufacturer’s apps.
In May 2022, Chinese technology company Liesheng acquired Suunto from Amer Sports. So suunto is unfortunately not Finnish anymore :(
Thanks for bringing it up, Suunto still gets mentioned a lot.
I wouldn’t mind a bot commenting basic info on companies’ whenever they’re mentioned. It’s a lot of work to spread the same info from thread to thread.
Withings, sadly has absolutely horrific heart rate tracking. This guy does correlation tests with the Polar H10 (skip to the graphs).
And I say this whenever this comes up in this sub.
Nothing is European in name only. They only have UK marketing. They have american investors, a shady CEO with a history of lying about his companies (oneplus “starup” BBK controversy anyone?) and everything is designed, coded, manufactured, tested, etc… in China.
They have started to maybe hire some people to possibly take over a bit of the phone design in the future in London, but the smartwatch is 100% a Chinese product. It even looks exactly like the standard ODM smart watches from the dozen Chinese companies that make all of the generic smart watches that get rebranded.
I am big Garmin fan. I love my Fenix 6. But this model has no touch screen (what is a pro point in my world). They also have models with touchscreen: https://www.garmin.com/de-DE/c/wearables-smartwatches/
Garmin is a Swiss company, but their operative headquarters are located in the US. So… not sure if its really a European company.
At some point we should have a serious discussion about what does it even mean to be a European company, to put in focus a common idea, even if it has blurry edges and if it doesn’t translate neatly in all situations.
We’re discussing smartwatches, and Suunto gets shut down for being headquartered and operated from Finland BUT owned by a Chinese holding.
At the same time Garmin is a Swiss corporation, but run from Kansas, so that’s not European.
And all all all smartwatches are made in China anyway. Maybe I should make a post.
Based on its Wikipedia page, it seems it is only Swiss in the sense that it is legally located in Switzerland since 2010. It was founded in Kansas and its operational HQ is in Kansas.
I was planning on getting Garmin this year, but considering other options now.
For what it’s worth, I absolutely LOVE my Garmin Instinct 2s, whether it’s yank tech or not.
The user experience manages to be really good even without a touch screen, the tracking is very very good, and it works extremely well with Gadgetbridge.
That last point was what attracted me to one of these watches in the first place. I really want to avoid having to have any account with anyone and to store any data on any remote servers. I plan to use any data from it in my “own personal Strava”. For now I use a cheap Xiamoi wristband connected to Gadgetbridge for HR-monitoring and FitoTrack on my phone for GPS.
Are you me 8 months ago? I was using Mi Band 8 while looking at maybe eventually buying a Garmin Instinct type watch. Then the Xiaomi died during a quick swim in the sea in early october and I pulled the trigger on the Instinct 2S solar.
The Garmin is great, it’s so superior to the Xiaomi in literally everything that it’s not even funny.
So you have a difficult choice, between European (Polar) at the cost of having to use their App, or Gadgetbridge, and then Garmin is really the best choice by far from almost any angle.
So you have a difficult choice, between European (Polar) at the cost of having to use their App
Well, seeing as this is a non-starter for me, Polar is out of the question. Seeing as we are in the Buy European-community, I’ll rationalize it by the fact that I am avoiding their app which is probably running on American cloud infrastructure. :)
I plan to still use my Mi Band 7 for tracking HR outside of activites. But it is acting up a little - screen sometimes won’t turn on, and I have to either connect it to a charger or use the “Find device”-option in Gadgetbridge. We’ll see how long it lasts, I’ve been using it for two years so far. Ideally I would have a band with no screen that just records data that I can view in Gadgetbridge / my own setup, but I’ve never been able to find that (which again would work with Gadgetbridge).
First time I hear about Garmin being referred to as a Swiss company - what’s your source? AFAIK, they’re American though and through.
“Garmin Ltd. is a Swiss[7] company headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland[2] with operational headquarters in Olathe, Kansas.”
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmin
So, its a faky Swiss company, but… yeah.
Interesting! Meanwhile, in the English version: “Garmin Ltd. is an American multinational technology company based in Olathe, Kansas.”
I really like my Garmin. I would love to find a source that breaks down how they operate and how European they could be considered being.
I hope my current Fenix lasts long enough for me to find a good alternative. Open source and locally managed data would be great but consumer friendly alternatives have quite a way to go still.
Oh man, do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and saviour Gadgetbridge?
It’s an open source, 100% local Android app that can be used to replace vendor app for certain wearables. And it works really well with my Garmin Instinct 2s.
You can keep your Fenix going, and cut out the American server.
Thanks - I’ll keep it in mind if I switch to Android at some point in the future!
So…
Thanks everyone. Gadgetbridge is a nice way to find ‘ethical’ models, regardless of brands. Will dive a lot on their website… In the meantime, I want to share an interesting model from Hama (Germany)…
Check out ONE, its a Portuguese brand: https://www.onewatchcompany.com/
This page lists a bunch of brands you could look into, can’t recommend something in particular since what I have myself is also American.
Can’t speak about their smartwatches but the Polar heart rate chest strap I have is a total piece of crap that I haven’t gotten to work once, mainly because they cheaped out on actually putting some sort of switch in there to turn it on and instead you need to somehow hope it picks up on the fact that it is on your body and enables bluetooth on its own. All while not having a proper rechargable battery. Oh, and you need to make sure the sensor contact with the skin is a bit wet too while you are at it.
I have used many such chest straps, and that applies to all of them.
And I’m sorry it doesn’t work for you, but my Polar H10 works. Which is now a decade old because I can replace the battery, instead of having a built in rechargeable battery that makes the whole thing disposable…
Good point about replaceable batteries having a positive side in that regard.
I’ve used a Polar H10 extensively and am very happy with it. The specific model is hands down the best regarded hrm for accuracy. It’s the only model I have experience with so I don’t know whether other / older models are equally reliable. (Apart from the H9 which is basically the same device with a different strap)
On the off chance this helps:
The strap is switched on when the module is connected to the strap. It’s switched off when you disconnect at least one of the connectors.
Initial pairing should be done with the Polar Flow app with your phone. You can manage the strap’s settings from there and see the battery status among other things. E.g. turn ANT+ and bluetooth on or off.
Yes, it’s supposed to connect to your sportswatch automatically when you strap it around your chest. At least if you’ve paried them. For my fenix you do this from settings “add sensor”.
Iirc I get “sensor battery low” notifications on my watch. It’s hard to remember because the battery lasts such a long time (even when on a marathon training cycle). It’s been a while since I’ve had ro change it. Not that I wouldn’t prefer a rechargeable device.
The H10 is precisely the one I am talking about. I did use that app and could barely get it to show up a few times for 30s in the app in several hours of trying with dozens of times of removal and re-pairing before I gave up in disgust.
Interesting. Only options that come to mind are a faulty device or inefficient contact between the strap and skin. During colder months I wet my fingers under the tap and swipe the strap and my chest before putting it on. Otherwise it would take ages to build enough sweat for reliable contact during my run.
I mean it could be other things too but those are a bit harder to diagnose. Well apart from using the wrong battery (many fit but the slimmer ones don’t stay put).
I’m pretty confident swapping it under the warranty would probably have fixed the situation. Don’t know if that’s still an option for you.
I suspect from other comments I found about it online that it is a design that fundamentally does not take the existence of body hair into account, much like pretty much all the other details about the device are flawed (no indicator if it is on or battery indicator, no rechargeable battery, no switch to turn it on, difficult to put on and take off, reliance on wet skin,…). People also reported it cutting out after 30-40 minutes of use. I have no real interest in babysitting a device while I am exercising, especially one that literally has one job.
You sound like someone who’s never used a HRM before. Chest straps are simply the HRM design that’s been around the longest, and is the most accurate and responsive.
All chest straps have exactly the same limitations if they don’t work for you or your use case I’m sorry to hear that. You bought the wrong product, and a different vendor would have made no difference at all.
Just wash it well and resell it on eBay, I’m sure you can recoup a good fraction of your loss.
By now also the LED based readings, which you get from either a wristwatch or an armband seem to have reached a decent level of performance, so that may serve you better.
You seem to be unfortunate enough not to be in its target demographic but that doesn’t make it flawed.
As electrical conductivity is essential for the proper function of this hrm strap as much as it is with any other model or brand, it hardly makes it the problem of this specific device. Hair, dry skin, it’s the same problem and has to do with how the technology works on these kinds of straps.
Furthermore none of the features you mention, from a physical power button to a battery indicator exist in any hrm strap I’ve seen. In other words you would regard a similar strap from any other brand equally as bad.
Why should it rely on electric current then? Because compared to measuring heart rate optically, it’s far more accurate. They also work much more reliably under water.
As to the cut outs you mention, that is simply anecdotal and in this instance third hand information. Not to say it’s not true, just saying it’s impossible to put something like that into perspective. There are faults with all devices and without reliable statistics of return rates or failures it’s not particularly fruitful to form a view based on that kind of evidence.
In all fairness, perhaps using the in-built optical hrm on your watch just is the best option for you.
There’s also armband hrms which are optical but iirc somewhat more reliable than wrist based ones. For instance the Polar Verity Sense and OH 1. They even have rechargeable batteries and a physical button.
