Customer Reviews

Garmin FR60 Black Fitness Watch Bundle (Includes Foot Pod, Heart Rate Monitor, and USB ANT Stick)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I Purchased the Garmin FR60 Bundle W/ Foot pod to Help me learn run pacing and for Triathlon Training. My old HRM just gave up but the chest strap works still works with most of the equipment at the gym without the watch. But there is no need since I have the FR60 but there are some "Issues" to deal with first. The Look and function is very good. However since I'm new to Garmin the menu's took a little getting used to and programing was a little bit difficult, but from what I've heard this is typical. Once you do get the menus down it's very intuitive and similar to other models they offer. The other reason I picked the Garmin unit is the Manufactures of other HRM's in this price range had non replaceable batteries. IE you had to send them back to the factory to be replaced. This is something I really wasn't fond of since I use mine daily. This unit fits nicely on the wrist and can be used as a "Sport Watch" and no-one would know you a Workoutaholic if they didn't know you.

Packaged in the box were the Owners manual and Watch, Foot-pod, HRM-Strap, USB Ant+ stick. There is no software to speak of since it's self loading on the Ant+ Stick. You also need to set up an account with Garmin to download your data and analyze it. BEWARE: Firmware Updates will erase your data and settings on the watch and they need to be set back up!!! There is no Off-line option to review your data :-(. This means you upload your data to Garmin then re-download it in Excel or TCX format then upload it into a training website like Training Peaks(Online) or Sport Tracs(Stand Alone Runs Offline). Granted it takes only a few minutes to do but is a little bit of a pain. Also when uploading you have the option to leave the data on your watch for you to review or when the download is completed the workout date is erased. It takes a little bit of faith to let your data go. When setting up your account you can set up your Heart Rate zones based on age and resting Heart Rate. You can add as many zones as you see fit. For Simplicity I just use 5, now when you look at your data though the amount of time in each zone is not displayed on the website on your HR Graph. The graph look really good but the only data given is Avg HR, Max HR. It would be nice if the time in each Zone was given as well. My old HRM(Which was $40) displayed these with times and % in zones on the watch and didn't need to upload the data. Other data that is Give is Workout Time, Avg Speed/Pace, Max Speed/Pace, Avg Cadence, Max Cadence. All good Data that is essential for training/racing purposes.

For Running the Foot Pod Sensor tracks steps, pacing and speed very accurately out of the box. Pick a spot on your shoes to mount the sensor and pair the device with your FR60, I did a test run at the track and it was spot on after a 1 mile test run. You can either adjust the stride length automatically or manual adjust. There are supposed to be shoe on the market that the Foot-pod will mound directly into the sole under the shoe insert. I believe Nike makes one. Mounting in the laces are just fine for me. The advantage the FR60 has is It can be used indoors without a GPS signal. The combination of the Foot-Pod and HRM gives you very accurate Calorie data when running of a treadmill. I have found that most treadmills are off speed wise to the FR60, for example I warm-up at 10:00 indicated pace on the treadmill and my FR60 shows anywhere from a 9:20-9:35. No a big deal since I'm logging the information for later retrieval.

Since I Cycle I use the GSC-10 Speed and Cadence Sensor for my Bicycle. Same setup as the Foot-Pod with regard to pairing. This can be used indoors as well during winter months on Stationary Fluid Trainer or Rollers to track speed and distance. The downside is NO FREAKING Odometer!!!!!!! what was Garmin Thinking. You get everything else, Distance, Current Speed, Calories, Avg/Max Speed, Avg/Max Cadence, Time, Lap/Distance/Time/AvgSpeed/MaxSpeed/LapCalories, blah blah blah... I had to add my old Speed sensor back to the front wheel to capture Overall ODO distance.

Functionality: The FR60 is pretty easy to set up once you figure out the page layout and logic. You get your data input(AGE, HEIGHT, WEIGHT, ACTIVITY Class(read the manual for this one) into the devise under SETTINGS/USER. After pairing your footpod and Speed/Cadence sensor, You can then set up your "TRAINING PAGES" This is where the FR60 really shines. You can take all the data collected from either your Run/Bike/Other and display up to 3 pieces of data on the screen and have 5 pages to display the data. You can have one screen for Time only and another for Distance and Pace then another for Heart Rate, HR Zone, Calories and so one. If only One line of info is displayed it fits almost the entire screen and gets smaller from there. the Dot Matrix LCD Screen is fairly easy to read at a glace either running or biking.

The FR60, HR Chest Sensor, Foot-pod are all waterproof to 3 Meters so they can be worn during the swim portion of Triathlons or during off road runs that cross creeks or during Steeplechase events. I've worn mine during the swim of a sprint Triathlon. For Triathlon the F60 is not Tri Friendly meaning you cannot change sports easy. I just set it up in Other and Just Press Lap during transitions in and out. Since I'm only concerned with overall time and HR. The FR60 can be set up to scan for Pods so it will pick up either sensor when you press the lap button during T1 or T2. If your set on sport specific Timing press and hold the MODE button and you can then change sports.

I thought about this a lot. I read probably 100 reviews of all the GPS trainers and this watch. I am incredibly happy. I run and I row. I wanted an accurate pace and heart rate for zone training. This watch has been perfect. The calibration was important for me. I ran un-calibrated and it was probably 30 meters off over 800. Not bad but after calibration it is scary accurate. Over a mile it was within 3 feet. You can also find some great information from dcrainmakers blog but he did a 7 mile cross country run and the 310xt and fr60 had the exact same distance. So I don't know why people had problems with accuracy. I think it might be they didn't calibrate or didn't do it correctly. I could also be that the pod was not in the laces tight enough. I don't think I lost any accuracy from not getting the GPS watch or if I did the ability to use a treadmill is ample compensation. Ok so I thought about how cool it would be to see where I went on the map from a GPS watch, but I don't really care. I'm looking to improve my run from the data. I'm not going to show my kids one day that I ran down the same beach a thousand times. Who cares. The other big benefit is realtime pace. It seams spot on. I really need to know how fast I'm going so I can predict whats going to happen to my HR. From using this I've really been able to see things and train in ways I never could have before.

The heartrate functions are what you would expect. They simply work. No surprise there.

The Ant stick is awesome. I walk up to my computer the watch beeps and a few seconds later my data is up. Much better than having to type it or even syncing an Ipod sorry Nike but your website sucks. Its slow, the first page shows and almost useless graph. Garmin's site is all business. Its easy to use. Is it perfect? Of course not, but I haven't been frustrated once using it. I would recommend you follow the directions for the ant stick and have a workout in the watch and the software downloaded before you plug it in. I use a mac and it worked great.

The watch is really normal looking. You would never know it was a training watch. It's water resistant. You can hop in the shower and not have to worry. You can even go in the pool but your not supposed to use the buttons underwater.

Ease of use... Well its easy if you read the manual, and watch the videos. If you think your going to take full advantage of the watch just by fiddling with it your probably wrong. It can do so many things that it has a fairly large set of menus but they are very logically laid out.

For rowing I use the General mode and just collect heart data. It works perfectly. Don't be afraid of this watch. If you are looking for a normal appearance watch that you can wear all day and train with when time allows and not have to worry if you charged it or left it at home. This watch is great. I leave it on work, workout, live life and don't think about it. Its just there at the end of my arm and my data is always updated on my computer.

I have been a long time owner/user of the Polar Speed and Distance running gear. I've owned the S625, RS200SD, RS400SD and most recently, the RS800CX RUN. They all worked well and did what I wanted them to do...give me real-time pace information as well as heart rate and average heart rate. In the case of the RS800, the cadence information was useful to me also. The biggest issue I have with Polar is their lack of Mac software. I've waited for years for this feature, and when I saw the Garmin FR60, and took a good look at the specs, I decided to give one a try. The FR60 does everything I want just as well as the Polar RS800CX, and costs less than half as much. The pacing and distance info are every bit as accurate as the Polar (both needed to be calibrated), and the heart rates I am seeing look identical to what I was getting with the same track workouts. The display is, in my opinion, a bit easier to read than the Polar, and the UI for the settings and exercises is much more intuitive. The Garmin foot-pod is significantly smaller than the Polar S3, and although I have not weighed it, I'll bet it's half the weight. I do think the Polar chest strap is more comfortable than the Garmin version.
Finally, the software runs on OSX, and it is simple to upload workouts. If you're looking for a speed & distance heart rate set-up, that will give you accurate real-time pace and cadence (none of the GPS units are very good at this), consider the Garmin FR60....if not, check out my RS800CX on ebay.

Update February 2011: After six months, the small strap band that holds the band end broke. This is annoying, but can be mitigated with duct tape or small strips of Velcro. Then, 9 months after purchase the main band broke but luckily JUST after the notch where I cinch it so I can still wear it. To put this in context: this is exactly the two failures I had with the old FR50, which had those failures in the first year. Perusing Garmin's web forums, other users have had the bands break regularly. Now, I'm sorry, I've had watches for 30 years of my life, and this is the ONLY brand that has had bands basically fall apart. Casios don't. Timexes don't. The watch is great (review is next) but Garmin seems incapable of making the band durable. For that reason, I've downed my review by an additional star.

The Review:
Having had the FR50 (just OK, watch band breaks after a year, not enough data storage, annoying buttons that press and erase things when you stretch or do pushups, light that doesn't stay on long enough, etc), Garmin has made many an improvement with this version. Several others have reviewed this actual item, so I'll simply say that if you are an FR50 user and are frustrated by many of its shortcomings, the FR60, while no model of perfection, is a giant leap forward. Giant.

Also note that you'll enjoy it a lot more if you read and re-read the manual and play with the screens a lot; you want to be familiar with how it works, how to calibrate (I do it manually) the footpod, how to play with the data, etc.

Lastly, the [...] website has gotten much, much better. Their Windows software product is now a bit lacking in capability, but the online stuff is getting reasonably good for those that actually know how to use their HR and pacing data.

EDIT - 27 Jun 2010 - I have now broken a 2nd rubber piece that holds the wrist strap in place. This is a really nice watch with great functionality, but I can no longer recommend a $150 watch with a strap that breaks so easily.

(My original review) This is a very nice HRM. I like the HR strap. It works very reliably. It synchs with my Garmin Edge 705. It's nice to be able to download my cycling data from the 705 along with my running and gym data from the FR60 to the same website and keep track of all my exercise data in 1 place. It is not too unsightly and I wear it as my "everyday" watch.

A HUGE PLUS and in my case, a decision maker - you can replace the battery on the FR60 watch yourself. My last HRM was a Polar and I had to send it in every few months for a new battery. It cost me $20 and a few weeks of having no HRM each time! I will never go back to Polar until they make the batteries replaceable.

A big negative - Many gyms do not yet have ANT+ exercise machines, so you can't "synch" to the machine like you can with a Polar.

I broke the rubber piece that holds the wrist strap in place after the clasping it. I contacted Garmin and you cannot buy a replacement for this part. My local watch shops didn't have anything for this purpose either. Garmin did offer to replace the entire watch, but I had lost my receipt. So, KEEP YOUR RECEIPT!

A piece of advice if you want to use it along with other Garmin products to update Garmin Connect. You need to log out of your Windows profile and then log back in to switch between devices. For some reason I can't upload from both devices back to back. So, I update from the FR60, log out of windows, and then log back in, connect my Edge 705, and it works perfectly.

After reading the reviews criticizing just the strap, I didn't worry because I was buying this HRM to monitor my heart rate while I ran, plus I wanted to monitor my mileage and calories burned. I was so looking forward to having this watch for years.
The set up was a pain in the neck, as the sync took about 6 tries for the computer to finally find it. Once on the road, I ran several courses with the FR60 on roads I knew 100% the real distance. The FR60 was off by sometimes 1/4 of a mile on some runs. Not the deal breaker though for me, I bought it for the heart rate monitor.
Although the watch showed the little heart symbol, it never showed me my actual heart rate. I've noticed that others in the Garmin forum have had the same problem. The FR60 would report what my heart rate was AFTER I was done, so the chest strap was working (I made sure there was some moisture between the strap and my skin as instructed).
One very cool thing about this watch, is that when I walked into my computer room it would automatically sync up with Garmin.com and upload my information about my calories burned,miles(!), and my average, highs and low heart beat. If you are looking for a nice looking watch that gives you a rough estimate of how far you ran, and a rough estimate of your calories burned, and an after run review of your heart rate, this watch is for you. Another small minus, although not a deal breaker, is the back light. The back light is so weak, I had to hit the light button several times to make sure it was working.

(UPDATE) - One year and 3 months in. My strap stay broke - not the strap itself but the rubber thing holds the excess strap. I just contacted Garmin Support so we'll see how that gets worked out. I've seen a few reviews that aren't encouraging on that front.

After about a year of use, the battery died in both the watch and the foot pod. I got a lifetime battery replacement plan for the watch for about $16 from Batteries Plus. The foot pod can be changed without help so I spent about $4 on a couple replacement batteries. Everything works fine now.

(ORIGINAL REVIEW) I've had the Garmin FR60 for almost 6 months now. The main things I was looking for were: (1) Distance tracking, (2) Pace tracking, and (3) Features to tell me if I'm going too fast, a beep indicator for interval training, etc. I had considered buying one of the more expensive GPS watches from them, but I read several reviews that indicated the FR60 was at least "accurate enough" so for the price I was willing to give it a shot.

I love this thing. Although several people have stated that the accuracy of the foot pod is inconsistent, I've never had a problem in 6 months once I had calibrated it, and I've NOT been a consistent runner over long distances - I could go from a 7 min mile to an 11 min mile in 6 miles (hence my desire to have pace tracking). One of the places I run has every half mile marked with paint. At first (after calibration) I noticed that my watch was indicating '0.51' at the half mile marker and from '1.01' to '1.02' at the one mile marker. I figured 1-2% error was pretty good, but recently I realized that the "start line" on this trail was also marked at about 0.01 miles from where I was actually starting. So kudos - 0-1% accuracy.

Over longer distances, you may have some small error introduced, but honestly I'm not going to whine about running an extra 1/50 of a mile here and there. At a recent certified 5K race I took the FR60. At the finish line it said I had run 3.14 miles (I didn't start it until I was at the start line BTW).

You can set up Interval alerts by either time or distance for each - the interval and rest can both be distance, both be time, or one can be distance and one time. I also use the virtual partner. It'll tell you if you are ahead of or behind a set min/mile pace. I can set up alerts for if my pace is too high on longer runs. You can also set it up for high pace, distance, time, calories, HR, and cadence. I'm about to start using the cadence alerts to help me keep up a 90 spm cadence.

The Garmin Connect website has been great. It would be cool to see a few more features but they've been updating it periodically. They can always update software so that the website has more bells an whistles.

If you're really interested in the HR monitor, you might want to look into that before you buy. I don't bother with it most of the time, but I think it's showing my HR too high. I don't really keep an eye on HR, but occasionally I use it for relative tracking like if I want my zone at the last mile to be close to the zone I had on the second mile. But I have my doubts about it's absolute accuracy. I've seen "upgrade" HR monitors for sale that integrate with the FR60.

I'm giving it 5 stars b/c it's everything I was looking for. It's helped me be more consistent on my runs which has increased my run time overall. And I can take it to do a set distance at a new place without having to measure out a course. Some people say it's not very intuitive, but I have never had a problem with usability (caveat - I'm under 30, a lifelong tech geek, and a software developer with an electrical engineering degree).

I first purchased the Forerunner 305 only to find out it didn't track calories burned by heart rate alone so I ponied up for the FR60 thinking I would use it for weightlifting only. I was wrong!!! After using it a couple of times on the treadmill indoors I decided to take it outside. I have found it to be easier to use while running and more enjoyable due to the smaller size. Maybe, maybe, maybe if I did more trail running or running along routes I didn't know the 305 would have been better so I could retrace a route. Living in Richmond though and knowing most of the roads from driving I need time and distance (running and biking) plus the ability to go from the track to the weight room and not miss a beat or calorie, literally. The FR60 does that for me. Like I said "Every gym rat needs one." The 305 is great and if I only ran or biked outside it would fit the bill but I run indoors and out, lift weights and bike outdoors so I needed one piece of equipment capable of fulfilling all my needs and the FR60 is it. Side note, you will probably have to calibrate foot pod for best results.

It is a great device, with lots of flexibility.

Love that you can customize the screens so it shows what you care about, love the easy connection to my pc and Garmin connect online is pretty user friendly. Overall it is great and the price is good too. Giving it 3 stars since like someone else said the little band that holds the strap broke only after a year an a half.

Also had some issues with the memory, the watch would show memory full and could not delete the "history", only way to fix it was to reset the watch, but took me a while to figure this out and could only do so after going to online forums.

I bought the FR60 a week ago. had a couple of runs with it. The heart rate monitor works great so as the foot pod.
it syncs well with the computer and I could plot the workout in the training center software as well as on garmin connect. overall a good buy. much better than polar