Seven impressions from running with the Moto 360 Sport (hands-on) – CNET

Motorola’s fitness-focused smartwatch, the Moto 360 Sport, arrived at our office this week. The watch is available now in the UK for £219 and will arrive in the US on January 7 for $299.

We will have a full review with extensive testing in early January, but in the meantime I wanted to share with you some early impressions.

Hands-on with the Moto 360 Sport (pictures)
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GPS signal is acquired fast

The Moto 360 Sport is only the second Android Wear watch to include GPS (the first being the underwhelming Sony Smartwatch 3). This allows it to track pace and distance when running without the need for your smartphone.

The GPS signal was acquired in less than a minute in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It pinged my location a few seconds faster than the Garmin Forerunner 630 (another watch I am testing), which is quite impressive given Garmin’s experience in the industry.

Tracking needs more testing

It can be difficult to test GPS running watches in New York City. The tall buildings make it hard to keep a strong signal. The Moto 360 Sport never lost the GPS signal during my first two runs, but it jumped around quite a bit. This affected the accuracy of both the pace and distance metrics, the latter of which was off by 0.10 of a mile.

The display is nice

The Moto 360 Sport is the first device to feature a display that combines a traditional backlit LCD screen (like those found on normal smartwatches and phones) with a front-lit reflective one. This helps the display remain visible even in direct sunlight. It’s quite impressive. I haven’t had any issues during my testing. It was bright and vibrant while inside and remained clear when I moved outside. Nice work, Moto.

One complaint I do have concerning the display, however, is that there is a weird warping effect along the edges. This is a problem I mentioned in my review of the normal Moto 360.

Battery life will be a problem

The battery will have to be charged daily. A 30 minute run with the GPS dropped it down to 85%. That’s a problem. While it’s unclear how long the battery will last with an active GPS signal, it seems to be in the 3 to 4 hour range (the Garmin lasts 16 hours with an active signal and up to 3 weeks in watch mode). I have reached out to Motorola for more information.

No physical buttons is frustrating

There’s a single button located in the two o’clock position, but its only function is to bring you back to the home screen. Everything is controlled by touch, which isn’t ideal for for running. You have to double tap the screen to pause the watch. It’s very frustrating and can be an awkward gesture to attempt mid-run.

No showering or swimming? C’mon

That’s right: You aren’t supposed to take the Moto 360 Sport in the shower or pool. Running watches from Garmin and Polar tend to carry a rating of 5 ATM, which is good for both swimming and showering.

For what it’s worth, I took the Moto 360 Sport in the shower and haven’t had any issues. It will likely be fine if you accidentally left it on once and awhile, but it’s best to take it off.

Missing features

The watch will automatically record each mile, but I haven’t found a way to manually record a lap or change the distance at which it automatically records one. That’s a letdown. The Moto 360 Sport also doesn’t include Auto Pause, which will pause the watch automatically when you stop running, a useful feature for routes with frequent stop lights.

After you complete a run, the watch displays plenty of data — time, distance, average pace, best pace, average BPM, max BPM, calories burned, calories burned per minute, different heart rate zones and how long you were in them, lap splits. It doesn’t estimate cadence (steps per minute) or measure elevations, which is odd given the specs sheet lists an altimeter.

A map of the run and various charts (heart-rate, calories burned, and pace) can be viewed in the MotoBody app on Android (it doesn’t seem to be available for iOS). The app can also share datas with Google Fit, Under Armour Record, MapMyRun, Strava, and Fitbit.