12WBT’s Fitness Lead, aka Fit Tim, road tests the new TomTom Touch and Tom Tom Spark Cardio – and gives his verdict!
TomTom Touch
Having trialled and reviewed dozens of trackers over the past 20 years, the TomTom Touch instantly impressed me with its clever band design: it simply won’t fall off, which is a feature often overlooked by competitors.
The double-pronged band keeps it secure, which is necessary if you’re going to track your steps for longer than a week.
Now onto the functions. The TomTom has the ability to:
- Measure my heart rate during training without the usual restrictive chest strap
- Test my body fat without me paying $100 or searching for a DEXA machine
- Tell me how many calories I burn
- Tell me how long I actually slept for
- An unexpected bonus? It also alerted me when I received a text message!
The touch screen technology allowed me to see all of my stats by swiping left or right.
My verdict? It’s the perfect tracker to keep you accountable, with plenty of handy extras you never knew you needed.
TomTom Spark Cardio + Music
The TomTom Spark was certainly different to all the other trackers I’ve used over the years.
First, I could listen to my podcasts from my watch without the need for any wifi.
Second, the wireless headphones were awesome. Once charged, both the watch and headphones were good for the entire week.
Other great features include:
- The watch can store over 3GB or 500 songs or podcasts. Once you’re done listening to these 500 you can easily remove playlists or podcasts and swap new ones in
- The continuous heart rate monitoring and customisable sports tracking is good as I run, swim and lift weights, so the calorie-tracking is more accurate
- The wireless syncing is always good as it saves me time and energy
- I usually use the app to get the full updates but you can also see your daily and weekly steps with a couple of swipes to the right
My verdict? This is by far the most accurate and handy tracker to have, especially if you do more than one activity when working out. I like to leave my phone at home or in the office when I train, so this is a great way to listen to music without getting distracted by email!
