Gadgetory

Epson you know that company that's known for its printers and scanners they're the latest company to enter the wearable market with a line of running watches and activity trackers I'm dan Graziano and I'm here with the Epson run sense SF 810 this isn't a SmartWatch it's not an activity tracker but rather a GPS equipped running watch not only can you measure your pace and distance when running but you can also measure your beats per minute the best part is that you don't have to wear one of those uncomfortable chest straps thanks to the optical heart rate sensor on the back of the watch I compared the heart rate sensor to a polar chest strap and found the results to be nearly identical which is quite impressive I was also impressed with how accurate the GPS tracking was which was on par if not better than competing products from Garmin and polar what I liked the most about the watch was the amount of data it presented the sfa 10 features 35 different data points that you can pick and choose to display across four customisable screens which gives you the option of displaying one two or three lines of data points on each I was also impressed with the battery life with both the active GPS signal and heart rate tracking turned on it will last 20 hours this is compared to 10 hours on the similar equipped Garmin Forerunner 225 overall I got about 2 weeks of usage out of the SF 810 before I was required to charge it during this time I used the GPS and heart rate sensor for around 30 to 40 minutes four to five times a week it's also a good thing you don't have to charge it often because doing so requires you connected to the mammoth-sized charging cradle which can be a huge pain to carry around now I did run into some issues when attempting to acquire GPS signal in New York City Epson has an assisted GPS feature which will pre cache your location on your watch using your smart phone but even with this enabled the watch would take longer than the Garmin Forerunner 225 and polar m4 100 even on some days it just couldn't get a signal I was also turned off by Epsons runs connect mobile app it's one of the worst things about using the SF 810 not only is the upload process slow and at times unreliable but overall navigation through the menu is met with loading icons and frequent delays there's also no automatic syncing you're instead required to hold the lap button to initiate sync mode and then manually upload each run the sfa 10 is a bit pricey as well in the US that will run you $350 that's $50 more than the Garmin Forerunner 225 which has heart rate tracking and adds all-day activity tracking but the sfa 10 could still be an appealing purchase simply for the accurate tracking and the impressive battery life for more information check out my full review over at cnn.com I'm Dan graziano frisina and that was a first look of the Epson run sense SF 810