About to pull the trigger on a Garmin S10 GPS watch

monkeyboy · May 9, 2019

Anything else I should consider? Seems like it ticks most of my boxes. While I don't normally wear a watch, I kind of like the idea vs my current iPhone + free GPS app. I golf lefty but am right handed and it is a pain to remove my glove to fiddle with my phone, etc.

I want simple and easy, long battery life. No need for touch screen, extra health tracking. Fine to have some data to look at after the round. I really cannot see any benefit of the S20 over the S10? So why not go cheaper and it the battery wears out in 2-3 years - toss it vs a larger investment.

I like the idea of the S60, but I would not use most of the extra features (tempo tool is nice). Don't want to get frustrated fiddling with the watch on the course - probably could not see the screen well without my reading glasses either.

nupezb · May 10, 2019

I would go with the S20 over the S10.

I grabbed this rundown of the extra from a different website:

* Automatic shot detection and tracking. Keep track of your shots throughout your game, including distance and location. Note that the S20 may have difficulty tracking putts and chips.

* Smartphone notifications. With your phone tucked away in your bag or golf cart, you can go on with your round knowing that your watch will notify you if an important message comes through.

* Club tracking. You can monitor your club usage and your average distances for each. Simply note the club used after each shot, and the watch will apply the distance.

* AutoShot round analyzer. Through Garmin Connect, you can get comprehensive tracking for all of your shots, distances, and locations. Dive into your game data so you can see what needs to improve.

Stuart_G · May 11, 2019

> @nupezb said:

> I would go with the S20 over the S10.

In my experience (x40 and s60), Garmin shot tracking is not all it's cut out to be. The biggest issue is that it's only really designed to detect full swing in any reliable manor (and for me even that wasn't that reliable - but more on that in a moment). And if you think about it, that means if it's not detecting where you are putting or chipping from, the yardage info on the approach shots isn't going to be very accurate. You can manually add/correct the data online after you've uploaded it, but it really needs a manual on course entry mode for it to really be useful. Second it doesn't really allow you to account for wind, temp, elevation changes, etc.. for the tracking. So it's not like you can actually use the information to really dial in your yardages.

Now for the full swing reliability, the x40 wasn't too bad but there can still be both missed shots and false positives (those can be edited post-round) but I had a lot more problems with the s60. I suspect it has to do with a couple things. First of all, it seems to assume that a swing is going to be proceeded by a moment of inactivity - so I don't think it likes it when one has a fairly active pre-swing motion. I know pre-back swing activity confuses the tempo trainer in the s60 quite severely. For those that really can stay still for a moment before the back swing, this might not be an issue. Unfortunately for me, that's not really something I can or want to change in my swing. The second is that it is way too easy for the glove to inadvertently press the buttons on the s60. Those inadvertent button presses seem to possibly interrupt the shot detection. Haven't heard that being an issue in the s20 or s10 - the flatter side profile might actually help in that case - but don't know for sure.

Now that being said, I personally like the activity tracking functionality - so I also would go with the s20. But the OP doesn't seem interested in that so the s10 might very well be a better choice in that case.