Garmin has expanded their Forerunner multisport GPS watch line with the new Forerunner 735XT that tracks your heart rate 24/7 to help show recovery status, Strava’s new Live Suffer Score and much more. It comes with several sport profiles (cycling, running, hiking, etc.) built in, including an automatic triathlon mode that switches profiles as you transition from swimming to cycling to running without you having to do a thing. Each profile gets its own specific HR algorithm to help improve HR accuracy, and other sport and activity profile are available for download, too.
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For cyclists who consider the term “multisport” to mean road, mountain and cyclocross riding, the Forerunner 735XT works with Garmin’s Varia heads up display and Vector power meter pedals. For that and more diverse pursuits, the device can track your route and speed and show things like running pace and cadence based purely on movement tracking. You can download additional apps (like Accuweather) and custom watch faces through Garmin Connect and set it to automatically share the data there and on Strava. Sync it with your smartphone and you can get call, email, text, app and other alerts.
The battery’s good for about 14 hours of GPS-tracked activity or 11 days of standard time keeping and HR monitoring. Retail is $449 for the standalone unit. A run bundle is $499 and a tri bundle is $599. The latter add specific heart rate chest straps for more precise HR measurement, which brings along advanced metrics like Running dynamics (ground contact time balance, stride length, vertical ratio and more), VO2 max estimate, lactate threshold, race predictor and recovery advisor, plus underwater heart rate for swimming.
