My thoughts on the 3rd Generation Tag Heuer Connected Smartwatch

This entry was posted on March 23, 2020. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

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I recently received the latest Tag Connected watch and I thought I’d share my observations. I have used quite a number of smartwatches as shown below including most Apple Watch generations.

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There are a few key features that I’d like to highlight:

Speed of customized buttons – I have configured the top-most button for Google Pay. Bring up Google Pay (to pay) is the fastest of any smartwatch I have used (including Apple Watch). It is < 700 ms or so. This was one key feature of the Apple Watch that I had missed. Note my prior watch was the Montblanc Summit 2 and it was considerable slower to invoke (well over a second).

Swappable Bands – This is the first Android Wear watch with swappable bands that work really well (perhaps even faster than swapping Apple Watch bands). The mechanism to release the bands and to reinsert them work really well is fast and intuitive. As a result of this, I am now using the Tag Connected to measure workouts whereas in the past I used a second device (Apple watch or Samsung watch).

 

Battery Life – This watch has the best battery life of any other Android Wear watch I had used prior. It is still not as good as the Samsung Active 2, but comparable to the Apple Watch. Also the charging puck is USB-C compatible, so this makes it more portable. Moreover, the charging speed is relatively fast.

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Style – This watch exudes style, especially with the ability to swap bands. Tag mentioned to me that leather bands are also coming soon.

Improvements/Issues – 

  • I have found the real-time heart rate monitoring to be off for a couple minutes every so often (it spikes up to very high measurements that are clearly inaccurate). I hope this is a software issue (rather than a sporadic hardware one). It only lasts for a couple of minutes and about 25% of the workouts I have done (daily) so far. I will continue to monitor.
  • Wireless charging – the charging puck is custom and prior generation Tag pucks do not work with this 3rd generation Tag. Wireless charging (like the Samsung Active 2) would be a welcomed feature for the next generation Tag.

 

 

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