TomTom Spark 3 review: A fitness watch for all

The TomTom Spark 3 is a great fitness watch, but the dizzying array of models (explained in detail on page 2) make it a little difficult to figure out when you’re getting a bargain. So when Currys knocks £20 off one of the TomTom Spark 3s, but not the others, it’s worth doing a quick sensecheck of what you’re getting. 

The model in question is the TomTom Spark 3 Cardio for £149.99. That means you’re getting the watch with built-in GPS as standard along with a heart-rate sensor. You’re not getting storage for music or earbuds for listening to it with, so if you want to ditch the phone and run with music, you’re out of luck. That said, this still represents a pretty good deal. The cheapest wearable with both GPS and heart-rate tracking I can think of is the Garmin Vivosmart HR+, which comes in at £20 more, so if music isn’t important to you, this is a good product at a good price. 

The original review continues below.

TomTom used to be a company synonymous with add-on satellite-navigation systems for cars. Gradually, as GPS technology became more affordable and included in even the most budget of smartphones, satnav systems became less popular and TomTom needed a new plan. Its answer: scale down from cars to people, and enter the fitness market.

The company has some catching up to do, and the name will be associated more with “cars” than “athletes” for many, but its fitness watches have been solid performers. While I was distinctly unimpressed with the TomTom Touch for all kinds of reasons, its latest Spark watch continues the previous model’s good work. It’s a fitness tracker I’ve been all too happy to wear for the past few weeks, during which time it has taken in a number of 5km+ runs and a handful of disappointing but predictable five-a-side defeats.

The model I’ve been wearing is the TomTom Spark 3 Cardio + Music, which retails at £220, but there are various configurations ranging from £120 to £250. While they all have GPS built in for phone-free running, each of the following features adds a little to the price: heart-rate tracking (“Cardio”), internal storage (“Music”) and headphones. The customisation is good, but it sure does make things confusing.

TomTom Spark 3: Design

Glance at the pictures of the TomTom Spark 3 above, and you may wonder whether you’ve seen this before. That’s because it looks identical to the TomTom Spark Cardio + Music we reviewed back in February. It got five stars, but that was despite – not because of – its looks, unfortunately. Jon charitably described it as “functional” back then, and I’m definitely not going to give that assessment an upgrade here.[gallery:2]

The square watch face is slightly rounded at the edges, and the whole unit is controlled by a rectangular four-way button that protrudes through the strap from underneath the screen. The whole watch face pops out of the strap for charging, but don’t imagine that means you can get a more fashionable strap for it. There are a number of third-party straps available, but I wouldn’t call any of them stylish. They still need to house its heft, after all. The screen is quite dark, but it uses power-saving reflective LCD tech, so it’s always on.

It is, however, reasonably comfortable. The strap has plenty of holes, meaning you can adjust it to a strong fit, although I found wearing it continuously tended to cause some skin irritation. I’ve found that with some fitness trackers before, though, so I think that’s my dermatological makeup rather than anything inherently wrong with the device.

It takes a little while to figure out how everything works. There’s no touchscreen, and there’s a bit of a learning curve as you get to grips with how the menus work. The four-way navigation button lets you move up, down, left or right from any screen. It’s up to you to memorise the map, because there are limited indicators to tell you that, say, to find an exercise summary you need to go right twice and then up. Fortunately, there aren’t too many of these to remember, and you should have it licked in a few days.

TomTom Spark 3: Performance

So if it looks and feels the same, why should you upgrade? Well, TomTom is hoping that you’re the kind of runner who likes exploring.

In short, with the Spark 3 you can set off on a run and the watch will track the route onscreen for you, meaning you can retrace your steps and find your way back home. It’s able to do this because it contains a compass, which is a bit of a pain to calibrate (it involves a lot of twisting and turning without the watch acknowledging whether what you’re doing is working), but works fine once you have.

So what this means in practice is that as soon as you start your run, a little icon appears on a blank screen saying “home” on it. A line is then drawn covering the directions you run in, with each twist and turn being shown on the screen like an etch-a-sketch drawing taking shape.[gallery:3]

There are a couple of side benefits here. Routes you’ve recorded can be exported in GPX format, and you can also import routes from websites such as MapMyRun. That’s handy if you’re visiting somewhere new or you’re dead set on running a set distance – if you’re training for a race, for instance.

It’s a great feature, and makes it that bit easier to let go, and stop running with your phone – which is an invigorating experience on its own. Add in the ability to go off-piste and run wherever you feel like going, while knowing it’s that bit harder to get irredeemably lost, and you’re in a whole new territory.

And you don’t even need your MP3 player or phone for music, either: assuming you buy the model labeled “Music”, the TomTom Spark 3 will stream music straight to Bluetooth headphones.

They have to be Bluetooth – there’s no 3.5mm jack on account of the TomTom Spark 3 being swimproof, and it can be a little fussy about non-TomTom earbuds – but assuming you pass these hurdles, the watch’s 3GB of internal storage can store around 500 songs. That should cover you for all but the most masochistic of Forrest Gump runs. In any case, the watch’s 11-hour battery is likely to die before you run out of tunes to play.

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But how does it actually perform? As I mentioned earlier, I wore the TomTom Spark 3 for around three weeks, during which time it took in a number of five-a-side matches and a few 5k+ runs. I should add that in one of the five-a-side matches I was ordered to take it off by the referee – it’s not as discreet as a fitness band.

At every opportunity I pitted the TomTom Spark 3 on my right wrist against the Fitbit Charge 2 on my left. The key difference between the two wearables, of course, is built-in GPS, meaning that in football – theoretically – the Charge 2 should be markedly less accurate than the TomTom as it would be separated from my phone, where it cribs its GPS data from.

That seems to hold true, as evidenced by the sample five-a-side game below. That’s the TomTom on top, which gives a reading of 1.65km in 35:42. Below that is the Fitbit, saying I covered 2.08km in 36 minutes. Heart-rate readings are even more inconsistent. Where Fitbit says I maxed out at 146bpm (110bpm average), TomTom gives a far more realistic 179bpm (126bpm average).

Distance-wise, which is right? For that, it’s impossible to say with any certainty, without someone following me around the pitch with a trundle wheel. For that reason, Park Run gives us the perfect second opinion: the courses are accurately measured out to be exactly 5km. So which won here – bearing in mind that in this instance the Fitbit was piggybacking on my phone’s GPS?

Neither, as it turns out. On every park run I took part in – across three separate venues – both the Fitbit and the TomTom Spark 3 consistently underestimated the distance traveled. Here is just one example, taken at Beckton Park Run in East London. The course was 5km, but the TomTom Spark 3 says I ran for 4.81km, while the Fitbit Charge 2 guessed 4.87km. To be fair, neither were significantly out, but it goes to show there are limits to GPS. Once again, I’m more inclined to trust the heart rate estimated by TomTom (high: 174bpm, average: 153bpm) over the Fitbit (high: 146bpm, average: 135bpm).

While I used the TomTom Spark 3 for football and running, it isn’t limited to those activities. Take swimming, for example, where the watch will count your strokes, lengths, speed and display your overall distance, and there are also gym, treadmill and cycle training modes. With Bluetooth compatibility, it’s also possible to connect to Bluetooth accessories, such as a chest belt for even more accurate heart-rate measurement. However, there isn’t support for ANT+, which is disappointing.

But this is a fitness watch and not a smartwatch. There are still no smartphone notifications to distract you from the open road, say.[gallery:4]

TomTom Spark 3: Different models

Before closing, I should talk a little bit about pricing, because the range can be a little bit confusing. First off, I should say that for every model – even the cheapest – to include GPS is a brilliant step forward. Previously, the cheapest GPS-enabled wearable I can think of is the Garmin Vivosmart HR+ at £170. The cheapest TomTom Spark 3 comes in at just £120.

Of course, to get that version, you’re making some sacrifices. While the £120 Fitbit doesn’t have GPS (you’re looking at the slightly long-in-the-tooth £200 Fitbit Surge for that), it does have a heart-rate sensor, something the entry-level TomTom Spark 3 lacks. For that, you’re looking at a steep increase to £170, putting it level with the brilliant Garmin Vivosmart HR+.

On the other hand, if you don’t care about heart rate, you may still want to stream music so you’re completely phone-free. For that, you’re looking at the Music + Headphones model, which comes in at £150.

To get music and heart rate, the price leaps again. This time to £200:

Finally, there’s a bundle with all that and TomTom headphones, for an eye-watering £250:

My feeling is that while the base product is very good value indeed, it quickly loses the advantage it has over its rivals as soon as it closes in on £200. My personal pick of those is the Music + Headphones model for £150 – that’s all you need to be truly phone-free outside, and that’s still pretty reasonable. Any more than that and its rivals become more competitive – although it’s true that local music storage is an unsung feature outside of TomTom’s world.

TomTom Spark 3: Verdict

It’s hard to believe that the TomTom Spark 3 and the TomTom Touch are part of the same range, and that’s a good thing for the Spark 3. While the TomTom Touch coupled flaky operations with battery life that some mayflies would feel shortchanged by, the TomTom Spark 3 is a solid operator that includes everything you need from a fitness tracker, and a little bit more.[gallery:5]

Whether or not the upgraded version is for you depends on the type of runner you are. Are you, like me, stuck in your ways and rotate a set number of running routes that you know inside out? If so, the Spark 3 is probably overkill and you may as well get the previous version, which we still like a great deal.

If, however, you love running in strange new places, but can’t bear doing it without the crutch of Google Maps on your phone, then the TomTom Spark 3 is practically made for you. It may not look too stylish, but it’s hard to think of a better combination of features for the price.