Best Fitness Watch for Paddling?

I've been using a fenix 5 for 3 years now, 3 or 4 times a week, mostly downwind paddling so it gets properly soaked and there's no sign of corrosion on the charging terminals.

Does the stroke rate function on the fenix 5 work if the device is put on the footstrap or does it need to be on the wrist?

Needs to be on the wrist, I am afraid. Unless you have some mighty stroke, that is....

TomVW wrote: Needs to be on the wrist, I am afraid. Unless you have some mighty stroke, that is....

Thanks. Would not be a useful feature for me then. 

Shout out to Zach Handler, who skied 2:09 for the American Birkebeiner cross country ski race. That's 31 miles. Only 10 minutes behind the winner who is a member of the Norwegian national team. Awesome achievement Zach !

Thanks Steve! I started nordic ski racing when i was a kid and never stopped so I am fairly proficient at it. In surfski on the other hand I am a self-trained mid-life hack  like  just about everyone else on this forum. But I  love it so. I was fully addicted to after my first downwind paddle, even though I was horribly bad at it and had to remount about 50 times. That joy has never faded. Nothing beats a good downwinder!

So, I've been using my phone with either gopaddler or strava to give me a speed and distance.

With current phone, neither app updates very rapidly. Takes maybe 30s to pick up a change in speed.
If I'm doing intervals and want to hit and maintain a target speed, this is really poor.

Question, are the Garmin watches faster to update?

They are. My basic Forunner picks up changes in speed in a few seconds.

@Zachhandler: Try a Vaaka device for your paddle. Gives you live cadence and if you load down the Vaaka distance/stroke app to your Fenix 5 also that particular live data. Fenix stays on your foot strap. Really useful to dial in stroke efficiency by correlating above parameters with speed.
Cheers, Andy

Is the mount you are reffering to specific to Epic? I'm trying to figure out how people are mounting watches on foot straps. I'm in a Stellar and it would be a fair amount of work to strap the watch into the foot straps.

Would you have photos?

1932023550378760@facebook wrote: Is the mount you are reffering to specific to Epic? I'm trying to figure out how people are mounting watches on foot straps. I'm in a Stellar and it would be a fair amount of work to strap the watch into the foot straps.

Would you have photos?

On my Forerunner 25 the strap is removable like on a regular watch. I took it off and stitched two short pieces of velcro so when they engage the watch sits flat. Works great on a strap, sits in place without moving. 

XLV wrote: Will be switching to something else in the next year. Are there any other apple watch apps that I should be trying out?

If you still have the Apple Watch try an app called Paddle Logger.

apps.apple.com/au/app/paddle-logger-for-watersports/id955311911

I use the free version and it's been really good so far. The developers have responded pretty quickly when any issues have popped up or when I've suggested changes.  The only problem can be battery life but if I keep my sessions to under 2.5 hours then it normally has enough juice to make it through - curiously a 3+hr ride on the bike lasts without issues so I think it's something related to their app...

You can export the GPX files too so you can upload to Strava if you want. Note: the free version doesn't show all the info within the app itself, but when it's exported to Strava you get a lot more information (max speed etc).

I use a Garmin bike mount kit with my Fenix 5 on the paddle. I also wear a heart rate monitor. I use the SUP app to get stroke rate and distance per stroke and change activity to "paddling" afterwards. You can get knockoffs for a few dollars or I imagine something like foam pipe insulation would work, too.

Hi - do you have a file you could share so I could get one of those made? looks like it solves my issue of the watch moving around perfectly

Heads-up for new Suunto buyers:  the company was sold a year or so ago and is still trying to sort out the various softwares you need to get the full benefit of using one. I bought a Traverse Alpha  at the end of summer, registered it, and immediately received lots of e-mails that superseded or conflicted with previous e-mailed instructions. I decided to not upload any data from my outings, even though that means I have no access to customizing the watch displays or to either deleting or archiving logged activities (both of which I can do as standalone actions on my old Garmin Forerunner 310XT). 

However, the Suunto in standalone mode works well for hiking. (I would want to customize the display for paddling the ski.) It does update the current speed quickly and as a general timepiece it is very easy to read, with long battery life. Not long when GPS functions are on, though!

Arcturus wrote: Heads-up for new Suunto buyers:  the company was sold a year or so ago and is still trying to sort out the various softwares you need to get the full benefit of using one. I bought a Traverse Alpha  at the end of summer, registered it, and immediately received lots of e-mails that superseded or conflicted with previous e-mailed instructions. I decided to not upload any data from my outings, even though that means I have no access to customizing the watch displays or to either deleting or archiving logged activities (both of which I can do as standalone actions on my old Garmin Forerunner 310XT). 

However, the Suunto in standalone mode works well for hiking. (I would want to customize the display for paddling the ski.) It does update the current speed quickly and as a general timepiece it is very easy to read, with long battery life. Not long when GPS functions are on, though!

You can still customize the watch displays for each activity settings and routes through movescount.com, but you have to download suuntolink in addition to the old moveslink. I didn't use mine for months assuming the new procedure would be glitchy but it was literally 1 click and forget about it.

Actually seeing the data from the outings I wouldn't  know as I too use a Garmin for that, but I believe its through the suunto link phone app.

So you customized the watch displays but have not uploaded your logs?

I got messages telling me to register at movescount.com, suuntolink.com, and suuntoapp.com, not necessarily in that order and not all three in any message. I registered after getting the first message, but because when I tried to do anything I kept getting told to sign up for yet another site, I got suspicious. Then I got messages stating that they were still working on the transition to the new ownership and after a certain date I should re-register. 

To make things worse, Suunto used to have 24/7 tech assistance. That got pared down to an extremely abbreviated schedule. I contacted them about one function which required only a yes or no answer, but the rep did not say anything beyond what the slew of e-mails had contained.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting to see if they get their reorg act together. The Suunto forum also seems to be either inactive or locked to viewing without registration. Trying to register for that led to the same merry-go-round.

I just found a recent third-party report on what he is seeing for the Suunto mess. His  earlier report, from 2019, is also enlightening,
besthiking.net/suunto-app-review/

Yeah, they make you download suuntolink just to tell you everything still has to go through movescount. The registered account is the same for both so you would only need to register once. I've been registered since 2016 though, the problem might be they can't register new accounts for movescount or something like that?