I know a few foilers who are happy with their Apple GPS watches (tracking sessions etc).
Anyone on Android that would recommend a particular surf watch that would give similar results to the Apple?, reading some good stuff about the newer Garmin Solar.

Select to expand quote

toppleover said..
I know a few foilers who are happy with their Apple GPS watches (tracking sessions etc).
Anyone on Android that would recommend a particular surf watch that would give similar results to the Apple?, reading some good stuff about the newer Garmin Solar.

FENNIX 6X

Any of the garmin fenix. There are some great apps for surfing, foiling and winging

Have the Garmin Fenix 6x Mick - have a look next time I see you at CT

The Apple watch is good but using the Dawn Patrol App the battery goes pretty quick 2hrs and it's flat. Mines a 3rd gen maybe the newer ones are better.

What Garmin IQ apps/widgets are people using for winging/SUP

Yeah the Apple battery is absolute sh!t , but Dawn Patrol is by far the best app. Doesn't work on Andriod though. Garmins apps are average at best and very inaccurate compared to Apple. Really wish it wasn't the case Garmin make some unbelievable watches. The latest Apple the 6 battery life is much better and the phone function works amazingly well in the surf.

I have done my usual cheap-out in not buying an apple watch, and instead spent the same money on various halfway solutions that don't quite work.

Closest thing in I've found in Android world to Dawn Patrol is Waves Tracker: web.wavestracker.com
Free to show basic, costs $3 a month if you want to see individual waves stats. It allows you to upload FIT, TCX, or GPX files, so you can use it with various GPS devices. Has to be done on desktop version, so it's cumbersome.

For Apple world, I used an old iphone in a case inside my wetsuit ... surprised the GPS works but it does. However, dawn patrol won't work properly on the phone for some reason, designed only to be used on the watch. There's a secret setting to use it on phone at all (they said they actively discourage people to try), but it can't get GPS signal through wetsuit. So...I got another app Watersports Tracker, email myself the GPX file, upload to Waves Tracker, then view it on phone. And with all that, my attention span lasted about a half dozen sessions.

I have a Garmin Fenix 6 Solar. I'm quite satisfied. Don't waste money with the Instinct Solar Surf: absolutely a strange joke. I gave it back. The Fenix 6 Solar has a long lasting battery and good hardware but with the software works there is a lot to do. The only serious surf app isn't an app but a free "data field" coupled to the sup app. Perfect during the session but with a lot of little problems like: You can't interrupt the session or you lose all the data.
On the maps there is not the evidence of the waves
There isn't an sum of the data
The equipment isn't well managed
There are too many functions and useless sports. I do only tennis and sup and I don't mind the others.

Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

Select to expand quote

eppo said..
Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

I'm with you eppo. Sure Im curious at how many waves I've caught, speed & distance & seeing the tracks I've made. But after a few it would basically be repetitive giving me less interest. And always a chance of losing it in the surf after approximately 2 years with my experiences wearing watches.
If they were half the cost I might consider it. Same with expensive cameras too.

Select to expand quote

eppo said..
Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

The reason why we look so hard at Max , Average speed & Distance is the best way to compare foils and foil set ups. Also a great guide at tracking your heart rate , sometimes we almost pump ourselves to death It really is an invaluable tool, especially when trying different tails. You'd also be surprised the pick up in speed with smaller boards. Sometimes things feel faster but they aren't. The other great thing about the apple watch is we can ring and text each other plus has a SOS button with sends a message directly to nominated people, great safety aspect as well. You also have tide , wind & BOM ect .

Select to expand quote

Piros said..

eppo said..
Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

The reason why we look so hard at Max , Average speed & Distance is the best way to compare foils and foil set ups. Also a great guide at tracking your heart rate , sometimes we almost pump ourselves to death It really is an invaluable tool, especially when trying different tails. You'd also be surprised the pick up in speed with smaller boards. Sometimes things feel faster but they aren't. The other great thing about the apple watch is we can ring and text each other plus has a SOS button with sends a message directly to nominated people, great safety aspect as well. You also have tide , wind & BOM ect .

i use a app called kite metrics it gives you max speed distance paddled and also when downloaded gives you your tracks and you can work out on the graphs how many waves and distance.This is using a fenix 6

Select to expand quote

Piros said..

eppo said..
Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

The reason why we look so hard at Max , Average speed & Distance is the best way to compare foils and foil set ups. Also a great guide at tracking your heart rate , sometimes we almost pump ourselves to death It really is an invaluable tool, especially when trying different tails. You'd also be surprised the pick up in speed with smaller boards. Sometimes things feel faster but they aren't. The other great thing about the apple watch is we can ring and text each other plus has a SOS button with sends a message directly to nominated people, great safety aspect as well. You also have tide , wind & BOM ect .

Yeh I would t want to see my heart rate after a few link ups!!
yeh fair enough I get it on the tracker thing. Reckon I could become obsessed with it though.

After a fair bit of research, it looks like the Apple watch is by far the best for what I wanted - just for surfing (tracking speed/distance/map etc).

However I'm not an Apple fan, so will borrow my daughter's Garmin for a few sessions and see if it's worth getting one for myself.

Really dissapointing that Garmin don't have a surf app like Dawn Patrol.

Select to expand quote

toppleover said..
After a fair bit of research, it looks like the Apple watch is by far the best for what I wanted - just for surfing (tracking speed/distance/map etc).

However I'm not an Apple fan, so will borrow my daughter's Garmin for a few sessions and see if it's worth getting one for myself.

Really dissapointing that Garmin don't have a surf app like Dawn Patrol.

I have a garmin fenix 5 and I just use the surf tracker 2 free data field. The watch is great , long battery life etc , the surf tracker field is fine as long as you set the tolerances up manually so that you don't get spike readings for the speed, but individual waves with tracks and distances are all good. If your only interested in accurate speed then just use the kite app which works well, but it doesn't record individual waves.

The surf tracker data field is pretty good - I use that rather than the inbuilt surfing app on my Fenix 6x. I just like being able to see how far I flew. Pretty cool when you can catch a wave over a one km in length and 4+minutes. Pay no attention to it while on the wave but nice to see afterwards

Select to expand quote

Arrow8670 said..
The surf tracker data field is pretty good - I use that rather than the inbuilt surfing app on my Fenix 6x. I just like being able to see how far I flew. Pretty cool when you can catch a wave over a one km in length and 4+minutes. Pay no attention to it while on the wave but nice to see afterwards

Cool, will dload surf tracker onto the daughter's watch & see if you can show me how it works when I catch you at CT (hopefully next week).
Might have to pick Kobos brain's aswell

Select to expand quote

Piros said..

eppo said..
Got people I prone / Sup with who come back to the lineup saying "that was an X m ride" and then I get the summary at the end of the session. I'm just wondering what the attraction is for this data compilation and analyses, because they all seem really keen so wondering what I'm missing ? Can't we just . ride ? (Ps I'm not making a judgement, genuinely want to know what makes you guys froth over this ).

The reason why we look so hard at Max , Average speed & Distance is the best way to compare foils and foil set ups. Also a great guide at tracking your heart rate , sometimes we almost pump ourselves to death It really is an invaluable tool, especially when trying different tails. You'd also be surprised the pick up in speed with smaller boards. Sometimes things feel faster but they aren't. The other great thing about the apple watch is we can ring and text each other plus has a SOS button with sends a message directly to nominated people, great safety aspect as well. You also have tide , wind & BOM ect .

All this talk of trackers with NO Tracks! Here is a hero example of Dawn Patrol.

I have been spending time in the Northeastern United States. Rhode Island. Typically summertime New England waves are NOT good. The forecast varies from 1-2 feet to 3 to 4 feet (maybe). 3 years ago there were just 2 foilers me and a guy named Paul. Now there are ~ 8 foilers.

Here were tracks from a prone guy named Brian. They have gotten to be quite good at pumping. I thought I was rocking the STATS but 5.3 miles and 67 waves averaging 140 yards per wave over 4 hours and 20 minutes is CRAZY. CRAZY!!!!! Add to this that the guy is ~ 50 years old. Also note the watch recorded for more than 4 hours. I have a iWatch 5 and turn the SCREEN to auto vs. always on mode.

We now say to each "No tracks and it didn't happen." You can look at someone's tracks and immediately see #1 Waves, #2 Distance, #3 Speed, #4 was the person turning and get a 2 second mental download on the entire session.

PS: I hated Apple when my wife got me the watch. Now I would buy it again if I lost the watch JUST for Dawn Patrol and the TideChart tide application.

so ya back to the subject, what is the best Android App?

best i found is Waves Tracker: web.wavestracker.com

Select to expand quote

martyman said..
so ya back to the subject, what is the best Android App?

I've been using my daughter's Garmin 645 this last week.
Tried the Garmin surf app, was ok & really simple to install but not very accurate (showed double the amount of waves I actually caught).

Now using the Surftracker 2 App & it seems to work well and is reasonably accurate (was spot on today with wave count).

I use the Garmin Fenix 5 with the Surf Tracker2 app. For seeing ride length and speed, the Surf Tracker2 app is about as accurate as my original Rip Curl Surf Watch. It's nice to see an estimate of ride length and speed while in the water. I see the info for the last wave (length and max speed) plus longest wave and top speed for the session.

I also have the map function available while I surf, so I can drop pins for takeoff spots. This is good for spots that are hard to get visual line up markers and night sessions.

For reviewing the tracks after the surf session, I hit the lap button after each wave and use "gpstrackeditor" to review the laps/waves after the surf session. This obviously takes more effort, but it is the most accurate. I only do this for exceptional waves/sessions. With this method, I can track how far I can pump after kicking out of a wave. I've used this to quantify the difference in pumping performance between my Kujira 980 and 1210: 80yd for the 980 vs 120 yd for the 1210. That's around 25 seconds of pumping with the 1210. I obviously need to work on cardio and technique.

When I measure how far I can pump, I only measure it when pumping out the back towards/past the line up. I can pump a lot further when I'm going laterally along the beach or towards the beach.

Since I have an iPhone, I had to use the WaveTracker Android app on my Amazon Fire HD tablet. I paid for the WaveTracker subscription for 3 months, then let it lapse. The WaveTracker app often counted waves that I paddled for, but didn't catch.