New Triathlon Watches 2016 – It's All Over Bar the Buying

KONA is finished and so is any hope for a new tri watch this side of 2017. Indeed it’s unlikely there will be any new running/cycling watches either.

2016 started out with hope and cheer and lots of warm fuzzy things.

It’s ended with a grudging realisation that getting a new tri watch on the shelves is a wee bit tricky.

So how were my feeble predictive powers in 2016?

1. Garmin 920XT replacement – the touted 925/935/930 was a sure fire cert for autumn/fall 2016. Still waiting. The defence here is clearly that the 735XT arrived instead. The 735XT is the most fully featured tri watch or as Garmin would say “the most fully featured running watch with tri features”. (It’s a tri watch). 🙂 The 735XT is nice enough and I enjoyed my time with it. The 930 will come tho. Obviously now that will DEFINATELY be in 2017. Maybe.
2. Fenix 3 replacement – well there just had to be one because it made commercial sense and one was ‘due’. Except there wasn’t a replacement and it obviously didn’t make commercial sense at the time. Or did it? The Fenix CHRONOS has a lot of new bits in it. IMO really it is THE Fenix 4/Fenix 5 at least PARTLY inside.
3. Polar V800 replacement – I will try to deny ever saying that there would be one but the internet has an indelible history. We did get a sniff of a new HR strap the H7i and it smells real good. But we haven’t seen it. That is either proof of the V900 or a fix to the existing H7’s problems. Polar, of course, had the last laugh by releasing a not-the-kona sports watch at KONA-time. Once discovered, it was clear that the M200 wasn’t going to be a V800 replacement but hey, there’s always hope for 2017.
4. Suunto AMBIT 4 – C’mon someone please help me here. At least Suunto could have called the SPARTANs the AMBIT 4. But no, they had to change the name just to annoy me 🙂  Actually we got two SPARTANs: the AMBIT4 PEAK being the SPARTAN ULTRA; and the AMBIT4 SPORT being the SPARTAN SPORT. There’s supposedly also an optical HR SPARTAN SPORT coming out still in 2016 but there’s probably other short term activities for Suunto to focus on right now leading up to Christmas.
5. TomTom Multisport 2 – OK it was the RUNNER 3/SPARK 3. Yes it has consecutive multi sports but it’s not a tri watch. TomTom won’t make a tri watch.
6. Epson Trisense – that was always a long shot.

How did I do for those 6 predictions? Respectively, I reckon – 9/10, 6/10, 0/10, 12/10, 3/10, n/a. Averaging…not too bad/10 🙁

I’m going off to cry. Just give me a moment. Someone please say something tri-gadgety to cheer me up.

Edit: Garmin Fenix 5 🙂

Of course the one remaining glimmer of hope is this week ,w/e15Oct2016, or next week when Garmin just might sneak something out. Straws. Clutch. At. Ing. Do the sentence.

Next Actions: Check for great deals in the Cyber Monday sales. F3, A3, V800 and 920XT ALL going for a song.