I just checked this out on amazon uk: they are going for 30£ right now, with shipping comes to $61! That's as cheap as I've seen these for a while!
I got a pebble watch a few weeks ago, and I'm working on a referee watch app right now. Currently, it just times up and down from 45, but I'm working on a few other cool things now. I'll post the link once it gets a bit more stable if anyone here happens to have one.
Any update on this? I'm trying to figure out if a smartwatch might be beneficial to my officiating. I kind of like the idea of getting a GPS mapping of where I ran during the game. Could a Pebble do that? If not, what would?
Remember, the Pebble is really just an extension of your phone (via Bluetooth). So, yes, it does track your location via GPS. More specifically, it has your phone track you and then spits that data to your wrist. I have the Pebble and, quite frankly, if I were still reffing I would find more use out of my Nike+ sportswatch, a Garmin or any of the other myriad of GPS watch options. The apps are cool, yes, so you could write something that had a countdown timer and also tracked your mileage. For me, I found the following info useful during a match: Heart Rate Distance "Bread crumbs" (the ability to go back later and see where I ran) Timer, preferably count up but either is okay Running stopwatch I got all those functions out of my Nike or Garmin. The only thing I didn't get was a vibrate function -- which the Pebble does have -- but I was never really hooked on that feature, anyways. And, as Andy had pointed out earlier in the thread, you have to lug your phone around and some folks don't have a spare bicep on which to rest an armband to hold your iPhone/Android/Blackberry/iPaq/Palm Treo. Don't get me wrong, the Pebble is a neat gadget; I just think there are better tools out there.
I would recommend it. Beware, you're talking to a technology geek who has a serious, serious issue with buying things I don't really need late at night on Amazon. Damn Prime and their two day shipping. I have a few Garmin units, all of which (save for the newest) have been tested on the pitch. I started with the FR305 (I think) which is clunky, old and red. That one still works great but has a permanent home on one of my road bikes with a cadence sensor. It worked just fine on the pitch, but it was large and, combined with my small wrists, I felt it was a little much. My next purchase was the 410, which was a much better size and had the touch bezel (love or hate it). I liked that one a lot of refereeing, as well as running and biking. I picked up one of the HR straps that had the soft material -- instead of the old, hard plastic -- and used it quite a bit. Very accurate and you can use either the included mapping software or most third party mapping software to see where you ran over the course of 90+ minute. Neat. I just picked up the 620 and, although I no longer ref, I think it would be great on the pitch. Many of the features are just "nice to haves" so you can save cash and buy any older model. Bottom line, check out some reviews and do your research. There are a lot of great entry level GPS watches out there. I should mention I also use my Nike+ watch and love it; really simply but works well and looks stylish. See, I have too many gadgets.
I recommend the Garmin 210. Cheap, works, looks like a watch, won't make you list to the left or right when you run. I wear it every match.
I have the forerunner 410 and it works very well - never had an issue with it and its fun to see your course on the actual satellite image of the pitch - usually spot on for placement and really shows your field coverage. The touch bezel is sometimes too sensitive, if I were buying one today I would seriously look at the 620 - saw one and it is really thin but has a large face to easily see the numbers - review here (this guy reviews several in real use tests): http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/11/garmin-forerunner-review.html
I just got a 620 over the holidays. Ran my first game as an AR with it today. Worked well! Can't wait to try it when I have my first centers of the year next weekends.
It does have a vibrate alarm, yes, for anything that the device will do alerts for. It doesn't do a countdown timer, so if you were to try to use it as more than just a count-up watch you'd have to program a workout in Garmin Connect. You could program a "interval" of a workout to be time-based and end automatically at 45 minutes, then have it move to a second "interval" that ends on the press of the lap button (which would be the end of "stoppage" time), then an arbitrary "interval"/lap for halftime and repeat that for the second half. I'll be playing around with it more over the next couple weeks, but I think it's probably not the "ultimate" referee watch. It is, however, a great watch for training and a great watch for analyzing your games after the fact. If you want a referee watch, something more like the Adidas watches that have been mentioned before, the Spintso, or really anything that has more referee-specific functions would fit the bill better.
I bought a Spintso watch as my Christmas present. It's pretty awesome. General notes: - Vibrate instead of beeping - quite handy (and the vibrate is beefy enough that you'll never miss it, even if you wear a sweatband under the watch). It also vibrates every ten seconds when you've paused for an injury (handy reminder to unpause it). - It's a big watch, but it still fits nicely on my wrist (and I have small wrists). Build quality is solid, doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart. (PS: If you buy a Spintso, make sure you get one manufactured after May 2012 [aka Mk II] - the first version had some problems with corrosion) - Display is a bit complicated to read at first (It shows the time of day, plus the current period [1st/2nd half], regulation time remaining, total time elapsed, half-time length and additional time.). On the other hand, the total time elapsed is a godsend in the second half (starts from 45' [if you set a 45' half] so jotting down times doesn't require math anymore). Worth it for that alone. - The manual requires a bit of creative interpretation to understand (honestly it seems like they just Babelfished the translation from Swedish to English in some parts...). Once you set it up and run through a couple of trial 'games' it's pretty intuitive though (change mode to referee, then it's one-button control to start the match and pause for injury time and unpause at the end of an injury break). - Usability could be improved a bit - for some reason, changing DST is a button tap and changing watch mode (normal->referee->stopwatch) is a two-second button press (on the same button). Which of those will you do multiple times a week, and which of those twice a year? Similarly it always shows you the timezone you've set in every mode - if I need my watch to constantly remind me of what timezone I'm in then I'm beyond any help a watch can provide.
I'm doing a dual HS girls match last spring. My bag is on the side of the field that I am on, and I have my lightning detector on my phone in my bag set to go off within 10 miles of my GPS position. The volume on the thing is pretty loud. Sure enough, 5 minutes left in the first half my phone goes off, everyone stops and asks what the heck it is. I blow the whistle, clear the field, as we are going off the field the school lightning detector went off, sure enough 5 minutes later (as I am getting into my car) we see the lightning.
Hi guys, I hope you can help me. I'm looking for one watch which can record my pace ran when refereeing a game but also be used as a stopwatch without interrupting the run timer. Is there a good watch out there? I currently have the Nike+ watch which is easy to use but I can't use the stopwatch without cancelling the run timer, thus I need a different watch. Any suggestions? I don't really need many other function other than these so don't want to spend $400 on a watch if I don't have to. Thanks, Steve
I use a Garmin (mine is a few years old - Forerunner 410) and it counts up as I set it to track my run. It can be paused or stopped and reset and for me it works extremely well. There is a thread here (maybe this one) with others using GPS watches. I always had 2 watches anyway - 1 counting up and 1 counting down so I just change between the ironman I use for counting up and I use the $20 casio for counting down.
Are you looking to have the stopwatch and run timer going at the same time? I have Nike+ and will start the GPS and then press down three times to display the stopwatch function. That way I can see distance covered and a count-up time. It usually works really well.
Thought I would provide some quick feedback on the Polar RC3 watch that I purchased at a pretty steep discount a few weeks ago (regularly about $370 here, got it for $180+tax). For those unfamiliar with the Polar line, this includes a heart rate monitor (via a chest strap) and has GPS functionality built in. It is the one that PRO and a few of the PGMOL guys are wearing. Never owned a heart rate monitor before so I have nothing to compare it to, but it is very light, certainly more compact than my Spintso. The strap on the watch is great and very flexible, doesn't dig into my wrist like a few of the bulkier ones do (not due to tightness but more due to rigidity or sharp edges on the strap). Chest strap is flexible and adjustable if needed and while it takes some getting used to feeling like Iron Man (attaching the heart rate module to the chest strap) it isn't uncomfortable while running. No way to test accuracy of the monitor but based on a quick manual pulse check it seems pretty spot-on. They call it a "training computer", and for training's sake it seems to do a pretty good job. I train on days I don't referee with a buffer zone of 1 day before and after (ref on Wednesday so rest on Tuesday + Thursday) usually doing intervals and some other strength stuff, occasionally tempo runs about once every few weeks. The watch has support for "sport zones" both based on your estimated HRmax (from age) and through a fitness test it has you do involving lying down for 8 minutes so it can find your resting HR. The sport zones are designed to help you find a zone to train in (National/FIFA Referees here train at about 86-90% of HRmax) to maximize your workout potential. You can lock in a sport zone so that if your heart rate dips below or above the specified limits it will beep and remind you to push/ease a little to get back in the zone. Other cool training features include pace (based on GPS or a shoe sensor that you can buy, but GPS works very well), automatic lapping (for when you are on a track/circuit doing laps, it will find your start point and increment the lap counter when you pass it) and analysis of your run after you're finished (it will tell you whether it was more of a tempo run, intervals, etc.) which can be useful for people just getting started for workouts and looking to find their range. After you're done with the watch you can plug it into a computer and use "WebSync" to synchronize training data with the website, called polarpersonaltrainer. The website and the app both look a little dated, but provide (mostly) all of the information that you could need. It charts your HR and pace on the same graph so that you can see the effect on your heart rate when you raise or lower in pace (this is useful for those of you running FIFA intervals so you can see how controlled your heart rate increase is when you do the running interval). It will also plot pace against your HR zones so that you can find appropriate paces to meet each zone. Battery life is about 12 hours of being in training mode using GPS and HR, far more with just the monitor. Plugs into a computer or USB wall adapter and charges in a few hours, definitely overnight. EDIT: I'm an idiot, yes the watch can zoom on the field if you set the map on polarpersonaltrainer to "satellite". Oh, and it also obviously has a stopwatch during training mode so that you can use it as a second refereeing watch if needed. This is a quick review on it, I've had it for a few months now and used it probably ~25 times. If you have any questions you might want to ask to help your purchase decision feel free to let me know, my biggest fear when buying one of these watches was that I would get one that had a bizarre feature missing. This would be a great watch to help you start HR training if you're so inclined.
Now this is a referee watch! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-199...A-/181381433181?&_trksid=p2056016.m2516.l5255
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-OME...491557256?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item3391ecf388 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Casio-SW110...965826145?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item540b3d6661
I hate to post in an old thread, but I wanted to make some clarifications on some of the referee watches mentioned in this thread. After about 4 years of daily service, I wore it every day, my trusty Timex Expedition T498519J needed a new watch band and battery. Even though I replaced a battery and a watch band it still looked like a watch that had 4 years of abuse. So I went on a seach for a new more aesthetically pleasing to wear referee watch. My cretaria was that it had to be decent looking, sporty, have a countdown timer and absolutely had to have vibration alarm. I also didn't want to spend too much money, so the Spintso was out. After my thorough research, so I thought, I settled down on Adidas ADP3087. It had the referee function, timer, was decent looking and I found a good deal on WatchStation for under $35. When it arrived, I did the watch reset and replaced the battery, but unfortunately it did not have the vibrate function. Fortunately for me, the watches light did not work, so I sent it back for a refund. I went back to researching my new watch and again I settled down on another Adidas watch, this time it was the Adidas ADP3121, One foreign web cite stated that it has the vibration function, so I went on ebay and bought it for under $40. When it arrived at my home I opened the box, performed the reset function in order to try to enable the vibrate function, but as some of you here have mentioned, it didn't work. So I went back to my research and found yet another Adidas watch. Again ebay came to the rescue and I bought it for under $40. It is the Adidas ADP3101. It arrived yesterday and unfortunately it had a low battery light so I could not test the vibrate function. This morning I got a new battery, performed the reset and to my great relief it has the vibrate function. I really like this watch, it has many functions, including all standard 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 min pre-sets on the referee setting, it also has 3 custom settings. On the Timer setting it has, Timer, Train, and Interval setting. It has 3 individual timers, 2 Train settings, (perfect for our FIFA interval test) once one stops the second one begins and it repeats for as long as you set it for, and an Interval setting. It also has 2 Alarms, Chrono, and My Log settings, that I will probably never use. What I really wanted to share with you is that since I bought 3 different watches and actually opened all of them to replace the battery, only Adidas ADP3101 had the vibration motor inside. This watch is not as big as the ADP3121, but it is rather thick at 17.20mm (.677in.) Both the ADP3101 and ADP3121 have the same functions, the only difference is that the ADP3101 has the vibration alarm and the ADP3121 does not. So if an Adidas watch you are looking for looks like this: ADP3101 or it's variations it has the vibrate functionHere is a picture of them on my wrist. So if your watch looks like this: ADP3101 or its variations it has the vibrate function. If it looks like this: ADP3121 or its variations it does not have vibrate function or this: ADP3087 or its variations it does not have vibrate function
After Christmas I'll let you all know how my ADP3120 and my Timex Expedition TW4B025009J work. Both have vibrate and the 3120 has the ref functions. 3120 is different from the 3121 as it is not negative faced (black lettering on a clear background)
Wow that Times is a BIG watch. as for the ADP3120, are you sure that it has vibrate function? If you are going by the UK web site you will be disappointed. Check out the instructions manual for adidas watches: It states that only the "REFEREE" watch has the vibrate function, not the "ADIPOWER TR" If I'm wrong, please point me/us to the place where you bought it. I actually prefer the size of the ADP312x models.