My Review of Garmin Forerunner 210 GPS Heart Rate Monitor

Complete Disappointment!

Pros: Fun when it works

Cons: Heartrate monitor broke after a few uses. Terrible signal acquisition. Pace readout strange. No coordinate display. Battery life.

Best Uses: Running. Day hikes as long as they are not too long. Cross-country and backcountry skiing.

Describe Yourself: Trail runner, skier, hiker, climber.

Was this a gift?: No

Okay, I’ve wanted one of these toys for years and finally settled on this one. It was on sale at REI, but was available cheaper elsewhere. However, after twenty years as a member and knowing how strong the customer service is at REI, I decided to buy there to support my coop and in case something went wrong. Good decision!

I had read reviews complaining about slow signal acquisition and about the heartrate monitor going bad very quickly. I was not prepared for anything like this piece of junk though.

1. Signal acquisition is ABYSMAL.

There have been times when I’ve gone for a run and gotten decent tracking, then gone out and done the same run under clear skies and gone for 30 minutes without getting a signal. This has been true in dense forest in Yosemite where I live,  but also in more open areas in Yosemite, as well as running along the open road by fields and meadows in Vermont, and along a hilltop road in Minnesota. Once, I ran to the top of a hill in Yosemite and stood in an open area for 3 minutes with the thing above my head and got no signal. Then, a few minutes later, while bushwhacking in dense underbrush, I suddenly saw it was tracking!

One thing that’s frustrating is how it says “Acquiring satelites” and shows a progress bar, which progresses across the screen, getting tantalizingly close, making you think it almost has the satelites. Then, with one pixel left to go on the bar, it resets back to the middle. So it’s not actually a measure of the number of satelites it has, just a measure of the amount of time it has spent trying to acquire a signal.

It is incredible how bad this is. I have noticed that with a 100% full charge, I can often pick up satelites quickly, but anything less and it won’t get them at all. Example. Yesterday I ran from my house for 3.5 miles. It took about three minutes to get a signal (good for the Garmin) and tracked me perfectly through the forest. The watch was on for about 30 minutes, so drained a little, but not a lot. Three hours later, I decided to run to my lunch appointment. The first half mile was along the same route, then I veered into open meadows (where signals should be better) and still, after over a mile of running, I had no signal. Strangely, after lunch, I stood stock still in an open area and it eventually picked up a signal and tracked me home.

2. Heartrate Monitor Really Is <em>That Bad</em>

I had read complaints where people said the heartrate monitor twinked out after a month. I think mine literally lasted three uses. I thought the battery had gone bad, but today I tried not one, but two new batteries and could not get the watch to recognize the heartrate monitor.

3. No coordinates display.

On those rare occasions this has worked, it is a fun toy. It’s a toy only, of course, because of the extreme unreliability. I knew of course this was not going to have maps and all that like a GPS, but I didn’t imagine it wouldn’t even let you display the coordinates, which might be pretty handy if you want to use this on longer trail runs and backcountry ski tours.

4. Average pace readings.

These are pretty weird and all over the place. They use some averaging algorithm that seems to average over about a minute (but it’s more complex than that; hard to get a bead on really), so you don’t have an instantaneous display and, play with the averaging settings as you will, I couldn’t get anything that seemed to respond quickly enough to make sense for doing quarter mile intervals. If you want to do intervals where you, for example, stay above a certain pace, you can’t really do that because of the substantial lag time in the display (even when you say not to average things).

5. Battery life.

10 hours and you’re done. You lose your GPS. You lose your watch. If you’re doing something longer and want to know what time it is, you need a backup watch. This is just the nature of GPS devices because of the power draw, so nothing against Garmin on that point. Just saying.

Bottom line:

When it works, it’s a pretty cool toy, but it doesn’t work so often, you just have to take it as a bonus if you actually can use it. Given how unreliable it is and the fact that the HR monitor appears to be broken, I’ll be returning this.

If you’ve gotten this far and you’re still thinking of buying this, good luck! Let me say one more thing. I read the reviews like you’re doing now and knew that people had problems with the signal acquisition. I said “Well, what’s the big deal if I wait a minute or two for a signal or miss the first two minutes of my run?” I read the reports where people said the HR monitor broke almost immediately. I said “Well, any piece of equipment can fail, it’s a small percentage though, right?”

In short, I thought it would be a ton of fun to have device that does what the Garmin does (and when it works, it is), so I allowed myself to discount all the negative reviews and charge on with the purchase in the face of the evidence. Sure, REI has a great return policy and I’ll get my money back. No problem there. But it is a pain in the butt for me (and REI), and it’s just been a frustrating experience.

I must say, ten years ago I had a Garmin eTrex Legend and it, also, was an utter piece of junk, with terrible signal acquisition. I thought that GPS units had improved a lot in the intervening years. I’m sure they have, but I will not be buying any more Garmin products.

(legalese)