You can track anything on your wrist these days. Running. Swimming. Sleep. Heart rate. Heart rate variability. There are so many metrics available to the amateur athlete ?and regular workaday slouch ?that, some might argue, we know too much about our bodies. We're too connected. But everyone wants these metrics. Garmin knows this. Apple knows this. Whoop knows this. TAG Heuer does, too.
Enter the TAG Heuer Connected, which this summer was updated to include swimming and indoor running. It's the venerable Swiss brand's entry into the smartwatch (and multisport watch) world. If Patrick Bateman were a marathoner, this would be his training partner.
I am not a watch expert, but I am sort of a fitness expert, if sheer hours of participation are enough to qualify. I've done 10 marathons, three half-Ironman triathlons, and one totally insane full Ironman (a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride, and then a 26.2-mile run, all of which took me 13 hours and 45 minutes through the Adirondacks and made me grateful to sit down).
Over the years, I have tested too many wrist-bound fitness devices to count, from the big manufacturers above, to Suunto, Polar, Fitbit, and Coros. But until the TAG Heuer, I'd never worn one from a proper mechanical-watch brand.
As far as smartwatches are concerned, the Connected is very handsome. I personally like the simple black bezel with black strap, though alternate options abound. Classic steel case with a steel bracelet. A hi-viz strap. And, weirdly, a Super Mario limited edition. I tried the black titanium case with rubber strap, which has more heft than you might expect for something made from titanium. It's slightly heavier than an Apple Watch, but not prohibitively so. It felt comfortable on a 10-mile run and during lap swim.
It is the nicest-designed smartwatch I've ever worn. It doesn't look or feel like a multisport watch. It feels like, well, a watch ?a TAG Heuer, specifically. Not some contraption that I could wear running, swimming, and biking (and get text messages while streaming music!). It has the substance and silhouette of a traditional TAG Heuer with the brains of an Apple Watch. Which is effectively what it is: A glorified Apple Watch in Swiss clothing (powered by Google Wear OS).
It performs well on the run, in the pool, on the bike, and on the golf course. I walked 18 and it told me how far I was from the green on each hole ?the touchscreen even allowed me to move the pin around on the watch face so I could dial in specific yardages based on pin placement. The good news: For regular people who just want to know how far they've gone and how long it took them, the Connected will keep track of all that. The bad news: If you are a lifelong endurance athlete with a screw loose, like me, it won't do what you want it to. Let me explain.
I made the transition from a Timex Ironman to a Garmin GPS watch in 2010. I had never used a watch that tracked distance before. I just ran the same routes regularly and knew the distance. If I didn't know the distance I plugged the route into various online mapping software that calculated the distance (simpler times). My first Garmin was a revelation (I suddenly knew how far I was going in real time) and a curse (I was unhealthily fixated on pace).
But the thing I have enjoyed about smartwatches and GPS replica watches is that I can customize what I see on my watch while exercising. You, the athlete, can tailor the watch to your training. The Garmin Forerunner 945 is my current daily driver for triathlon training. I have it dialed into my specifications. When I'm running, for example, it shows me four metrics: Current pace, last kilometer pace, total distance, time elapsed. That's all I want to know. If I wanted to add heart rate ?I don't; I know I'm breathing hard ?I could. If I just wanted to see the elapsed time and nothing else, I could do that, too. Dialing in what you see is essential if you're training for, say, an Ironman and have very specific workouts with very specific goals.
The TAG Heuer Connected does not let you do this. The watch faces are not customizable. For running there are two screens. One shows duration, calories, and heart rate. The other focuses on your heart rate zones. If that's what you care about, great. If you want more, tough.
Where the watch redeems itself is in the data it spits out after your workout. The TAG Heuer app is where you can do fun stuff, like pick your watch face (I went with Classic, obviously) and sift through all your stats. The recent swimming update ?previous versions of the watch did not have a swim function - is on par with all the data athletes would get from a top-of-the-line multisport watch like Suunto or Garmin. You'll find calories burned, stroke rate, interval breakdowns, and the extremely nerdy SWOLF score, which measures your efficiency in the pool by adding the time and the number of strokes it takes you to swim a lap (ingeniously calculating it for the size of your local pool).
This is valuable data. Even for a normal person who doesn't enjoy spending half of their weekend suffering on a carbon fiber bike, it's nice to know how hard your body worked. And, as you exercise more you can easily track your improvement.
Ultimately the Connected's viability comes down to how much you like the way it looks, and how much you want to spend on a workout watch. The price starts at $1,800, which exceeds the going rate for more powerful and intuitive smartwatches. But those more powerful and intuitive smartwatches often look exactly like that: Dorky multisport device thingys.
So who are you, and what do you need? You're a hardcore triathlete who spends far too much time exercising and demands complete dominion over the display of your performance? Look elsewhere. The TAG Heuer is beautiful, but you won't see it at the start line of endurance races anytime soon. Are you, on the other hand, a hardcore watch enthusiast in the market for a legit timepiece that you can wear for a run and to a business meeting? The TAG Heuer is for you.
Bill Bradley is a longtime magazine journalist, long-suffering endurance athlete, and the co-founder of Three Point Four Media.
Shop this storyThe HODINKEE shop is an authorized Retailer of TAG Heuer watches. Explore the collection here. TAG Heuer is part of the LVMH group. Although LVMH Luxury Ventures is a minority investor in HODINKEE, we maintain complete editorial independence.
A Rare Speedmaster Ed White A Gorgeous Heuer Carrera An Underestimated Replica Rolex Oysterquartz And More 1112