[00:00:00] Tayson: Everybody welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast, powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today on the episode we interviewed someone from COROS. COROS, you may know them because we talk about them all the time from their watches that we actually sell inside the Live Ultralight membership, but we also use started using them last year and really really enjoyed some specific aspects of them which we do cover in this podcast. But if you're someone who has, you know, been considering using one, or is on the fence of buying one or actively is using one, wants to learn more about the watches. This podcast is going to be for you. So in this podcast I interviewed Darian Allberry he's an ultra Runner and Head of User Engagement at COROS So, he oversees kind of the press and media Communications, but he also is in large part, you know, dealing with like user interface of the product, and working with, you know, more of the engineering team to, to implement some of that. So we get into some pretty unique and interesting aspects of this. But again, I would just say huge thanks to Darian for coming on. It was really, really engaging conversation effect. I think we went a little bit over. I'm just because I got, I got so in the mix of it just in enjoying all of the information here but I promise you, I promise you this. This may sound like I'm over promising, but I swear a watch can change your life. What I mean by that is more on the health side. I now have everyone in my family wearing watches just to track heart rate and and just improve I guess like to know how their how their health is to begin with but then too once you start to track that it will give you a metric, just want to improve that if you've got no idea how you're doing in a category you can't improve yourself, right? But if you like have a baseline, like, you know, where your Fitness is at just by wearing the watch, right? You know, where your heart rate's typically getting or, you know, where it's saying that you're lacking, you know, from the absence and stuff that they, that they have associated with these, then you know how to improve it. And I know personally for me, this is when I, you know, shed and another 20 pounds, gotten much better, physical condition, I've seen that in other people around me. So, I love these, I'm a huge proponent of them. There's a ton of additional benefits for backpacking between navigation and just all of that. So stay tuned for this episode. Will go ahead and roll this interview right now. I promise you guys are going to get a ton out of it and again, appreciate Darian from COROS coming on. All right, Darian, super excited to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on. We have had requests actually to kind of get into the Nitty Gritty of watches and what they provide. And, you know, Talk about them really frequently over here at outdoor vitals and on the live Ultra podcast obviously. So it's near and dear to our hearts though. We're super excited. To have you on the show and would love to just hear a little about your background and how you ended up at COROS.
[00:02:45] Darian: Yeah. And thank you very much for having me. I'm excited. It's always fun to be able to actually get out and talk about the things that we're doing Beyond just the emails that we're sending, and the standard communication. So again, thank you. My background is I started in wearable tech four or five years ago at Whoop, actually. And so, that was my first experience with wearable tech. And then I think I got to a point where I was just so heavily invested in GPS watches because my background is very much Trail Ultra mountain and I just became obsessed with all of it. Both the data, how does it work? And how differently people use them. So when I started with COROS, my primary responsibilities were in alignment with what we'd call user engagement. So how do people interact with the device? Seeing if there's ways that they can better use it and then that was about three years ago and transitioned to today. My responsibilities very much are, I like to try and call myself a product translator. Meaning we're taking all the very in-depth information from our engineers and putting that into Communications that everyone can understand and more than just understand, really see what they get from it. We're a very much a user-centric company. In the sense of we build specific products to help people train better, they can go out, explore better live better lives and so being able to think about how the product is actually going to help them with one of those two things really changes the way in which we communicate that. And so that's a lot of go to market for our new watches, new software, which I'm sure we'll dig into in a bit because we love talking about software. But that's the that's the bulk of my day-to-day here.
[00:04:39] Tayson: Yeah, I find that super interesting that you started that at whoop and that your job is is what it is. Because I guess in my mind I kind of classify because I've used both like, you know, the [largest company] in the space I guess or the original. I don't know if it's actually the original. We need to get into this but like like you have Garmin watches, right? And I've got this. [an example] in here. And then I see you guys is like You guys are like a little bit more, laser focus, a little more Niche focused on Runners and training. And there's some real advantages of that which I've really enjoyed. So I kind of find an interesting. I guess you come from whoop because whoop, I mean, it's like you don't have a screen on a Whoop band, right? Like it's right. So it's like, almost all just I don't like heart-rate variability interpretation or like? What? Like so describe I guess like what you thought? Whoop. That was interesting or like what you liked about like that, whoop band. And then how you're carrying that or what the overlap is with COROS?
[00:05:37] Darian: Yeah, Whoop is—and I say this a lot about wearable tech in general. Like there are so many different products that I think serve people better some of the first things. If somebody comes up and [asks while] you're working at an expo for a trail Marathon, or a road marathon and they say, like, why should I buy a COROS? And it's well, actually, you know, tell me what your needs are first because there are people that an Apple Watch will suit better because they like using it for work and they like doing these other things right? But to go back to the original question about whoop I think the thing that Whoop does really well is they do communicate? they communicate very complex information into a condensed manner that's easy to digest with the three pillars, the scores recovery strain sleep and they have dialed it into a point that I think people. Really can use it depending on your sport or how you're trying to train or maybe just be healthier. You can really use it as a health monitor. I think is, is one of the better ways to describe it, especially in the space of people who are Outdoors a lot. I think that's really what purpose it serves to them is more of a health monitor rather than something that's actually helping you maybe prepare for an adventure, it's going to help you interact with it during and then kind of what does that post-activity analysis. Look like what could I have done better? What does this look like after the fact? And so what translates really well was just the general technology, right? Because any wearable I mean the screen is is a big difference from but beyond that any GPS watch internal components are different. But at a high level, they're very, very similar and so building the software and when I say software both on the watch, but also the app and how somebody can interact with. I think becomes a much bigger question. And like you said, we certainly are pretty laser focused on people that want to improve their performance. And that doesn't mean they need to be [an elite athlete], right? You could very much be trying to run your first five k or PR or 5K and when you haven't run for a while, but how do we help people get better in that manner?
[00:07:52] Tayson: Yeah, I I really enjoy that aspect of it. In fact, I would say that for me, it wasn't until I started to use a GPS watch and started to track it that I was able to actually start to improve my health and the reason I say that is it for me. I'm pretty goal-oriented and and I like to like there's a saying, right, a number watched is a number improved, or a number tracked is a number improved. And so, if you're just going out like willy-nilly and running, say five miles and then you're like, oh, I should do that a couple times a week, but you're not actually tracking it. You're not actually seeing. If you're getting five miles, you're just kind of just going by the seat of your pants. It's really hard to have a number and then to try to improve that number. And so, my entire life, I was never a runner never really tracking miles as much. I'm tracking a little bit for for backpacking purposes, but that was like, when I was already out on the, the event, right? It wasn't training and it wasn't until I started to use the GPS watch, and I'm like, oh, I ran, you know, five miles a day, and did it in this time and okay, wonder if I could like run another five and certainly you know and and so I really Have found that to be hugely valuable for anyone. Just like you said, whether you're just barely starting or whether you're, you know, obviously training for a very specific event, but I want to loop back to, to all of this in a second. I feel like we're I may, I could easily jump into the tech side of things. I find it very interesting. Like, what you can learn from from heart rate, variability, and from recovery scores and all this kind of stuff. And then there are like you say there are differences in the way that people present those inside of apps and stuff. So, but before we get into the nitty-gritty, I guess I do want to also just ask a little bit about COROS and its background like I, I don't know, really anything about COROS and maybe it's because I came into the Running Scene three years ago and that's really where, like their heart and soul are, you know, we're obviously, you know, Outdoor Vitals more on the backpacking front, but there's so much overlap for training and then all. So using the product in the field, we had a really good experience. Last summer was our first time using the COROS watches. We used them on the Colorado Trail. and we were just [impressed] by battery life and and some of that and it really won a lot of the hearts over. So that's after that. That's when I started to retail COROS watches and anyway. So I guess to come back to it though. I'd love to know the background. The origins, of course, you know, how long they've been around. How did they get started? I really couldn't find any of that on the website with a quick glance at it. So I'd like to dig in, I guess some some company info if we can just to get to know the company a little bit more, you know, kind of their ethos which you guys are really focused on because it does seem like you guys are much more laser focused than some of these other brands.
[Editor’s note: The role, prior Whoop work, watch and wearable descriptions, “a watch can change your life” statement, heart-rate and health-monitor discussion, 20-pound weight-loss anecdote, training and performance claims, and product comparisons above are May 2024 participant claims—not current medical, weight-loss, health, training, coaching, product, endorsement, or outcome guidance or verification.]
[00:10:36] Darian: So, COROS started. officially as a company about, Eight or nine years ago. And actually, the first product not a lot of people know this, but the first product that COROS ever released was a cycling helmet. So it was yeah, it was a bike helmet. That it would have crash detection, Bluetooth bone conduction and it was just a very difficult space for the company. Obviously, I wasn't here, but Talking with people that have been here since the beginning. It was a very difficult space and decided to make the jump into watches. So the first watch was about six years ago, the original Pace was the first watch that COROS ever launched and it was I think the one thing that I've appreciated about COROS a lot and hopefully people who use the product as well can appreciate. The products—both hardware and software, our watches and [app]—are built around problems that we think we can solve. And one of the main ones that everyone still to this day will note is the battery life, right? And so when the watch is started, it was the Pace series and then got into Apex and the Vertix series, which are more of your backpacking watches their ultra running watches. They're more rugged. They do well in the mountains and battery life is one of those things that it's It seems like a point to gloss over, I think, unless you really experience it and it makes a huge difference, whether you're doing the Colorado Trail, which is, you know, depending on how slow or fast, you go weeks. That is where it's most apparent, but it's also in the day-to-day life, I think a lot of people don't realize that it is pretty annoying to charge your watch once a day a couple times a week. You're getting ready for your run. You don't realize that it's dead. So it's a value that. Is I think? We don't talk about it as much as I think we probably could because it is awesome and it's something that like I said, when we started with the watches and we knew that battery life was something we could do. One of the main reasons that COROS has such good battery. Life is not because we're using some crazy battery pack that nobody else has access to, right? It's just that when you're making product decisions on the hardware side, you choose what you want to do. And we choose not to do a lot of what people refer to as the bells and whistles about you're not checking stocks on it, you're not doing any, you're not playing games on it and That does allow for a very efficient system with the watch that allows the battery to last, as long as it does and building up to the watches that we have. Now, the second piece of the second problem that we saw as an opportunity in the market was to just be focused on outdoors and performance and those two things. carry a lot of value for people and whether or not they want to. try and do both at the same time or if you're using it, purely for exploration purposes, or if you're using it, just for the performance side, I think that our app and our watches, do a really good job of Improving those for people. And those are really when we think about entering A new sport vertical. So when it was switching from cycling helmets to running really that was you know our focus and our products to do a ton Beyond running. I think it's short-sighted to say that but it's also very apparent that that is what we do best right now is is running. And so as we expand We're certainly focused on other areas that will be excited to get into very soon, but it's okay. Here's here's the vertical, the sport vertical, what is it? And how do we actually solve problems that people are experiencing their
[00:14:19] Tayson: Yeah. Yeah I think that's I can't iterate enough. How much battery life matters, right? Even if you are like someone who's not, you know, tracking activity every day. It's I don't know, I guess people joke about this like I've had people like, they'll see me take my watch off and they're like, oh your watch comes off. I didn't know what ever came off right. And I don't I mean to me like it is a part of my body because I want to track you know all of those those Health you know, signs? Right. I want to track my heart rate every day and and through the night, and I want to track my sleep and I want to know you know, those those details and and so, obviously battery life is huge. Even if you're not training because I never think about charging my watch, I mean, for weeks at a time and then I've got people around me that every single night. They're slapping their eye, whatever it is, Apple watch on the charger, right? And it's like to me, I'm like, you're only, you know, I you're getting 60% of the value. I'm getting out of my watch because I'm wearing it 100% of the time I'm wearing 60% of the time, you know, whatever it is and then I it's never did. I feel like everyone is always like, hey, Everyone that I go with on, you know whether I'm going biking or running, it seems like they're all like hey can I add myself to your Strava you know because they're watches and gonna make it through the adventure right? But That's like on the daily basis and then obviously like when you're doing backpacking multi-day, backpacking, we'll still have to charge the watch but I've I've had other watches specifically, you know, my Garmin watch, you know, not make it to the end of the day. Sometimes if it doesn't start on a full charge, I'm not always getting to the end of the day on particular watches, right? Because they're all kind of different but I you mentioned something that I think is really interesting. Which is, you know that the you don't have some special battery pack in it, but do you not component wise? Again, we're getting into the weeds here. I wanted to know a little bit more about COROS, the company, but do you not component wise, like put a bigger battery in it than maybe some other people do because it is a little bit more of a like it's a little heavier I guess than some of the other watches. First like maybe that I was noticeable for like one day and then now, I don't think anything about it, but my thought when I first put it on was like, Yeah there must be at least a little bit. Bigger capacity battery in this thing.
[00:16:40] Darian: So that's a great question. And one that I wouldn't even have a perfect answer to only because most companies don't share what they're using externally. So I would know what we use, right? But I'm not gonna [claim to know] what Garmin or Suunto uses now it is a good point to illustrate that. Speaking about COROS and a focus of ours. And I'm sure the other brands are thinking about this as well is just that there is certainly room for As technology advances, you are able to reduce the size of other components, which yes, allows for a larger battery. So, even when I talk about, Our Pace series, which is very much focused on like Runners swimmers people. That cyclists people that want to go fast, just want to have a very light watch on their wrist. That is one thing from the pace to the PACE three that we improved, which was the size of the battery because the other components got smaller over the course of two years. So that allowed for for more capacity.
[00:17:38] Tayson: Interesting. Interesting. So COROS started, you know, eight nine years ago, six years ago, you got into the watch space. What? How was COROS started was it like was there a founder of this thing? Was it an investment company that started it right out of the gate? You know, have you guys are you guys owned by an investment company at this point? Like what give us just some detail on the business itself?
[00:18:02] Darian: Yeah so it's all private Equity so it is just it's a it's a group of investors and so it started out with cycling, I believe as Not the same group that it is now and the reason that the switch from cycling helmets to watches which is a pretty big jump, right? Felt I think more natural to a couple of the investors and then more people that were brought on was that investors. And I don't have a specific number of how many people, but there were a couple of them that had experience with GPS navigation in cars. So they had been investing in that space for a while. Helping out with the actual manufacturing done for these GPS units. And so transferring some knowledge saying, hey, like we know how this works for car display units, whether it was somebody using the old Garmin displays the actual TomTom devices, or they started to get billed into cars before iPhones were across every single car. Was started as far as the details beyond that. I actually might be a little fuzzy, I could brush up more, but that was the transition from cycling helmets to watches and why watches was a Natural Choice and then yeah, it's a private Equity company.
[00:19:20] Tayson: Gotcha. Okay, okay. So let's go over really quick. Just your watch lineup and then I kind of want to dive into Like a little bit of watch selection but then also getting into like, how do we pull the most out of the watch, right? And You know, some of those differences and nuances of software and things, but lineup-wise, on the Pace, you have the Apex and you have the Vertix. So maybe you've already kind of touched on the pace a little bit lighter, a little bit faster, likely a little bit shorter on battery life. Any other difference is in that one? Or any other unique.
[00:19:59] Darian: so, that one, Those are the main ones I think. That when we look at our product lineup and again the same question of if somebody has their thinking just which one's gonna be best for me, I will almost always start someone at the pace until they say they need more and knowing again, what the people listening on your show are most interested in one of those clear differences. Going from the pace to the Apex would be mapping. So the pace three has what you've called, breadcrumb navigation, and breadcrumb navigation—which I didn't learn until a year or two ago—was [named after] the old breadcrumb way to get back from the trail. So how that works on a watch is is different. I think it's a little bit better than the old method but you're just basically going to see a line on the watch. You do not see any Topo lines, you don't see Lakes, Road streets, anything like that. So going from the pace to the Apex, that's a pretty big difference. As you go up in inside, again, more size for a battery, you're going to have more battery life. And most watches all of our updated watches. Now, minus the Apex 2, which is just older than the Pace 3. Do have like dual frequency satellite which is going to be the most accurate. It's the most power consuming. But thinking about hiking, the Grand Canyon is the perfect example. If you go down into Phantom Ranch and you are surrounded by thousands of feet of wall, that's an example of when a dual frequency satellite mode would help. It's just a stronger pull on the satellite to get more accurate data. And from Pace to Apex, that's going to be the biggest difference. The Apex 2 versus 2 Pro, the main difference is going to be the size of the watch. Again that leads to battery life, dual frequency being on the Apex 2 Pro, and then from the Apex 2 Pro to the Vertix series. Which we just released the Vertix 2S, which is mainly a hardware refresh on the Vertix 2. So it's a new heart rate sensor and then a GPS antenna design but The difference between those two models, the biggest one is going to be the size of the watch the display and the battery life. Again, that's a common theme, but bigger display on that Vertix. Yep. Correct.
[00:22:26] Tayson: Okay. And then I mean, I've known they're they're sizeable watches but that's also like when I was running with Jeff Pelletier in the Moab 240 he was using that watch and he was like had incredible battery life like he switched to that watch specifically for a 240 mile race. I don't know that he had to charge it once during a 240 mile race.
[00:22:47] Darian: Yeah, no. It's it's a big difference. The the display size I have to look on her site but I'll be very close. It's 1.4 inch on the Vertix 2 or 2S in about one point two or three inches on the Apex so it's not a massive difference. And the other thing I find interesting as well is when you talk about the weight of watches, the Vertix 2 is gonna have a wider band. So it is a much bigger watch and I'm somebody that and sometimes shame to admit, I have dainty wrists so I feel I feel bigger watches but the weight of it specifically yes you get very used to it. No matter what what which watch you switched to and then small things. Like if the band is thicker right? The way it's going to feel more dispersed and then I guess just one last note on the Vertix 2 and 2S is that we all sort of very much building out climbing related things with these watches so it can actually can you can take the watch bands off and clip it into a carabiner if you're doing crack climbing so that you're not, you know, it's not in the way on your wrist. But those would be, I'd say the main difference is and then my anecdotal example. Not Moab 240, but I have a close friend, Don, who ran Cocodona 250 last year with the Vertix 2, used navigation the whole time and I think he ended with like 45% battery
[00:24:08] Tayson: you can find COROS products inside of the live ultralight membership for those that don't know what that is. That is a month membership, that 10 bucks, instantly loads into store credits, you don't lose any money. It's like a savings account for your money, but inside of their you can also buy retail items such as COROS watches or water filters or backpacking food, which we have a variety of or cooking items. So there's a ton in there but you can save year round 10% on those items. Plus you get a rebate back with everything. So typically that rebate is like another 10% off, but during the month of May, it is what we call our, you know, members are for mayor mayor for members or something like this, right? And during that during the month of May, we're going to be offering additional discounts. Um, so you're gonna get 20% off of the purchase of any retail products that would be that would include COROS watches. Or water filters or food plus the rebates back. So you're getting nearly 30% off of products during the month of May. So we're going to try to keep everything in stock but just so, you know, that is going on during the month of May. So if you want to save on a COROS watch jump over to outdoorvitals.mom, get signed up as a member and save big over there.
[Editor’s note: The COROS history, ownership, Pace/Apex/Vertix generations, maps, screens, satellites, sensors, climbing hardware, dimensions, battery, membership, $10 credit, rebates, percentages, May promotion, inventory, retail items, and savings above are historical May 2024 participant claims—not current specifications, comparisons, price, offer, membership terms, discount, stock, availability, or endorsement information.]
[00:25:20] Tayson: I want to get into like navigation and some of this, I think those are, those are hugely valuable. So I do want to touch on that specifically for our audience. But what is the battery life? So I have the Apex 2 Pro. I'm about to run 100 mile race and I've never had an issue with the battery life. I've also never gone, you know, 30 hours in a race. So I'm curious from what I can tell just off the cuff and I haven't looked it up but like that the batter that they'll the watch will make it without charging. But what do you say
[00:25:55] Darian: Yeah, 30. 30 hours is expected.
[00:25:58] Tayson: That's the goal time. Yeah. I mean 36 is cut off,
[00:26:01] Darian: it'll be good. Yeah. There's there's a lot of nuances and you can try to articulate them but there's so many different scenarios on how battery usage is going to. Factor of how you use the watch. I should say is going to affect battery, but you have a pretty good buffer. It's about 75 hours on the Apex 2 Pro so you should be more than set and the things that battery life. Most Obvious one, you're using GPS. That's a very power consuming thing to do. Navigation, does add battery consumption. It's not a ton, especially if you're not interacting with the watch every second. And then things like backlight usage notifications lap reminders, just the actual vibration and the buzz of the watch but I think you're set with the Apex 2 Pro.
[00:26:48] Tayson: Yeah I'm pretty sure when I did the Colorado Trail, we were hiking. You know, it was probably tracking for 10 hours a day, if not a little longer and I'm pretty sure I got three full days before I was like, I'm not sure. I'll make it the fourth day or it might have been right around three to four days. So then I charge it at that night so I mean that would have been over 30 hours I would imagine. And I charge it mainly just because I didn't want to potentially die, you know. So yeah one of the guys on our team he was using hike mode and I was using trail run mode and I don't know if there's any difference there. This is when we were using like some some watches from you guys were they were shipped out to us and it was testing them. He made it the whole time without charging once five days of hiking on the Apex 2 Pro. But I didn't know if there's maybe a difference in the hike mode versus Trail Run mode or something like that, but let's talk, let's talk about navigation for a second. I think this is the like, and for special for our audience for anyone, in fact, actually this morning I was I was watching the Cocodona 250, right? I've been, I've been watching that for those of you that don't know, it's a race that's going on. It's 250 mile race in Arizona. And there's some really big names in it. It's a really interesting race this year, for sure. And went to bed and Joe McConaughy, who set a bunch of FKTs, we've kind of mentioned him on this podcast as I've talked to a few other FKT guys, before His leading. I mean he was crushing it and in the night he got turned around and went backwards on the course until he bumped into. Number two, Jeff Browning and had to turn back around and realize he was going backwards on the course blew my mind, right? But at the same time happens when I was out pacing Jeff on the Moab 240. My main job. I felt like my main job was to navigate. Specially, we are going through miles like 180 to 200 where you're up in the [mountains], it's freaking dark. There's no moon out. The trail is very slim actually quite hard to navigate at times a lot of the ribbons. they put up had been knocked down by. I don't even know if they'd been knocked down or if they just weren't there to begin with, but yeah, their claim was that? There's a lot of livestock in the area that knock them down. And I was, I was literally running at times about 40 yards, ahead of Jeff purposely just so I could navigate so that he didn't have to take a wrong turn and both the guy in head and behind us messed that up multiple times. In fact, we messed up by about 20 yards, but again, thanks to the watch. I was just constantly, you know, just flipping my wrist over looking at the navigation and we went, you know, 20 yards too far of this little offshoot, Trail huge, huge Advantage. But the other advantage to this specifically for Backpackers, in my opinion, is the lack of having to use your phone, your phone consumes so much more battery than a watch does, specifically. You know, you're building up your unlocking it It's loading up an app if this way big screen this way brighter, so you can see it. And by not using my phone anymore for navigation when I'm backpacking. It's a it's it's saved so much battery life so that my, you know, because typically you're going on a five-day backpacking trip, you've got your battery bank, right? And you're like, well, I don't want to carry two of these suckers. They're they're heavy, right? They're just [extra weight]. And so it's it's allowed me to stretch my phone battery way farther and then the COROS watch, you know, its battery life is so good. That If I have to charge that watch too like that, watch battery size is a fraction of the size of the phone battery. So, navigation, has been has been just absolutely huge. I mean, I even went out to, I'm running the Bryce Canyon 100 and I was just out I went out like last Saturday to do some kind of pre scouting on a rough section of course. And do I use the navigation the entire time and I also used the elevation profile. I found that just incredibly valuable that. Oh, I've got a 1000 foot climb coming right here descending, a thousand feet and it was, it was just, I mean, I can't. I, I guess once you have it, like, you can't live without it type of feeling is how I feel about navigation. So that is a huge benefit to know that the Pace doesn't have [full onboard maps]. The Apex 2 Pro does, at least that the work currently selling on our website. So, I would I would absolutely Lobby for people to jump to the Apex 2 Pro super helpful. Not that you're gonna be getting turned around in the middle of night during a race. But for every day looking at that mapping that keeping your phone just out of sight, out of sound and I really only pull out my phone when I'm backpacking now to take photos. And and so then my my battery life is just off the charts compared to what I feel like it used to be. So huge benefit there in the navigation side and its really easy, just To just add to this. You pull you basically grab the GPX file on your phone and you just push it to your watch and you just selected as your starting up the day and you've got the map right there. So Super easy to do as well. I also was interested in this. I jumped into the course, so I had the Bryce Canyon 100 course on there. I jumped into the course and went, like, halfway through, and I swear the very first time I ever tried to navigate, it was on a, it's on a Garmin watch. I didn't mess with the features. I didn't. I probably in retrospect, could have learned a lot more about that watch and, and used some of that, but I jumped in at, like, mile 35 and just took off on a certain direction, and the watch didn't, like, freaked out at me, which I really liked to be like, oh, you need to be here going this direction. And so, I really also enjoyed that aspect. Now, a question I have about navigation is Is there a way to put like Aid stations or landmarks into the navigation?
[00:32:42] Darian: Yeah, and I just stopped me when I'm rambling because I have so many fun things. I think with navigation that are useful and there are things that Like, even to this day, I still learn how to use in practice, right? Because for a lot of times for me, it's I'm reading about what we're doing. And I'm talking to a product manager about why it's being developed. And then I use it in practice one day I'm like, wow, that is really helpful. So to answer your question directly, yes, it is possible to put Aid stations checkpoints viewpoints, it is awesome. I I did the Leadville 100 a couple years ago and having the distance to the next aid station and the elevation profile. So think if anyone's familiar you're leaving Twin Lakes you're climbing up to Hope pass it's like yeah it's only three miles but it's 2200 feet like it's going to be it's going to be a slow go and so that really does help a ton and it's not just racing environments, its General environments where you go. Okay well it's going to be approximately this much time for me to hike to 2200 vertical feet. That means that I can probably gauge my water better, my food intake and one really nice thing about COROS: you can also do all of this in the app directly so the third page within the app, you can create routes on it. You can also add the checkpoints there. That doesn't mean that you can't do the GPX file import. So if you Find Trails. If you find it on a race website, you can pull the GPX file into COROS and then send it to the watch, like you said and it won't interrupt anything. We do have turn-by-turn as well, which is relatively new and is pretty helpful, especially as you're getting to Trail intersections that there's four or five ways to go, right? It just is one more alert to say, okay, I know that I'm gonna go left here rather than having to sit and look, because the reality of a watch is that it's a much smaller screen. So, depending on the scale that you're zoomed into having a notification of which way you're going, is incredibly helpful and then, Other navigation notes that I find to be really helpful. Just in my day-to-day. Use are the, the checkpoints like you mentioned or Aid stations. I use save location, a ton on a watch, which I don't think a lot of people might use as much, and the benefit of it is that I can use one example of last summer. I was out hiking around Silverthorne, and Colorado and I was doing this long Loop, it was like a 15 or 20 mile Loop and I found a spot that I thought would be great for just like an overnight situation. And so, without having to pull out my phone and you saved the location just by holding the back button on the toolbox, you press save location, it gives you the GPS, the latitude and longitude coordinates. And then the really cool thing about that is that, when you're done with the activity, it will automatically sync back to the COROS app as a location, so that when you go onto the map in the future, you can say, oh, here's that icon that I saved. So then two weeks later, I come back and I can just create a route directly to that exact latitude, longitude coordinate that I saved the day or the couple weeks prior,
[00:35:52] Tayson: How did you say you saved that?
[00:35:53] Darian: Yeah.
[00:35:54] Tayson: So if you're in the like if you're actively tracking so that's one thing is when I'm actively tracking. I don't know, I can't really exit tracking anymore, right? Can I, unless I like pause the activity,
[00:36:04] Darian: you can't exit but you can access the toolbox and so that is gonna show you gonna be doing a lot of things. So the toolbox is essentially the menu that you go to. If you hold the back button where you get to or the bottom one, I should say, you're navigation, map compass. That's where you get like an oximeter, which is another point. If you're up in the mountains, High, I think, is a really valuable thing to have, but there should be a pin within the toolbox. That is a location, and then you can do save location, or look for those. You've saved previously around you and so you can do this during an activity, which is incredibly helpful to me, to be able, to actually just save something, because there's a lot of days that I'm not necessarily going out and doing recon, but I'm unintentionally doing it and I See something that might be good to come back to whether it's a photo location. If it's a good spot for camping or water, Crossings, I do it. A lot of times with water crossing because I want to remember where that is
[00:37:03] Tayson: Yeah. I did not know how to get to that. Toolbox screen. So I'm literally doing it right now and I'm very happy that I know that, in fact, I like avoid that button at all costs because it does the lap. Yeah, it does the lap. Yeah, so I actually wear this, you know, I flipped the screen upside down and put it this direction so that I don't ever hit that lap button on accident. And so, I've just, yeah, I never touched that one specifically for that. So That's really really good to know. Can you see messages in that toolbox? Just I don't see, that's not
[00:37:38] Darian: not directly in that toolbox. The messages are only going. You can enable messages to appear during activities but you can't view like a list of them unless you're out of the activity.
[00:37:49] Tayson: And [one last thing], I guess.
[00:37:51] Darian: Yeah, [what is it]? Go ahead.
[00:37:56] Tayson: I was gonna ask what UltraMax is.
[00:37:58] Darian: Yeah. So Ultra Max is, we're actually potentially doing away with it. It is [reducing GPS checks] to give you [more battery life]. So it doesn't make it more accurate. It makes it less accurate, it makes it less accurate. It gives you longer battery life. But what it does is it does reduce the amount of times that the watch is communicating with satellite. And I think it's one of those things where when it was initially available we saw a good value but generally speaking our products have gained battery life so it's not as much of an issue and I think it sets the wrong precedent sometimes that people just don't get the accuracy they expected.
[00:38:37] Tayson: All right, so one other thing, I just got to call out here inside of that toolbox. So as you're doing an activity, you can navigate to oximeter. And so a lot of people are hiking to high altitudes and you may feel like you're getting altitude sick. So just so you are aware. You could check your blood oxygen levels during an activity. Now, if you want to, which I find very valuable, So that's that's really really cool. And then yeah just a lot of nice. I like this. I actually use your COROS armband. Heart rate monitor.
[00:39:08] Darian: Yeah,
[00:39:09] Tayson: I've dabbled with it a little bit and there's been times when I started an activity and I haven't been connected. So nice to know that I can connect that in an activity now. Yeah, no, this is this is super nice. Cool. Cool. That's okay.
[00:39:23] Darian: One one, last note on navigation, I also find really helpful that people may not know. And whether it's us or even people, using Garmin watches—although I'm not positive about Garmin, I know that. There's one thing you can do on COROS and Garmin, which is back to start, which is an extremely helpful feature, which is say, you start without using navigation. You think you get turned around, you don't really know where you are, same thing during an activity. If you go to the toolbox, hold the bottom button, go to navigation, there will just be an option that's back to start, and it's just going to route you Exact same way that you came to get back to wherever you started, which is really helpful. And then I do this one a lot because I'm probably overly confident in my knowledge of Trail systems around me where I will start not using navigation and then I will realize that I'm not where I [thought I was], but I know that there's like a good Loop that I want to piece together. I don't just want to turn around and so during an activity, you can actually pull out your phone, finish the route in the COROS app and send it to the watch during the activity, it will transfer the remainder of the route. So I did it actually this weekend. So syncing new routes, or finding a new destination during an activity as well, as something that I find helpful.
[00:40:41] Tayson: Yeah, no, that's, that's super helpful. I, I would say just again, that, yes, it is. A smaller screen for navigation. My experience with most of you probably listening is that you can't read a map, anyways. Like, or at least the to a high level. And so honestly, between that elevation profile, and just having the map on their Quicker and easier to digest than trying to get out a topo map and really, like figured out because some people see those topo maps and they just lose their mind like, oh, I have no idea what's going on, right? So I do like that one thing that I love about your watches in the interface itself. Is the ability to get on your phone and customize the screens. So it drove me nuts on some other watches that I had. They Had a smaller display, and I'm kind of comparing. Two different watches. I had, I had an instinct 2 solar, had a couple instincts and it, you know, it doesn't have the same screen size and ability, right? But it drove me nuts that I would toggle between like, four to five screens, to get all the info that I wanted. And so when I got this and it was like, I found this screen that has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I think eight data fields that I could fill in. So, on one, like screen, I can see just a tremendous amount of info. Um, I love that I went and I customize it and I'm like now between realistically, I can stand one screen 99% of the time and know everything I want. And then I built another screen where it's like. If I just want to know everything about the elevation right now, I go to that and it gives me gain and loss, you know, percentage of climbing or descending and like my current altitude. And so that's like my elevation screen and but everything else that I need is really on that other screen and it's it's just huge, I guess on the other screen too. Like, one screen, it's like time of how long have you been an activity in the other? I keep like, what the time of day is and how much percentage of battery has. And so between two screens, I get everything, whereas it used to feel like I was on five screens, so I didn't want to call that out as a user interface aspect that I personally really, really enjoy and setting that up on the phone is incredibly easy. And then I have actually switched between a few watches, you literally load up the new watch and you just like select your profile and everything imports in and it's crazy, crazy, fast and efficient. And you never have to reset everything and rebuild a watch. I guess you have to say like all the settings. So I do love that about the lineup as well.
[00:43:17] Darian: Yeah.
[Editor’s note: The Colorado Trail, Moab 240, Cocodona 250, Bryce Canyon 100, GPX, battery-duration, navigation, checkpoints, elevation-profile, turn-prompt, saved-location, toolbox, oximeter, UltraMax, back-to-start, route-transfer, phone-battery, and interface statements above are historical participant discussion. They are not current product specifications or route, altitude, medical, emergency, or safety guidance; verify current conditions and use appropriate navigation and safety planning.]
[00:43:19] Tayson: Okay, let's talk about let's see I'm just kind of looking at some of the questions from from listeners. A lot of it was around navigation, and battery life. No surprise there but let's talk a little bit about, okay? I want to talk about this one. I have a lot of praises for COROS watches. I use them all the time. I have at times, had some issues with elevation tracking. lately, it's been over tracking and So I'm curious because it seems like the issue is probably due to the barometric pressure like sensor. Maybe got dirty or something. Got in there. I'm not sure. The base of this question is, why are people using barometric pressure for altitude versus just GPS? Like you're already pinging the GPS and you can get altitude from GPS location. So what is the reason that that they're, you know, using barometric pressure? Instead of GPS?
[00:44:22] Darian: so, If any, the reason that you're going to use barometric pressure is because it's more responsive. So you're going to be able to see the fluctuation, a lot quicker. There's going to be a very standard delay, I guess is what you'd call it with GPS. So it's when you get up into higher altitudes. I think it matters quite a bit or if you're somebody that's moving fast again, right? Like 30 meters on a road that you're trying to run pretty fast or if you're 30 meters on a mountain and you're up pretty high, is Significant and that Gap could be very delayed if you were using GPS. Now Barometers are by no means, perfect. I think everybody finds that out at one time or another. You really start to pay attention to the data. There are a handful of things that impact them weather patterns. So if it's a storm rolling in or something, right? The pressure drops that can impact a barometer. That's actually something that both Garmin and COROS watches have as well. On more of the adventure focused watches is like a storm alert. So if pressure is dropping really quickly, it'll actually alert you of that. And the other thing with a barometer in general, and our newer watches, I think we've gotten better at because it all so How the barometer functions? At a very base level, I think you kind of explained it, right? But it's, it's measuring air pressure to detect if you're going up or down. And another thing that is going to impact that is number one, where's the sensor placed on the watch? And the reason that's important is because wind can actually affect a barometer pretty heavily depending on how windy it is and where the watch is worn. So I, I wear my watch skiing a lot, a lot, a lot of times when you get up on a ridge if you're touring, or just even out of Resort, if it's really windy, you'll notice the fluctuations on the barometer again. Not necessarily COROS-specific, any watch, and then it's kind of funny that if you just put it under a sleeve when you're skiing, you usually don't see those near as much because it's going to be much more even now. I think the second piece to that is going more. There's there's a few settings that you can play with on any GPS. Watch to try and make the barometer more accurate. You can use what you'd call sea level pressure versus Station level pressure. and those can impact the way in which its essentially sourcing the data that you're going to be using for the activity and it's Not going to necessarily impact. Let's say mile one to four as much as it will impact. The start point of, like, what your elevation at this moment. And I think the second piece of that is also whether or not the barometer data versus GPS is used in the app, right? When you're viewing it after the fact rather than in the activity I think. Until there's a better maybe more responsive solution. Barometers will be around for a bit to track during an activity in the app. That's a tricky one at times because GPS is [usually] great on The total elevation, but in extreme instances that you could point out. There's times when GPS data can actually be really bad for elevation. So right now we do use the barometer measured elevation in the app, there are ways that you can correct it. If you use Strava, you can always go in and, of course, correct the elevation in Strava. [We have discussed] that idea about offering that option in the app. But The example of why we still choose to use barometer right now for the elevation in the app. And again, it's an extreme example. I think most cases you'd be totally fine, but the Golden Gate Bridge, right? If you're going over the Golden Gate Bridge, your watch barometer is going to know that you're slowly going up and you're over the water and then you're coming down. If you only use GPS data, it's going to think that you're on the water. So there's actually you can see this sometimes, if somebody switches to GPS data on an instance like that that for whatever reason, it's, it's In relative scope from a satellite. It's a very, very small thing on the earth that is missed and so it thinks that you're hitting the ocean and it's going to give you really bad data. So it's It's a trade-off, for sure. Strava has a good solution to that just because they have user data from thousands and thousands and thousands of people to use averages about like if again using Golden Gate Bridge. And example there's thousands of rides and runs across that right in any given year they can use the average to kind of even everything out so that it does take a little bit of that miscalculation that a barometer might have out of play just to show a more consistent number.
[00:49:17] Tayson: So you were saying that you can correct. So if if somehow, let's say your barometer got Messed with right? Is there a way in the COROS app to adjust that or use the GPS altitude? Did you say
[00:49:32] Darian: not right now? We've
[00:49:34] Tayson: okay
[00:49:35] Darian: [experimented] with it. We've had it in beta versions, where we'll actually use Google Maps to adjust it or correct. It based on GPS that may be something that we do in the future. It's actually one that I'm holding the flag for I, I like the idea of it. We do try to keep the product simple, it might confuse people, but I do see the value. You can do it on Strava right now, and if you go to, I believe, edit activity—or maybe it's crop activity—but [I don't recall the exact menu].
[00:50:03] Tayson: yeah, I just did that for the first time which I'm actually. Well, I mean, that's total side note but I'm really glad you called that out because I've I've had to deal with that until this week. Actually I I tried to like clean that sensor and have no idea if I did that right but because I think I don't know. I'm I'm a crazy salty sweater but I have gone to like the sand dunes recently and I'm like, maybe a piece of sand got in there, but it started just kicking out crazy numbers and I was like oh man this isn't you know I can't I can't use this at the current moment. So I think I've got a back under control but that is that is nice that you can correct that in Strava does. Okay, this is something I've wanted to ask for a while. But it goes two parts to it. I guess it's just a direct comparison to Garmin and this may not be a fair question because there's so many models. But so first off, I guess just to continue on the elevation side. Does Garmin also use barometric pressure for their altitude or elevation changes, okay? So there's no difference there and then talk to me about heart rate. In fact, I got really frustrated with Garmin and my heart rate being like, man, I heart rate is racing and it says it's this or my heart rate is not racing and it's this. I'm like maybe COROS would be more accurate, came over to COROS? I felt like it was accurate. But then they'll just be times when it won't be, and I'm like, man. Like, I feel like my watch is on tight. I feel like it's in a good spot like what's going on here. I know there's movement and you're like, you know, this tiny heart rate monitor on the end of your an arm that's swinging around. Right? So tell me, I guess how often it's polling heart-rate data and updating that. How often can you see a change? Are there things to be aware of to help the watch? You know what I mean? Whether maybe that's position on the arm, maybe that's tightness of the band. Just I'm really interested in trying to do that because one of the things I thought about for this 100-mile race was like to start the race with the armband on to make sure that I use it, as kind of like a rev limiter per se. I'm gonna keep my heart rate under 140 at all times during the first 20 miles of this and then maybe I'll take it off and not use it, but yeah. So heart rate. accuracy—tell us how COROS does it, how it's better all that.
[00:52:22] Darian: Yeah. All right. It's a fun one. It's because I think it to understand Wearable heart rate data. You have to, there's like a prerequisite set of information. I think that's always helpful that I find myself talking about a lot. And the number one thing is that it's gotten a lot better than where it used to be like 10 years ago and that's across all brands heart rate on the wrist is a lot better now. if you actually look at studies and research, while the wrist is the most convenient place to measure heart rate because that's where you put a wearable, it is one of the worst places on the body to measure heart rate like The, as a hilarious example, your earlobe is a better spot to better measure heart rate than your wrist. And it's, because of what you mentioned, it's because of all the movement, right? So there's two things that You can point to when you talk about the limitations of, there's a few, but we talk about the limitations of wrist-based heart rate and things that you can do to try to improve it. The first one is really just Anatomy, right? It's that in your arm is, if you are hiking, let's say you're using poles, especially what happens is what you call Cadence lock. It's a pretty common term among Runners, especially where the watch can mistake your heart rate for what your Cadence is, and it's because of the movement of your arm, that An optical heart rate, which is what any wrist-based wearable is, is actually sending lights down beneath your skin and it's reflecting light back into the sensor and that's how it measures. The frequency of the pulse for your heart rate, and you could actually test and anybody could sitting at home, if you sat and waved your arm repeatedly above your head. You'd see that your heart rate is artificially inflating, even though it's not; it's going to start tracking [that movement]. You can do you can do back-end processing on algorithms to try and make all that better, but that's something that generally does happen. Now, how to Alleviate, that is exactly what you mentioned. Wear it tighter; wear it a little bit higher above the wrist bone, where there's usually just a little bit more substance. The higher you get from the wrist,
[00:54:31] Tayson: up the arm
[00:54:31] Darian: up the arm, towards the elbow, keeping your hands warm, it's winter because you have to think that in Winter. What your body's doing is it's not sending a ton of blood to the extremities. It's keeping your core warm and so the colder your hands, get the less blood there getting so the less accurate a wrist-based watch is going to be. And then the other thing that is a limitation again across brands that Your wrist, generally speaking is pretty far away from your heart. So there's also going to be a lag time in how it responds now if you're doing Something where it's you feel that you've increased intensity for 15 or 20 minutes. It should be spot on at that point but if you've increased intensity for like 30 seconds that's a very different conversation and as you move a heart rate sensor closer to your heart, whether it's a chest strap or one that you wear on the upper arm. That Gap actually makes a bigger difference than you might think in addition, if it's worn on the upper arm, if it's an optical heart rate, like the one that we have again just more substance is going to be less bones, less interference really.
[00:55:38] Tayson: That's really interesting. So back to the lag time thing. On a wrist-based monitor. What's like, The lag time I guess just or like give me give me a Range. You're saying 15 minutes to 30 seconds that's huge range, right?
[00:55:51] Darian: Yeah.
[00:55:52] Tayson: It could there be a more pinpoint estimate like three minutes or two minutes or one minute.
[00:55:57] Darian: I gave the 15-minute one. I think is an example of just Probably overshot of expecting accuracy. But what you should expect is that if you're doing a really high intensity push for any reason, let's say, you're going from a Zone one, you're hiking very easy and you really increase the intensity, whether it's for a workout or just because something gets difficult. Let's say numbers wise, your actual heart rate goes from 120 or 130 to 160 or 170. It's probably going to take a watch anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds to build up to what the accurate number is. So there is a delay there and that's why the shorter intervals. I always say are more of a problem because down to a minute or two minute interval, you're missing. You're not necessarily missing, but you're not going to see it perfectly reflected is probably a better way to put it, just with that lag time.
[00:56:53] Tayson: So would it be safe to say that a change in heart rate for 60 seconds? You're likely going to see most of that on the watch reflected, okay? That's kind of good to know because that's actually where I've had. Maybe it's like running say Hills or something. That like there's no way my heart rates. 120 right now. You know or something like that. Yeah. Not not really counting in for the fact that it. Yeah, you're measuring something not super close to the body. How much more accurate do you think your your arm band is versus the wrist? Watch
