S+ sleep tracker Review

The S+ is a sleep monitor that promises to analyse and improve your bed time. While pretty much every fitness tracker claims to help you make more sense of your snoozing, this device has been built by ResMed, a US company that was working in sleep decades before anyone was talking about Fitbit.

ResMed sells the gold standard piece of equipment in the treatment of sleep apnea and, fresh from over 25 years of success in that field, it's dreamt up a piece of smart kit to help people with all aspects of shut-eye.

While some sleep trackers sit on your wrist and others clip devices to your pillow, S+ by ResMed doesn't even need to touch you at all. It just watches. It's the world's first contactless sleep tracker.

So what's it like to sleep beside the S+? We've been letting it watch over us for a few weeks now to see what it's made of.

S+ by ResMed: Design

The S+ is quite big and borderline ugly. That's the very worst thing about it. It's effectively a rectangular prism shape made up of a stand and an upper section where all the hardware is housed. It sits on your bedside table taking up far too much room, not looking that great and getting in the way of your glass of water, phone, watch and anything else that you normally reach for while you're in bed.

It needs to be close by so that it can watch you move. In that sense it's a bit of a pest, but if you can rearrange your space accordingly, then you'll find it's a worthy addition to your bedroom.

The S+'s main competitor, the Withings Aura, has been rather clever about being even bigger and uglier by taking over the functions of some of your bedside objects such as your radio and your light. That would be well worth considering for ResMed in the next generation.

On the plus side, S+ makes up for hogging one of your power points with an adaptor that has two USB ports – one for itself and the other, most likely, for your phone.

Lastly, it's worth noting that S+ isn't a piece of cake to set up. There's nothing that complicated about it, but getting the positioning right so that it can read your sleep well takes a little trial and error. Pro tip: it's worth spending a little time on this for the best results.

S+ by ResMed: Sleep tracking

On top of the straight light sleep/heavy sleep/REM sleep measurements that most trackers feature, the S+ has a few very effective extras. It's designed to analyse your entire sleep routine and that includes what you do during the day.

When you hit the sleep button on the mobile app, you'll get presented with a questionnaire about what you've been up to: how much caffeine you've had, how many alcoholic drinks, whether life's been stressful and if you've managed to do any exercise. The idea is that you can then view the sleep data with respect to all these other variables to see if there's any meaningful correlation.

If you're willing to genuinely use these features, there's a heap of benefits, but if you're the type of person who's going to get bored within a week, think carefully before you buy.

Once you've filled that in – it takes a matter of seconds – you're ready to head off to the land of nod. This is the clever part. S+ uses what is effectively sonar to watch your breathing patterns and, from that, it can tell what kind of sleep stage you're experiencing and when it changes.

Technically, it should be a very tricky thing to work out REM compared to deep sleep without a measure of heart rate or an EEG, but accuracy seems to be one of S+'s strong suits. Obviously, it's impossible to tell for sure unless you're at a sleep lab in a hospital but it always picked up on those moments when we woke in the night straight after a dream. It's perhaps a shade off what the Withings Aura can do but it's easily good enough for home use.

It's also possible for your significant bed-sharing other to use your S+, but not at the same time. They'll need an app and account of their own and once those are set up you can switch simply by who happens to be Bluetooth connected to it at any one time.

Of course, whomever is being monitored will need the S+ on their bedside within an easy arm's reach otherwise it's not going to work. If it were any longer range than that, then there would be issues of the unit getting bodies confused during monitoring which, we're glad to report, was never the case. So, the bottom line here is, yes, you can have two people using the same S+ but not concurrently. 

S+ by ResMed: Sleep features

The S+ has a bag of other sensors inside as well, and their job is to measure your sleep environment. The big issues there are light, sound and temperature and, again, much like the variables of the sleep questionnaire, all that data gets bundled into the platform behind it for more a holistic sleep analysis.

Naturally, S+ also has a smart alarm system that will wake you up when it decides it's a good moment to do so. You choose your ideal time and then give it a window of between 15-30 minutes before in which it can take matters into its own hands. It's hard to say whether it worked or not because, frankly, we feel like crap at whatever time we're woken in the morning. Ultimately, it's a better idea to sleep as much as you can but, if you're really terrified of sleep inertia – the technical term for feeling horrible in the morning – well, you might get some use out of this.

What we loved, though, was the mini-stress relieving feature called Mind Clear. Just before you pop off, you can hit the Mind Clear button and either write down or voice record whatever's been bothering you. The idea is that getting it off your chest and into the real world is often enough to take some of that bad feeling away. Given that an anxious mind is the least compatible state with getting to sleep, it's not a bad idea.

Lastly, like all the best sleep trackers, S+ features a bank of sleep sounds which will, apparently, get you in the mood for a good kip. We liked the ones that it had, but we want to see more than nine to choose from, particularly as there are only two natural sounds in that list. What's unique about the sleep sounds in this device is that the system matches the tempo of the music to your breathing patterns.

As you begin to drop off, the sounds slow down and supposedly sends you into a deeper and better quality sleep. It's rather hard to quantify whether or not that really worked as we were asleep at the time but what we will say is that we liked the system and always dropped off nicely when we used it. So perhaps the proof is in the pudding there.

The only part we really had an issue with is that the sounds have to come through the paltry speaker in your mobile phone because there isn't one built into the S+ itself, although any Bluetooth speaker will solve that issue.

S+ by ResMed: Sleep coaching

This is where the S+ really excels. The S+ is far and away the most involved, most in-depth and probably most life-changing sleep device we've ever worked with. It has much more data to play with any other, thanks to that pre-sleep questionnaire as well as all of those environmental recordings. You can sift through all of that manually on your computer using the S+ web app if you choose. It's actually quite fun. You'll quickly get an idea of say, the effect of caffeine on your REM sleep or stress on your deep sleep, which can all make for habit-changing material.

Better still, though – because, of course, not everyone has the time or the inclination for such stuff – the coaching system, S+ Mentor, can do the job for you and then send you little push notifications about how to correct things. So, for example, it picked up pretty quickly that we weren't getting enough REM sleep and then proceeded to tell us how to improve to a point where we had it nailed and, as it goes, we feel a lot better for it. On one particularly impressive occasion it spotted that we'd been out on a bender and gave us tips on how to best catch up the next night. In a world where wearables are struggling to make meaningful inferences, S+ Mentor is gold dust.

Beyond all that, the S+ mobile app is pretty good. There's some decent graphical analysis and even a section dedicated to daytime napping, but it would be nice to have everything that's on the web app available on your phone too.

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Fitbit Alta Review

Despite many rash complaints throughout the years, Fitbit remains the top wearable and arguably the most popular brand of fitness tracker on the market. However its range of trackers haven't been the most stylish of models. The company's solution? The Fitbit Alta.

After first unveiling its fitness watch Fitbit Blaze, the wearable tech company then came out with this Misfit Ray rival, providing custom wristband accessories and even satin and silver finish bangles from designer names Tory Burch and Public School.

These partnerships show that Fitbit is clearly gunning for Apple Watch-esque high-end accessories, which makes sense since fashionable fitness trackers that resemble jewelry appeal to a much wider demographic of women – though the Alta remains a unisex device for men as well who are looking for simple, discrete fitness trackers.

Opting for style has made the Alta far less sophisticated functionally than its predecessors the Surge and Charge HR, but it obviously wasn't made to take the place of the sportier trackers. Rather, it's the chic-looking device that still provides the bare bones of fitness tracking. Read on to find out whether the pretty little Alta is worth your time.

Fitbit Alta: Design and comfort

The basic Alta looks every bit like your typical fitness tracker. A small 128-by-36-pixel, 1.4-inch OLED screen sits in the middle of a quick-release band.

The concept is similar to the Blaze, though it's really the removable band that will probably draw users to the Alta since it means that you can swap in fancier accessories. The Classic models are what you'll get at the lower end of the price spectrum and look sporty in black, blue, plum and teal. Additional Classic bands are $29.95.

Then you have the $59.95 Luxe models in blush pink leather, graphite leather and a $99.95 stainless steel option plus the aforementioned designer brands coming soon.

Alta bands come in three sizes to fit wrists of 14–17cm, 17–20.6cm and 20.6–23.6cm. The band itself is 15mm wide, which is far slimmer than the Charge devices.

Switching out the bands is really easy. Simply push and slide the quick-release then mix and match to your heart's content.

The clasp works slightly better than other Fitbits I've used – I hated the one on the Flex – but it's the same two button configuration. It seems like the company's made it easier to push into place though.

All in all, the Alta is actually a pretty sleek looking tracker despite its vanilla design. The Jawbone UP2 and UP3 are similar in looks but without the notification screen, which is where the Alta wins out a little bit. The Alta's display isn't much but in the end, it simply provides a bit more functionality.

Comfort-wise, the Alta has been rash free on my wrist, and I've worn it non-stop – except for showering since it's not waterproof. Fitbit notes that while the Alta is resistant to splashes, rain and sweat, it's best to take off before hopping into the pool or shower.

Additionally, Alta's thin form factor means it doesn't get in the way of long sleeves and fits really well on my tiny wrists. In fact, I hardly notice it's there because it's so lightweight and unobtrusive.

Fitbit Alta: Features

Like your run of the mill trackers, the Fitbit Alta tracks your steps, distance, active time and calories burned in minutes using a three-axis accelerometer.

Certain activities are auto detected, using Fitbit's SmartTrack tech, and are added as workouts within the Fitbit app, as usual. It automatically tracks sleep, too.

You can check your progress from your wrist by tapping the screen, though I found this to be frustrating as it's not very responsive. It would take a few hard raps on the tracker to show and got to a point where I felt like punching the thing. Other times it would work just fine, leaving the whole experience of checking stats annoyingly inconsistent.

However, you can tell the time easily enough as it's able to register the turn of your wrist quite well. To customize the face, you can choose from five vertical or five horizontal clock options. I found vertical worked best on top of my wrist and horizontal on bottom as it's easier to read.

Runners and those looking for more intense tracking will have to search elsewhere. There's no extra features such as GPS, optical heart rate monitor or stair climbing.

Fitbit Alta: Activity tracking

So how well does the Alta actually work? I used the wearable during SXSW in Austin and GDC in San Francisco, which involved a ton of walking on a daily basis. In general, it seemed to be on the sensitive side.

After wearing it alongside the Jawbone UP2, I noticed it'd be a 80 to a few hundred steps ahead. On one day, it was about a thousand steps ahead. More time is needed with the Alta to test out running, biking and other activities.

Sleep was finicky as well. For some reason, the first night I wore the Alta, it thought I woke up in the middle of the night and didn't really track properly. It tracked fine the next day but stopped tracking at 5am on Saturday, thinking I had woken up – which I definitely did not do on a weekend.

One other thing that should be automatic is turning the display off at night. While tossing and turning the screen would randomly turn on and boy, that thing is bright.

The sleep charts aren't as refined as Jawbone's since they only show sleep, restlessness and wake. In comparison, Jawbone shows estimates of deep sleep, light sleep and REM. Still, that doesn't mean it's a completely accurate picture of your night since fitness trackers are only monitoring movement and can't always tell what various movements mean.

Fitbit Alta: Notifications

The notifications aren't as robust as other devices. You get three basic call, text and calendar notifications displayed on the Alta's screen accompanied by a short buzz.

Longer texts get cut off and you'll have to pull out your phone to read the whole message though. Unfortunately, you don't get third-party app alerts.

Reminders to move also pop up every hour with 250 step mini goals. Throughout the day, the numbers change to reflect how many steps you've taken. If you don't want to be constantly bothered, you can customize the reminders to start and end at specific times, and even days.

This is actually an entertaining, whimsical aspect of Alta that I didn't expect. I'm used to my Apple Watch yelling at me to stand, but Fitbit took a different approach. When the time comes, the Alta will vibrate once quickly then show a little character with a different message like "Feed me steps!" or "Still 145 more to go!" It's a small thing but appreciated nonetheless, and actually motivates me to take a break to walk around.

After completing your goal, the Alta freaks out in congratulatory bursts of buzzing and on-screen 'fireworks'.

Alta will show an image of a dead battery when it's running low on juice, which isn't the most helpful notification considering it tells you as it's dying. It makes more sense to let you know in percentages over time, or to even have an option to display it with the clock face. There's a battery indicator in the app, but seeing it on the Alta would be more useful.

Fitbit Alta: The app

If you've used a Fitbit before, the Alta app will look familiar since it's basically the same interface.

It's a fine ecosystem, full of social challenges with badges to earn, all clearly laid out and easy to use. You can also log food and water, and track your weight loss with a plan as well.

Each day is presented on the main screen, and you tap a metric to get a broader look at your performance. For example, tap on the sleep score for the day and you can take a look at your sleep over time, and filter by day, week or month.

Overall, Fitbit's app is one of its strong points. Easy to use and clear, it offers enough data without feeling overwhelming.

Initial setup however, is a crapshoot. I've experienced connection issues with two Fitbit devices now, including the Alta. It requires a bit of finagling for it to sync and work, sometimes requiring restarting the phone after deleting your other Fitbit devices. After that, syncing works perfectly fine.

Fitbit Alta: Battery life

Fitbit notes that the battery life of the Alta should span five days depending on usage (a week is pretty standard for screen-less fitness trackers). I was able to get a whopping eight days from the gadget after only charging it once. That includes time spent at SXSW, where I hit 13,000–15,000 steps over four days, then a few days covering GDC.

The Alta also tracked my sleep and buzzed reminders to move when I was on planes or in sessions.

During the conference madness, I was barraged with text and calendar notifications as well though I didn't have email notifications turned on.

I did take it off for showers since it's only splash, sweat and rain resistant but that was about it.

The proprietary charger is again, different from the other Fitbit chargers. The Alta one is a clamp that connects to the back of the module. It's definitely more secure than other magnetic chargers.

Managing to make it a full week and a day on just one charge is quite impressive in my eyes, especially since I'm used to refueling smartwatches every couple of nights. The Alta screen is always off and it's not exactly a battery eater but my usage of smart devices during travel usually require lots of recharge time. I'm curious to find out whether the Alta can repeat this feat and will definitely wear it during my next bout of travel.

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Atlas Wristband Review

The Atlas Wearables Wristband belongs to a small group of fitness trackers that's built not for counting steps, but helping you get the most out of a gym workout.

Like the GymWatch or the Beast sensor, you can slap the Atlas around your wrist and it has the tech onboard to automatically recognise whether you're doing a sit-up or having a kettlebell session, counting the reps so you don't have to.

It's yet another wearable crowdfunding success story, raising $629k on Indiegogo, and you can now pick it up from the Atlas website for $199. That's more expensive than the muscle-building GymWatch and puts it in the same pricing realms as the Fitbit Blaze.

Unlike the Blaze, this isn't a wearable you wear all day. It's all about monitoring those intense training sessions and then going back into the gym bag before the next workout.

Does it deliver to justify the $199 price tag? We hit the gym to find out.

Atlas Wristband: Design

Oh the Atlas Wristband design. It's fair to say that you won't find anything out there that looks like it. It's almost as if a Withings Pulse O2 has been turned horizontally and put inside a sporty watch strap. Let's start with the normal part first. That's the soft touch black plastic wristband that's about as wide as the one on the Fitbit Blaze. There's a pretty standard watch style buckle to keep it securely in place. It's perfectly comfortable and I didn't experience any irritation wearing it during my workout sessions.

Then there's the sensor module that magnetically clips into the strap with the screen held horizontally. There's no getting away from the fact that it's awkward and just doesn't look right. I'm not the only one who thought that. I handed it over to a couple of my gym loving friends and they thought the same. It's going to draw looks when you wear it. It's a shame because despite the cumbersome design, it's actually surprisingly light to wear and doesn't get in the way when you're putting in a shift in the gym.

There is one obvious benefit to positioning the screen this way. It means you can view details in full on the PMOLED display. It's a 128 x 64 pixel resolution screen that reminds me a lot of the displays on the Fitbit One and Ultra fitness trackers. It's perfectly visible during the day and night. Now you're probably not going to be wearing it outdoors and that's a good thing. The screen has poor visibility in bright sunlight.

The display only registers taps, so there's no swiping through screens here. Here you tap to view the time, coach mode workouts, freestyle mode, heart rate data, a tips and tricks section and a power off screen.

It's water resistant up to 30 metres, but before you think about jumping in the pool with it, it's not swim-friendly, yet. There is plans to use the motion sensors to track strokes and laps, but it's clearly not ready yet.

Elsewhere, there's just a single physical button which is easily accessible when the module is in place. There's a Micro USB charging port, so you can use a standard Micro USB charger (like a phone one) to power it up.

Around the back is an optical heart rate sensor to help measure the intensity of your workouts and deliver on the spot readings. It's a similar style of sensor you'll find on Fitbits or Mio trackers, flashing lights against the skin to detect changes in blood volume to generate a beats per minute (bpm) reading.

Now here's an important part. The Atlas Wristband is only designed to be worn on the left wrist. Sorry righties, but there's a reason for this. That's because the Atlas team designed most of the exercise data wearing the band on the left wrist.

Atlas Wristband: How it works

This isn't of course your standard fitness tracker so it does things a little differently when it comes to monitoring activity.

Inside the sensor module lies a three axis accelerometer and gyroscope along with two 32-bit ARM M4 processors. When you perform a push up or a dumbbell rep, the sensors can track the motion in 3D and match it against a database of exercises to recognise the type of exercise and record the number of reps on the wristband.

There's about 50 exercises supported and it's a good range of exercises covered here. There's support for barbell or dumbbell training, body weight training letting you dedicate time to the abs or work on building up those leg muscles.

It's a pretty comprehensive list but inevitably it's not going to cover everyone's routines perfectly. Atlas aims to add new exercises along with new metrics when it can, but in the time I've been using it, I can't say that I've seen any new exercises pop up.

Atlas Wristband: The app

The Atlas app is available for Android and iOS to sync workout data over Bluetooth along with reviewing and customising your workouts. Just make sure you don't mistake it for the Atlas Engine app. It's from the same company, but it's designed to count reps using your phone's sensors. That does mean sticking your phone into an armband making it more difficult to review progress. You also don't have the benefit of the heart rate tracking.

Getting set up appears to pretty straightforward, once you realise that you need to add your date of birth in the US format. If you don't, the app doesn't tell you and it took a while before I realised that was my problem.

Once you're in, it feels like there's quite a lot to take in but you can quickly establish what's the most useful here. It's essentially broken up into two sections, My Workouts and Plan Workouts. In the former, you can see a nice summary of custom workouts with details on aspects like heart rate, duration with a breakdown of the individual exercises. You can even view cardio and velocity information. There's a nice diagram showing you the parts of the body you've been working on during a workout as well.

In the Plan Workout section this is where you can sync a collection of prebuilt workouts. It ranges from things like first workout and live fitness workouts. There's not an extensive list here but you can create your own custom workout by picking out exercises and routines.

There's a dropdown menu in the top right hand corner and this is an important place for a couple of reasons. It's here where you can pick out the exercises that can be used in Freestyle mode. You can sync up to 15 exercises to the band at one time, which should be enough for most. There's also the Exercise Guide section, this is pretty important if you're a gym newbie and you don't know half the exercises that are listed. They all come accompanied with a video of how to correctly perform them and ensures you give the sensors the best chance of recognising them.

Atlas Wristband: Performance

So what's it like to workout with the Atlas Wristband? Well, once you can get past that awkward looking hardware, it's actually very good at delivering what it promises. Unlike the GymWatch, which I've also used, it's nice to have a screen where you can view your progress in real time and leave your phone untouched.

The freestyle mode is definitely the standout feature here. After picking out a range of exercises including sit-ups, kettlebell and dumbbell exercises, I get a list on the band reminding me of the exercises I have synced. Tap to start exercising and it's all very seamless. It'll start to count your reps and I found it reliable and consistent counting reps. When you're done, you can hit save and start doing another exercise. It's as simple as that.

When you're finished, you'll see a summary of workout duration along with average and maximum heart rate readings. I put it up against the optical heart rate monitor on the TomTom Spark running watch and the Polar H7 heart rate monitor chest strap and found the readings to be largely spot on. If you're using the run tracking mode, it does show signs of a struggle picking up a reading straight away. But for everything else, it's more than suitable.

In the Coach mode, it's more of the same. Once you've synced a workout from the app to the wristband, you're ready to go. In this mode, you'll get a buzzing vibration to let you know you've successfully completed a set. You'll can also edit the weight of a dumbell or barbell if you've actually lifted more (or less) than the workout suggested. If there's an exercise you don't fancy, you can simply skip it. Again, it had no problems recognising the number of reps or the type of exercise.

Syncing data to the app can take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. Everything is well presented, but what I really feel it lacked was some analysis of form and helping me understand the strengths and weaknesses in my technique. It would be nice to have a few more pre-built workouts, although the custom option does soften the blow.

As far as battery life goes, the Atlas holds up pretty well. There's a 120mAh battery inside that should be good enough for an hour long workout a day and should get you through a week. That's near enough what I found, plus there's a power saver mode you can switch on to help it go a little longer. It's worth remembering to switch it off completely when you're not in use as the battery will drain quite quickly. It takes just over an hour to get back to full power if it's totally flat as well.

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Garmin Approach S20 Review

For most players golf is a 24/7 obsession, and the technique of your next golf shot is never normally far from any amateur hacker's mind. However, that's very much at odds with the way we currently use golf watches, which tend to be strapped on just before a round and then removed immediately afterwards.

There have been exceptions. The Garmin Vivoactive did a pretty good golf watch impression, but the features appeared amongst a host of other sports, and did little more than basic range finding. If you wanted a full list of features – including shot detection and hazards – it was back to a specialist golf watch for you.

The Garmin Approach S20 aims to be the golf watch for every day. Packed full of golf gubbins with a few smartwatch skills thrown in, the idea is that keen golfers can still wear their golf watch even when they're not out on the fairway. But is it any good? Wareable hit the golf course to find out.

Garmin Approach S20: Design

While golfers perhaps aren't known for their sense of style per se, we were expecting the Approach S20 to be a little more 'executive' when it came to design and build.

The Approach S20 is built entirely from plastic, and is available in black, white and midnight blue. The plastic watch is matched by a rubber strap, the design of which comes from the company's line-up of running watches. It's not ugly, but it's not much of a looker either, and while it's fine out on the golf course, it hardly stands up visually as a golfer's everyday timepiece.

The upshot of the plastic construction is that it's exceedingly light and comfortable to wear. The strap design means it's easy to get the perfect fit, which is essential for a long day on the golf course.

The screen is a pretty dull monochrome affair, similar to any of the existing Forerunners. The 128 x 128 panel just displays texts and super-basic graphics, but it's legible in bright sunshine, easy to read and does its job solidly.

There are four buttons for accessing menus, and the operating system on the whole is very easy to use, even in some of the more obscure features.

Overall, it's pretty much like every other golf watch out there. A metal construction would have convinced us to wear it away from the golf course, but still, the Approach is hardly offensive.

Garmin Approach S20: Golf tracking

When it comes to golf features, most of the data you need is about distance. When you hit the course, the Approach S20 acts like any normal GPS golf watch. You start the round and it searches for nearby golf courses. Choose the one you're stood on and start the round.

When you're on the first tee you'll see three distances displayed on the screen: the front, middle and back of the green will be shown off, and you'll also see a map of the green ahead, so you can see what you're dealing with if the dancefloor is out of sight.

So far so simple, but strangely we did have some issues with the distances. On our final test round each shot was coming up around 10–15 yards shorter than on our playing partner's Approach S4. And sure enough, we were looking at pitching wedge numbers on the watch that were simply much further in real life. We didn't have a problem on any other round, but on our final testing round, accuracy was an issue, and there's no easy way to explain it.

You don't just get pin distances. Tap on the menu button in the top right and you can get a host of distance information for essential information on lay-ups for dog-legs and hazards. This is fairly standard for golf watches these days, and an essential for any golf watch worth its salt.

A nice addition to the Approach S20 is the scoring system that's built into the watch, and this is one feature that really stood out for its simplicity and ease of use. When you walk off the green to head to the next tee, the watch will prompt you to enter the number of shots for the previous hole. Just use the up and down button to enter the score and press OK to see the yardages for the next hole. It's hardly a replacement for a decent golf app like Hole19, but for those still scoring on a scrap of card, it's a handy insurance in case you lose it.

The data is then imported into the Garmin Connect app along with data on your shots, automatically collected from the watch. This is Garmin's new AutoShot feature, which claims to offer a record of every shot you've taken on the course.

This sounds like a golfer's dream – we're all data nerds at heart – but in effect, it works so poorly it's barely worth bothering with. Out of 18 holes, it recorded perhaps three properly, and maybe ten partially, with no data for the rest. It's perhaps not surprising, but no less disappointing.

Another disappointing feature is Garmin Connect for golf. The web app features some useful feedback on rounds, and you can review your performances. It's hardly slick, but the real disappointment is the lack of room for golf in the mobile app. There are so many better free apps out there for analysis, we'd rather just use the S20 as a golf watch, and forget the rest of the ecosystem.

Essentially, the Approach S20 offers a complete range of golfing features, delivered – on the whole – in an easy to manage way. However, with the AutoShot feature not ready for prime time, it feels there's little here for golfers that we haven't seen before.

Garmin Approach S20: Smartwatch stuff

Of course, a big part of the appeal of the Approach S20 is its usefulness when you're not playing golf. And it attempts this via fitness tracking and smartphone notifications.

The Approach S20 uses the same move bar style feature as the Forerunner family, which builds up via inactivity and gets cleared by moving around. What's more, it records steps and distances from your rounds, as well as general activity, which it displays at the bottom of the watch face.

Once you've paired it with your smartphone you can also get notifications from your phone delivered to the watch. This basically takes any push notification and displays it on the watch face, enabling you to read messages and texts, as well as third party social networks, in full. This actually makes a lot of sense on the course, as well as in everyday life, so you can keep your phone in your golf bag and not miss anything important.

Both the notifications and the activity tracking do what they say on the tin. The activity tracking is nowhere near as useful or complete as one of Garmin's dedicated bands – like the Vivosmart HR or Forerunner 235 – or something like the Fitbit Alta. However, they do add an extra dimension to the golf watch experience, and make it more useful to golfers than one of its bog-standard predecessors.

Garmin Approach S20: Battery and price

Battery life is another impressive aspect of the Garmin Approach S20. You can get around two decent rounds from the battery before it needs a charge, but around a month of normal everyday watch use, which is mightily impressive.

And the price is fairly impressive to boot, and shows that Garmin is recalibrating its entire golfing range. At $199 the Approach S20 costs significantly less than previous generations including the Approach S6, which retails at $100 more.

Yes, there are high-end features missing – you can't see the layout of an entire hole, there's no colour screen and the swing tracking stuff doesn't make the cut – but those are features most golfers would live without for a significant saving.

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HTC Vive Review

VR is finally here, and our HTC Vive Consumer Edition review follows hot on the heels of the Oculus Rift, which was the first big-name virtual reality headset to ship out to consumers.

After countless demos with the HTC Vive, first behind closed doors and then using it at conventions, it feels odd to finally be using the headset in my own home – but so very gratifying.

I've used the consumer Oculus Rift and while I was impressed, the Vive's ability to employ room scale has convinced me that HTC and Valve have firmly secured the future of VR with this model. Hyperbolic as that sounds, I really believe that this is the beginning of something truly amazing.

But this really is only the beginning. Convincing people the tech works has become easier now that the headset is shipping out, but there are still several barriers to entry – the first being the price point. The Oculus Rift costs $500 with the final cost around $600 after shipping, while the Vive surpasses it with the final cringeworthy cost sitting at $799. That's not including the PC set-up.

The second barrier may be easier to alleviate: lots of space is required to VR with HTC Vive. I've learned this the hard way since I live in a small San Francisco studio. Through a lot of furniture moving, I was able to make enough room for Valve's recommendations. Still, I ended up banging up my hand pretty hard once (really hard), and have often hit the wall or my desk in particularly frenzied bouts of Space Pirate Trainer and #SelfieTennis – both ridiculously fun games by the way.

When not in VR, the rearrangements also don't make my living space practical. I explain more about how to set up the HTC Vive in another article – and while it's not too horribly complicated, it's likely different for everyone. Here's the rest of my experience with the HTC Vive.

HTC Vive: Initial set-up

After you've gone through the motions of unboxing the 16 items HTC and Valve have shipped you (not every cord is needed but that's how many things you get), figuring out how best to place your two base stations (to drill holes or to not drill holes?), connecting the cords, making sure all the programs are downloaded, you finally get to plop the headset on (phew).

You're first met with a tutorial from a robot that fans ofPortal will recognise, while standing in a white room. After some calibrations, you can start browsing your Steam game library – essentially a floating screen of Steam Big Picture. The background can be set to different colours, your own uploaded 360-degree images or pictures downloaded from the Steam Workshop (mine is currently the Normandy SR-2 deck from Bioware's Mass Effect). I can see this being a growing piece of customisation in the future with the possibility for dynamic backgrounds.

From there, you can also change the chaperone colours – the grid that pops up when you're about to run into something – adjust sound, browse the store and do whatever else you normally do in Steam, with the aid of the controller which emits a laser pointer while the trigger acts as the 'mouse' that selects things.

It's all pretty intuitive and simple. HTC has its own little platform that you can open which is essentially the same thing: a games library. However it looks like more features will be added down the line. You're better off just choosing Steam from the get-go though since HTC's portal opens it up anyway.

HTC Vive: Design and comfort

On first glance, this Vive doesn't look too different from the Pre version, though it's definitely smaller and comfier than its very first iteration. It won't win prizes for design though. Unlike Oculus Rift, which is designed beautifully, HTC and Valve seem to have chosen function over form. Regardless, you look ridiculous with any headset strapped to your face, punching things that no one else can see.

With swappable foam inserts and what HTC is calling a nose gasket, as well as adjustable straps to get the fit right, the Vive can be worn comfortably with different shaped heads. And yes, you can use it with glasses thanks to the slotted spaces for specs. My glasses are on the larger side and they fit nicely into the HMD. It does take some strap readjustments before it's completely comfortable – more than for the non-glasses wearers – but it does work. Just remember to loosen the straps again when taking it off otherwise it will pull your glasses off with it.

I've been using the Vive for several hours a night for a solid week now without discomfort or motion sickness – and I'm someone who can't even read on the plane or look down at my phone for long in a car without feeling sick. So far, the VR experience itself on Vive is fine but it really depends on the game being played. I've only tried about half of the 35 VR games I've downloaded so far, and haven't felt the slightest bit of nausea, but I haven't done anything like Rift exclusive Eve: Valkyrie yet, which does make me feel queasy after 10 minutes.

The overall headset weight, straps and faceplate are also hardly noticeable after two hours. I do get pretty sweaty though and on occasion, have to tighten the straps if I'm playing a particularly rigorous game where I've swiveled around a lot causing the headset to loosen. Miraculously, the lenses don't get fogged up – something that's is a huge annoyance when using the Samsung Gear VR.

In my time with Rift, I always felt like the Vive was much heavier but again, I didn't really notice it. Perhaps if I went a straight four or five hours, especially after running around, the Vive would begin to weigh down on me. The PlayStation VR feels like it's on the same page as Rift – a bit lighter and less unwieldy.

The HTC Vive is of course, tethered to your computer. I was initially worried about this: what if I trip? What if I yank the computer off the desk? Actually, though, it's been fine. There are definitely times when I get twisted up, but I've learned to sidestep it now and figured out how to avoid the cable. And thankfully the length of the thick cords gives you plenty of leeway, preventing you from destroying your tech set-up.

All in all, the Vive is a comfortable experience. It does feel weird when you leave VR, though. I don't mean motion sickness, rather that my eyes are extra tired and I feel the need to drink a giant glass of water. It's not anything out of the ordinary though – I get the same fatigue playing countless hours of games on the computer or console.

HTC Vive: Tracking, performance & camera

The Vive features two 1080 x 1200 screens with 90fps refresh rates and a taller than usual 9:5 ratio which expands how far up and down you can look without moving your head. What does that pixel count mean? You can still see pixels if you're really trying, but generally this resolution is superb for tricking your brain into forgetting you're wearing a headset.

The resolution really is superb. Stepping inside Vive is breathtaking. I often forgot that I was inside a fake world where I couldn't lean against counters in Job Simulator or pet fish swimming by underwater in theBlu. While you're far away from objects, everything looks crisp and clean but as you lean in closer or pick things up to observe them better, it becomes less life-like as the pixels are smoothed out. The Gallery: Call of the Starseed is all about picking things up and looking at them (or chucking them) but I'd find myself hitting the headset with the controller and seeing that things weren't as clear close up. Final Approach is also like a giant, virtual Sim City that beckons you to lean in, but as you do, it looks less defined.

There have been complaints of a screen door effect, where you can see the lines separating pixels on HMDs, but I haven't noticed it with the HTC Vive, though I have seen very slight stuttering here and there if I turn my head too fast. But this was hardly an issue – more like a blip during various games.

I noticed the other headsets have this problem too with Rift and PS VR both emitting a greater screen door effect than Vive and stuttering on occasion. In fact, during my time with Rift, turning my head would cause a bit of lag that's more apparent than Vive. This may be because the Vive has greater tracking abilities and is able to amend itself more quickly, while Rift only has the one.

Head tracking on headsets such as the Oculus Rift still remains impressive, but the Vive takes things up a notch.

The 37 sensors on the headset are just part of 70 in total (including those in either controller), pick up signals from two wireless infrared emitters placed in two corners of the room. The result is that not only can Vive track your head as it looks up, down and side to side, but it also tracks where you are in a room and what movements your hands (controllers) are making in relation to where you're standing.

From Job Simulator to Final Approach, the Vive's base stations tracked my hands perfectly. Picking up objects to cook robots food was easy as pie, while guiding planes in for landing – and making them do aerial loops along the way – was wonderfully accurate. I could be reaching up to a high shelf or picking things up from the floor and the 1:1 ratio held. It's not the same finger tracking as the Oculus Touch controllers but in general, everything worked as promised.

From the desktop's Steam VR settings, you can switch the front-facing camera on and off. I found this to be cool because of all the shapes chaperone is able to recognise, and it does help when I'm searching for a controller I've put down or when I want to make sure I'm not going to stub my toe (again).

But it does take you out of the experience when it's constantly on. Thankfully, you're able to toggle between on and off in with the press of the home button (the one under the track pad).

HTC Vive: Controllers

Aside from solid tracking, the Vive's PS Move-style controller sticks are quite large when compared to the Oculus Touch controllers, but they're a lot less unwieldy than the original, blocky models. As I mentioned before, there's no finger tracking that lets you do a thumbs up or get really grabby. I'd say the functionality of Touch is better but Vive's tracking may still outweigh its usefulness – we'll have to find out later this year when Oculus launches its controllers.

Wireless and battery powered, the controls include a dual stage trigger button under each forefinger, a home button and a similar, textured circular touchpad as before. Haptic feedback helps to let you know when you've completed the correct action. As with any new controller, there's a learning curve – especially when most games don't tell you what the controls are or help if you forget which button to press.

If you have small hands you may find yourself juggling these a little in apps which require you to swipe across the touchpad, for example, but generally they're easy to get the hang of. It's also worth noting that you're essentially gripping these the whole time, no matter what you're doing, so any gestures that involve fingers and thumbs aren't really possible.

I've been able to get a surprisingly long life out of the controllers. After two to four hours of usage over three days, I had to recharge. The battery ended up lasting six to seven hours, which is a little longer than the four hours promised.

There's no indicator of low battery life in game – your controller will simply die – so that would be a nice addition for the future. You can see the battery level if you're in the main menu screen since there are virtual indicator lights but once they become hands in a game, the lights disappear.

HTC Vive: Standing versus sitting

With the Vive, you get the option to sit or stand, offering you the best of both worlds. Standing does mean you'll need more room to move around but it's completely worth it. Called Room Scale VR, you can set up a virtual rectangle that allows you to walk inside the confines of a VR space. The 'chaperone' grid I mentioned before ensures you stay within the bounds.

Not only do games feel more immersive with room scale, you're not being a lazy bum. You're not exactly running or practicing evasive manoeuvres, but swinging your arms about and standing up are still far healthier than sitting all day long. Games like Audioshield and the aforementioned pirate and tennis titles force you to raise your heart rate a bit more than normal. Even Tilt Brush has you moving to create art because you can look at your work from different angles.

Sitting experiences have their merits as well, but you're mainly moving your head around instead of your whole body. Time MachineVR is a sitting game but it's beautifully crafted and lots of fun, exploring the world of sea dinosaurs. Most puzzle games, like Water Bears VR, can also be played sitting since you don't have to move much. However, what I like a lot about the Vive is that, unless restricted by game type, you can stand up if you want to. Granted, you have to switch between standing or sitting in the settings, but standing with room scale is a real winner.

HTC Vive: Games

There's a large catalogue of games, but right now there's nothing that's particularly compelling. Rather, it feels like a bunch of mini games with tons of bugs and an irritatingly, not enough of a tutorial for each title.

Don't get me wrong, it's all still fun and I still get sucked into hours of play. Sometimes simple is also better – like inAudio Shield which feels like an exercise video in disguise. Or even Tilt Brush where creating art is endless.

But really fun games like Vanished Realms and Time Machine VR only have so much story before they give you a "coming soon" message, and #SelfieTennis has zero instructions or purpose. While I enjoyed trying out the different types of puzzles, shooters and so forth, I was still left wanting at the end.

Perhaps it's because the concept of a VR game is too novel and developers aren't sure how long to make a game. Or maybe it takes a little longer to slap together a well-made VR world. Whatever the case, I'm done with demos.

HTC Vive: Extra features

In general, you'll mostly find games for the Vive and some experiences where you simply watch stuff happening. There's also the Vive's ability to connect to iPhones and Android devices to deliver alerts and messages when you're in VR. The feature wasn't made available during testing, though Valve has assured us that it will be out this week. Called Vive Phone Services, it seems like it's supposed to help you spend time in VR games and movies while keeping in touch with the real world.

Speaking of movies, there aren't very many to choose from for Vive at the moment. Penrose Studio's The Rose and Iwas the closest I came to watching a VR movie with Valve's headset. But even then, it's not really a movie since it's only a few minutes long. It's unclear whether HTC and Valve will add more than games and short experiences, so currently non-gaming fans will have to turn towards Oculus Rift and Gear VR.

HTC Vive: Closing thoughts

I don't think I'll ever get over the giddiness of putting on the HTC Vive headset and leaving reality behind. Yes, I did get tired after a while, but I was more active than I've ever been playing video games (I don't own a Wii or have PlayStation Eye or Kinect games).

As much as I've enjoyed the Oculus Rift, I love how Vive lets me roam around. Even though the games are mediocre, I still believe that room scale is where HTC and Valve have got it perfectly right. I don't want to sit in a chair in VR, I want to be inside VR and that's what Vive lets me do. However this is both freeing, and a limiting struggle. You really do need to clear a decent amount of space to avoid accidentally breaking your controller, or even body. I suspect injuries won't be serious and my Vive controllers have been very hardy and durable, plus there's the chaperone system to help guide you. Still, it would be nice if the grids didn't have to appear so often warning me of impending danger because my space is so small.

The games and experiences also need more polishing. While there's plenty to choose from, it's like someone offering you FarmVille or Candy Crush. Sure the simple VR titles are fun and immersive, but you can only play these kinds of games for so long before you get restless and need a greater overarching story. I'm not asking for the next great RPG from Bethesda, but something complete, without too many glitches, is needed to make it seem like Valve and HTC are serious.

The interfaces and tutorials need to be cleaned up (or added) as well. Developers should remember that not everyone has used VR before and it's a completely new experience even for seasoned gamers. It's frustrating spending time trying to figure out what buttons correspond with the actions I'm looking for.

Vive's also hardly accessible by the masses at such a high price – it's likely only techies and early adopters will get in on the fun at first. But until that fun encompasses better games and more experiences as a whole on the Steam and HTC platform, it should be OK.

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