On Wrist Use

The slim design of the TomTom Touch Cardio sits flush on the wrist and has an adjustable fastener to keep it secured in a comfortable position of the wearer’s choosing. Two sizes are available to purchase, small and large. While it’s a narrow band, we found that the solid strap could use ventilation holes to alleviate perspiration buildup. It’s a lightweight device that can easily slide under a long-sleeved shirt if necessary. The glossy touchscreen on the TomTom Touch Cardio displays clear words and icons, although it felt sporadic and overly sensitive to touch at times. The screen is not always on and a circle indent below the screen must be pressed to turn it on, which only lasts about five seconds – enough to see the time. To keep it on longer, just press and hold.

Software Support 

It’s simple to connect to the TomTom Sports app and set goals. Once the TomTom Touch Cardio is connected, it automatically syncs when the app is opened. On the home screen, “Today’s Summary” highlights steps, distance and calories burned for the day. Scroll down and it shows the steps for the week, as well as distance for the month and calories burned for the month from all activities. A “Sleep” section shows amount of hours for the week. Each workout recorded from the watch is broken out into a line graph with heart rate and duration statistics. Most everything presented on the app is available to view as a summary and more specific statistics. Overall, we found the app to have too many pages to sort through.

Battery Life

A fully charged TomTom Touch Cardio watch lasted us about two and a half to three days before it required a recharge. To charge the device the wearer easily takes the watch module out of the strap and then plugs a standard micro-USB cable into it.

Features 

Basic phone notifications come to the TomTom Touch Cardio, but nothing more than an indication that a call, text, or email is coming through on the wearer’s phone. We could see who was calling and who was texting or emailing, but no other words or messages or information came through on the small screen. We also found that feature wasn’t always reliable, as not every notification from the phone showed up on the watch. Phone-assisted GPS is not available on this fitness tracker.

Accuracy 

The TomTom Touch Cardio is on par with accuracy compared to the other fitness trackers tested. It’s not totally accurate at all times in counting steps or picking up exact heart rate, but it’s close. In our 500 step test the TomTom Touch Cardio tracked 505. The count of steps throughout the day would creep up even while sitting at a desk, so the inaccuracy was very apparent. For heart rate, we counted a resting heart rate after recovering from a morning workout to find that 67 beats per minute counted was tracked by the watch at 65 bpms. After a spin class, we counted a heart rate at 80 beats per minute and the watch indicated a bpm of 82.