I’m thinking about buying an Apple Watch for refereeing. I have a TomTom sports watch which I use as a continuous timer and to track my movements and some fairly cheap watch that I use to stop as it’s very easy to use. I was thinking about getting an Apple Watch and RefSix but the price is pretty steep so was thinking about buying the previous series. Is it worth it? This is my first full season, but I like the idea of RefSix and using the features on there for scoring and cards. Also I’ve heard there may be a finance option from RefSix that allows you to pay interest free monthly installments which seems reasonable.
Dont buy an apple watch.
Buy a Polar instead
https://www.refchat.co.uk/threads/polar-v800-blue.12511/
Buy a Polar instead
https://www.refchat.co.uk/threads/polar-v800-blue.12511/
206eddy
Active Member
Good timing.... Picked my Apple Watch 4 up two days ago. Used it with Ref Six last night and got another game tonight with it. Last night went fine but it was the easiest game ever with no cards and only two goals. Tonights is a local derby U.18 Ryman game so should be more of a run out for it. I'm using the free one moth trail so will let you know how it gets on.
I’m an Apple nut but can’t get my head around the joys of the Apple Watch, Something that needs charging daily that goes on your wrist!!! Come on Apple, you can do better than that!
HRM is much inferior on Apple watches than dedicated sports watches, and it doesn't seem to like frequent changes in direction and fluctuation in heart rate. I think it has something that blank out the heart rate if it changes quickly as it thinks there is a malfunction. If I wear it for normal runs this never happens, but happens every single time when refereeing.
That said, I just pair it with the heart rate strap from my old Polar V800 and it works a treat.
That said, I just pair it with the heart rate strap from my old Polar V800 and it works a treat.
santa sangria
RefChat Addict
Apple don't pay tax and sell planned obsolescence
Polar is from Finland and they are lovely people with lots of work to do for Santa in the next few weeks
Polar is from Finland and they are lovely people with lots of work to do for Santa in the next few weeks
How was it?
All good refs should put this screen up on a crappy game,,,Can you use REFSIX as a stop watch too? I don’t wanna make my other sports watch redundant as it’s a bit fiddly to start/stop, so I just use a cheap watch for stopping which is easy to use
Refsix lets you have up to 3 different stopwatches at once. The sin bin timer addition is excellent too
I’m thinking I might get one. It’s about £26 a month interest free for 12 months with REFSIX pro which seems very reasonable
206eddy
Active Member
In a word, excellent. I had a play with the timer and some other settings pre game and it worked almost perfectly. Goal, subs and cautions were all easy to record and post match the upload and subsequent match history/time-line in the app was great. Only fault I could find was it didn't pick up or register HR at all but that may be more down to my wearing of the watch rather than the app. I'll have to trial that out a bit more in future games.
I note above that it can be linked to a HR strap, I may look to do that if the watch feature continues to not work, or be inaccurate.
I can see it will have its limitations on a Sunday morning when I'm out on my own with poor/badly written/late teamsheets etc but at a semi-pro or decent level where there is three officials on a 'proper' game it will be excellent. I'm aiming to go as paperless as possible and RefSix on the Apple Watch will deffo help in that. For the five quid a month they charge I'll definitely be subscribing for the remainder of this season and then will look to get the annual one from next season onwards.
Battery life was great, no issues there. Only slight interruption was from other apps (Whatsapp messages mainly) popping up during the first half. A quick mute of various things solved that for the second with no further interruptions. Heat-map looked pretty accurate when compared to what my Garmin 610 GPS said I'd been doing. There are a few things that will take a game or two to get used to.....stopping the timer during the game and at end of halves but all very minor. After just two games I think I'm very much a convert. Give it a go, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Padfoot
The Persecuted One
So when the observer asks you why didn’t follow the caution/dismissal process correctly.....your answer will be that you’ve gone ‘paperless’?
Let me know how that works out for you?
Thanks for the reply! I want to use it to stop the time and let my other watch be continuous. Is that not a good idea then?
Is it easy to stop the watch for stoppages. It sounds silly and pedantic but I don’t want one if it’s awkward because the watch I’ll use on my other wrist is a bit fiddly.
And with that, you might’ve just made my mind
My understanding from watching other ref's use it is that you would typically type the teamsheet into your phone pre-match, then it uploads that list of names to the watch. So as long as he's still asking the player's name and finding that on his watch (rather than just noting the number), surely that should still be OK?