Ref Six - Watch

[socal lurker]

I wouldn't buy another Garmin

Im on my second Garmin Vivoactive—I bought the first just for reffing, but it quickly also became my every day watch. I’ve been really happy using the Referee Watch App on it. Never had a cable problem on either watch. (May take a look at Ref Six, but I can’t think of anything the Referee Watch doesn’t so that I would want from my watch…)

(The rest of my family are runners and have had other Garmins that don’t run apps. they haven’t had cable problems either. )

 

[JamesL]

I wouldn't buy another Garmin
I've had a Fenix5S and a Tactic. They're not brilliant. For one thing, you need to buy a new charging cable every month or two. There's a crappy design fault with the connection between charger and watch that commonly stops the watch from charging in my experience

All I want is a smartish looking timing device, with accurate GPS and maybe a HRM that's not way off. No interest in 'bells & whistles' and nee chance I'll be fiddling about with RefSix anytime soon whilst having my head chewed off by a Neanderthal

Polar.

 

[RefIADad]

I’ve used Refsix a few times watching matches. I’m pleasantly surprised at how easy things are to operate. I do like the ability to change the timing displays, which is beneficial in the US where high school and college matches use a countdown clock (ugh).

I’m working an event next weekend and am seriously thinking about using Refsix (along with my usual game card) to see how it works in a game.

 

[RefIADad]

So I gave Refsix a go last night. My son's U14 boys team played a girls U16 team in a short-notice friendly (really more of a scrimmage), so I volunteered to pick up the whistle instead of having to go for a more traditional run earlier in the day!

I was actually very pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to operate. I use a Garmin Fenix 5, so I don't have the touch screen. The game was played in 20-minute thirds to give the coaches time for team talks and adjustments. I didn't have any teamsheets, so I just entered numbers as I went. I did keep game info on my normal reusable card as I usually do. To be honest, it was a lot easier than I expected to be. The heat maps and statistics are pretty awesome! I've used a StatSports tracker in the past, so I've looked at the stats and heat maps to see how I'm working (I don't live by these stats, but I do note if there's a game where I don't come close to my normal levels). The Refsix stats are a lot more detailed in terms of how long I walked, ran, etc.

The only thing that didn't seem right was that it didn't pick up a portion of the third period for me. I was at 1.5 miles (give or take) in each of the first two periods, but only at 0.55 miles for the third period. I know that can't be right, as the third period was a lot of the girls team playing long ball and the boys team then breaking the forward line with 30-40 yards of space to run. I did most of my high intensity running and sprinting in that third period. My Garmin also showed me at 4.47 miles for the 60 minutes, so I don't think everything synced up properly in the third period. But since it was my first time using the app and I don't think it's quite ready for prime time on a Garmin yet, I didn't get too worried about it. I also messed up and recorded the two third-period goals for the other team (my son's team won 9-0, so I had plenty of practice recording goals!!), and it was pretty easy to fix the goals on the app and/or laptop when I got back home.

I definitely want to try this out in more games to see how it will work when I have misconduct and when I use either a chest strap heart monitor or an arm-based monitor for my heart rate. But overall, I had a much better experience with it than I thought I would.