I'm a runner and a technology enthusiast, so I waited a long time for the Moto 360 Sport to be released in Australia. 

The Moto 360 Sport is one of the first smart watches that incorporates GPS, so perfect for runners.  I've had it for about a month now and and taken it for several of runs.  

Running Smartwatch App

For running, you have two options if you don't want to carry your phone: (1) the Moto Body Running app and (2) Endomondo.  The Moto Body Running app does a pretty good job.    

Whilst you're running you can scroll between three views (see images below):

  • Elapsed distance, elapsed time and current pace (km/s)
  • Your heart rate along with which of the five zones you are currently in (warm-up, light, moderate, etc)
  • Current Lap or KM time (current plus previous).  Note there seems to be a bug at the moment where it considers a lap as a mile (1.6k).  I can't find a setting to override this. This bug has been fixed

When you finish you get a summary - total time, total km, average pace and best pace

The accuracy of the distance and heart rate calculations are a bit hit and miss. It also picks up the GPS signal relatively quickly, on average within 10-20 seconds (once it took over a minute).

Strava does have an Android Wear app, but it requires you to carry your phone whilst you're running. The watch effectively becomes just a summary of what you see on your phone. 

Moto Body does allow you to sync with Strava so you can use Moto Body to record the run, then when you are finished it shows up on Strava. Note for bike riders, use the Moto Body running app to record your ride, sync it with Strava then edit your Strava activity to ride rather than run.

Navigation

Navigation on the watch is relatively straight forward:

  • Swipe left to access a single scrollable list of available apps and tap to open
  • Swipe down to access setting functions - notification levels (all, priority or none), brightness and settings
  • Swipe up to access any pending notifications - emails, facebook, twitter, upcoming calendar appointments, google now notifications.  

Looks

The watch looks and feels great - it doesn't look too techy or geeky. I've only had positive comments to date. You can customise the watch face with a variety of digital and analogue options.

Battery Life

Many reviews I read prior to purchasing were quite critical of the battery life however I've been pleasantly surprised.  On the days where I run, I'll still have around 15-20% battery left by the end of the day so I charge it overnight.  

I took it for a long bike ride and recorded for almost 5 hours before it finally died.  Note I lowered the brightness and disabled wireless to see how far the battery life would would stretch whilst recording.  

Step counter

The step counter is not spot on but near enough to give you a guide on how active you've been throughout the day.  

Sleep Tracking

The other function I was keen to use was Sleep Tracking.  The Moto 360 Sport does a reasonable job.  I've been using an app called Sleep for Android which tracks your sleep and provides a graph of when you've been in light vs deep sleep. 

iPhone

The Moto 360 Sport does pair and send notifications to an iPhone, but be warned - you cannot retrieve your runs via the iPhone as there is no Moto Body app.