A sports smartwatch with style to spare

The smartwatch scene in the United States has been dominated by the likes of Samsung with the Watch 6 Classic and Apple with its Series 9 Watch. However, in the past five years, a lesser-known Chinese company has quietly made major inroads into fitness-focused smartwatches geared toward running. Coros got its start on Kickstarter in 2016, making smart bicycling helmets.

After several successful campaigns, it released the Pace watch in 2018. The Pace 3 is Coros’ latest and best watch to date, and despite having a lower price than similarly featured running watches from the likes of Garmin and Polar, the Pace 3 more than holds its own in a crowded field.

Price and availability

The Coros Pace 3 is available at a few retailers, including Best Buy and Amazon, and through the Coros website. Depending on what band you want, though, the price could shift. With the silicone band, you can grab this tracker for $230. If you want to spring for the nylon band, depending on the color you choose, the price can shoot up to $250.

If you stick with the silicone band, Coros offers basic black and white. You get a few more color options for the nylon band, including the Eilud Kipchoge addition featuring a vibrant zigzag design. Of course, third-party options are available if you don’t like what Coros offers.

What’s good about the Coros Pace 3?

The first thing that got me excited about getting ahold of the Pace 3 was its display. Most smartwatch displays today rely on OLED technology due to their lower power consumption than traditional LCD screens (the gorgeous contrast doesn’t hurt either). The Pace 3 uses a reflective LCD screen, which is the same as a traditional LCD, only instead of having a power-hungry LED backlight, it has a reflective backing that uses ambient light to illuminate the colored liquid crystal array (there is a backlight if you need it, meaning this display is technically a transflective LCD).

On top of that, it uses what’s called memory-in-pixel technology. Each pixel on the screen has its own memory, which stores its display state. That means that the pixels on the watch face persist without any power input, so the only time the watch uses power for its display is when something changes.

OLED displays are nice but can’t outshine the sun, making it hard to see in direct sunlight.

Why am I going on about this? OLED displays are nice but can’t outshine the sun, making it hard to see in direct sunlight. RLCDs, on the other hand, are most vibrant when in direct sunlight, which is where you’re most likely to be when running outside the gym. And the MIP technology? That means you can go three weeks between charges or 36 hours if you’re using GPS non-stop. Those are pretty good numbers, considering the Pace 3 only has a 236mAh battery.

Speaking of the GPS, the Pace 3 has a dual-band GPS antenna, which means it has more accurate satellite tracking than a lot of phones, especially in areas that are dense with trees or buildings. In addition to GPS (which is maintained by the US government), the Pace 3 can also tap into the GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), Beidou (China), and QZSS (Japan) global navigation satellite systems.

Based on this hardware profile, the Coros Pace 3 is a fitness wearable first, focused on outdoor movement-based exercise and the onboard software does an excellent job of giving you access to that data. Rotating the bezel lets you scroll through the information it’s recording, such as steps, heart rate, calories burned, and floors climbed. It even gives you ambient data, such as barometric altimetry, temperature, and how long until sunset.

Even though you can see your stats directly on the watch face, the details are stored on your phone via the app. Speaking as a data nerd, I love the details. Because the Pace 3 is a running watch, that’s the area where it really excels, tracking metrics such as pace and your running cadence, all things you want to keep track of if you’re trying to improve your time or distance, and metrics that tend to be overlooked by traditional smartwatches.

I especially appreciated the ability to input my own workout down to the individual exercises and muscle groups targeted. It takes a bit of patience to put a workout together, but once you do, you can keep track of how long you’re spending on each exercise and the average heart rate and calories burned (for both the total workout and each exercise in your workout).

What’s bad about the Coros Pace 3?

There’s a lot to love about the Coros Pace 3, but there are still a few things it gets wrong, and most of it is related to its desire to be as independent from the phone as possible. For example, I like to listen to Spotify when I work out, and I want a watch that lets me skip the occasional song without messing with my phone.

Not only can I not control my Spotify from the Pace 3, but it doesn’t have any third-party app support. Interestingly, the Pace 3 has music playback control, but you have to upload the music to the watch (it has 2GB of storage), and it only supports MP3. I have to be clear here: even though this isn’t ideal for me, I can see how it would be good for a runner who wants to listen to something while running but doesn’t want to be encumbered by a phone on their 10k.

You get your music onto the Pace 3 the same way you charge it: through a non-standard, proprietary port. To its credit, Coros had the good sense to use the same charger with the Pace 2 and its Apex and Vertix line of watches, so at least there’s cross-compatibility within the Coros lineup.

I mentioned that I liked that I could input my own workouts with the Coros app and keep track of it with the watch, but there was a steep learning curve when setting up the first workout. It’s not intuitive what all the options are or how they will manifest when you work out. For example, I have 30 seconds of plank followed by 30 seconds of burpees in my workout. Putting in the exercises isn’t too much of a problem, but it’s not clear on first use that the Pace 3 will jump from one timer immediately to the next without putting in a rest period.

And because you have to edit your workouts from the phone, fixing it on the fly is impossible. Having said that, once you’ve taken the time to set up a workout (around 15 minutes, depending on your workout) and gotten all of the kinks out of it, it’s a very nice feature to have.

And because you have to edit your workouts from the phone, fixing it on the fly is impossible.

The app has many nice features (I like the activity tracking), but it makes some odd choices from a user interface perspective. The most frustrating for me was the inability to swipe left or right between the four primary tabs. Tapping the icon isn’t cumbersome, but it seems like I should be able to swipe, and it’s jarring when I can’t.

I also had trouble figuring out how to get routes set up. First, you have to map out the route on the Explore tab. Then, once it’s saved, you have to go to your watch settings on another tab, add the route, and then sync it to your watch. That feels like a lot of work for a core feature of the watch.

Should you buy it?

I know I just got done griping about some of the Coros Pace 3 features, but I love this watch. It’s not for everyone, though. If you’re looking for third-party app support or NFC functionality, you need to look elsewhere since this is a fitness- and activity-first device. Likewise, if you get frustrated by technology easily, the Pace 3 might have more functionality than you need or want.

On the other hand, if you’re a runner or fitness is a big part of your lifestyle, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better GPS-enabled watch tailored to your needs. The combination of dual-band GPS, outdoor-friendly transflective display, and a price of just $229 make it hard to say no to the Pace 3.