Garmin S70 Golf GPS Watch - 2023 Forum Review

[RedCell24]

Congrats to those selected. Maybe next time...

[BallsLeon]

Congrats testers, excited for this one! Definitely something I'd be interested in, seems more convenient than having to sight the rangefinder for every shot.

[Josh Ross]

The box was delivered and the watch has been setup! First impressions coming soon!

Spoiler alert, I'm already in love!

[Parshooter36]

I got my 1st 9 holes in with the S70 last night and it did not disappoint.  I locked onto the GPS satelites in under 5 seconds! I could not believe how fast it found my course. The other notable standout on this watch is tha battery life.  After 48 hours hours and 9 holes of golf, I'm still at 83% battery. I didn't have the stat tracking turned on so it was not asking me which club I hit, but it did track my shots and I was able to edit them in after the round.

 

[Josh Ross]

My review post has been updated with first impressions and a few pictures! Heck of a start for the Approach S70!

[FallenSaber]

11 hours ago, Shrek74 said:

Congrats on being selected to test this watch.

Thank you to your brother for his service and ultimate sacrifice for this country and those he was fighting for.

Thank you and your family for your service and sacrifice to our nation. 

Thank you @Shrek74 I truly appreciate your post.

[FallenSaber]

The watched arrived this evening! So far, I'm very happy with it. I'll be updating my review soon!

[xOldBenKenobiX]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:13 PM, GolfSpy_APH said:

@Josh Ross

@FallenSaber

@Parshooter36

@goaliewales14

Congrats testers

[Parshooter36]

I spent some time last night working with the swing tempo feature. I didn't even know this was on the watch, but it seems like a great tool. I will definitely be spending more time on that in the future.

I have my Thursday night league tonight and then a member guest this weekend that includes a practice round tomorrow, so I should be very familiar with the S70 by Monday.

[nvizble1]

Thanks for telling us about that feature! I struggle with tempo, so having something like that might really help my game.

Thanks for sharing!

[FallenSaber]

Review post updated with my review of the unboxing and initial impressions! Check it out! Can't wait to get this watch onto the course this weekend!

[FallenSaber]

2 hours ago, nvizble1 said:

Thanks for telling us about that feature! I struggle with tempo, so having something like that might really help my game.

Thanks for sharing!

I was surprised to see this feature as well. Looking forward to testing my swing tempo and see what improvements I can make.

[Vspin1]

Have fun with em.

[goaliewales14]

I'm getting in my first round tomorrow with my Garmin!

 

[Parshooter36]

I spent 30 minutes working with the swing tempo tool again last night before my round.  My driver club head speed is in the low 90s and I always thought I had a smooth swing, but apperently my tempo needs work.  The goal is 3:1 backswing to downswing and I was closer to 4:1.  I knew I had a fairly deliberate backswing, but even if I tried to take the club back as fast as I could the best I could get was around 3.5:1.  I can only assume that this means my downswing is too agressive and my transition is not as smooth as I thought.  I have never given much thought to my downswing other than club path, so I am really excited to dig into this new data and see if it can help my swing.

On my round last night I had my shot tracking turned on and was promted on all of my full swings to select the club I had hit.  It only registered 1 pitch shot, I had to add in the rest of my greenside chips when I edited my round.  This was not unexpected and not a huge deal for me.  One thing that does seem odd to me coming from Shotscope is that I cannot position my putts on the green in edit mode.  This could be user error on my part, but I have not been able to add figure out a way to do it.

The only odd thing I found during my round was my PlaysLike distance.  It was adding 50 - 100+ yards for wind on the few shots I checked and there was just a slight breeze.  I'm gessing maybe I need to have the app running on my phone to get more accurate wind readings?  Other than that the watch performed flawlessly. I even forgot to confirm my score on hole 12 and after I teed off on 13 it prompted me to confirm my score and putts from the previous hole after confirming my club selection for that tee shot.

[revkev]

22 hours ago, FallenSaber said:

Review post updated with my review of the unboxing and initial impressions! Check it out! Can't wait to get this watch onto the course this weekend!

I have to pause here and thank you and your family for your brother's service and sacrifice.  My son served 81/2 years in the Navy much of them in combat zones.  This was always our fear of course.  Thank you so much and prayers for peace and comfort for you all and that all of us would live our lives worthy of his sacrifice.  

[revkev]

Great job guys - you are making me think that this one may not wait for Santa.  I may request it as a gift from the birthday boy bird.   

 

Actually I have a writing project due in a couple of weeks where the honorarium will almost cover the cost.  Throw in an upcoming wedding and funeral and I would be there.  So please keep up the good work.  

 

How does the watch know what club you are hitting, btw?  You may have mentioned it but I haven't picked up on it yet.  I only have experience with devices that use probes.  Also if you are using it to monitor vitals while sleeping when do you charge it?  Do you take a night off once a week or at some sort of interval based on how long it holds a charge?

 

Thanks

[Josh Ross]

4 minutes ago, revkev said:

Great job guys - you are making me think that this one may not wait for Santa.  I may request it as a gift from the birthday boy bird.   

 

Actually I have a writing project due in a couple of weeks where the honorarium will almost cover the cost.  Throw in an upcoming wedding and funeral and I would be there.  So please keep up the good work.  

 

How does the watch know what club you are hitting, btw?  You may have mentioned it but I haven't picked up on it yet.  I only have experience with devices that use probes.  Also if you are using it to monitor vitals while sleeping when do you charge it?  Do you take a night off once a week or at some sort of interval based on how long it holds a charge?

 

Thanks

There are club sensors available, but without them the watch will just ask you which club you just hit. From other reviews I've watched/read, this seems to work just fine other than it missing chip shots here and there.

As for charging, I've barely lost any battery so I'm not sure how I'm gonna tackle that just yet. I'm tracking sleep and overnight heart data which I've never been able to do and so far the information has been awesome to have. I think once the watch gets low I'll probably charge it late in the evening or when I first wake up. It looks like the watch will last over a week with no issue at all.

[revkev]

6 minutes ago, Josh Ross said:

There are club sensors available, but without them the watch will just ask you which club you just hit. From other reviews I've watched/read, this seems to work just fine other than it missing chip shots here and there.

As for charging, I've barely lost any battery so I'm not sure how I'm gonna tackle that just yet. I'm tracking sleep and overnight heart data which I've never been able to do and so far the information has been awesome to have. I think once the watch gets low I'll probably charge it late in the evening or when I first wake up. It looks like the watch will last over a week with no issue at all.

Excellent - thanks - I also have a heart issue and would like to know what’s happening at night, 

[Parshooter36]

32 minutes ago, revkev said:

Great job guys - you are making me think that this one may not wait for Santa.  I may request it as a gift from the birthday boy bird.   

 

Actually I have a writing project due in a couple of weeks where the honorarium will almost cover the cost.  Throw in an upcoming wedding and funeral and I would be there.  So please keep up the good work.  

 

How does the watch know what club you are hitting, btw?  You may have mentioned it but I haven't picked up on it yet.  I only have experience with devices that use probes.  Also if you are using it to monitor vitals while sleeping when do you charge it?  Do you take a night off once a week or at some sort of interval based on how long it holds a charge?

 

Thanks

After the watch detects a shot it prompts you to select which club you hit.  It brings up a rotating club selection menu that you can scroll through to find your club.  It was very good about being on or near the club I hit when the prompt came up. When you set up the watch it asks you for your driver distance, so I assume it is using a calculation to estimate the distance of the rest of your clubs.  I too am use to automatic club tracking from my Shotscope V3.  I plan to use the watch as is for the entirety of the review period, but I may buy the Garmin CT10 sensors down the road.

I have not used the watch while sleeping. I toss and turn quite a bit though the night and would be afraid of cracking it on the nightstand. Hopefully one of the other testers can answer that for you. I will say though that I am nearly 4 days in with 18 holes of golf and the battery is at 64%, so it does not look like the watch will need charged very often.

[KC Golf]

The watch sounds super fancy. Makes my old S20 look like a mere paperweight. I can’t wait hear how it performs on the course. It looks very fancy with lots of bells and whistles.  

[revkev]

One last question from me - I'm assuming you can turn the notifications off?  Being a Pastor I receive communications 24/7.  Wearing a device where they pop up would stink and it would be all the worse if it were the device I was using as my golf GPS.  

[Josh Ross]

4 minutes ago, revkev said:

One last question from me - I'm assuming you can turn the notifications off?  Being a Pastor I receive communications 24/7.  Wearing a device where they pop up would stink and it would be all the worse if it were the device I was using as my golf GPS.  

You can! I also receive stuff constantly but there are some things I want to come to my watch. I've been able to block certain apps from notifying the watch but it still comes to my phone. One thing I want to look into though is the ability to silence notifications while golfing, not sure I'd like my watch to vibrate about an incoming text mid-swing.

[Parshooter36]

6 minutes ago, Josh Ross said:

You can! I also receive stuff constantly but there are some things I want to come to my watch. I've been able to block certain apps from notifying the watch but it still comes to my phone. One thing I want to look into though is the ability to silence notifications while golfing, not sure I'd like my watch to vibrate about an incoming text mid-swing.

That is a great point about notifications during your round. I haven't had that happen yet, but that would be very distracting.

[revkev]

10 minutes ago, Josh Ross said:

You can! I also receive stuff constantly but there are some things I want to come to my watch. I've been able to block certain apps from notifying the watch but it still comes to my phone. One thing I want to look into though is the ability to silence notifications while golfing, not sure I'd like my watch to vibrate about an incoming text mid-swing.

I have a phone. I have no desire to receive notifications on the watch. If I couldn’t turn tg off it would be a non-starter. I could easily receive 50 emails, texts and Facebook messages during a round of golf.  A normal 4 hour non Sunday afternoon time period would be 20-25

[Josh Ross]

1 minute ago, revkev said:

I have a phone. I have no desire to receive notifications on the watch. If I couldn’t turn tg off it would be a non-starter. I could easily receive 50 emails, texts and Facebook messages during a round of golf.  A normal 4 hour non Sunday afternoon time period would be 20-25

I understand that, I use my phone for everything. My phone says in the last 24 hours I have received 597 notifications. That's an average of 25 an hour, though I have many of them set to silent for obvious reasons.

I know you can turn all notifications off so that nothing goes to your watch from your phone, and I may end up doing that myself. For now I wanted to test it and see how it affects battery life and if there's a convenient factor there.

[Shrek74]

53 minutes ago, Parshooter36 said:

That is a great point about notifications during your round. I haven't had that happen yet, but that would be very distracting.

I know with my Samsung G5 Golf there is a "Do not disturb" setting that stops any vibrating or vocal notifications. I'd bet the G70 has that too, or at least I'd hope it does.

[Josh Ross]

2 minutes ago, Shrek74 said:

I know with my Samsung G5 Golf there is a "Do not disturb" setting that stops any vibrating or vocal notifications. I'd bet the G70 has that too, or at least I'd hope it does.

You are correct, I was just coming back to report on the Do Not Disturb mode that's easily found in the main menu. Boom, problem solved!

[FallenSaber]

10 hours ago, revkev said:

I have to pause here and thank you and your family for your brother's service and sacrifice.  My son served 81/2 years in the Navy much of them in combat zones.  This was always our fear of course.  Thank you so much and prayers for peace and comfort for you all and that all of us would live our lives worthy of his sacrifice.  

Thank you for your kind words @revkev I truly appreciate it. And thank you for your son's service.

[goaliewales14]

I was able to get out and play my first round with the watch yesterday!  While I was out there I was using my rangefinder, Garmin, and GHIN for the hole overview to compare everything.  Initial thoughts are:

• The watch is very light weight and it's hard to notice that you're wearing it
• Screen is very easy to read
• Step counter did not seem calibrated correctly 
• Taking on and off my glove was an issue
• The "Plays like" feature saved me!
• Need to work with hole view feature.  Had issues working it