Garmin’s wrist heart rate monitoring indeed works reasonably well when walking and running, as long as the optics are tight enough against the skin. In my own use, it’s okay for cycling too, but the accuracy depends on the weather and wrist position. For cross-country skiing, Garmin’s wrist heart rate doesn’t work in cold weather.
So, in cold weather and during movements where the wrist flexes sharply, it can’t keep up, and you practically need a heart rate strap.
I’m using the first-generation Venu, which has otherwise been very functional for my needs. No need for high-end sports use. It’s excellent for basic tracking, and additionally, the desired notifications from the phone come through.
I also have a Forerunner (745) and use it for running. When cycling, the wrist-based measurement doesn’t work if I ride out of the saddle (standing up), as the wrist angle changes. And it really doesn’t work at all when skiing. For those sports, I use a heart rate strap.
I’m going on a cruise soon and need to find a suitably masculine fragrance from the tax-free shop that would work for everyday use, like at the office, and another—or even the same one—for evenings out and dinner restaurants. Do the esteemed forum members have any personal favorite brands or specific scents they prefer?
The price limit is around 100 euros, taking tax-free pricing into account. Currently, I’m planning to test scents from Azzaro, Boss, Armani, and Yves Saint Laurent, but since I’ve only been using perfumes for a couple of years (gone through a few bottles of Issey Miyake), I’m interested in diving deeper into the fragrance genre.
Is it worth geeking out on these, or should I actually look for cheaper alternatives outside of the major brands? I’m interested to know.
Surprisingly, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 performs well for heart rate monitoring even while skiing, unlike the Garmin Forerunner 235 back in the day. There are probably individual differences in whether the tracking works or not. I mainly use the 4G model for safety reasons, as I don’t feel like lugging a big phone around. Maps are also a great feature, even though it’s nice to get lost sometimes. The best thing about the watch, however, is probably paying at the store without a card. Then again, one can manage without it, just like you get used to driving a Lada. The 1200L with its chrome bumpers certainly sparkled nicely after a hand polish.
I just grabbed my Other Danish Guy boxers from the drying line. I realized I ordered them three years ago, and they haven’t changed a bit. Still snug and sharp. And they dry really fast in this wind.
Quality is probably partly subjective, but when I look at Garmin’s overall ecosystem (Connect + devices), I certainly wouldn’t call it high-quality based on the user experience Especially Connect is a complete chaotic mess, and Garmin’s cycling computers are really clunky to use. Naturally, the watches operate on a slightly different logic. Perhaps, however, they are the “least bad” of sports electronics if you want all your data in one place and don’t use Strava or a similar hub.
Now that we’ve delved even deeper into this, I’ll comment further from the perspective of an endurance athlete.
I feel that no watch manufacturer’s own ecosystem is particularly good. Garmin Connect is indeed a complete, horrifying mess. I still use Garmin cycling computers because they seem to do their job reliably and withstand heavy use. They are a bit clunky to use, of course. On the watch side, I prefer the domestic brand Polar. In any case, my data goes to the TrainingPeaks app, which is perhaps the “golden standard” for endurance athletes. There are others nowadays, and Strava’s features have also increased over the years, but for me, it’s mainly just a social media platform.
While we’re on the subject of truly high-quality products, I should mention that TrainingPeaks has been a very reliable and high-quality service for me as a backbone for my training. It’s a very niche product, though, and probably doesn’t concern many people here
In the world of perfumes, there certainly are brands that are high quality despite being cheap, but they are mainly available abroad or online. Economically, it’s not sensible for shops to sell 25-euro fragrances if bottles near a hundred euros are selling well. The retailer’s margin would remain very low.
You can’t really judge or categorize different brands as being of a certain style or quality; all these fashion houses have perfumes in different styles and made at different quality levels.
You need to learn and explore the fragrance genre enough to find your own thing that you like. That is, if the subject interests you at all. Personally, I’ve probably owned 100 different perfumes in the 100-euro range, which I’ve then traded on Tori (a local marketplace) when I’ve wanted to get something new to replace them.
Most scents are quite good, or even really good, but then there are a few that you might consider your “Signature.” That’s perhaps the journey worth taking: finding a scent that pleases you in all situations.
If you only want to get one that fits work, parties, the gym, winter, and summer, consider:
Chanel - Bleu de Chanel EDP
Prada L’homme
Chanel - Egoiste Platinum
Hermes - Terre
YSL - Y EDP
My own Signature leans toward the vintage or retro style, i.e., scents in the style of the 50s-80s.
Yeah, thanks for the answer and the recommendations!
The problem with these is that you really need to be able to smell them before making a buying decision. From what I’ve seen, a surprising number of these highly sought-after and hyped scents aren’t available in brick-and-mortar stores, at least not in this country. Of course, many international or online shops can send samples to your home, but it just gets too complicated.
And true, I’m willing to pay 100+ euros once or twice a year. Cheaper drugstore fragrances would be one option, of course, but somehow their scent doesn’t even please my own nose.
I’m still looking for my signature scent and I’ll settle on something eventually, but it’s certain that I’ll pick up a fragrance on my next cruise. Now that my alcohol consumption has decreased almost naturally, I can put that money toward fragrances at the cruise and airport tax-free shops in the future.
By that metric, the Social Underwear boxers sold at Kärkkäinen are of equal quality. They’ve stayed snug for three years, dry in an instant in the tumble dryer, and it looks like you can get almost ten pairs for the price of one pair of Other Danish.
You can order 2-5ml testers relatively cheaply. I’ve probably ordered about 100-200 of them myself. Testing them in a store doesn’t really help me; I need to be able to test them in my own daily use. Once you order about 20+ testers, you get a pretty good idea of what you like and what you don’t. If the goal is just to find one bottle that suits you, this is definitely the surest way to find a match.
And with perfumes, there isn’t much point in asking others for advice. Sure, you can get some general guidance, but perfumes react differently to different people’s skin, and different people’s noses function in different ways.
Reef brand sandals! Absolutely incredibly comfortable to wear, and the price didn’t break the bank at the time of purchase: I managed to get them from Amazon for about 40 dollars. Now, these flip-flops are more expensive.
Best of all, these have been in daily (summer) use for eight years now. Quite an impressive achievement for modern shoes in this price range, wouldn’t you say?
One nice thing is that Reef also makes adult sizes! For those of us with big feet, there are XL models available just like at Sultan’s (I’ve found them at least up to size 50).
Last but not least, a story related to these very same slippers from years ago: my wife and I were traveling in Thailand when we saw a young man with surfer hair and a beautiful tan sitting by the roadside, looking like he was in some kind of distress. The man had a rucksack on his back and two other bags leaning against the curb—the same one the guy was sitting on. In his hand, he held a green bottle, which I recognized from afar as a Chang beer. Ah, yes. The man was holding his head and running his hands through his hair, and after quickly putting two and two together, I realized the man was thirsty. There he was, waiting for the cap to fly off the mouth of that honeyed nectar, much like a First North investor waiting for a bottleneck to break. But where to find help?
From Reef sandals, of course. I’ve managed to do quite a few ‘bar tricks’ with these, and people are always just as baffled: how he opens a bottle with the sole of a flip-flop.
In my opinion, the cheaper ones smell bad.
