Three futuristic smartwatches for golfers, sportspeople and the common man

Gone are the days when watches were meant for timekeeping, now they can help perfect your swing, track your fitness and look good on your wrist

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The Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 “Golf Edition ”.

Abid Rahman

Published: 8:00pm, 21 Aug 2019Updated: 8:08pm, 21 Aug 2019

After the drone calamity and go-karting debacle of last month, the past week or so I’ve been gaffe-free, primarily because I’ve been too depressed to leave the house after watching Years and Years. Set in the not-too-distant future, the show – a joint production by the BBC and HBO – is an all-too-realistic and bleak look at how we’ve screwed ourselves, with the added bonus of Emma Thompson as a Mancunian Trump-type figure. Despite all that, I cannot recommend this six-part series enough. So watch it, and feel sad and hopeless. It’s probably cathartic.

On to the watches. This week, we’re getting futuristic, although not bleak, with the latest smartwatches, starting with the Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45 “Golf Edition”. Swiss watchmakers are no strangers to golf, with pretty much every major player endorsing one brand or another. While the likes of Richard Mille have leaned heavily into gimmicks, by creating lightweight watches that can withstand the velocity of a golf swing, Tag Heuerhas created a genuinely useful golfing timepiece, or rather a proprietary app to link with its smartwatch, which might just improve your game.

The key feature is the on-your-wrist access to 39,000 golf courses around the world, all rendered and mapped in 2D and 3D with analysis on how to play the fairways and greens, how to avoid hazards and all sorts of other things that might possibly be cheating. Who’s to say? The app also records your scores and gives shot distances and other handy information, all at the touch of a button.

The watch itself is “golf inspired”, says Tag Heuer, and the most obvious thing is the black ceramic bezel engraved with 18 markers, a nod to 18 holes. The 45mm watch is shock-resistant and made from tough but light black titanium. Like most smartwatches, this piece offers all the usual features, such as notifications, health tracking and Google Assistant. Priced at HK$15,100, the watch comes in a luxurious box, which includes three branded golf balls.

The Alpina AlpinerX tracks fitness and can be boosted with the addition of a heart-rate monitor.

Another specialist smartwatch, or should I say smartwatch plus accessory, that has caught my eye is the Alpina AlpinerX and its heart-rate monitoring belt. Alpina, which is owned by Japanese watchmaking giant Citizen, has gone all in on smartwatches over the past few years and it looks like it’s paying off. The company reported a 35 per cent spike in sales last year and it’s all down to its tech-forward timepieces.