Does anyone know of a wrist guard that gives proper protection and still allows access to viewing a smart watch?
That’ll have to be one huge/long smartwatch strap!
Great question!
I have a Bluetooth music player that you wear like a watch, and I have wondered the same thing, since its wristband is too short.
I wear KH gloves, or Triple 8 “Hired Hands” wrist guards, so I am searching for a solution to address the same “fat wrist” issue.
Sorry for the off-topic but about the aging of both wristguards, how are the triple 8 doing ? Are they as comfy ? Lasting longer than the KH ? Or just having different problems with time ?
Great question! I cant even wear my fitbit watch at all with either my triple 8 wrist guards or my KH gloves, let alone see it. I wanted the fitness tracking during my rides.
Instead I started wearing leather street bike gloves- it stiffens things for my wrist up a little more than wearing nothing, and great abrasion resistance, and very comfortable with my watch on, but I sacrifice on wrist protection for that convenience, and wish I didn’t have to.
I’ve been wearing a Garmin GPS watch while riding with KH gloves (which have an element of wrist protection). I can see it OK if I push it just a little further up my arm than usual, and this has worked for me although it’s harder to press the side buttons nearest the glove. How workable this is may be impacted by glove/hand size (mine are XL as I have large hands) and tightness of the wrist straps (I don’t do the velcro up super tight as would be needed for best wrist protection). I have issues with the base of the glove pressing the watch buttons if I don’t push the watch far enough up my arm.
If it’s a smart watch with pulse detection then it has to be on the skin for that to work, hence the need for it to be higher up the arm and not over any wrist protection
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If it’s a smart watch with pulse detection then it has to be on the skin for that to work, hence the need for it to be higher up the arm and not over any wrist protection
Not if you link it to a chest strap, which has the additional advantages of giving a more accurate HR reading and substantially reducing the watch’s battery useage.
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I’ve got a (non smart) Swatch watch with an elastic strap that’ll fit over the KH gloves. Maybe you could find an elastic strap for your smart watch?
Aha, hadn’t thought of that - good point.
I had discounted a chest strap as too much hassle and more accuracy than I needed, but if it reduces battery usage (not great on my old watch) then I might reconsider - thanks
Wrist HR is so bad for me that I use either no HR or a chest strap nowadays. (Although for unicycling I don’t really use the data for anything other than feeding stravas training load data) Doesn’t bother me too much personally.
Alternatively there are some straps for the upper arm I’ve seen, which apparently are also more accurate than wrist and provide the same benefits regarding battery life.
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holyroller:
I had discounted a chest strap as too much hassle and more accuracy than I needed, but if it reduces battery usage (not great on my old watch) then I might reconsider - thanks
It pretty much doubled the length of a GPS-enabled exercise session that I could record on my Vivoactive 3.
I’ve since replaced it with a Forerunner 955 Solar, which will quite happily record an exercise session with GPS and HR all day on a single charge. I still use the chest strap for anything much over an hour, though, so that I can reduce the frequency of charge cycles and extend the lifetime of my watch.
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I wear killer 187 guards with splints front and back. Part of the problem will always be that you need the splints long enough to give proper support so your wrist does not bend back. That in itself will be hard to over come. I can strap my guards over top of the watch but I can’t read it while riding. I also use a mielan mini GPS speedo on my touring bars so I do get some info at a glance in regards to speed and distance.
Wrist Guards are not the most comfortable things to wear to start with so stuffing a bulky watch under it makes it even more uncomfortable .
I either wear my Swatch with its elastic strap over them or no watch at all.
The point for me of wearing he smart watch
While I ride is for its fitness monitoring features . For me it’s not about telling time.
Good question. I can only say what doesn’t work. I have the KH wrist guards, large size and in my opinion the closing part of the straps is really short or bad designed for normal hand sizes. I got a Pixel Watch 3 with LTE to leave my mobile at home and have a device for emergency calls with me. Currently I put the PW3 in my pocket, it’s smaller than a phone but not the best solution yet 
I used to mount my phone on my touring bar and I was using map my ride. This turned out to be a bad idea, At least for me. I had a bad UPD a few years back and my phone went flying across a paved parking lot. I now keep my phone tucked away. I
Granted I could definitely do without the watch but as it turns out these things let us old farts know that we are still alive.
I can do without the watch but the wrist guards I will not ride without.
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I agree, the strap seems too short. I don’t have very large wrists, and the large size kh gloves only has maybe 1/2" where the velcro latches on with no watch on. With a watch, it can’t really latch on at all. I really like them otherwise but the closing straps should definitely be longer.
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Oh, duh, I remember now - I totally agree too! In fact so much so that I cut an extra velcro loop patch from (one side of) a wide velcro roll and sewed it on top of, and extending beyond, the existing patch. The loops of the original patch were all getting shredded anyway due to the undue pressure of the previous very small join area. So now my KH gloves have an extra 2" or so where the velcro can join, which means the wrist area can be done up looser. It’s only because of the extension that I can easily accommodate a smart watch underneath the cuff area. It was a very worthwhile fix which I would do again with any future new KH gloves - I used a sewing machine, but hand stitching would have worked too.
Photos not so clear as it’s all black on black, but hopefully it shows the idea.
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Thank you, you perfectly described the problem, and solved it. It’s strange that it hasn’t been improved out of factory yet, the joining area is almost zero. But here, there’s no problem that someone is facing alone. Maybe I’ll even give the sewing machine a try myself plus get some space for my watch.
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