I just traded in my Polar running watch for a Garmin after learning a rather expensive lesson

Garmin sports watches have seen me through many years of running. My first was a chunky but functional Garmin Forerunner 35, which saw me through my first foray into 'serious' training, through to a Garmin Fenix 7S, which was frankly much more watch than I needed.

My love of the brand's watches didn't last forever though. Worried by a prolonged server outage, and feeling jaded by the launch of Garmin Connect+ (which sneakily put LiveTrack text alerts for runners behind a paywall – but not ones for cyclists), I decided that my next device would be from Polar.

The switch was easy, and I was already familiar with the interface and the Polar Flow app from my time as TechRadar's fitness editor many years ago. Everything went perfectly smoothly – until it didn't.