10 Life Hacks Every Coros Watch User Should Know.

Coros makes excellent running watches that are unfairly underrated. You may remember that I named the Pace 4 the best running watch under $250 , and I think the Pace Pro (with its larger screen and offline maps) is also excellent. And while Coros watches excel at the basics, they also boast a surprising number of useful, yet often hidden, features. Here are my top 10 tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Coros running watch.

Use Extender to view detailed maps while you run.

The Pace Pro watch has built-in maps, while the Pace 4 only offers basic navigation without maps. You probably already knew this. But no matter which watch you have on your wrist, you might not know that while running, you can pull out your phone and see a detailed map (with satellite imagery!) right on the screen. Instead of fiddling with controls on the watch’s tiny screen, you can zoom in on your phone, and the map will update in real time, showing your location and the route you’ve taken.

To use this feature, simply open the Coros app on your phone while running. At the very top of the main screen, you’ll see a card with your current activity. Tap this card, and you’ll be taken to the Extended view—a tool that lets you view your activity data and even update some information directly on your watch.

The Extender can do a lot—we’ll talk about the Adventure Journal feature later—but its best feature is undoubtedly mapping. If your watch doesn’t have maps (like the Pace 4), you essentially get them here for free. And if your watch does have maps (like the Pace Pro), you can view a higher-resolution map with more convenient controls right on this screen, instead of using the one on your watch.

Get statistics for every kilometer without creating a new lap.

By default, the Coros watch marks a lap at every kilometer unless you’re doing a specific workout. This is convenient because the watch displays your time and pace for that kilometer. This is a fairly standard feature.

But this also means that when you review your data later, you’ll see each mile as a separate lap. If you want to track a different set of laps—for example, the first or second lap around your neighborhood—the automatic lap counting will interfere.

Fortunately, a recent update changes this. You can now program automatic lap counting separately from distance alerts. Here’s how to get the best of both worlds:

1. On your watch, go to Run mode (or Track, etc.), select Auto Lap , and turn it off.

2. Also, in the “Running” (etc.) mode, go to “Activity Alerts,” then “Distance Alerts” and make sure it’s turned on . Here, you can set the distance you’ll likely need to run to 1.00 miles .

3. If you want your time and pace to be spoken aloud when you receive an alert, return to Running mode and turn on Voice Alerts .

This way, I can run two laps of a two-mile trail, giving me two total laps, one for each lap, and still get a pace reminder at every mile.

Download your route (even if you know where you’re going) to get uphill alerts.

This is another relatively new feature, and it’s great for those who frequently run hilly trails. Coros has “Climb Alerts,” which notifies you when a major climb is about to begin and how many more hills lie ahead. You can preview the hills along your entire route or simply wait for unexpected alerts as you run. I find this very helpful because I know how long the next climb will be and can adjust my pace accordingly.

However, to use this feature, the watch needs to know where you’re going. Create a route in the Explore tab or upload a route created in another app, like Strava. Then tap “Sync to Watch.” I have a library of routes saved for my favorite trails, so using this feature is super easy: just select the route on the same screen where I start my run. (Instead of tapping “Start,” simply scroll down to the “Navigation” section and select the route you’re running.)

There are two ways to correct your vocal preparation notes.

After completing a workout on the Pace 4, you can record a short voice memo with all your memories from that session. I’ve already written about how helpful this is for me . For strength training, I read the highlights from my training log. For running and other activities, I write about how I felt or any factors that may have affected me (like the recent heat).

But sometimes you miss something you meant to include or otherwise mess up the recording. If you only notice it later, you have two options, each of which manifests itself slightly differently.

One way to fix this is through the watch itself. On the watch face, scroll up to see widgets. One of the widgets displays your previous actions. Select an action, scroll down to the voice memo, and re-record it. This will overwrite the old recording, and if you wait a few minutes, the transcription in the app will also be re-recorded.

Or you can edit it as text directly from your phone. The original voice memo is converted to text, but if you tap the trash can icon next to the memo on your phone, the voice recording will disappear, leaving you with only a text field where you can edit (or add to) the text as you wish.

Scroll the digital dial to remove the screen from your lap.

This is a tiny, hidden feature I just discovered, and I really like it. Every time you mark a lap (or the automatic lap feature marks a lap for you), the lap stats screen stays on your watch for what seems like an eternity—eight seconds, I think. But if you want to return to the regular screen, there’s an easy way: just turn the watch face a click or two. The lap is still marked, but the screen disappears.

Create your own training program with the Coros training center.

You probably knew you could upload your training schedule to the Coros app, and therefore to your watch. (If not, go to the training plan library in Settings and see all available options.) But there’s another way to ensure your runs appear on schedule: add them yourself to your calendar in the Coros Training Center.

The Coros Training Hub is a website that offers a much more user-friendly planning interface than the mobile app. To use it, follow this link (the link will only work if you’re logged in to your Coros account). Click the calendar icon in the middle-right corner of the screen, then select or create a training plan.

Here’s how I used this app to create a basic schedule for myself in minutes. Select a day, then tap “Quick Workout” and fill out the basic fields. For example: Run, 3 miles, no goal pace. Once you’ve created a workout, you can copy and paste it to other days. Currently, I do short, easy runs on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and a longer run on Sundays. I quickly created a monthly schedule (changing some details each week, such as increasing the length of my long run), and then saved the workout plan. Once created, I can drag it to any future date on my calendar, and now I have a running schedule.

This means that if I scroll through the widgets on my watch, I can see what run I’ve planned for today (or tomorrow, or later this week). And when I start my run, I’m asked if I want to run the three miles I planned.

Find hidden screens on Pace 4.

This is a simple life hack that eluded me for a long time. If you find yourself on a strange screen while running and can’t figure out how to get back to the one you were on, it’s because Coros has changed the layout of the screen. (If I remember correctly, they changed it twice . Once I figured out the old way, it stopped working.)

On the Pace 4, the action button in the lower left corner of the watch switches between navigation, music controls, and the regular activity data screens. When on the data screen, scrolling or swiping up and down switches between the different data screens.

You can think of this as three different columns; scroll up and down within a data column to see all of these options, or use the action button to move sideways to the next column.

Save photos of specific areas of the map using the Adventure Journal.

If you see something interesting while running—or want to jog down your experiences—Adventure Log makes it much easier to review later. It also uses the “Expand” feature, so pull out your phone during your run and tap the card with your current events.

From here, you can take a photo or mark a location on the map. You can also attach photos and text to your marks. I usually don’t let my phone camera save location information in photos, so when I’m on a trail, this gives me an easy way to mark where things are. Here’s a strange gravestone in the woods; here’s a fork in the trail I want to explore later; and so on.

Track your rest time at checkpoints.

Here’s a feature I just learned about that seems useful for long runs with breaks. The Trail Run feature now tracks your lap, or how long you rest at a given point.

Waypoints are points on the map that are embedded in the route you’re following. They’re different from pins, though they may seem similar at first glance. (However, a pin can be converted to a waypoint.)

If you plan to run a long distance and take rest breaks at specific points along the way—for example, at the aid stations where ultramarathon participants stop—the “Lap Details” section of your activity will show the time spent at each checkpoint before continuing. Due to the recent heat wave, I’ve been using my car as a cool-down spot during long runs, so I’m looking forward to using the checkpoints to track my time.

Analyze your workout metrics over the phone or online.

By scrolling or swiping up from the watch face, you can see analytics like your training status and training load. But what the watch displays is only a small part of what Coros can tell you about how hard you’ve been training (and how much you should be training).

If you tap “Training Status” in the Coros mobile app, you’ll see graphs showing not only your status (mine is optimized, great), but also how your fitness has changed over time and whether you’re within the recommended intensity range.

What’s more, you can access the Training Center for even more detailed information. Using graphs like the one above, you can see how your fitness has changed based on training intensity, VO2 max, and a host of other metrics. You can see how you feel now compared to a few months ago, and how your training has impacted things like your lactate threshold. I see that I’ve slacked off a bit since returning from Hyrox, but I’ve also finally started training a little harder and will likely see benefits soon.

More…