Spintso Referee Smartwatch S1 Pro with GPS

Simply the best for Referee..

I have tried a lot of watches. I will never understand why it's so hard for manufacturers to develop a simple cost effective watch for refereeing a soccer game. This Spintso S1 Pro is the best soccer watch I have found so far but there are some issues.

Let's start with what I like. The S1 Pro is a major improvement from the Spintso Pro which was incredibly frustrating to use. It seems they heard that feedback because the S1 Pro is dead simple. My general feeling is that a watch shouldn't require a user manual and I should be able to intuitively figure out the majority of functions without looking it up in the manual. The S1 Pro is "almost" there but when you consider that the company who makes the Spintso is notorious for horrible user manuals that often leave out critical details and printing their manuals in 4pt type that you need a high powered electron microscope to read I suppose they should be applauded for an average user manual experience for the S1 Pro and for making this watch more intuitive and logical.

You can easily create 3 Preset games and then quickly navigate to and launch that preset game. I like the option to set up how you want to trigger or stop a match with a double press or long press or single press because people are different. I like double press and it's nice that when you stop the clock during a game the Extra Time counter keeps track so you know exactly how much ET to apply at end of half. Once a period ends the Halftime break counter kicks off automatically and that's also really handy for keeping games running on time.

This watch is a "Smartwatch" and I like the fact that I can track my steps and exertion and there is a nice tracker for intervals or workouts but I don't see this watch replacing my Apple Watch workouts or for day-to-day use primarily because of one major issue.

I live in Southern California and often times our games are in bright sunlight and even with the Spintso watch at it's brightest setting it's still woefully dim almost to the point of being unusable. I was really disappointed and I thought maybe my settings were off or that I still had some protective cover on the face which was dimming it. The technology for daylight visibility on electronic devices like watches has been around for 20+ years and there really is no excuse for a $220-$250 watch being hard to read in direct sunlight. Especially when this watch is specifically designed for refereeing games which occur outdoors in daylight.

The poor daylight readability of this watch then magnifies the difficulty in operating the watch because text is very small and it just makes using and operating the watch harder than it needs to be even if you find a spot of shade to work in. I should have probably given this 3 stars because in general referee watches are terrible but this is the best option out there IMHO.

The other major issue is the price of this watch. We simply should not have to spend over $100 for a smartly engineered referee watch. To be fair, this is a smartwatch and it has loads of features that are found on regular watches but I highly doubt anyone is buying this watch as a daily driver. It's a purpose-built referee watch and as such I feel they could have cut way back on the ancillary features and just focused on giving the people what they want; a good, easy-to-use referee watch.

To that end, and because the watch vendors are clearly not getting the message, here are the most important requirements for a good soccer referee watch:
1) Ease-of-use - Intuitive and simple to operate quickly
2) Readability - If you can't see the watch face easily it's useless
3) Good Battery - Batteries can't last forever but if you could pare down features and devote battery to the things that matter it would be great. I think you need a minimum of 8 hours at full brightness for Tournaments.
4) Soccer specific functions - Give me what I need on as few screens as possible. The S1 Pro has what I need here. I think you need to keep the GPS for fitness tracking.
5) Cost - A top of line Soccer Specific watch should not cost more than $100 if you cut out all the extra BS.

Here's to hoping!

Features are out of this world. battery life was 4 games for me with all features used, very happy with it.

Have had the whole range of watches from cheap casio to garmin fenix and spintso pro.

Love the feel shape and weight. Takes a minute to get used to certain functions but once I have that dialed in I'm excited.

It’s a great watch to have but it will take a few games to get use to how it works. So please keep another watch at first. The fact you can program multiple different games and at a single change of the match type you are set to go. I have used it on a couple of games already but still need practice.

Everyone that is serious about reffing You need this watch

It doesn't have high school timer, where the time is stopped on the count up and down, if you can add that feature, it will be the best watch

I was able to beta-test this product at a tournament in TX last month after previously using a referee app on my apple watch. This thing feels solid, works without any hiccups whatsoever and most of all, it comes with really great Spintso app. I will work on video review next, because there is much to cover, but this is a referee app killer. I no longer have to worry about my apple watch acting out, etc. This is the best referee watch ever. GPS is more accurate than my Garmin and heart rate monitoring is exactly measuring the same like my Garmin Forerunner. Love this watch. This watch battery lasted me 2 days of refereeing and still had juice left, after 9 full games, crazy.