Name: Cold Metric: Ice Bath, Sauna & Contrast
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: ColdMetric

Cold Metric turns a cold plunge into something you can actually look back on.

Pick what you are doing, set the temperature and a target, and get in. The watch handles the rest: elapsed time on a closing ring and live heart rate. Nothing else on screen — you are cold and not reading anything dense.

PICK WHAT YOU ARE DOING

Ice bath, sauna, cold shower or breathwork. Each carries its own sensible range and presets, so you are not dialling half-degrees at 85°C or scrolling past sauna durations to log a 90-second plunge.

CONTRAST THERAPY, PROPERLY

Set your cold and hot halves once, choose how many rounds, and go. The watch buzzes at every transition — because you cannot see or hear a screen with your wrist under water, and a contrast set is unusable without it.

Between rounds it waits for you. Getting out of a barrel and into a sauna takes however long it takes, and counting that as sauna time would make the round a lie. Press when you are in position and the next round starts. Each round saves as a lap, so Garmin Connect shows the whole cycle.

BREATHWORK

A session in its own right, not a phase bolted onto a plunge: box breathing, four seconds each of in, hold, out, hold. A circle grows and shrinks with your lungs and the watch taps you at each turn — one tap in, two taps out, silence through the holds — so you can do the whole thing with your eyes shut.

IT REMEMBERS

Your last twenty sessions, weekly cold time, average, highest and lowest heart rate, your coldest and warmest, and your daily streak. One press on the opening screen repeats your last session exactly — speed matters when you are standing next to the water.

Your streak and last session also sit on the glance carousel, so you see them without opening anything.

FEELS RIGHT IN THE COLD

Buzzes at halfway, ten seconds out, and at every transition — patterns you can tell apart by feel alone. No squinting at a screen with wet hands.

A REAL GARMIN ACTIVITY

Every session saves as a genuine FIT activity, so it lands in Garmin Connect alongside your runs and rides — under its own name, with duration and heart rate. Contrast rounds save as laps, so Connect shows the whole cycle. If you have Garmin Connect linked to Strava, your sessions go there automatically.

Cold time is counted separately from sauna time, because the cold is the thing being trained and padding it with the warm half would make the number meaningless.

ONE PURCHASE

No subscription, no account, no upsell, nothing held back behind a second app. Nothing is transmitted anywhere — your sessions live on the watch and reach Garmin Connect the way any activity does.

BEFORE YOU USE IT

Cold water carries real risk, including cold shock response, impaired ability to swim, and hypothermia. Never plunge alone. Get out if you feel unwell. If you have a heart condition or any medical concern, speak to a doctor first.

Breathwork is box breathing, deliberately. It does not pace hyperventilation-style rounds: over-breathing immediately before immersion can cause you to black out in the water.

Cold Metric is a stopwatch and a logbook. It is not a medical device and gives no health advice. It deliberately does not reward staying in longer — a short session is recorded exactly like any other.