It feels good to be back writing about watches after nearly a year away. It has been a busy year of building a non-profit, finishing my undergrad and starting my graduate degree program, studying human rights and genocides, and learning about mining, archeology, and anthropology. It has been a lot of work.
Fortunately, watches are a nice thing to focus on when life gets heavy. Hiking, climbing, and exploring have gone from a passion pursuit to an essential part of my professional life. Last year, I was lucky enough to walk over 1,200 miles while pursuing my studies and my non-profit work, and this year, it looks like I will have the chance to walk even more.
For most of my life outside, I used the old ways to track how far I walked (pace count using ranger beads or estimations of my average walking pace and time traveled), how to find my way (paper maps and compass), and relied on check-in calls and other agreed upon rendevous times/places to make sure people know I am okay. I moved away from the old-school ways (begrudgingly) and decided to use my cellphone to track distance/location (if I had service/battery) around 2020/2021, and in 2023, I got my first wrist-based Garmin fitness tracker, a refurbished Instinct Solar Tactical. I used this on and off for a year. I struggled with some fitness-tracking compulsions and addictive behavior before deciding to strap it to my chest rig and only use it during hiking/exploring.
However, I am finding that I must go farther out than I have before, often alone and into areas with no cell coverage; I decided it was time to put the mechanical watches away again and look at GPS watches/units. I received a Garmin GPSMaps 67i as a gift from a family member who was worried about me, complete with inReach capabilities. I love this unit, but it made me wonder about wearing a fitness tracker again, either with GPS navigation capabilities or without. Knowing how my body is doing is an essential part of exploring, and as I age, I find it more important to understand how hard I am pushing myself. A fitness tracker is priceless in this regard.
So this summer, it is time to do another Summer Side-By-Side with three possible choices for digital fitness tracking watches/GPS units. I selected the Garmin Instinct 2 (I sold the Instinct Solar Tactical to fund this one) and two Casio G-Shocks, the DW-H5600 and the GBD-H2000.
I will take them with me as I do archaeological surveys, shoot videos of human migrations, hike, camp, explore, climb, kayak, swim, and go caving. I hope to understand better how each watch performs and to see which one I will keep as my dedicated fitness tracker. I am also curious to see how practical they are as an everyday wear option.
To do this, I will do my best to outline each watch’s features, how to use them, and their positives and negatives. Specifically, I want to know their accuracy in tracking distance, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and steps. As well as how accurate their sensors are if they have them. These include compass accuracy, altimeter readings, barometric pressure, and temperature. I also want to see how they perform in the cold, the heat when they are dirty, and how they perform when they take drops or fall, get smacked with gear, or against rocks. And, of course, how their battery life stacks up and how their respective apps work.
I hope you will find these forthcoming articles informative and entertaining. I will do my best to use these watches as hard as possible and record their performance as accurately as possible. It will be a unique and excitingly exhausting summer of being outside.
EscapementSV 