Garmin today announced a new smartwatch aimed primarily at mariners and those who spend a lot of time in or near the water. The Garmin quatix 3 is billed as “the next-generation marine GPS smartwatch” because of its cruising, fishing and sailing features.
“Garmin has been designing wearables for more than a decade, and we’re excited to merge feature and design qualities from the fenix® 3, one of our most popular watches, with marine-centric capabilities for quatix 3 – the first general-purpose boating smartwatch,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. “Built to withstand the harsh marine environment, it’s the perfect GPS smartwatch for mariners who live an active lifestyle on and off the water.”
The Garmin quatix 3 can wirelessly stream NMEA 2000 boat data, putting information such as speed, depth, temperature and wind speed on their wrist. Tide data for a specif area can also be downloaded to the smartwatch. Other boating-oriented features include an anchor alarm, an anchor rode calculator, a fishing competition timer and fish catch log, and for sailing, tack assist, race countdown timer, distance to start line, and time to burn. A MOB (Man OverBoard) hotkey allows a user to drop an MOB waypoint and start navigation back to that point. It can also connect to and remotely control devices such as a Garmin VIRB action camera or FUSION stereo system.
The Garmin quatix 3 sports a sunlight-readable colour display with an LED backlight and a scratch-resistant domed sapphire lens. Geared at water activities, it is waterproof to 100 meters.
Garmin quatix 3 specifications:
- Operating system: Proprietary
- Cellular connectivity: None
- Other connectivity: GPS/GLONASS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
- Display: 1.2-inch/30.4mm (218×218) with sapphire lens
- Internal storage: 32MB (23MB available)
- External storage: None
- Sensors: 3-axis electronic compass, barometer, auto-calibrating altimeter
- Battery: 300mAh
- Dimensions: 51.5 × 51.5 × 16 millimeters
- Weight: 85 grams
- Colours: Blue or black strap
- Water resistance: 10 ATM (100 meters)
Like the Garmin fenix 3 Sapphire watches unveiled at CES 2016, the quatix 3 also sports of multisport, daily fitness tracking and sleep monitoring functions. Data can be wirelessly uploaded back to a companion smartphone and reviewed via the Garmin Connect mobile app. It also supports smartphone notifications for calls, texts and emails and can be customized with new watch faces, widgets and apps.
The Garmin quatix 3 will be available later this quarter. It will sell for US$599.99 (about CA$860).
Source : Garmin