There are watches, and there are smart watches, but with Garmin’s ever evolving quatix line of watches, there is a smart sailing watch, too.
As a longtime user of the quatix 5, reliability and ease of use for multiple pastimes have always been my favored traits, but the list of what Garmin’s latest the Garmin quatix 8 can’t do is arguably much shorter than what it can do for the sailor in all of us. Let’s start with the race countdown timer we all need and use: big numbers, easy sync—check. At to your race tools the GPS’s tack assist function, which shows you tacking angles and wind shifts, and the race-start guide (for pinging startlines and having time and distance on hand).
Keep plugging away at the menus and there’s more, especially once you crack the “boating” features, that include traditional GPS stats like tracking, SOG and compass. Connect it to your Garmin boat electronics package and you’ve got the ability to voice control your chart plotter (with additional hardware and mic), toggle course adjustments to your autopilot, get your preferred chart plotter data streamed to your wrist, and even set alarms for tide changes and anchor drift. And change the tune.
And when the racing is done, this AMOLED faced beauty is also a life watch loaded with Apps that feed your other passions: running, working out (with animated routines), winter sports, cycling, and more importantly, just keeping an eye on your basic health stats, which may make it eligible for those with health savings accounts.
