Watches Out There?

[garlic08]

I'm like Big Cranky--the only time I wear a watch is while hiking, though I seldom care about the time of day (until it's resupply day). I use it for navigation way more often than a compass and map, at least when I hike with a data book. I use AquaMira and a stopwatch or timer function is important. I use a cheap Casio, less than $20.

[jimmyjam]

$7 dollar wallyworld watch is all I need.

[slbirdnerd]

I recently got a Suunto Vector on sale on Amazon for $135. Watch, compass, altimeter, barometer. Very useful.

[Colter]

...

• cheap - it's not jewelry out there, for me anyway and I don't want to advertise my tremendous wealth.
• light - cuz I'm old and cranky and I get more mileage out of my body with less weight
• backlight - sometimes I want to know what time it is at night without having to hunt down a flashlight or bother my bunkmate with a light
• large display numbers - cuz I'm old and can't see small numbers without glasses
• alarm - on rare occasions I still climb mountains and need help waking up for those ungodly early starts
• no battery hogging features like gps or electric compass

I'm not opposed to a good altimeter watch, just haven't needed one enough to pay for it or carry it.

This is along my line of thinking. One feature that is must for me is day/date. On long hikes it can be easy to lose track of what day it is and that can be mighty important for Post Offices, meeting your ride, etc.

[tiptoe]

A cheap Timex works for me, too. On and off the trail.

[Grinder]

I bought the cheapest watch walmart sold 8 years ago and used it til the batteries went dead. Bought another one this spring, exact same model still being sold and cost around $8

[atraildreamer]

... I got a cheap watch with an attached carabiener on it's end off the internet. It attaches to the shoulder strap of my pack. ...

I have seen them at the Dollar Tree store.

[TexasBob]

This is all you need, or something like it. Anything more is frivolous at best. I have had one, exactly one, for about 8 years, never replaced the battery, on my second band but watch itself is a beaut!
Attachment 31981

My favorite also. Cheap, has a backlight, tough as nails.

[geezin']

Don't like battery dependent items in the woods. Wear a Seiko Orange Monster. Waterproof,reasonably accurate and bombproof as anything mechanical gets. Glows in the dark for hours. Paid $208 US for mine.

[colorado_rob]

I have a Casio SGW-400H that I really like. The altimeter is reasonably accurate (obviously, you have to set it when you come to a known elevation because barometric pressure changes with the weather). Having the altimeter saves my smartphone battery from obsessive progress checks. If I'm on a trail, or following a handrail feature (a ridge, stream, or other linear feature on the map), I can check my position simply by looking at my wrist for the altitude and finding where the trail or handrail crosses that contour, without needing to spend battery on lighting up my phone display and rendering the map. Moreover, as long as I know what mountain I'm on, I can get a decently accurate position estimate even in moderate whiteout by using altitude and aspect of slope. I don't need to cross-sight on distant objects to do that.

The last time I was looking, this watch was the cheapest one I'd found that had an adjustable altimeter.

+1 on this little gem, very useful for knowing where you are as long as you calibrate it at least sometime during the day.

It's also useful as a weather prediction indicator; note the altitude when you arrive at a camp, then check it in the morning... if the altitude when down significantly (like >100' or so), that's good news (high pressure moved in). If the altitude goes up significantly, a low pressure cell moved in. Fantastic info to know.

Not only is this the cheapest altimeter watch out there (I think as well), but it seems to be more accurate than my much more expensive Suunto Vector. I no longer use the suunto, only the Casio.

[rickb]

+1 on this little gem, very useful for knowing where you are as long as you calibrate it at least sometime during the day..

I had a couple of those and they worked great-- first one died and I gave the second one away after the strap wore out because I wanted something fancy.

I replaced it with a Suunto 0bserver 10 years ago, and it is still going strong. The Casio was easier to use and much lighter-- though after a while I stopped noticing.

Replacing the cracked propietery Casio band (seems like once every year or two) has cost me a small fortune-- they used to gouge for the bands but Amazon has them for under $20 now.

If the watch ever dies, I will probably go back to that Casio.

[Traveler]

Watches.... feh! A good outdoors person can simply look knowingly off to the horizon to tell the correct time, day, and date.

[rickb]

Yup.

Or by how hungry you are.

[Hummy585]

I guess one should start with what info/data do you need on your hike. I usually have a smart phone (iPhone 6 Jumbo), a GPSR (Garmin eTrex 25 Touch) and I always wear a Traser Tritium lit watch. I haven't had the need for anything else yet...

[Pedaling Fool]

I just bought a Garmin Forerunner 10, one of the cheapest GPS watches on the market, but I'm just getting my feet wet, so I kept it simple. It's listed here for 130 bucks, but I got it for 75 and you probably could get it cheaper... https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into...rod107143.html

This would be a fun little device to take on a hike, but not practical at all, since you have to charge the battery thru your computer and the battery only lasts ~5 hours in GPS mode. However, it's good for running/cycling. And when I'm done I can plug it up and download my stats, that's pretty cool.

The obvious question in my mind was how accurate it is; I'm still in the playing-around-with-it mode, but so far I'm fairly impressed with its accuracy. I've checked it on multiple courses where I've both measured with my bike, backed up with a route-measuring program on a running website (my bike computer and that program are very close in measurements, sometimes dead on). The GPS unit is usually within 0.05-0.1 mile off, either short or long. I haven't checked it in elevation yet, but plan on doing that in the near future.

Here's an interesting story on why many devices measure long, but it also addresses short measurements. They don't mention which devices that they tested, but I've never seen a 10% error as they found, they do admit it's very cheap device, but my device is pretty cheap...

http://www.runnersworld.com/gps-watc...ws_RunningGear




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[Pedaling Fool]

I bought a watch with a heart rate monitor for $15 normally $50. Heart rate is a nice feature to tell if you are just normal tired or seriously whiped out.
Elevated HR in the morning might call for a slower day.

Be careful with H/R monitors, some can be very inaccurate. I do believe the most accurate are either ones that measure HR via the finger tip or the old fashion chest strap. There are a lot of watches out there that use optical-sensing technology thru the wrist and while this sound nice, because who wants to wear a strap they can be very inaccurate. See here, there's a cool video on the link of them doing tests with an EKG machine.

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-accurat...rate-monitors/

Excerpt:

To accomplish these readings, optical sensing requires you to hold absolutely still -- no talking, no moving, no muscle-tensing, no sweating, no smudging allowed. Thankfully, these devices will tell you when you're too active for them to work. (Three of the devices we tested flashed warnings to enforce peace and quiet during testing.)

There's another complication, too. By the time blood reaches the capillaries in your wrist, it has already slowed down to a rate that doesn't necessarily reflect your true heart rate -- especially, as Dr. Zaroff explained, at BPMs above 100. (Interestingly, and as we found in our tests, the arterial vessels in our fingertips do accurately reflect our heart rate, even at very high BPMs.)

[cmoulder]

Casio Pathfinder with solar module, such as PAG240T-7CR

[paule]

Times expedition

[paule]

timex expedition

[nsherry61]

I'm not opposed to a good altimeter watch, just haven't needed one enough to pay for it or carry it.

Well, I broke down and bought an altimeter watch this week.
I chose a Casio ProTrek ($180), which seems to be the next generation with 1m altimeter resolution instead of 3m like the older Pathfinders.
I decided that with moving to New England and planning on a fair bit of winter, above tree-line hiking/climbing it would be a good navigation tool to have so I don't have to keep pulling out my cell phone, and I have backup, if I need to do altimeter based navigation.

So far it's been fun seeing how high the second floor of my house is compared to the first floor or the driveway. ;-)
The watch is actually quite intuitive and easy to use with big glove friendly buttons.