matagi wrote:You might find something in this article that fits your requirements:
https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-hiking-watches
Mark F wrote:"1-distance covered, 2-average speed," - need gps to calculate. Just curious why these are important.
Mark F wrote:"
You seem happy with your Casio so save your money and spend it on something made of dcf, cf or unobtanium.
keithy wrote:Most people have covered this already, but in your budget of $100-$150 there are limited options to do everything that you want.
I think the minimum requirements to achieve your objectives,
1. Distance Covered (GPS or pedometer)
2. Average Speed (GPS)
3. Elevation Change (GPS or Barometric Altimeter)
For your budget, you are limited in choice. I will go through what I think are the minimums you need to achieve your objectives
Cheaper Advanced GPS watches
These are generally way outside your budget, but used options like:
- A second hand Garmin Foretrex 101 or 103 - lacks an internal barometer so relies solely on GPS for elevation. A Foretrex 104 is good, and you might pick up a second hand one within your budget. The Foretrex 104 has an internal barometeric altimeter, and runs on 2xAAAs, and weighs around 80g with batteries, but is a little bulky in comparison to regular watches.
The newer Foretrex 601 is well out of your budget at around $350.- Older Garmin models like the Fenix 3 (I've seen a few in varying conditions on Gumtree for under $200), or the even the newer Garmin Instinct, but the best I've seen for these lately is a shade under $300.
- You can get a few models of Garmin fitness watches in the upper end of your budget, or slightly beyond - up to $200, but the cheaper Garmin Vivoactives models for example while they have GPS, lack a barometer for more accurate elevation reporting. So they may only accurately achieve your #1 & #2
Altimeter/Barometer Watch
These are great for elevation changes as long as you calibrate the barometer often. I calibrate mine to elevation (mainly using contours on topo maps). So while these are within your budget, these can achieve your #3 but not the other two.
I have used an alti/baro watch with built in pedometer to estimate distance, you enter your stats (either height or stride length), and it does a calculation based on steps to arrive at a distance travelled. This sounds good in theory, and may well work for short trips on flat ground, but in my experience it was woefully inaccurate usually adding significantly longer distances to what was actually traversed. As with ABC watches, it used a barometric altimeter to give elevation details, but does not provide average speed (so #1 & #3 of your requirements, but realistically using a pedometer to achieve #1 is dodgy).
Fitness bands
Fitbits, Mibands etc, these may have GPS built in and most can run without connecting to a phone and will display your #1 & #2 with some accuracy (#1 only achieved for those that have GPS built in). The ones that use the pedometer to estimate distance can be quite inaccurate as I mentioned. But typically the ones under $150 will not display elevation data.
Very Cheap Basic GPS watch
Back in 2015 I tried the Aldi Crane GPS Ski watch. It looked ideal on paper, and was originally $90ish discounted to about $30 on clearance. It could give distance, height (elevation) and speed. In practice however, it was very average. It took forever to acquire signal lock, the GPS signal would drift significantly, resulting in inaccurate distance recorded (greater drift = increased in assumed distance covered). The heights reported (being based solely on GPS) were not accurate, and there was no option to manually re-calibrate. And the worst thing I found was that it didn't keep time, when it was not able to sync with GPS time. For example if it was left indoors, even with full charge, over a few weeks it would lose accuracy. So it was returned.
[*]Cheap Obscure Chinese brand GPS watch
There are a plethora of obscurely named Chinese brands that make GPS watches. Some are better than others, and mostly in the $100-$150 range, but I've not tested any of the GPS versions. My current favourite ABC watch is from a Chinese company named "North Edge" and while it has a Suunto like display, the layout and firmware has improvements over the four Suuntos I've owned. I got mine almost 5 years ago, and I prefer it even to my three solar powered Casio Protreks as it displays both Ambient Pressure and Sea Level Pressure, and has a nice graph of those and retains a log of both elevation and pressure for 7 days.
There are models available like the North Edge XTrek 3, Sunroad FR930 which have GPS, and appear to be capable of achieving all of your requirements, and under $150 direct from China. Again though, I have not used any of their GPS models however, and have read varying comments on their quality control.
TLDR
To sum up, limited in products to achieve all your requirements within your budget.
Some options are:
- Secondhand Foretrex 101 / 103 / 104 - Foretrex 101 & 103 lack a built in barometer, so uses GPS for elevation data. Foretrex are a little bulkier given they use 2xAAA batteries.
- Secondhand Garmin Fenix - these may still command higher prices than your budget, even for the first releases, and for the early models (the Garmin Fenix 1 came out 7 or 8 years ago), I would be concerned about the life of the internal battery.
- Cheap no named Chinese GPS watch - within your budget, and should be able to achieve your requirements. I have reviewed brands like Sunroad, North Edge and Ezon for example, but not their GPS units, so quality may be of concern, and you will likely have to self import this from China - and under covid times, you might not get it for 3 months.
wildwanderer wrote:Mark F wrote:"1-distance covered, 2-average speed," - need gps to calculate. Just curious why these are important.
I find it very useful for a few scenarios.
Average speed: allows me monitor if im going fast enough to cover the distance to camp by my planned arrival time. Or in alpine regions to ensure I make it over a high pass before forecasted afternoon storms etc
Distance covered: I use this on long ridges when I have a spur decent. Press the lap timer at the start of the ridge and then I can monitor how close I'm getting to the decent spur. Very useful when all the Spurs are running in the same direction and look the same (or even hidden) from above.
wildwanderer wrote:And if you're leading a group it's easy to glance at your watch while continuing walking. With a phone/gps I usually need to stop for a minute.
Neo wrote:Thumb the map?
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