The newly announced Garmin quatix marine watch
Garmin has a history of using existing hardware platforms for multiple market segments, as seen in the Approach golf series use of the Dakota, Oregon and Edge hardware. They now appear to have taken the fenix backcountry sportswatch platform and repurposed it as a marine watch – the Garmin quatix, announced this morning.
Another view of the Garmin quatix
This ABC (altimeter, barometer, compass) watch provides marine information “such as COG (course over ground), SOG (speed over ground), and VMG (velocity made good), along with alerts for speed and anchor drag.” It also offers a tack assist mode and a man overboard feature that connects wirelessly with Garmin chartplotters, guiding the boat back to that point if a compatible auto-pilot system is installed. With a GHC-10 autopilot, you can even steer the boat from the quatix.
The quatix is waterproof to 50 meters, and has a rated battery life of 16 hours (in GPS mode; 6 weeks in watch mode). The MSRP is $449.99, with it due to be released during Q1 of 2013. Here are links to the full news release and the quatix mini-site.
About Rich Owings
