After I made a slow and painful recovery from a bike accident, on the recommendation of my physician and being near to the beach, I decided to take up walking and swimming.
A few months down the line, I met a surfer who said she could teach me how to surf and that the use of leg muscles will strengthen my legs further. I decided to give it a shot.
Now I was walking, running, swimming and surfing. My wife bought me a cross country bike – one of those hardened frames, sturdy types with fat tyres. So, I added one more sporting activity to my list. As I saw my muscles develop, it enthused me to do more. By now I also had a small collection of APPS to keep track of all my activity and login in the details of each activity on a day-to-day basis. This was becoming tedious and I had to spend more time just logging in the data until, one of my friends showed me his Garmin wrist watch and said that it not only does all the data logging itself, it also provides daily information on the tides as well a dozen different things. It even had a GPS built in. “In fact, the only thing it doesn’t do is make my coffee” he claimed laughing.
The same day evening, I showered early and went to the mall a short distance from my home. Entering a watch store that specialized in sports watches, I found the Garmin counter and straightaway noticed the Garmin Instinct Solar Surf Edition GPS Smartwatch. I loved the design and especially the all-white strap and blue case. The digits also were large and easily readable.
The watch powered itself via the sun so batteries weren’t going to be a concern. The GPS function uses three different constellations to maximize accuracy; GLONASS, GPS and Galileo. The watch case, dark blue in colour, appeared to be tough and the salesgirl said it was fibre-reinforced polymer. She added that the glass was “Corning Gorilla Glass chemically treated for scratch resistance and the whole watch was built to the U.S. military 810 standard for thermal and shock resistance.” I noticed the price tag and it read $400. “It is also waterproof up to depths of 330 feet” she added helpfully.
The attached description stated that the watch had several pre-loaded activity profiles including surfing, running, biking, hiking, rowing, swimming, strength and more. The watch also monitors the user vital statistics and will alert if any exceed set parameters.
The built-in power manager allows the user to switch off unwanted functions and conserve power. The stress tracker will calculate the user stress level score. An impressive built-in app was a ‘body battery monitor’. Utilizing multiple points of data including stress, sleep, heart rate variability and more, the Garmin Instinct Solar Surf Edition GPS Smartwatch can gauge the user energy level, letting the user know when they should rest or ready to be active.
I loved the watch but decided to check online for a better price point and glad I did too because I found it at https://www.creationwatches.com and yes, there is very little the Garmin Instinct Solar Surf Edition GPS Smartwatch can’t do but I bet that one day, I will teach it to make coffee 😊