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Come sail away with Garmin’s waterproof Quatix 3 smartwatch

Julian Chokkattu
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Image used with permission by copyright holder
If you’re a sailor or a competitive fisherman, Garmin has the ultimate smartwatch for you. The Quatix 3 is a new addition to Garmin’s Quatix watch line, and it combines all the power of the Swiss company’s Fenix line with marine-specific features.

Like the previous Quatix watch, the new one still maintains the ability to wirelessly stream boat data via the NMEA 2000, giving sailors access to data like speed, temperature, depth, wind data, and more at their wrists. The NMEA 2000 is a plug-and-play communication standard that connects sensor data and displays with boats.

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Connecting that information with the watch allows sailors to take a glance anywhere on the boat through the Quatix 3’s high-res color display. Like the previous Quatix version, you can also set a man overboard (MOB) hotkey, which sets a waypoint, so in case you fall off, you can navigate your boat to turn back toward you.

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The wearable is thick and rugged, built to withstand rough environments, and is waterproof up to 100 meters. It has the same sapphire lens you’d find on the Fenix line, as well as the company’s omni-directional Exo antenna to quickly reach satellites.

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Image used with permission by copyright holder

It has a host of other features that are targeted to more specific uses in marine-life that aren’t too different from what the original Quatix watch could do, such as pairing with your smartphone via the Garmin Connect app to download tide data for the area you’re in. The watch will also warn wearers of drift, and has an alarm clock and an anchor rode calculator “that tells the user the proper length of anchor line to put out.”

If you’re fishing, the Quatix 3 can set a competition timer and also has a fish catch log, where you can keep track of what you’ve caught, and how much time you have left before you have to get back to weigh-in. If you’re more into sailing, you can also set a race countdown timer, distance to the start line, time to burn, and tack assist.

It’s also a smartwatch

Although the coolest thing about the Quatix 3 is its special features for sailors, fisherman, and those who like to live life on the water; it’s also intended to be a great smartwatch on its own. Just like the latest Fenix 3 watch, the Quatix 3 offers smart notifications, a GPS, barometer, compass, auto-calibrating altimeter, as well as the ability to count steps, log calories burned, and record sleep. It also ports over Fenix’s multisport functions for golfing, rowing, swimming, and more — meaning that you can record and track various activities through the watch.

The smart notifications feature even connects your watch to a smartphone to receive call, text, and email notifications. The watch also comes with a variety of watch faces to choose from and apps to receive additional notifications on your wrist. If you happen to have the Garmin Virb action camera or a Fusion stereo system, you can start and stop recording; take stills; or control your music from the watch.

Quatix 3 will last you 20 hours in GPS mode and six weeks in watch mode. There’s also an UltraTrac mode, which periodically turns off the GPS to save power and forces the watch to use the accelerometer to calculate speed and distance. That mode will get you 50 hours of battery life.

We haven’t gotten a chance to play around with it yet, but Garmin’s Quatix 3 seems like a refresh of the original Quatix, but also a merger with Garmin’s other Fenix line. Like most outdoor watches, the device has a hefty price tag of $600. It will be available in the first quarter of this year.

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Julian Chokkattu
Julian Chokkattu
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…
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