I'm a big fan of Garmin watches and, while I didn't feel that buying one of their aviation watches was prudent, the watch that I do have seems to have most of the same functions and I can download a lot of flying apps. Are there any flying apps that any of you use on your Garmin watches? Also, it looks like these watches are supposed to be able to communicate with some Garmin avionics. What would the point of that be?

That's too easy – increasing Garmin's revenues...

But seriously, I've long wondered the same thing. If I'm down to relying on the short-lived battery in a "smart watch" to obtain altimeter or GPS location, I'm in serious trouble... I have a FitBit that tells time, counts my steps and other activities, and links via Bluetooth to my phone to alert me when I get a text, phone call, or when an alarm goes off. But it's marginally useful for reading those messages, and is far more distracting if I actually tried to read the entire message on the watch. The characters are small enough that it requires a bit too much concentration and focus from my 65-year-old eyes... I've learned to just "screen" my calls and text messages to see if it's worth actually picking up the phone. (And that is handy, given the spam-filled world we live in today.)

I briefly owned an Apple Watch (given to me by a friend who upgraded to a newer model). After 4-5 days, I was ready to junk it. The battery had to be recharged every 24 hours, and required several hours to fully charge. Basically, it meant not wearing it to bed, and that I would often forget to put it back on the next morning.

Then there was the whole "apps" thing... The ForeFlight app either got pulled from the App Store, or would no longer run on the version of IOS that the older watch used (not sure which). I tried a handful of other apps, and none of them were useful enough in my view to bother with. The only "good" ones were the ones Apple shipped with the watch. And while they were nice enough, there wasn't enough difference in the things I actually used to make it worth putting up with the horrible battery life.

I went back to wearing the FitBit watch, and gave the Apple Watch away at a Christmas party (White Elephant gift exchange). I hope they enjoyed it more than I did...

JP256 wrote:That's too easy – increasing Garmin's revenues...

But seriously, I've long wondered the same thing. If I'm down to relying on the short-lived battery in a "smart watch" to obtain altimeter or GPS location, I'm in serious trouble... I have a FitBit that tells time, counts my steps and other activities, and links via Bluetooth to my phone to alert me when I get a text, phone call, or when an alarm goes off. But it's marginally useful for reading those messages, and is far more distracting if I actually tried to read the entire message on the watch. The characters are small enough that it requires a bit too much concentration and focus from my 65-year-old eyes... I've learned to just "screen" my calls and text messages to see if it's worth actually picking up the phone. (And that is handy, given the spam-filled world we live in today.)

I briefly owned an Apple Watch (given to me by a friend who upgraded to a newer model). After 4-5 days, I was ready to junk it. The battery had to be recharged every 24 hours, and required several hours to fully charge. Basically, it meant not wearing it to bed, and that I would often forget to put it back on the next morning.

Then there was the whole "apps" thing... The ForeFlight app either got pulled from the App Store, or would no longer run on the version of IOS that the older watch used (not sure which). I tried a handful of other apps, and none of them were useful enough in my view to bother with. The only "good" ones were the ones Apple shipped with the watch. And while they were nice enough, there wasn't enough difference in the things I actually used to make it worth putting up with the horrible battery life.

I went back to wearing the FitBit watch, and gave the Apple Watch away at a Christmas party (White Elephant gift exchange). I hope they enjoyed it more than I did...

Yeah, if I ever have to navigate an airplane by my watch, I might as well just give up. My Garmin Tactix (essentially just a Fenix 6x with a 24 hour marked bezel and night vision screen) has a battery that normally lasts me about 23 days and the screen is big and clear enough I can actually read messages. The pulse oximeter is nice, too, although, living at a moderately high altitude, I will probably never be able to fly high enough in my little planes to ever worry about hypoxia, and while the maps and GPS are great for navigating by foot, giving me directional prompts while driving, and are a great and more ruggedized backup to my phone, the screen is still far too small to read maps well, and I find that looking at my watch for directions while driving is almost more distracting than looking at my phone, especially since it is on my steering wheel/yoke/stick hand. The only benefit I could see to possibly linking with the Garmin avionics system is to have a digital logbook.

I have an apple watch that I use for running/exercise and that's it. I can't imagine these aviation smart watches giving any information useful enough to justify the price.