Finding Your Way. Navigation Features Found In A GPS Watch

While GPS watches are predominantly targeted at runners and athletes, many people are seeking a GPS watch with the purpose of finding their way through the uncharted territory of an outdoor adventure in an area they've never vited before or for the simple security of back-tracking to their original locations in the unlikely event of getting lost.

The beauty of GPS is that it tracks your geographic position on earth and so is ideally suited in the role of navigation. Here's a brief glimpse at the range of features offered in GPS navigation watch systems:

Map View: Unlike larger hand-held consumer GPS devices, it is extremely awkward to supply a mapping view mode in a wrist watch, however Garmin and GlobalSat have tried and succeeded.

The Garmin Forerunner 305 and their more recently released 310XT are two GPS watches that offer quite adequate GPS navigation system and due to their larger screen sizes can accomodate a top-down 2D map view of your current position.

The GlobalSat GH 625 watches also pack the screen real estate to offer a map. Ironically the outdoors Suunto X10, which is designed primarily with GPS navigation in mind, doesn't have a map view as it's screen area is too small.

Other basic GPS navigation features include the ability to store your current location in memory (known as a waypoint) and then navigate to it later. Almost all navigation GPS's allow you to return to a configurable starting point in your journey. Most also feature a compass, although the ability to travel to waypoints makes the compass feature redundant.

A more advanced feature of GPS navigation watches is the ability to store routes. A route is essentially a path of waypoints that can be followed by a traveller. Watches like the Sunnto X10 GPS watch present you with your distance, direction and eta to the next waypoint along your route and allows you to create your routes in a computer package which can then be uploaded into the watch. The option of manually creating routes is provided too, allowing you to create a route of your course, rather than follow it.

Both Garmin GPS watches with navigation, the Suunto X10 and GlobalSat GH-625 let you export your data into computer software packages for viewing and analysis.

GPS Watches with navigation are useful for outdoor activities like hiking, bushwalking and mountain climbing. They can also be useful for sports like orienteering (as a training tool, obviously not for competitive use). They can be useful to runners who wish to know how far to the next location on their course, and of course for finding their way home again when they get lost!

The following watches feature some form of GPS navigation ability:

• Forerunner 205/305
• Forerunner 310XT
• Suunto X10
  
• Timex Bodylink "Trailrunner"

GPS Watches. What's The Deal?

People who are not familiar with GPS watches might have heard about them and be curious. If you are a runner you will no doubt have heard people talk about their "Garmin Watches", but what is so special about the Garmin and this wonderful GPS watch gadget people keep talking about?

If you are talking about GPS running watches, then a GPS watch or the sacred "Garmin" can be explained simply as a running watch with a GPS receiver tacked on. The receiver allows an ordinary sports watch to link up with the GPS satellite system ("Global Positioning System" for those unfamiliar with the acronym) and thereby track their location on earth with a very high degree of precision. The advantage of a GPS watch if you are a runner is that a GPS-enabled watch can measure your speed, pace, calculate distance travelled, how high you have climbed and many more features that can be derived from knowing your position at any given time.

The Garmin is currently the best GPS running watch available and one of the only models that is designed specifically as a GPS watch. Other GPS watch systems tend to have a GPS aerial tacked onto an existing watch system. Commonly an external GPS device attaches to the user's body and transmits it's readings wirelessly to the wristwatch where all the number crunching is performed allowing you to view your speed, pace and distance.

Advanced GPS running watch systems tend to come bundled with a large number of features. Learning how to use a running GPS watch of this description can be a burden in itself. Some of the more useful GPS watch running features include.

• Speed/pace, distance display
• Auto pause/Auto resume/Auto Lap
  
• Distance and Pace Alerts
• Finishing Time Predictor (handy for races)
• Virtual Partner Feature
• And many more

Not all GPS sports watches are designed for runners however, many cater to adventurers and bushwalkers. The Suunto X10 is an example of an outdoor GPS watch. It features barometer, termomoeter, compass and all those cool features that are useful for the outdoors. While it can measure speed and distance too, it utilizes the GPS network more to track waypoints, allowing hikers to know exactly how to reach their destinations without fear of getting lost when in unknown terrain.

GPS watch systems may certainly seem weird and wonderful, but once you become familiar with one, you'll probably find yourself using it more and more. Especially if you are sport oriented. Eventually you will consider it part of your normal every day routine.

What is a GPS Watch?

GPS or "Global Positioning System" is an amazing technology that can determine a user's exact location on the planet. Only in recent time has GPS become as prevailant as it has featuring in mainstream consumer electronic devices. Less commonly seen is the use of GPS in wristwatches as watches tend to be slightly smaller than the average GPS aerial, making accomodating one in such a small space problematic.

Yet where there's a will there's a way and consumers have now improved their techniques to allow fully self-contained GPS watches that do not require any external arial devices.

The most popular use of GPS watches is for running and other sports where the wearer is moving. GPS offers athletes the advantage of very precise tracking of their position. By measuring suble postional changes, the wearer's horizontal speed can be accurately presented as can their distance. These advantages and the many features that are derived from them offer runners considerable benefits over traditional sports watches.

Yet speed and distance are just the beginning of what a GPS watches can offer its wearer. Many GPS watch units also offer navigational features, featuring the ability to store locations in memory (known as waypoints). GPS watches with navigation can ensure that you are never lost, making them the ideal foil for outdoor adventures and treks. Watches like the Garmin Forerunner 305 have merged both GPS sports features like speed and distance with navigation features. It is in fact one of the few GPS watches that can present your position on a top-down map.

While the advantages of a one-piece GPS system are numerous, the disadvantage is that these watches, by design must be a little heavier and bulkier than the average sized watch. This might be uncomfortable for women with smaller wrists who might find moving with a bulky gadget attached to their hand, uncomfortable and restrictive. Some makers of GPS watches offer the alternative setup of an external GPS aerial that attaches to your body and so operates independently of the wrist watch itself. Such units broadcast signals between device and watch wirelessly. With modern digital FM technology this can be done quite easily and without interfering with other devices.

Some may find this less comfortable and consider the extra weight of a one-piece GPS system far more tollerable. Others will not be perterbed by attaching a light-weight device to their upper arm. Either way delivers similar functionality and allows the wearer to appreciate the power that the Global Positioning System has to offer.