We’re big fans of Garmin’s GPS sports watches, as they let you keep thorough stats of all your workouts. Not only do they compile a lot of data, they also work with all sorts of activities, well beyond the usual running, cycling, and swimming. Suffice to say, they’re a great tool for athletes and fitness enthusiasts who want to keep track of their performance over time. As with any consumer electronics, however, they’re limited by battery life, especially when you want to map out your runs, which requires you to keep the power-sucking GPS turned on. If you’ve been frustrated by the battery performance of your GPS sports watch, you might want to check out the Garmin Enduro.
You know how most GPS sports watches tend to max out battery life around 30 hours (40 hours max) with the GPS turned on? Well, that’s not the case here. Designed for use by endurance athletes, the watch can run on GPS mode for up to 80 hours straight, allowing you to partake in multi-day endurance races without having to recharge your sports watch.
The Garmin Enduro is able to achieve its 80-hour rating with a battery that’s able to hold 70 hours’ worth of power in GPS mode, which they’ve reinforced with solar charging capability that adds another 10 hours’ worth. That’s right, it replenishes power on the fly, allowing you potentially extend it even further if you don’t use the GPS mode continuously. Hey… even ultra-runners take a night off to get some brief rest. Or something.
There’s also a “max battery” GPS mode that turns off many of the other sensors while keeping the GPS on, which, the outfit claims, will extend the battery for up to consecutive 300 hours. For use as a regular sports watch with the GPS turned off, the outfit claims it can stretch battery life for as long as 65 days between charges, so this is definitely a worthy sports watch upgrade for those who hate having to charge every couple of days.
The Garmin Enduro has a 1.4-inch round display that’s been optimized for easy viewing in the outdoors, with a full-color interface that lets you see all information clearly with just a quick glance. It captures all the standard data you expect from modern sports watches (speed, distance, calories burned, location, and all that), along with data from the wrist-based heart rate sensor, altimeter, barometer, and a pulse ox sensor, which it uses to create advance training metrics. For instance, it’s able to track VO2 Max, which measures the body’s oxygen usage and cardio health, making it particularly useful to endurance athletes.
It has a total of six profiles for running, four profiles for cycling, and three profiles for swimming, so you can drill down the stats tracking precisely to the kind of training you’re engaged in. There are also profiles for golf, strength training, yoga, pilates, and all sorts of outdoor sports (hiking, climbing, bouldering, kayaking, surfing, among others), making it a true multi-sport tool you can use for almost every activity.
The Garmin Enduro is available now, priced at $799.99.