Garmin is no stranger when it comes to golf-focused sports watches. With their latest Approach S6, however, they’re reinforcing the wrist gadget with tech to help analyze and improve your golf swing.
Like their previous GPS golf watches, the new wearable comes with complete full-color maps for over 30,000 international golf courses, allowing you quick access to the terrain directly from your wrist. It also comes with a dedicated CourseView button that lets you easily locate the second shot view for previewing doglegs, traps, and water hazards, as well as pin positioning from anywhere on the course and blind shot assistance to give you a better idea of where to line up your next swing. Other features include a digital scorecard, stats tracking, and the ability to receive smartphone notifications (only for iOS devices).
The Garmin Approach S6’s killer feature, of course, is the first-of-its-kind swing monitoring built into the watch. It uses three metrics, namely SwingTempo, TempoTraining, and SwingStrength. SwingTempo measures your backswing and downswing times, showing it in the form of a ratio where 3:1 is the ideal combination. TempoTraining is a system for improving your SwingTempo numbers, using audio tones to help players time their swing better. The last one, SwingStrength, tracks the amount of power that go into each swing, with the goal of encouraging consistency.
The watch itself uses an oversize round case design that measures 1.8 x 1,8 x 0.56 inches. It features a full color touchscreen display (180 x 180 resolution), a rechargeable lithium-ion battery (rated at 10 hours in GPS mode and 20 weeks in watch mode), and 5 ATM water resistance.
Slated to come out in the the third quarter, the Garmin Approach S6 will retail for $399.99.