Ship ahoy! New release from Garmin. Quatix6.

Not everything is mechanical watches. And here at Eqotime we do have a soft spot for new technology. Besides, we are moving towards brighter times, which means the launching of all manner of boats and floating craft. So what could suit better than a heads up for the latest release from Garmin? The new model Quatix 6 was launched the other day and is according to Garmin themselves the next generation marine smartwatch with GPS that has been specially developed for life on the water.

The Quatix 6 takes quite a lot from Garmin's fēnix^® 6 series, but has been supplemented with specialised functions for boating, fishing, cruising and sailing. The wearer can for example connect to compatible chart plotters and other marine electronics, steer the boat's autopilot and moreover has ready-made functions for competitive sailing (SailAssist in Garmin language) and some other sea-smart things. In addition it has the customary Garmin functions for activity tracking and training.

The Quatix 6 has a large 1.3” colour screen with LED backlight, is water rated down to 100 metres, 14 days of battery life in smartwatch mode, 24 hours in GPS mode and up to 60 hours in UltraTrac™ battery saving mode. The Quatix 6 is released in the middle of April in two versions: quatix 6 and quatix 6 Titanium. The list prices land at 11 119 kronor for the titanium version and 7799 for the standard variant.

For those of us who like sailing and boats it feels like a smart addition. Then there is, as always, the question of whether it qualifies as a ”real” watch or not? We at Eqotime think Garmin is on the right track with its smartwatches. Even if we perhaps hold the Captain version of the MARQ as an even better alternative to the Qatix2. But then on the other hand you have to add a not considerable pile of thousand-kronor notes…