Garmin Forerunner 110

For some time now I have been looking for a wrist watch GPS to use for two purposes.  First, to keep track of my walking and recumbent tricycle rides.  Second, to keep track of places I visit when doing photography and then to geotag my photographs.

Lucky for me that my son and daughter-in-law gave me a gift card for Christmas.  So, I used it to buy the Garmin Forerunner 110.

I have tried other wrist watch GPS units and found all of them to be either too large, or functionally deficient.  The Forerunner 110, while larger than a wrist watch, is very comfortable to wear.  It is a wrist watch GPS that I can wear every day as a watch and an alarm.  I like the fact that it has a back light so that I can check the time in the dark.  Altogether it is a very nice unit, well made, and durable.  I very much like the fact that the unit will automatically set the time on my watch no matter where I am in the world.  That’s cool.

As a GPS unit, it could not be more simple.  Press one button, wait about 60 seconds for the unit to fix on satellites, then press the start button.  When finished with an activity, press the start button again and then reset the unit.  It stores tracks in its internal memory.

My Mac recognizes the device as a mass storage device, so it is extremely easy to offload tracks to my desktop for use.  The watch charges using a USB cable and so far the whole system is about as simple to use as any GPS device I have used before.

Garmin provides a website where one can upload tracks and then view wonderful graphics of where one was, how long it took to get from A to B, elevations, and it even calculates how many calories one has burned during the activity.  Garmin’s site is very well done and very easy to understand.

And the output is kinda cool.  One can download Google Earth and GPX files as well as embed a track in one’s website, as is shown here (click on View Details to see what I see when viewing my Garmin data):

Yes, I know, I’m slow. My TerraTrike isn’t built for speed. At least I burned 1,200 calories today.

Garmin says that the watch is waterproof to one meter. Gosh, I wish I the unit when I was in the Galapagos Islands, it would have been wonderful to track my swims among the islands.

The unit retails for $199 and is available at many outlets.

I highly recommend the unit to anyone who wants to keep track of their running, walking, cycling activities. The fact that I can keep a record of my workouts and view how many calories I burn for each activity is wonderful, plus it just might spurn me on to improve.

Moreover, I am excited about using the device to record my treks throughout the earth. And, with free open source software, geotag my photographs. I plan on using it Namibia later this year. Wanna go?

All in all the Garmin Forerunner 110 is an excellent piece of technology.

I highly recommend it.