Usually, while you consider a smartwatch, you think about one thing sleek-looking just like the Apple Watch. Casio, nevertheless, goes in a totally totally different route with its new rugged-looking Rangeman G-Shock wearable.

There will likely be two fashions at launch: the Rangeman GPR-H1000-1 and the GPR-H1000-9. They’re each made out of a “bio-based resin” with intricately positioned steel guards across the watch face. These shield the extra delicate elements of the smartwatch, like the primary management button, sensors, and GPS antenna, from impacts. The buttons themselves are made out of stainless-steel and are available “outfitted with gasket fittings” to cease contaminants like mud or mud from getting in. Casio particularly designed the Rangeman duo for the outside fanatic or athlete on the lookout for a wrist assistant that received’t break down within the face of journey. 

Inside {hardware}

Inside every machine is a sequence of sensors that monitor your bodily capabilities. It might hold tabs in your coronary heart fee through an optical coronary heart fee sensor. It has an accelerometer for analyzing motion and a gyroscope for swimming. The final sensor, in line with Casio, can comply with and monitor what number of instances you’ve swam round within the pool. 

What’s extra, the Rangeman sequence has sturdy GPS performance. Not solely does it include a compass, it homes a thermometer, altimeter, and barometer to tell you of adjustments within the atmosphere. Having an altimeter and barometer could seem extreme to some, however they’re meant for the 9 actions supported by the smartwatches. 

These actions embody biking, path working, open-water swimming, and gymnasium exercises if you happen to resolve to train indoors for as soon as. On the subject of open water, the wearables sport a tide graph letting you realize when the tide will likely be excessive or low so you’ll be able to “get probably the most out of water sports activities.” 

Different notable options embody evaluation instruments that present how a lot pressure you’re placing in your physique, self-management instruments for measuring how effectively (or poorly) you get well, and on-device photo voltaic charging for the battery. 

Are there any variations between the 2 fashions? We don’t know but. 

We in contrast the gadgets facet by facet and could not detect any main variations between the 2. They’re the identical measurement, identical weight, and have the identical options and {hardware}. The one factor that’s totally different, so far as we might inform, is that the GPRH-1000-1 is black whereas the GPRH-1000-9 is a vibrant, banana yellow. So we have reached out to Casio asking if both smartwatch has one thing distinctive to it or if it truly is simply the colour. This story will likely be up to date at a later time.

Availability

The Rangeman G-Shock wearables can be found for pre-order on Casio’s web site with a $500 price ticket. No phrase on when the smartwatches will formally launch, however information web site Hypebeast states the gadgets will come out in Japan on January 19. So we might see the same launch date for the US.

Should you on the lookout for an athletically inclined wearable that is not so rugged, try TechRadar’s listing of the most effective working watches.

You may also like

• 4 months on, my super-cheap Casio watch remains to be the most effective $15 I’ve ever spent
• I’ve given up on smartwatches for browsing – I am utilizing this Casio G-Shock surf watch as an alternative
• One of the best smartwatch gross sales and offers for January 2024