Wearables seem to have finally caught on with the masses as smartwatch and fitness band manufacturers came out in full force at this year’s CES, which is being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. We saw releases from Fossil, Misfit, Garmin, Skagen, etc. But we also have a release from an old warhorse, which…
Wearables seem to have finally caught on with the masses as smartwatch and fitness band manufacturers came out in full force at this year’s CES, which is being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. We saw releases from Fossil, Misfit, Garmin, Skagen, etc. But we also have a release from an old warhorse, which has made watches for fitness enthusiasts, survivalists, deep sea divers, and special forces for years. We’re talking about Casio, which revealed the latest product from its line of G-Shock watches, under the Rangeman subcategory – The GPR B-1000.
What makes this watch special? Well, to begin with, the Casio Rangeman GPS Navi watch features a standalone GPS which can run for a cool 33 hours with a single charge cycle. But wait, what if you’re lost for longer than 33 hours? It’s not like you knew you were going to get lost today. Well, Casio was considerate to throw in a solar panel so you can recharge your watch to full capacity. The phone can reach 100% in just four hours of charging. Of course, you don’t have to leave it in the sun every day if you’re not lost in the wilderness because the phone comes with a wireless charging pad. Casio has given the GPR B-1000 a ceramic back which is in vogue these days, being a material that is non-conductive and essentially doesn’t interfere with wireless charging.
The phone can also survive up to 200 metres underwater, and withstand freezing temperatures up to -20 degrees Celsius – so if you’re ever swimming through ice and you’re well below water levels and you’re lost all at the same time, this is the watch you want to have on your wrist because it will tell you which way to swim.
Besides the bad-ass GPR B-1000 (which kind of sounds like a Russian tank and the watch looks like one, too), Casio also revealed a limited edition white-coloured variant of its PRO-TREK WSD-F20 range. The company is also releasing a watch dial called ‘Journey’, which displays the map of your location under the analogue time face. When you save events with embedded locations to your Google calendar, the Journey dial shows you up to three scheduled events and a map of the upcoming destination.
Besides this, Casio also launched a 2.5D printer and an action camera, called the G’Z Eye Action Camera. I don’t know if the G stands for God or Gravity or Gangsta, but the action camera pretty much looks like a G-Shock watch, except its round. As someone who wears a G-Shock, I can promise you this thing could survive a nuclear fallout if it’s even remotely close to being as sturdy as the watch. But given Casio’s expertise with such things, it’s quite likely.
