I stopped wearing a watch 15 years ago after wearing one for 30 years before that. About five years ago, I tried a smartwatch and gave it up quickly with all the charging and little value over my smartphone, which I always carried anyway. For the last eight weeks, I have tested the Garmin Descent Mk3i scuba diving watch and have not taken it off.
Ideal for taking underwater, the Garmin Descent Mk3i incorporates a dive computer. A dive computer is like a super-smart watch for underwater adventures. It tracks your scuba diving or free diving time, depth, and other important information.
A pressure sensor shows how deep and long you’ve been underwater. The computer then uses this information to calculate your no-decompression limit (NDL), the maximum time you can stay at a certain depth without getting decompression sickness.
Decompression sickness is serious if you come up from a dive too quickly or stay too long at certain depths. A dive computer helps prevent this by warning you when to start your ascent.
A dive computer is standard equipment to keep scuba divers safe. Additional features, like keeping a log of dives and indicating when it is safe to fly on an aeroplane after a dive, are also features of a dive computer.
Not just for diving, the Garmin Descent Mk3i has made me start wearing a watch again.
Table of contents
What are the Garmin Descent Mk3i features?
A Garmin Descent Mk3i is a full-featured touchscreen smartwatch and dive computer with up to 25 days of battery life and a flashlight.
When I review a product, I make notes while I use it. As I write this review, I have 40 separate notes on this watch, more than I can fit into one review. The story’s moral is that this watch’s features are far greater and more advanced than I thought.
The Descent has a built-in LED light, GPS receiver, heart rate monitor, customisable watch face, and customisable menus. Some of the natively supported sports include:
- Scuba diving
- Freediving
- Swimming
- Surfing
- Multisport (e.g. Triathlon)
- Cycling
- Hiking
- Pilates
- Weightlifting
- Rock climbing
- Hunting
- Golf
- Sailing
- Sky diving
- Fishing
- Skiing
- Plus more – you get the idea
A big positive of wearing the Garmin is the health and wellness monitoring. The watch can measure your heart rate, Pulse Ox (Oxygen in the blood), detect stress, measure respiration, record sleep, and detect daytime naps. These sensors combine to help training or warn of issues and include sleep coaching, women’s health, fitness tracking, fitness age, intensity minutes, calories burned, wheelchair physiology, jet lag advisor, HRV status (overall health measure) and even record your hydration when paired with a smartphone.
The Garmin may have a small screen, but its full-colour scratch-resistant sapphire display renders zoomable maps, including topographic and turn-by-turn street maps, golf courses, ski resorts, and dive sites.
Music can be stored on the watch and played back through Bluetooth headphones so that you can leave your smartphone behind.
Those of you who want more can access a range of additional accessories to enhance functionality, from chest-mounted heart rate monitors to cycling speed sensors. There’s even a dog-tracking device, so you know exactly where your pooch is. You can even control a trolling motor for fishing with the watch.
Replacement quickfit watchbands, as well as spare charging cables, can be purchased. A unique accessory for this dive watch is the Descent T2 transceiver (RRP $899), an air pressure monitor that attaches to a scuba tank. This device allows you to monitor your air pressure and your watch to monitor the pressure of up to eight tanks, which may be yours or others are using. The T2 will allow divers to communicate up to 30 metres via messaging on their watch using a new underwater sonar technology.
Scuba diving features
The Descent is a very advanced tool that adapts to freedivers and scuba divers on air, nitrox, mixed gasses, closed-circuit rebreathers, and multi-gas. Most scuba divers use air, and the good news is that the defaults are set to that. When paired with the T2 transceiver, you can see your estimated Air Time Remaining (ATR), which indicates how long until your air runs out.
A safety feature called dive readiness calculates your preparedness to dive based on lifestyle factors the watch has gathered. Over 4,000 dive maps are available, but they appear only as site locations in Australia rather than dive site details for some international locations.
The built-in compass works above and below the water, helping you stay orientated. After you dive, all data is logged into the watch’s 32GB of storage, meaning you don’t have to have your phone with you on a dive holiday. The extraordinary battery life would easily get you through a week of diving without recharge; Garmin quotes 66 hours in dive mode.
Garmin Descent Mk3i specs and price
| Battery life | Up to 25 days |
| Display | 1.4-inch diameter sapphire lens 454 x 454 pixels |
| Dimensions | 51 x 51 x 16.4 mm |
| Weight | Silicone band: 105.6g Titanium band: 165.9g |
| Waterproof | Down to 200m |
| Price (RRP) | From $2,149 |
| Official website | Garmin |
| Warranty | One year |
Using the Descent Mk3i
I thought this review would be all about the dive features of this watch. Instead, it is mainly about the above-water features. I have been scuba diving for 40 years, which excited me about this watch. What has excited me is how far smartwatches have come and how useful this device is on my wrist. We have become so reliant on our smartphones, and there is an app for everything. The Descent takes this same logic but narrows it to information and features you need on the end of your arm.
I must admit I have become obsessed with the sleep tracker. I may sleep 8 hours, and I feel average. Why? The Garmin will tell you why and what you can do to get a better night’s sleep. This extends throughout the day, where your exertion is measured, giving you a real-time index of your readiness to train or dive. I found this pretty cool and sensible, as my brain would always say: just power on when sometimes you need to take it easy, especially as you age.
I use a torch more regularly than my phone, as I can still use both hands. The battery life means I charge the watch every three weeks, depending on whether I have scuba-dived or tracked a bike ride or a hike. I have not activated any battery-saving features. Tracking an activity uses more power, which could reduce the quoted battery life from 25 days to 56 hours (GPS always on).
I have used the activity tracker regularly to track my bike rides and hikes, and it is good to see the results, including statistics like how much liquid I have lost, speed, elevation, and heart rate.
A limitation I have found is that of the three credit cards I use, only one is supported by Garmin Pay contactless payments. Charging is also via a proprietary clip charger, which you must remember to take on a trip. Saying this, a USB-C solution would not work charging a waterproof watch.
I did not intend to test the assistance/incident feature. However, the watch immediately alerted my emergency contact when I hit a bump hard on my bike. This feature detects falls and calls for assistance.
The watch will act independently but benefit from a connection to your smartphone, which you will need for the seamless setup. Initially, I received every notification from my phone, even ones already disabled on the phone; these are easily reduced on the watch by dismissing unwanted alerts.
For those of you who have swapped from an Apple to an Android phone, it takes a bit to get used to a new user interface, and from a diving perspective, I found that very much the case, having previously relied on a Suunto dive watch. The Garmin provides a lot more info on a clearer screen.
I found you can customise what dive data you can see but could not change a small display of my ATR to a larger, more prominent position, which I would have liked. After your dive, all the data collected is sent from the watch to your smartphone’s Garmin Dive app. This makes logging your dives easy, including the GPS surface position of your entry and exit, minimising further manual input.
Since I tested the watch with new features, Garmin has pushed two software updates, so functionality will only improve.
Who is the Garmin Descent Mk3i for?
The Garmin Descent Mk3i will indeed tell the time. It has an alarm clock and a stopwatch, but it is also a powerful dive computer and smartwatch designed to match many sports, interests and health monitoring. So, in my eyes, this is an everyday watch you will wear night and day.
This model has a price premium over other Garmin smartwatch models because of its scuba diving computer. The target audience is, of course, divers. This review has certainly been a surprise regarding the long battery life and all the other features for active people. Millions of smartwatches are sold every year, and there is good reason. Maybe it’s time to put a watch back on your wrist and match a smartwatch to your passions.
The post Garmin Descent Mk3i review: Rethinking the smartwatch appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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