Smart Watches

[Hank]

I dunno, Erik. It talks about Pulse-Ox Sleep Tracking, which reduces the 7-day battery life. Not sure it will track O2 saturation while awake and sitting, but it will probably fuss at you go get ip and move around midflight!  

[aviatoreb]

16 minutes ago, Hank said:

I dunno, Erik. It talks about Pulse-Ox Sleep Tracking, which reduces the 7-day battery life. Not sure it will track O2 saturation while awake and sitting, but it will probably fuss at you go get ip and move around midflight!  

Right- this is what I am wondering - if designed for something else it might still be essentially perfect for our purposes.  It seems as if the amount of moving around it might do while asleep might be no more than the amount of moving around in flight?

And accuracy - is it good enough for our purposes?

Can we set our own alarm levels?

I don't see that 7 day battery life is a problem if that means 24-7 for 7 days.  That sounds like >year of flying before changing the battery.

[HRM]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

Can we set our own alarm levels?

I looked at the manual and didn't see anything about alarms on the SpO2 and as others have pointed out, continuous tracking is only during 'sleep monitoring'. 

It would not take much (s/w mod) to add a mode where it would sample your SpO2 every minute AND sound an alarm below a present limit--exactly what a pilot needs! Amazing that Garmin has missed this. At $129, which is the price point for some high-end SpO2 monitors, you could wear this on your opposite wrist during flight, no need for any of the other functions.

I didn't look to see if it had a tactile alert--that would be another plus for an aviation unit.

[aviatoreb]

36 minutes ago, HRM said:

I looked at the manual and didn't see anything about alarms on the SpO2 and as others have pointed out, continuous tracking is only during 'sleep monitoring'. 

It would not take much (s/w mod) to add a mode where it would sample your SpO2 every minute AND sound an alarm below a present limit--exactly what a pilot needs! Amazing that Garmin has missed this. At $129, which is the price point for some high-end SpO2 monitors, you could wear this on your opposite wrist during flight, no need for any of the other functions.

I didn't look to see if it had a tactile alert--that would be another plus for an aviation unit.

Why can't we tell the watch we are asleep while we are flying and let it continuously monitor our O2sat?

But I misunderstand the sales material since it seems as if it would alarm in that mode and tell me if my o2sat got too low.  But now I too am looking at the manual material and maybe not.

Plus the quality of the sensor - does it measure o2sat sufficiently accurately?

So many they have all the elements of what I want, but the software is not designed to do what we need - as you said is what I have been looking for - a

1)lightweight / small /wrist

2) simple no frills single purpose

3) inexpensive

4) alarms on o2sat probably by vibrate

unit to keep in the airplane full time, to put onto unobtrusively put on my right wrist (left wrist is for my not-smart sharp looking standard watch) to alarm me if something is wrong while flying.

[HRM]

48 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Why can't we tell the watch we are asleep while we are flying and let it continuously monitor our O2sat?

Most likely Garmin thought of that and then their attorneys put the kibosh on it 

[AerostarDriver]

For the last few years I had worn a Fitbit Inspire HR, before that I was a fan of Invicta watches. My wife bought me the Garmin D2 Air the day it came out for an anniversary gift. While I won't say it has been a life changing experience, I can highly recommend it has a pilots watch but it has some minor issues. In my case I had never been swayed to the D2 series because I wanted a fitness watch first and then any additional features would be cool but not required. Coming from the Inspire HR I was thrilled to have Pulse OX and some of the smart watch features on the D2. The battery life is about the same based on the way I use it. I normally end up at about 65% Battery at the end of each day and I charge it every day. One of the nice things with the D2 Air is when the FLY activity is enabled the O2 sensor goes in to continuous mode like the sleep mode and shares that data with Garmin Pilot. One of my issues with the Pulse OX runs about 2 to 4% below what my normal pulse ox is when read with a finger based reader. 

The big question, is it worth 500 dollars? Short answer, no, but that is only driven by one feature I would love to have that the D2 Air is missing, EKG. The Apple Watch Series 6 is 100 dollars cheaper, has all the same features and does an attempt at a wrist based EKG.

My issues with the Garmin D2 Air for anyone at big G

• Metars don't have time parsed out with them
• The metars on the face half the time don't show up
• Notifications can not be dismissed easily
• Watch cannot be used for music controls unless you have a bluetooth headphones.   

Edited November 3, 2020 by AerostarDriver

[aviatoreb]

51 minutes ago, HRM said:

Most likely Garmin thought of that and then their attorneys put the kibosh on it 

I bet you are right.  It is sooooo close to what I want but not quite it.

[Danb]

4 hours ago, AerostarDriver said:

For the last few years I had worn a Fitbit Inspire HR, before that I was a fan of Invicta watches. My wife bought me the Garmin D2 Air the day it came out for an anniversary gift. While I won't say it has been a life changing experience, I can highly recommend it has a pilots watch but it has some minor issues. In my case I had never been swayed to the D2 series because I wanted a fitness watch first and then any additional features would be cool but not required. Coming from the Inspire HR I was thrilled to have Pulse OX and some of the smart watch features on the D2. The battery life is about the same based on the way I use it. I normally end up at about 65% Battery at the end of each day and I charge it every day. One of the nice things with the D2 Air is when the FLY activity is enabled the O2 sensor goes in to continuous mode like the sleep mode and shares that data with Garmin Pilot. One of my issues with the Pulse OX runs about 2 to 4% below what my normal pulse ox is when read with a finger based reader. 

The big question, is it worth 500 dollars? Short answer, no, but that is only driven by one feature I would love to have that the D2 Air is missing, EKG. The Apple Watch Series 6 is 100 dollars cheaper, has all the same features and does an attempt at a wrist based EKG.

My issues with the Garmin D2 Air for anyone at big G

• Metars don't have time parsed out with them
• The metars on the face half the time don't show up
• Notifications can not be dismissed easily
• Watch cannot be used for music controls unless you have a bluetooth headphones.   

As mentioned earlier I opted for the Apple series 6, quite dissatisfied for the use for pulse ox, it’s close to impossible to keep your hand still enough for a reading, my delta 2 px would work but recorded about 2-3 less than actual, trend analysis was useful. I mistakenly did not get the harming and got cooped by apples advertising.Wasted 400+

[AerostarDriver]

2 minutes ago, Danb said:

As mentioned earlier I opted for the Apple series 6, quite dissatisfied for the use for pulse ox, it’s close to impossible to keep your hand still enough for a reading, my delta 2 px would work but recorded about 2-3 less than actual, trend analysis was useful. I mistakenly did not get the harming and got cooped by apples advertising.Wasted 400+

I also am not recommending the Apple watch. I have not had an issue with the Air other then its about 2 to 4% below what an actual medical device reads. My point was there are similar watches that do the same or more for less money. Maybe a better comparison would be the Garmin Venu which is 350 compared to the D2 Air's 500 dollar price tag and it does everything that the D2 Air can do without the neat but not super useful aviation functions.