If gadgets, gizmos and a list of features as long as Welsh railway station name are your thing, then we've found just the product for you.
The Gamin Quatix 6x Solar may be classified as a smartwatch, but there’s no doubt in our minds that its extensive range of capabilities make it far smarter than your average smartwatch – it took us all afternoon to find something it couldn’t do!
Leaving aside its multitude of non-nautical features (which even run to 2,000 built-in ski piste maps complete with difficulty rankings) the Garmin Quatix 6x Solar offers full connectivity for mariners.
This means boaters can hook up compatible kit, such as Garmin chartplotters and transceivers, and stream all manner of data – water depth, engine rpm, wind and so on – direct to their wrists.
The watch also supports Garmin’s range of Bluechart G3 charts, and an autopilot app allows the wearer to change heading and follow a GPS route no matter where they are on the boat.
Waypoints can also be marked remotely.
Garmin today owns the popular Fusion audio brand, so every Quatix 6x Solar comes complete with the Fusion-Link Lite app which gives the user control over any compatible Fusion entertainment systems fitted to the boat.
At the business end of things, the watch mechanism is encased in a hefty and handsome titanium case measuring a substantial 51 x 51 x 14.9 mm.
A matching titanium strap is fitted and the whole thing looks and feels immensely robust.
Depending which mode the watch is in, solar charging can give up to 24 days of battery life.
Our only criticism is that the unit’s 36.5 mm sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel display can be a little tricky to read in some light conditions – a touch more contrast wouldn’t go amiss.
But this smartwatch more than makes up for this with its all-round stellar performance.
It’s not cheap, but bearing in mind all the things it can do, we reckon the Quatix 6x Solar represents great value for money.
Price: £999.99 inc VAT
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Read our Tried & Tested review of the Garmin Quatix 6.
Looking for a boating watch? Read our essential buyer’s guide
