Casio Pro Trek F30 smartwatch hits the trails in January
A Bikemap app partnership for route help and activity tracking is also in the works.
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Casio announced Thursday it expects its Pro Trek Smart WSD-F30 watch to be released on Jan. 18, 2019. The watch, which runs on Google's Wear OS, was announced in August at the IFA 2018 tech conference in Berlin, where it won eight awards.
The rugged F30 is made for outdoors enthusiasts, with water resistance up to 50 meters, built-in GPS and offline map functionality. The watch received the most attention, however, for its battery life claims, a sore spot with last year's model. Using proprietary technology, the watch has a new dual-layer monochrome and color display to extend battery life up to 3 days. Using monochrome only promises to keep the watch running for a month, while still giving you access to the time, altimeter, compass and barometer.
Activity and health tracking continue to be a big part of the picture for wearables like smartwatches. Led by companies such as Apple, Fitbit and Garmin, watches are moving beyond simple heart-rate and activity tracking to becoming medical devices.
Casio's watch, which runs on Google's Wear OS (formerly called Android Wear), has several outdoors-focused apps. As part of today's release announcement, Casio said it has partnered with Bikeapp app to bring it to the F30. Features will include offline maps and routes as well as tracking speed, distance and time among other things. You can read more about its app support on Casio's site.
