Altimeter watches

I have a Casio. It's an older one but I don't use its altimeter function much any more because the GPS is much better.

Now theres a question only a geek would appreciate. I have a casio that cost about $150 and a very expensive tissot (add a zero) both purport to do every thing from Altitude to weather and both are hit and miss at best. i like the nite lite function for reading the time on the casio so thats the one i use. the weather your body heat and it would seem everything else interferes with thier functions and needs constant geek attension to work them properely so unless you enjoy peering at small screens and fidling spend your money on something else!

Ive only tramped once with someone that had one and was impressed but not enough to buy one. We had been wondering how far up the Kapakapanui track we were but as we were in bush map reading alone wasnt going to answer this very well. Altimeter gave us a height which matched up quite well to the map and seemed to be accurate. He did have to set it at the carpark for the start altitude so as to allow for weather related pressure. To me this would be too much like hard work

that says it all way too much time lost on adjustments for my liking. And I do like watches

I have had a Suunto Core for 6 months and used it in the Himalayas and around NZ. My daughter purchased it in USA -- a bit cheaper than NZ. I find the altimeter really useful especially in areas like the Ruahines where there is lots of up and down and it's not worth switching on the GPS. The altimeter should be calibrated for the changing atmospheric pressure once or twice a day, but even without this it still provides useful information. I basically use only the time and altimeter (and occasionally the compass) and ignore all the other functions.

I've never used an altimeter watch but I often use the altitude function on my e-trex along with a topomap when travelling offtrack (particularly on spurs and ridges) rather than using the grid reference. It just seems easier to me. Providing you have good coverage, and with the high-sensitivity gps models these days that shouldn't be too much an issue under bush cover, you can get a pretty accurate fix on your location... assuming you know which spur you are on in the first place...

I've only had one, which I found some time aso on trademe and is now dead. All I can suggest is to try and do a bit of research on the models you see around before buying anything, because they're not always equal. I often went on trips where we had two or there barometric altimeters between us. After calibrating them identically, mine was usually the one that would hop up and down in tens of meters at a time while others might be more stable. I'm not sure why but I'd presume that the sensor on mine was more exposed to passing breezes and such. Sometimes it appeared to hop around inconsistently on seemingly calm days. The favoured one that I saw people using wasn't actually a watch, but a specialist lightweight handheld altimeter. I can't recall the model I'm afraid.

Like Iangeorge I have a Suunto Core watch and am very happy with it. Not very cheap (around $600) but they last well and have easy to read screens. My father has had his Suunto for 12 years and it is still going strong. When travelling off track or in dense bush he frequently refers to the altimeter to pinpoint our exact position. No watch altimeter is going to be accurate all the time as the altitude is calculated using the air pressure, which varies with the weather. However, as Iangeorge said above, recalibrating the altimeter once or twice a day is generally enough as long as you bear in mind any changes in weather. It only takes a few seconds to calibrate - no longer than waiting for a gps to locate sufficient satelites. So to answer CornishGirl's original question, I would recommend looking at the range of Suunto watches (especially the Core and Vector).

Thanks for all the info . . I don't have a GPS yet so thought a watch might be handy as I need a new one anyway. I was also leaning towards Suunto so I'll concentrate my research there for now. :)