You wear a fitness tracker for monitoring your daily activity stats and slip on a golf watch for those times you’re hitting dimpled balls out in the links. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’d rather consolidate multiple wearables into one, though (because wearing two gadgets on the golf course is a bit too much), you might want to check out the Garmin Approach X40, a new activity band that can track both fitness metrics and golf stats.
Clad in a standard activity band form factor, the band should comfortably wear around your wrist, whether you’re spending the morning running, hiking, or playing 18 holes. Apart from the usual steps, calories, distance, and intensity, it also monitors heart rate (via the wrist, no chest strap necessary) and sleep cycles, so this should provide a good amount of data comparable to your favorite fitness trackers.
Make no mistake about it, though, the Garmin Approach X40 will track your golf game comprehensively, automatically measuring shot distance, recording every detected shot for post-round analysis, and keeping a digital scorecard. Preloaded with a high-sensitivity GPS and over 40,000 golf courses worldwide, it can display the distance information you need to know before playing any hole, including the distance to the front, the back, the middle of the green, and the hazards, so you can gather relevant information before each swing, along with showing the true shape and layout of each course.
Features include a touchscreen display, waterproofing up to 50 meters, phone notifications, and a rechargeable battery (rated for 5 days with the GPS off and 10 hours with the GPS on). And, yes, it comes with a mode for displaying the time and date if you just need a regular watch on your wrist.
Available now, the Garmin Approach X40 is priced at $249.99.