Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Casio Forester Alti-Barometer Watch > Owner Review by Brian Tannehill

Backpacking Background:

I am fairly new to backpacking, but I have hunted/fished/camped all my life in East Texas, Colorado, and California. My young kids (4, 10, 12) limit me to weekend overnight camping trips, or day hikes Geocaching. I am also an avid mountain biker. For now I live in the Central Coast area of California (Lompoc, Santa Maria area), and am surrounded by many different areas from beaches to mountain regions ranging up to 5,000 feet (1,500 m), with the temperatures averaging about 60 F (16 C) degrees year round.

Product Information:

Manufacturer: Casio
Year of Manufacture: Unknown
URL: http://www.casio.com/
Weight of watch: 1 7/8 oz (52 g)

Introduction:

I bought this watch two years ago for a few reasons. The first one is I wanted something to help augment my Magellan Meridian GPS with altitude. The second reason I bought it is for the barometer in it to track weather changes. The third probably most important reason I bought it was because it was on sale for a few dollars more than the less capable watch I was looking at.

Augmenting my GPS:

When I saw this watch I thought "Hmm an altimeter. Now I can see just how far off my GPS really is." Not that my GPS is off but my logic is "Trust but Verify." This watch has a built-in barometer to measure atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure is defined as the force per unit area exerted against a surface by the weight of the air molecules above that surface. At sea level, on average, the weight of the air above a one square inch (6.5 square centimeters) would weigh 14.7 pounds (6.7) kg. With that known you can also measure altitude.

The watch as a barometer:

Common units of pressure include inches of mercury and millibars. In aviation and television weather reports, pressure is referred to in inches of mercury ("Hg), while meteorologists use millibars (mb), the unit of pressure found on weather maps. This watch is capable of using both these measurements. I like to use inches of mercury because it is easier for me to understand. This watch does need to be calibrated before use and that needs to be done with a known barometric pressure or altitude. In imperial units the pressure would appear as 29.85 inches for example, while in metric units it would appear as 1014 hPa. Calibrating the watch can only be done in increments of .05 inches or of one millibar. The display seems to have more resolution in millibars, and I may start using that unit of measurement. Things like heat and cold will affect the barometer depending on where you are located. The resolution in the barometer mode is 1hPa or 0.05 inHg and the display range is 600 to 1,100 hPa or 17.70 to 32.45 inHg, depending on whether it is in imperial or metric mode. You can substitute mbar for hPa.

The other main feature I got the watch for is the 15 hour graph of pressure it has on the face. The watch takes a reading every 3 hours and records this on the graph. The only thing I need to know about the graph is if the graph goes up, weather is good, if the graph goes down, weather is going to get bad. This can help predict (guess) what the weather is going to do while I am out hiking/camping. I know a few hours in advance if the weather is turning sour on me. Luckily I have not had any really bad weather but the graph does work.

The watch as an altimeter:

The altimeter function of the watch displays in either feet or meters. I use feet because that is the standard unit of measurement where I live. Adjustment of the altitude is done in 20 ft or 5 m increments depending on the display units used. The conversion that I found is 5 meters equals 16.4 feet. The display range for the altimeter is -13,120 ft to 13,120 ft (-4000 m to 4000 m). I'm still not sure why I would need to measure -13,120 feet (-4000 m) though.

Other features of the watch

This watch also has the standard features a watch should have. It has an alarm, stopwatch, and light. When setting the watch you can go either forwards or backwards, instead of like most watches that only go one direction. The light has a cool feature though. If you push and hold the light button, it goes into auto mode. This allows me to just raise my arm and the light comes on automatically, instead of having to push the button. It also displays the day and date in month/day form on the face

While trying the watch on I thought I would not like it because the face is so big. The watch measures roughly 2 inches (5.1 cm) across. It has to be that big to accomodate all the cool features it has. It took me a while, but I got used to it.

The one thing I wish it had was another time zone. In my job I work in local time and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time. It would be nice to have another clock set to the other time zone I need instead of having to convert it each time.

Conclusion

This watch has really held up over the last two years. I am really rough on watches, and usually bang them against everything around. Some of the things I like about the watch are:

Automatic light
Barometric pressure graph

Things I don't like:

Large face
Altimeter only accurate in 20 foot increments

Brian

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Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Casio Forester Alti-Barometer Watch > Owner Review by Brian Tannehill