Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass > Test Report by Ralph Ditton

                                                                     
                                                                   (Photo courtesy of Timex Corporation)

• Indicate current tide

• Current temperature

• Indicate magnetic north

• Current time/date

Product Description
 Basically, the Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass is an outdoors/backpacking watch that works by analog movement which is encased in a stainless steel case. It has a very big face that is quite busy with information relating to time, temperature, tide, compass and the date. The numerals on the actual face under the glass are very tiny and I need my glasses to read them. The compass numerals on the bezel are large enough for me to read without my glasses but I do need the glasses to see the declination angle graduation markings. There are four hands on the face. These are an hour hand, minute hand, second hand and a dedicated hand which indicates the tidal trend, or current air or water temperature, or magnetic north with the push of the appropriate button. As this watch is an analog, there are no menu's to scroll through. This is a "what you see is what you get" watch.
There is an instruction sheet printed in English, French and Spanish. It is lacking in one very important detail. There is no information as to which end of the indicator hand to use when trying to read the current tide position as there are arrow heads at both ends.
The dedicated indicator hand at the red end has an arrow head inside an arrow head. (See above photo). This is to allow me to read the temperature scale much more accurately as I can just see through it.
I will now go into the various features of the watch.

Tide clock
The instructions state that the tide is rising when the hand is pointing left and falling when pointing right. The number of hours to the next high/low tide is shown on the tide scale. The numerals on the left start at 1 opposite the 11 o'clock position and go to five at the 7 o'clock position with the understood 6 at the 6 o'clock position. It is marked as "Low". The numerals starting on the right at the 1 o'clock position is 5 reducing to 1 at the 5 o'clock position, again with the understood 6 at the 12 o'clock position which is marked as "High Tide".  The Tide Clock uses the moon position to predict high and low tides, which are six hours and twelve and a half minutes apart. Tides are also influenced by sun position and shape of the shoreline, so the Tide Clock cannot precisely give times of high and low tides.
Testing at home by pushing the bottom right hand button which is the tide button, I checked it against the nearest beach to me which is Fremantle, some 15 km (9 mi) away. The Bureau of Meteorology has high tide at Fremantle for Monday 28th April at 1256 with low tide at 0140 tomorrow morning. The reading on the watch at 2130 has the following conflicting readings. The red end of the indicator hand is at the 10 o'clock position and rising to High Tide and the silver pointy end is falling to the 4 o'clock position. If I take the silver end of the indicator hand Low Tide should be occurring about 2 hours twelve minutes time taking the time to 2342, some one hour fifty eight minutes short of the low tide mark. This is where I have some concerns with the lack of information in the Instruction Sheet about how to read the dedicated indicator hand. If I took the red end of the indicator hand then it is clearly wrong. As far as I know, the difference in hemispheres should not make any difference as the phases of the moon are the same in both hemispheres at the same time.

Thermometer
To get the best results from the thermometer I must take the watch off my wrist as my body heat affects the result. I must leave it off for a number of minutes so it will cool down to the environment. By pushing the top right button that has a red band around it the indicator hand moves to the current temperature. The scale is in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. I took a reading outside my home at 10 pm and these are the following readings, Bureau of Meteorology Perth Airport which is the closest station to my home some 11 km (6.8 mi) away, 15.1 C (59.1 F), my Kestrel 3500 Pocket Weather Meter, 18.5 C (65.3 F) and the watch, 23 C (73.4 F). That is a very big variance. In fact, every time I fiddled around with the temperature button on the watch, the indicator hand seems to hover around the 23 to 25 C (73.4 to 77 F) irrespective of the prevailing temperature as measured against my Kestrel unit. This will need more testing. All the manufacturer states is that there is a temperature sensor which I can not see as it must be encased in the body of the watch. My Kestrel has an exposed thermistor which responds quickly to change in temperature, and I must admit, I did expect to see something like that even if the end was flush with the side casing so as to "sniff" the outside and still maintain a watertight seal.
The Instruction Sheet states that the watch can take water temperature when submerged. Knowing my luck this would be a sure kiss of death so I will not even attempt to do so as I have no need to test the water temperature when bushwalking. My fingers can do it pretty well if I am curious as to how cold the water is.

Compass
Reading the instructions on how to use the compass feature, it mentions that it must be calibrated. I immediately thought of my GPS which has to be calibrated every time I change batteries and wondered if it was the same method, rotate the unit slowly for two revolutions taking at least 15 -20 seconds for each revolution. Reading on further I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was so, with the only variation being pulling out the crown button (middle button on right hand side) to the middle position, then pushing the compass button on the left hand side of the watch prior to beginning the revolutions. I had to retry about four times as I was either too jerky or quick in turning the watch. To make sure that I had it right, I checked the watch against my own compass and found it to be spot on.
To operate the compass I hold the watch level, press the compass button and the indicator hand moves to magnetic north. After 20 seconds, the compass will automatically turn off to conserve battery life. If I find that the 20 seconds is not enough, I just keep pressing the compass button to keep the compass working.
There is a declination angle graduation scale on the bezel (see above photo) between the 330 and 030 degrees. The intervals are at 2 degrees. Where I live and bushwalk, the declination variation is only 1 degree so I really do not have to use this scale.
There are two methods to use this compass.
1) Which way am I headed?
I hold the watch so that 12 o'clock is in the direction that I want to travel. I then turn the compass ring until the indicator hand is pointing north on the ring.
2) Which way should I go?
I turn the compass ring until my desired direction (e.g.NW) appears at 12 o'clock in the direction that I want to go. I then turn my body until the indicator hand points north on the compass ring.
To help with sighting an object to walk towards when taking a compass reading, there is a red line on the wrist strap (see above photo). All I have to do is to twist my wrist skyward and sight along the red line.

Time/Date
A watches basic function. There are no numerals on the watch face, just dashes for minute intervals and little silver coloured squares for the hours except for the 12 o'clock position, the "M" in "TIMEX" is the substitute and at the 6 o'clock position the logo "E" is the substitute. The hour and minute hands are large with a luminous paint strip for night reading. The second hand is a skinny red one without any luminous paint strip. (See above photo).
Setting the time was very easy as the instructions are straightforward.
The date is just a numeral for the day of the month. It is located just above the six o'clock position. The only thing that I had to be careful when setting the date in the afternoon was to ensure that the date changed at midnight, not midday. I had to set the time by going over twelve hours plus whatever the appropriate time in the afternoon was when I set up the watch. To date, both have kept an accurate record. I have not noticed any loss or gain of time when compared to my household clock.

Initial Impression
What I saw on the web site picture wise of the watch is what I received so there was no surprise there. However, there was no instruction sheet available on the web site for the watch. Fortunately one was supplied with the watch. What did surprise me was the large size and chunkiness of the unit. I thought it might be large but it was larger than I imagined. This is not to say that it swamped my tiny wrist or felt very heavy when wearing it. I definitely know that I have it on. I have had no trouble doing up my cuff when wearing the watch. There are twelve hole intervals on the watch strap for the tongue of the buckle to be housed in. I mainly used the sixth one in from the end of the strap to give me a snug fit of the watch.

                                     

There was no issue with any non functioning buttons or broken wrist band. The watch was in good shape upon arrival. It even had a silicone guard around the crown button to protect it.
I have worn the watch for a full days hiking so far. I found that I did perspire under the band and it became a bit uncomfortable. I took it off and wiped the base of the watch and my arm, replaced it back on my arm a little bit looser to the fifth hole from the end, as my wrist had swelled a bit due to the heat. It was 22 C (72 F), very still, and the humidity was 61%. It had rained earlier in the morning.
By pressing the crown button in, the Indiglo night-light illuminates the watch face for about six seconds if I just press it in and let go straight away. If I hold the crown button in the light stays on. I can read the time easily but I cannot see the points on the dedicated indicator hands. I put that down to my poor eyesight as I have to use glasses to read the face. There is a splash of luminous paint on the red tip of the dedicated indicator hand and I can only barely see it with my glasses on. (See top photo for the splash of white). I would only be guessing as to what it was indicating.

Summary
I am impressed with the compass aspect. It points to magnetic north as indicated by my own compass, so that is a correct feature.
The instructions need to be clarified regarding the reading of the dedicated indicator hand for the tides. If the silver end of the hand is the correct end then it is roughly correct to my local tides within two hours. I can live with that margin. The date and time aspect are spot on and were very easy to set up. Temperature readings? Ummm. I really need to give this a good shake out as the needle seems to like the 20 to 25 C (68 - 77 F) range when the real temperature is lower according to my Kestrel 3500 Pocket Weather Meter. Maybe it will ride up with wear so to speak! Time will tell.

This concludes my Initial Report. The Field Report will be amended to this report in approximately two months from the date of this report. Please check back then for further information.
                                                                                                                    

Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass > Test Report by Ralph Ditton