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Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass > Test Report by Sheila MorrisseyTIMEX EXPEDITION E-TIDE TEMP COMPASS WATCH
Initial Report - April 27, 2008
Field Report - Available July 2008 Long Term Report - Available September 2008  Photo from Timex website. Initial Report: April 27, 2008 TESTER BIOGRAPHY Name: Sheila Morrissey Age: 27 Gender: Female Height: 5 ft 8 in (1.7 m) Weight: 155 lb (70 kg) Wrist Diameter: 6 in (15 cm) Email Address: geosheila(at)yahoo(dot)com City, State, Country: Goleta, California, USA BACKPACKING BACKGROUND I have been backpacking since 2005 and usually hike in Los Padres National Forest or the Sierra Nevada with friends and my dog. My pack weighs around 25 lb (11 kg), including consumables, for a weekend trip. I always carry a tent. PRODUCT INFORMATION Manufacturer: Timex Model: Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass Year of Manufacture: 2008 Manufacturer’s Website: http://www.timex.com MSRP: US$159.05 Listed Weight: N/A Measured Weight: 3.2 oz (91 g) Measured Face Diameter: 1.8 in (4.6 cm) Measured Face Thickness: 0.5 in (1.3 cm) Measured Watch Length (springpin to springpin): 2.1 in (5.4 cm) Measured Band Width: 0.75 in (1.9 cm) Measured Band Length (including watch): 9.5 in (24.1 cm) Calculated Band Length (minus watch): 7.4 in (18.8 cm) Measured Band Thickness: 0.125 in (0.32 cm) PRODUCT DESCRIPTION The Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass is a large-faced analog watch featuring a thermometer, tide indicator and compass. Watch Band The Expedition's black rubber watch band measures approximately 9.5 in (24.1 cm) in length. Nearest the watch, the strap is nearly 1 in (2.5 cm) in width, but it narrows to 0.75 in (1.9 cm) in width by about 1 in (2.5 cm) away from the watch face on both the clasp end of the strap and the non-clasp end of the strap. The strap does not taper further at its ends. Three parallel grooves in the rubber run the length of the strap at its center and sides. A short red line of rubber of about 0.4 in (1 cm) sits within the middle groove of the strap on the clasp end of the watch. The red line extends from the 12 o'clock position on the watch face and is there to aid in lining up the compass. The metal buckle can be attached through one of 11 holes in the strap, making the watch band adjustable for wrist diameters from about 6 in (15 cm) to about 8.5 in (22 cm). My wrist diameter is about 6 in (15 cm). Watch The watch itself is 0.5 in (1.3 cm) thick with a diameter of 1.8 in (4.6 cm). The watch components are housed in a stainless steel case, which is indicated on the back of the watch along with inscriptions of the battery type (CR2016), water resistance (100 m [328 ft]), the manufacturer's website and Timex's Expedition "E" symbol. The face of the watch is black with an INDIGLO night light, a glowing ring of green light that shines for about 3 seconds when the crown is pressed. The watch has glow-in-the-dark hour and minute hands, and a red second hand. A fourth hand, the indicator hand, acts as the compass needle or indicates the temperature or tide, depending on which feature is activated. The watch has four buttons protruding from its sides: the compass button on the lower left side, the temperature button on the upper right side, the tide button on the lower right side, and the crown on the middle of the right side. The compass, temperature and tide buttons can each be pressed separately. The crown button can be pushed in to activate the INDIGLO night light, pulled out to a middle position to set the date and calibrate the compass, or pulled out to a further position to set the time. The watch face has several concentric rings of numbers and symbols corresponding with all of the Expedition's features. Compass The outermost ring of symbols and numbers is the turning compass ring. The compass ring has marks for N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW. In addition, it marks 30, 60, 120, 150, 210, 240, 300 and 330 degrees. There are dots at every 10 degrees for which there is no named direction or azimuthal degree listed (so at 70, 80, 100, 110 degrees, etc.) Between 330 and 30 degrees, tick marks indicate every degree so that the compass can be set for the local declination angle. The declination angle can be set by adjusting the north direction to compensate for local declination angle (magnetic declinations by city are given on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] website) after calibrating the compass. Alternatively, the declination angle can be accounted for by manually adjusting the compass ring to the local declination angle instead of north on the compass. The compass is calibrated by pulling the crown to its middle position and then pressing the compass button. Keeping the Expedition level, the watch is slowly rotated twice. After rotating the watch, pushing any button ends the calibration. The indicator hand (now acting as a compass needle) points north. It is at this point that the declination can be changed using tide and temperature buttons to move the hand east or west. Pushing the crown back in sets the declination. Time The next ring on the watch is a set of glow-in-the-dark dots on the hours. At the bottom of the face, the watch has "INDIGLO" written between 7 and 8, "TIDE-COMPASS-TEMP" written between 5 and 7 (there is no dot at 6), and "WR100M" (indicating the water resistance) written between 4 and 5. Inside this ring is a second ring of time markings. "TIMEX" is written at 12 and Expedition's "E" symbol is at 6. The other hours are marked with silver squares and there are white tick marks for the minutes. The time is set by pulling the crown all the way out and turning it to the correct time. Because there is a date function, 12 could either mean noon or midnight, so the crown must be turned while watching the date to make sure that the AM/PM setting is correct. The date is set by pulling the crown to its middle position and turning it until the correct date shows up in the date window near the 6 o'clock position on the watch. The watch assumes every month has 31 days and so must be readjusted at the start of some months. Temperature The next ring in is the temperature scale, with lower temperatures starting at the lower left and increasing clockwise to the lower right side of the watch. Both F and C scales are listed, ranging from -5 F to 125 F and -20 C to 50 C. After pressing the temperature button, the indicator hand swings to the lowest temperature and then moves to the current temperature where either scale, F or C, can be read. Tide The innermost ring is the tide predictor. High tide is indicated a the 12 o'clock position, low tide is indicated at the 6 o'clock position, and numbers from 1 to 5 indicate the number of hours until the next high or low tide. When the tide indicator points left, the tide is rising, and when it points right, the tide is falling. INITIAL IMPRESSIONS On a backpacking trip last summer, I went to bed after what I thought was a full day of hiking and swimming. I woke up an hour later to find the sun straight overhead. We'd somehow managed to pack in a day's worth of activities and meals all before 11am. I'm thinking this watch might be useful for me on my upcoming backpacking trips. The Expedition watch is exactly what I was expecting after seeing the photo and reading about it on the Timex website. It's pretty huge and bulky, so I'm planning on using it strapped to my pack rather than actually wearing it on my wrist. The watch manual that came with the watch (and which I couldn't find on the website, though many others were available) is quite thorough and easy to understand. Within minutes of receiving the watch, I had the time and date set and the compass calibrated and set to my local declination. I always get confused with watch functions, so I liked that doing all of these settings was so straightforward and didn't require that I press some confusing combination of 85 different buttons like so many other watches seem to require. So far, the time, temperature, tide predictor and compass functions seem to be working just fine. After setting the time last week, the watch is still matching the other clocks in my house. If I don't touch the watch itself, the temperature indicates the correct temperature. If I do touch the watch, the temperature reads up to 10 degrees F (6 degrees C) too high. I checked the tide predictor earlier and it indicated it was nearly high tide. I compared that prediction with my pocket tide prediction calendar (which is based on NOAA tide predictions), which indicated it was nearly low tide. Oops, turns out you're supposed to read the other end of the needle, but only for the tide feature. Sure enough, I walked down to the beach and it was low tide. The compass features works fine. Unlike the tide and temperature features, the compass feature turns off after a few seconds. I'm not sure yet if there is a way to keep the compass feature on without having to keep pressing the compass button.
REMARKS This concludes my Initial Report. Please check back in July 2008 for my Field Report. Thank you to Timex and BackpackGearTest.org for providing me with the opportunity to test the Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass watch. Read more reviews of Timex gear Read more gear reviews by Sheila Morrissey Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Timex Expedition E-Tide Temp Compass > Test Report by Sheila Morrissey | |||