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Nike+ GPS data becomes art, exercise still exhausting originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Garmin Forerunner 610 features a weather-proof touch display for training in any conditions

For serious runners who want to track their progress, a GPS sports watch can be indispensible.

Garmin has outed a number of wrist-mounted trainers over the years, but the new Forerunner 610 is its first touchscreen model. It’s also a bit more attractive than previous members of the Forerunner line.

The 610 can keep track of pace, distance and, with an optional heart monitor, heart rate. It will deliver vibration alerts for when audible ones can’t be heard. Its slim black form also houses “Training Effect” and “Virtual Racer” features, for tracking workout intensity and beating your own personal bests. The Garmin Connect online service provides access to additional functions, including an online fitness community and tools for logging run metrics and plotting them in charts and illustrations.

For those who prefer alternating between running and walking, Auto Lap and Auto Pause help keep track of this type of training session.

You don’t need to buy a GPS watch. Tools like the Nike+ GPS app, which run on your smartphone, can do many of the same things. But a watch is less cumbersome than carrying your phone on every run.

We recently took a look at the Nike+ SportWatch GPS, which offers similar run-tracking features. It has a large, bold-numbered display that’s operated by three buttons and an easy to use, intuitive interface.

The Forerunner 610 functions with a combination of buttons and touchscreen taps, which looks like it could potentially be more complicated and less user friendly than Nike’s answer to the GPS watch.

The Garmin Forerunner 610 is definitely designed for the fitness buff, with a price of $350. No word on when it will be officially available for purchase.

Forerunner 610 [Garmin via Crunchgear]

If you’re the type of person who has 99 problems, a satisfactory wristwatch being one, feast your lustful eyes on this diamond-encrusted abomination. ZShock has managed to work its magic — $18,000 worth, to be precise — on a Lunatik iPod nano watch, with the end result being something that we’d hardly recommend being caught dead with. Of course, those who’d disagree vehemently are going to need a magic number in order to procure one, but those who are just curious can peek the source link below for a bit of wrist-on action. Temper that jealously, though.

Diamond-encrusted Lunatik iPod nano watch is as superfluous as it sounds originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 08:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been a while since we gave Harry Winston’s Opus watch any play, but some timepieces are just too lavish to pass up. Case in point: the Opus Eleven, designed by temporal taste-maker Denis Giguet of MCT. Aesthetically speaking, it’s probably a touch too steampunk for some, but the way it tells time is straight up fascinating. Giguet points out the movement enlists 566 parts, a good deal of which are exposed in the main face — the center piece displays the hour, while the upper right disc shows off the minutes. Now, it might look like a relatively minimal watch for Harry Winston, but its case is made of 18k white gold and sapphire crystal, and the Opus Eleven’s definitely got a Winston-worthy price tag, ringing in at about $250,000. So if you’ve got a quarter of a mill just laying around, this is a definite contender for that stack of cash. Want to see all those tiny pieces in action? Check out the video after the break.

Continue reading Harry Winston’s Opus Eleven watch: mechanical masterpiece / bank breaker (video)

Harry Winston’s Opus Eleven watch: mechanical masterpiece / bank breaker (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phosphor’s magnetic crystal watch is a bit gaudy, since by its very nature it needs to be adorned by Swarovski crystals. And as everyone knows, Swarovski is not German for the word “restraint.” But a watch that mimics an LCD screen by manually flipping over crystals? That’s damn cool. More »