Garmin D2™ Air X10, Touchscreen Aviator Smartwatch with GPS, Aviation Weather, Call and Text, Health and Wellness Features and More, Ivory

I bought this for my son in flight school and he loved it. It worked for his flying needs and he doesn't leave the house without it. Great item.

Garmin has a learning curve. Weeks later and still trying to work through it.

Our grandson requested this watch after his graduation from pilot school and he's loving it. Not really heavy & it looks nice, quality looks good.

I'll start by saying I am a pilot, which is the audience this watch is intended for. However, I'll next say that I barely use any of the aviation-centric features of this watch. And I kind of figured that going in.The aviation features are the main selling point of the watch; without them, it's a fairly basic smartwatch, without a GPS map, a large collection of watch faces, or many apps that aren't fitness-related.So why did I buy it? Well... it is actually one of the cheaper smartwatches out there, it will sync with an iPhone *or* Android (if you have an iPhone, your choices are mainly Apple or Garmin smartwatches), it changes time zones automatically, and IT'S ROUND.It's probably smarter if you're an iPhone user to just get an Apple Watch. There are certain things you can do on an Apple Watch that you can't even on a Garmin, like replying to texts via your watch, for example.But I just hate the styling of the Apple Watch. It's ugly. I'd buy almost anything else if there was a choice. So, given that I thought I *might* also occasionally use the aviation features, I picked up a D2 Air X10.I've owned Android smartwatches before (which don't sync with the iPhone), back when I had an Android phone. I've always been kind of underwhelmed and slightly disappointed, so I'm used to that and set my expectations accordingly for this watch.And it met those lowered expectations. Battery life is probably good for a smartwatch, but it's bad for a watch in general. I get about a day and a half with the screen set to always on (sorry, what good is having a watch if the time isn't always displayed?). Depending on the watch face, it does dim the screen when set to always-on unless you flick your wrist, to save on battery. That wrist flick detection, though, is super inconsistent. Sometimes it'll go max brightness just moving around while I'm asleep (which wakes me up), while other times I will need to consciously yank my wrist around even while awake. And then it might work the third time I do that.If you do go into battery saver mode (I think this is at 20% by default, which you can change), it'll actually work for quite a long time, but its functions are limited. I've had this happen a few times and it can last for days on that final 20%. But it won't use any network features and its screen is totally off, then just barely readable when you wake it up. It's barely functional in this mode, but it will at least tell the time.It does not wirelessly charge and in fact the charging cable it comes with is kind of a joke. It plugs straight into the back, so that there's really no way to place the watch down except on its side (if you can manage to balance it that way) or totally on its face. It's dumb. You can buy third party stand chargers that mitigate this, but it's a little fiddly getting it plugged in to those. It's not a very elegant charging solution.There are a couple of Garmin apps that you can use to both install apps/watch faces and to track your activity. These actually work reasonably well. The activity tracking seems fairly accurate, including sleep tracking, although you have to tell it when you're normally going to be asleep - it doesn't detect it automatically (my TicWatch Pro would do this, but I guess even the Apple Watch does not, so this isn't unique to Garmin).Garmin watches are mostly *really* about fitness and activity tracking, so even though this is an aviation-oriented watch, almost all the apps you can download, as well as most of the watch faces, are fitness-focused. It feels like a fitness watch with some aviation stuff tacked on. The watch faces are mostly pretty flat and uninspired; they don't have the depth of some of the Apple Watch faces I've seen. That said, you can get some free watch faces with quite a lot of info on them if you want that.As for the aviation stuff, the watch will track your flight hours automatically if you set it to do that, and you can then sync it up with Garmin Pilot. You can also set up a favorite airport for a continuously updated METAR, you can enter a "direct to" while flying that will show you a heading to fly (I guess this is for if you're having a really bad day and you lose electrical power in your airplane), you can show UTC time, and I'm sure there's a lot more.It does have an altimeter, which many smartwaches do not, and that is a plus. If you're flying GA, it can make a half-decent backup instrument (provided you actually enter the pressure setting, which you still have to do just like in your airplane). It doesn't really work in an airliner, obviously, because the cabin is pressurized. But this would also be good for something like a bicyclist in the mountains, combined with the pulse oximeter.It does have a pulse-ox function, which again, not all smartwatches do. This is actually quite important for GA pilots - if you don't carry around a real pulse oximeter (you probably should!), then you should at least have a smartwatch that'll do that. Smartwatches in general are not as accurate as a real pulse oximeter is, but I did test this watch against two pulse oximeters, one of which is the same one my wife, who is an RN, uses at her job. When used *correctly*, this watch was within 2% of that unit. You do really have to make sure you have the watch positioned up near the top of your wrist, and tight against it, for this measurement to be accurate. If you are actually hypoxic, that alone might be a challenge to remember. Carry a real pulse oximeter too just in case!It's mostly all GA-oriented and I think you'd only really get the most out of it if you use Garmin Pilot. I do use the "night flight" mode a lot when I'm flying at night, which just dims everything without changing anything else. And I use the multi-time zone app occasionally, although I more just appreciate that it changes time zones automatically, which my mechanical watches obviously don't. I got really sick of doing that every single flight.The watch is surprisingly light (way lighter than a normal mechanical/automatic watch) and while it looks like it would be a scratch magnet, mine actually still looks new after probably six months or more of use. And I've definitely banged it around. So it seems better built than it feels.Overall, not bad and for me, just having automatic time zones is worth it. But if not for that, I still think smartwatches in general are not really an essential purchase for most people. If you're dead set on getting one, this one isn't the worst you could buy, but there's probably better for both Android and iPhone. I just absolutely could not, and cannot, abide by the styling of the Apple Watch. If you're a pilot flying general aviation, then there may be some things you'd consider useful here, especially if you're a Garmin Pilot user.

Found some substantially less expensive watches, that would do enough to satisfy me. But after some investigation found that the customer service for those was outright BAD. This watch does so much more, and works great. And Garmin customer service very active and responsive.

Used in on 2 different flights it is awesome!

The screen developed a hairline crack within the first few days of wearing it. I’ve worn watches of all styles for 12 years. Plenty of marks, scuffs, rubs with daily use… never once has the screen cracked, especially in the first 3 days.The aviation features are cool to see, but they add nothing already available from your iPad, phone, or GPS. I’ve flown 61/135/121/141 and I honestly can’t ever seeing the aviation features being useful in a meaningful way. No, not even in an emergency. It’s just a well designed gimmick.I also bought it for the golf course features, but it was often incorrect about the distance to the pin by more than 25 yards and had the wrong fairway layouts. This was on a PGA tour course.I did really like the ability to leave your phone at home and download music onto the watch while running, but I’ll get a more resilient watch to do that.