Garmin’s Enduro ultraperformance multisport watch has become the first GPS-enabled watch authorized by Adventure Race.
An Adventure Race is a multisport orienteering competition held on extremely rigorous terrain. When a user sets the watch for the Adventure Racing activity, location information is recorded but unavailable for racers to view during the event. Because Adventure Racing and orienteering competitions do not allow GPS navigation, users are not able to view GPS-based data fields, but they can still record a log of their track.
With Garmin Enduro, competitors can monitor and record biometric data like heart rate and will be able to use other functions of the watch like altimeter, compass, alarms, and timers. A verification page shows when the activity began and ended, allowing competitors to prove to an official that GPS navigation was disabled during the race.
Perhaps this will be a trend among device manufacturers, allowing the sport of ARDF to permit the Enduro and similar devices without violating ARDF’s requirement for competitors to rely only on their personal map-and-compass navigation skills.