Garmin Tactix 7 AMOLED is ready for night manoeuvres
Latest smartwatch update also adds night vision-friendly features
James Bond might argue a Rolex or Omega makes a perfect watch for spying – but all that wrist bling is guaranteed to give your position away once you’re caught in a supervillain’s searchlights. That’s not a problem for the latest Garmin Tactix smartwatch, which adds an ultra-dim mode to its expansive OLED screen. The Garmin Tactix 7 AMOLED Edition also promises to preserve your night vision with its field-ready features.
Designed as a tactical alternative to Garmin’s more mainstream Epix and Felix smartwatches, the Tactix 7 has until now only shipped with a transflective LCD touchscreen. This latest version (buy now from Garmin) adds AMOLED into the mix, promising a more colourful and higher resolution readout that’s easily visible in sunlight, but can dim down as low as one nit when stealth is called for.
A Red Shift mode also changes the entire interface from full colour to shades of red, blocking out the colours of light that make your pupils constrict. A quick glance won’t then dent your night vision. There’s even a dimmable green flashlight built into the watch body, which does the same thing while illuminating the area in front of your wrist.
Like the regular Tactix, the AMOLED Edition is 10ATM water resistant and MIL-STD-810-rated for shocks, drops and extreme temperatures. The titanium watch bezel has a diamond-like coating, the lens is sapphire glass, and the housing is reinforced polymer, so it should survive torturous conditions (which may or may not include actual torture, depending on your line of work).
It’s just as fitness-focused as the Fenix and Epix watches, with a whole host of health tracking sensors and workout recording modes. Only here there’s also a Stealth mode, which disables wireless communications and location tracking while still monitoring biometric data. Which could be handy for not leaving a digital trail while you’re in hostile territory. That’ll also help stretch battery life to Garmin’s estimated 31 day maximum before it’ll be time for a top-up.
There are also some aviation-specific modes shared with the Marq adventurer watches, including NEXRAD weather radar for checking visibility, barometric pressure and wind speed. Oh, and it can even record HALO parachute jumps, with latitude/longitude displayed prominently so you make your landing zone.
The Garmin Tactix 7 AMOLED is available right now, but you’ll need a secret agent’s salary (or a local division of Q Branch) to strap one on your wrist: it’ll set you back $1400/£1200 directly from Garmin.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor