Casio G-Shock H5600 Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

The Casio G-Shock DW-H5600 is without doubt one of the greatest hybrid smartwatches Casio has constructed, however even then it nonetheless has work to do on the {hardware} and software program entrance to make it a very worthy purchase.

Introduction

The Casio G-Shock DW-H5600 sees Casio take one in every of its most iconic G-Shock watches and pack it with the form of related smarts to attraction to health followers who wish to observe train and metrics like coronary heart price. 

It’s one other Casio watch that advantages from the watchmaker’s new partnership with sports activities watch model Polar, providing the form of coaching and restoration insights the Finnish outfit presents on watches just like the Polar Pacer Professional and its Vantage sequence.

This isn’t the primary Casio and Polar collab and sure gained’t be the final, so has the union of an iconic watch with one of many large sports activities watch gamers paid off? Right here’s my take.

Design and display

• Is available in 5 completely different variations
• Makes use of reminiscence in pixel show
• Waterproof as much as 200 metres

The Casio G-Shock DW-H5600 is about sticking as near the design of the non-smart 5600 G-Shock watch and at first look, Casio’s executed a very good job on that entrance.

There’s 5 completely different variations accessible together with a mannequin (the DW-5600EX), which presents interchangeable bezels and bands. I had the all-grey H5600-1 mannequin to check with its design-dominating resin band and shock resistant case that weighs 59g, measures in with a 51mm-sized case and is 17.4mm thick. So it’s not as mild or as slim as your typical 5600 G-Shock.

There are 4, fairly stiff-feeling bodily buttons in complete with the one up within the top-right to activate the backlight and the one within the bottom-right to scroll by means of menu screens.

Housed within the gorgeous sizable bezel is a reminiscence pixel LCD show, which has similarities display know-how utilized by Polar and Garmin on a lot of their watches.

There’s no splash of color and the show does really feel a bit on the small aspect, particularly while you see how a lot house is soaked up by the bezel and that acquainted protecting hole guard. Display visibility on the entire has been high-quality, notably in brighter outside mild the place reminiscence in pixel shows actually excel.

Across the again is an optical coronary heart price sensor, which presents steady coronary heart price readings and monitoring throughout train. It additionally powers lots of the onboard Polar insights like Cardio Standing, Cardio Load and Nightly Recharge measurements. That optical sensor setup additionally presents blood oxygen measurements.

Together with that shock resistant design Casio has made the H5600 secure for swimming as much as 200 metres depth and even finds room for a Powerful Photo voltaic function, which provides you the addition of photo voltaic charging to spice up issues on the battery entrance.

You’ll want to make use of a proprietary charging cable to energy it up and I can’t say the garments peg-style cable is up there with one in every of my favorite charging cables, which I’ll get into extra later.

General it has a pleasant G-Shock allure to it and whereas not as mild and svelte as the usual model, it’s been comfy to put on, seems like a pleasant regular G-Shock and whereas I’d positively like a bigger display, it’s no less than an excellent high quality one.

Options and efficiency 

• Makes use of new Casio Watches cellphone app
• Works with Android and iOS
• View notifications and discover my cellphone mode included

Casio has ditched the G-Shock Transfer app, which it launched for its earlier hybrid smartwatch efforts, for a brand new Casio Watches app the place you’ll be able to view issues like exercise monitoring knowledge, change watch faces and tinker with settings for coronary heart price and notifications.

The watch software program is a proprietary working system and tries to make the perfect of that small-ish display property. The highest bodily button will get you into the exercise monitoring mode, whereas the one beneath enables you to see menus for parts like notifications, establishing timers and utilizing the stopwatch and accessing options just like the Almanac mode to see dawn and sundown instances. There’s additionally a Life Log display to see your every day exercise stats.

And not using a touchscreen you’re left with some fairly stiff bodily buttons to slowly scroll by means of menu screens, which might make making an attempt utilizing this watch time an arduous course of to try to see one thing apart from the time.

Notification help must be enabled within the companion cellphone app or the watch settings, the place you’ll be able to select for these notifications to be displayed on a part of the display or the complete display – you’ll positively wish to do the latter. For longer notifications you’ll have to press the stiff Mode button to scroll by means of them.

There’s simply three watch faces to select from, however you do have the flexibility to customize that watch face to show extra info, although that may solely be one extra piece of information.

There’s no app storefront, funds or music options like full-fat smartwatches, so what you’re actually going to make use of it for is notifications, that are fairly properly optimised to the show, however would profit from extra display house to unfold out on.

Pairing and syncing the watch to the app could be a contact irritating and inconsistent at instances. I additionally had a software program replace problem the place it brought about one of many buttons to cease working, which was resolved after I may lastly efficiently replace the watch.

Health and well being monitoring 

• Inconsistent train coronary heart price readings
• Busy presentation of information in app
• Related GPS points

Casio has pitched this as a watch you can observe train, identical to you’ll on a regular sports activities watch, and still have one thing in your wrist that may observe steps and sleep. It additionally presents a number of the coaching and sleep evaluation software program options from Polar’s watches to supply extra insights into your coaching and make it one thing that may higher perceive how a lot pressure you’re placing in your physique and whether or not you’re giving it sufficient time to recuperate from coaching.

There’s three core sports activities modes masking working, strolling and health club exercises. The primary two provide seize metrics like distance, tempo, velocity and time and coronary heart price. From the watch these are captured utilizing an accelerometer sensor. You can too join the watch to the app to make use of your cellphone’s GPS to enhance accuracy. The health club exercise mode captures coronary heart price and energy burned.

So far as the strolling and working modes are involved, utilizing the accelerometer-based monitoring unsurprisingly yields unreliable outcomes. A 10km race I used it for was clocked in at 9.33km. My makes an attempt to enhance accuracy utilizing the related GPS choice proved fruitless, regardless of enabling it within the companion app. It simply by no means appeared to work for me. Viewing these real-time metrics on the transfer is tough going as properly, and as soon as once more the scale of the display actually counts towards it on this situation.

From a coronary heart price monitoring perspective, even for a gradual paced exercise, common coronary heart price readings tended to match as much as a Garmin HRM-Professional Plus chest strap, however most readings have been all the time larger – at instances, 10 bpm larger than a chest strap.

Then we get into these Polar-powered options, which cowl Working Index to provide you a prediction of race efficiency, which is reliant on utilizing the related GPS. There’s additionally Cardio Load to higher perceive the pressure you place in your physique throughout coaching in your cardiovascular system, an Vitality Sources display to grasp the power supply drawn upon throughout exercises and there’s Cardio Load Standing to principally inform you whether or not you’re on high of your coaching otherwise you is perhaps overdoing it.

From the watch you’ll be able to see the Cardio Load Standing, which is predicated on coronary heart price and length of exercises tracked. So on an extended, 1hr and 30 minute run it indicated that our Cardio Load was excessive, but on a tricky 10km race it was medium. I by no means managed to get a Working Index rating due to my struggles to get the related GPS to work whereas it’s onerous to wholly belief the Vitality Used knowledge, which is a closely heart-rate fuelled perception primarily based on normal train coronary heart price knowledge recorded.

As an exercise tracker Casio tracks every day steps, energy burned, coronary heart price ranges and likewise pulls in Polar’s Nightly Recharge measurements, together with a breakdown of sleep phases and sleep length. You can too seize on the spot blood oxygen measurements, however I discovered capturing these measurements an inconsistent course of. There’s additionally room for some respiration workouts if you want to discover a second of calm throughout your day.

For every day step counts, it tended to be inside 700-800 steps of Garmin’s step monitoring and nearer in every day counts to the Oura Ring Gen 3’s step monitoring. When it’s time to go to mattress, the sleep monitoring fared fairly properly basically. On a day I’d executed a future and headed to a competition later within the day, my sleep was brief and the Casio captured comparable sleep length and comparable sleep stage breakdowns to the dependable sleep monitoring on the Oura Ring Gen 3.

The Nightly Recharge measurements, which takes coronary heart price tracked in a single day into consideration, understandably knowledgeable me that my restoration was compromised, but recommended it might nonetheless be an excellent day for coaching. I used to be extraordinarily drained the subsequent day, so this felt like a lower than useful piece of recommendation.

There’s some good and unhealthy right here so far as what the DW-H5600 presents in sports activities monitoring and health monitoring options, however it doesn’t do a ok job of both to actually make me think about swapping it for different health trackers and sports activities watches that may do a greater job.

Battery life 

• As much as 35 hours battery life with exercise monitoring in use
• Energy saving mode included
• Awkward charging cable

Casio expresses battery life in an fascinating means. It suggests you’ll be able to rise up to 35 hours when utilizing exercise monitoring options like coronary heart price. Should you stick to look at mode with out coronary heart price it may go for 1 month. 

There may be additionally a power-saving mode, which restricts the usage of the entire smartwatch options and leaves you simply with the flexibility to look on the time and that may definitely get you longer. 

In my testing, I discovered the battery lasted round 2-3 days and that’s with steady coronary heart price monitoring and notifications enabled with exercise monitoring modes used frequently. There’s no strategy to show battery standing as a proportion, so that you’ll simply be capable of see on the principle watch display if it’s excessive or will provide you with a warning when it’s low. 

There’s no actual sense of the photo voltaic charging capabilities supported right here both, and primarily based on my few days of battery life between prices, you want to be uncovered to an entire lot extra daylight to make it a worthwhile function to have.

In terms of charging I may hand out an award for probably the most irritating charging cables I’ve had to make use of on a smartwatch. The clip-style design appears like the proper fashion of cable to make use of, however it was a irritating course of getting the cable to take a seat accurately on the again of the watch each time I needed to cost it.

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