Garmin D2 Mach 1 First Look: Is It Worth the Cash? 

Does the battery actually have a 7 day life? Is it 7 days with the watch sleeping or 7 days with actual normal use?

Thanks Antoine. I replaced my Fenix 7 with this and love having all the same functionality with the added aviation features. Plus the batter last way longer than my Fenix 7.

@@DozenDuzit the battery last longer than Fenix 7?! With always on display?..

Thank you

How is the battery? With always on display?

@@grandpremierexpress7941 Why would anyone leave it always on? You turn your wrist to look at it, and it comes on. Battery-wise, this is the longest battery I've ever seen in a watch. That was always a problem with Garmin Watches. To me, the only negative is the charger cable. It's horrible. At this price point it should be wireless charging.

@@dh-flies second that opinion. The battery life is pretty good, it promises 11 days and it (mostly) keeps it if you are using the regular watch functions. The charging cable for that price tag though >.< But I'd buy it again if I could go back, so ... :P

Shack! Exactly. Hope you like it.

Honestly I’m not sure. You would have to reach out to Garmin for that question. I loaded mine for where I live. I imagine Garmin has the database because of their pilot app, but don’t know if it integrates to the watch.

From my previous experience with D2s, traveling internationally, everything should work except for the Nexrad.

I found the pulse oxymeter is not very accurate. Mine is off by at least 5-10% compared to medical grade equipment. (E.g. the watch would report 92% when at literally the same moment my doctor would measure 99%) And I don't think you can couple automatic measurement with the altitude alert. However, you can definitely set it to measure non-stop (I think it pulls the value once per minute?) and I also think you can add an alert for a specific value, if I am not mistaken. That said, I'd not be too surprised if you could not rely on it measuring correctly or at all if you set it up like that, because you have keep very still and it has to be exactly on your wrist bone to function.

I think this is the best pilot watch on the market right now, so yes. Depending on the budget though, the D2 Air X10 is also a great watch for a lot less. The Mach 1 is definitely the premiere watch though.

For everything that requires a sync via an internet connection, you need the garmin connect app (maybe also works with Garmin Pilot, idk). GPS and compass seem to work fine without any connection. Not sure about the maps in general. It seems to have a cache or maybe it has the maps downloaded, because I can also access them when not connected.

I believe it needs Garmin Connect to sync the data (at least it won't fetch any values if I disconnect it from my phone or stop the app). You can set it to fetch the nearest station for weather info, to always be current, note though, that this requires a working internet connection on your phone. It is possible to navigate to pretty much all airports and you can add your own waypoints, but I don't think you can track a VOR. If you can, I haven't found that function in mine, yet.

@@StellarMomentsPhotography try the Samsung latest version. Sims are possible in watches. If a smart watch needs to Bluetooth a mobile for functionality, it's burdensome and a waste of one of the units

To my knowledge, No and No

I don’t think it talks to avidyne. The watch doesn’t need a subscription to use its features unless you want to connect it to the garmin pilot app. That app is like foreflight and requires a subscription. I don’t use it yet and the watch has been great to have.

I don't think so, at least I haven't seen any input option for that.

No idea about the brightness, but regarding the data, you need the Garmin Connect app and have your watch paired to it (from my experience, maybe there are other ways, but the watch itself has no internet connection and thus cannot query the data)

Depends what you do. If you use the navigation or other active features a lot, it's short (few days) or even very short (couple of hours), if you just use it as a watch and some of the less energy intensive functions (like pulse tracking) it's ~11 days.

Gig ‘em! 👍🏼

You can set it to always on, but I'd not recommend that - uses way to much battery ^^

Interesting perspective. Yeah definitely a different business model than Apple, but totally different products as well. For me, the D2 Air X10 is a great aviation watch for the money. Tons of great features for a good price in the market. The Mach 1 is really a premium version with features and materials to match. If you bought the Garmin epix 2, I’m surprised you didn’t consider the air X10 if you’re a pilot. Hope you enjoy the Epix 2 though!

@@DozenDuzit moving maps. That was the down side of the x10. Really liked it and the Venu series are great watches, but the lack of maps was the killer for me. I ordered the epix 2 before they announced the D2 Mach 1. Now you have me debating getting this one instead.

That's my biggest issue with Garmin. Instead of having a hand full of devices with different (hardware) features on the market, that get updates over a few years, they now throw out a slightly different model every few months which is basically the same hardware in a different case with more or less software features locked away. And while you could change firmwares on older models and thus turn your Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta, they started to encrypt the firmware files so you can't do that with newer models.

Did you handle your epix2 about integrating the aviation? Epix2 is cheaper and more durable for the other sports than mach1 as I know. What about loading maps and finding gps Duzit? what about the mountaineering flight performance to monitor density altitude if you perform?

Yeah. It’s definitely thief top of the line. The D2 Air X10 is a more budget friendly smart pilots watch.

Well, it is the same price range as the D2 Delta’s. And they are really robust, and the battery life is just incredible! I am just not sure if it has a O2 sensor?

why

@@scottwillson5562 why not?

There is a surgery where u can do it :D. As far as i know,all human beings have blue color but most are coated with some medical term that i cannot pronounce. So there is a surgery to remove that coat away. Pretty interesting if you read about it

Your right about that. In fighters, many of us set a cabin pressure altitude warning on watches with this feature (i.e. 12,000). Then when the cabin goes above that, we get a little buzz on our watch giving us the SA we need. It’s a great safety backup to the tiny gauge normally buried in the bottom right of the panel on most fighters.

Hahaha yes! It was such an annoying transition! I’ll fix in the future.

The case is fiber-reinforced polymer, the bezel and back plates are titanium. Fiber-reinforced polymer is basically what guns are made of. EXTREMELY reinforced plastics. It's a premium watch no matter how you look at it. It's made of very high quality material. Material that will last you for years unless you use your watches like a damn hammer.

@@StellarMomentsPhotography No gun barrel or slide assembly is made of anything but METAL, steel for the barrel and/or aluminum for the slide. Glocks and other similar "frames" are COATED in polymer but also rely on STEEL reinforcement underneath all the polymer in the important areas of stress. My previous career path of first responder was VERY hard on watches. Remember the polymer Casio watches? They failed at the band-pin slot 100% of the time. You can call this watch premium but it's NOTHING as premium as Citizen Titanium watches. When Garmin gets to that point, they'll have reached a significant milestone. Also battery life is laughably bad on this D2. I bought the Enduro 2 since it's battery life is about 3 weeks between charging instead of the D2's 1 week. I like the features of mine but I'll be surprised if it's working reliably in a couple years. We'll see.

@@turbohawk I know the barrel & slide are made of metal. What I'm talking about is the frame. The frame is a polymer based material. The "frame" on these watches are also polymer based, meaning, it's very tough. You're comparing an Enduro 2 (I've owned one also) that uses a memory in pixel display to an AMOLED display... of course the battery lasts way longer. Also the Enduro is way bulkier than the D2, giving more room for a larger battery.

@@StellarMomentsPhotography D2 and Enduro 2 are ALMOST identical frames (2.5mm larger Enduro 2 got out the micrometer), different displays, same sensor package yes solar on the Enduro 2 which is why I use it most. I own them both. I've got them both on my arm right now. Hard to visually see any size difference(but the D2 is slightly smaller). The D2 goes up with me. In any case The frames on these watches are NOT reinforced with METAL in the important part: the PIN bases! That's why I mention the Casio flaw. You might not be old enough to have witnessed the Casio's digital watch dominance era. lol Your statement about the guns left out the important detail. Even the magazines are STEEL with a polymer coating...

@@turbohawk I got your point. Since you own both, should I upgrade from my current fenix 7 to a D2? Is the screen and flight features worth the upgrade in your opinion? I'm not worried about cost, but would like to not worry about charging my watch more than once a week. I jog a lot and only fly about twice a week.