ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Coros Nomad is available now in Green, Brown, and Dark Grey for $349.
- It’s built to withstand the elements with detailed metrics and focused journal utilities for fishing.
- There is no speaker to playback voice notes, no solar charging, and no LED flashlight to see in the dark.
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I’ve had the opportunity to test a lot of smartwatches, but it’s still tough to find one watch that covers all the bases. I find myself always looking to the next one to fill the gaps.
With every new model, brands shoot for unique features to help them stand out from the pack. Well, it looks like rugged brand Coros has been following my adventures in fly fishing over the past seven years with the Coros Nomad, a stylish device with some unique features for people who like to fish.
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Like the Garmin Instinct line of watches, the Coros Nomad takes some design cues from Casio’s G-Shock with a chunky plastic body and large external buttons. It particularly resembles the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar that’s $100 more and supports solar charging, but its monochrome display pales in comparison to the higher resolution color screen on the Coros Nomad.
The Coros Nomad is a durable watch that can handle the elements while weighing only 49 grams. It has a waterproof rating up to 50 meters, hardened mineral glass display, operating temperature from -4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and dual microphones for voice notes that convert to text in the Coros app.
The Nomad offers an enhanced experience that’s conducive to documenting your adventures with voice notes, pictures, videos, and route details. The new Adventure Journal feature is particularly appealing for my fly fishing outings because I like to document where in the rivers I land the fish, what time of year I was successful, and be able to share those experiences with family and friends.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
My main motivation for fly fishing is to escape from the office and spend time standing in cold river water as I swing my dry fly to and fro. I often capture photos of the fish I land before releasing them back into the water and love the challenge of reading the river and discovering hot spots for fish. With the Adventure Journal feature, I can now see the photos synced to my outing with the ability to easily share the data.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
As an example of the optimization Coros provides for some of these unique activities, let’s take a closer look at the fly fishing activity. Coros added a new hardware button to the Nomad called the Action button, positioned on the lower left of the watch. This is programmable within activities and is not currently functional at any other time while using the watch. You can select to add a new pin or switch from the map page to another activity data page.
Some of the customizable data fields for Shore Fly Fishing include casts and catches so you can keep track of how many times you swing your fly rod and release the line into the river. With an easy press of the top right button you can log a catch after landing your fish.
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Personally, I would love to see a hands-free way to log a catch since I am often quite busy handling my rod, the net, the fish, and my camera. It is nice to have the ability to log a catch after the release though, and helps plot out the outing for sharing and future planning. All of the other typical metrics for activities are supported, including heart rate, distance covered, weather conditions, and more.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
While fishing is a focus for the Coros Nomad, it’s also a complete sports watch with full support for accurate GPS tracking of your running, hiking, climbing, swimming, and more. It offers offline maps for phone-free navigation, and even includes street names, points of interest, and alerts you if you wander off of the route. The MIP color display helps with navigation through color differentiation of roads, trails, and highways.
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Similar to Garmin watches, Coros provides you with the option to select from a broad range of widgets that can be accessed by swiping down from the main watch face. Details within each widget are available when you scroll down and then select the widget using the digital dial button or your finger on the touchscreen.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
The toolbox menu can also be extremely useful since it can be accessed at any time by long pressing the back/lap button on the lower right side of the Nomad. The ability to launch control of an Insta360 or GoPro camera can be very helpful when you are fishing or performing another activity and want quick access to your camera.
Matthew Miller/ZDNET
One critique I have is the lack of an LED light on the watch. An outdoor adventure watch like this is a perfect platform for such a feature, and I hope to see it on a future Nomad or Vertix watch from Coros.
For now, I will continue to use the Nomad for fly fishing and hope to land some large cutthroat trout on the Yakima this fall so I can share 3D flyovers, voice notes, pictures, videos, and my route with friends. My hope is that this form of storytelling may inspire others to try out these types of outdoor adventures.
ZDNET’s buying advice
I’ve used the Fish activity on Garmin watches in the past, and it’s been handy for logging catches and location tagging the catch, but that’s where the experience ends. Now, with the Coros Nomad and Adventure Journal function I can create a complete story of my outdoor activities to easily share with friends in an engaging way.
The Coros Nomad is a comfortable, affordable, and reliable sports watch I highly recommend to anyone who loves to fish, but it’s also a solid smartwatch for athletes and anyone who wants access to fitness metrics.
