The Casio PRO TREK WSD-F20 is a great rugged smartwatch option for outdoorsy types.
Smartwatches running Google Wear OS are becoming more and more prevalent, with big designer brands even jumping on the smartwatch bandwagon. That makes it extra challenging to come out with a unique smartwatch, but Casio’s WSD-F20 PRO TREK SMART Outdoor Watch manages to do just that by offering a Google Wear OS powered smartwatch that is designed specifically for outdoorsy types. To that effect, the extremely durable WSD-F20 PRO TREK SMART Outdoor Watch has been engineered for hiking, skiing, surfing, sailing, fishing, golfing, and other outdoor sports.
Design-wise, the WSD-F20 PRO TREK SMART Outdoor Watch resembles Casio’s other rugged Pro Trek watches. The watch features a soft black urethane band and buckle, button guards, a protective bezel, three large side buttons, and a stainless steel back that is complemented by a 1.32-inch dual-layer LCD touchscreen display. Casio (and G-Shock) are no strangers to making bulky rugged watches, so it should come as no surprise that this watch is probably too big for those with a petite wrist. When it comes to durability, the watch is water resistant up to 50 meters and meets the military standard for 810G durability.
The dual-layer color LCD touchscreen display isn’t the brightest or the best that you’ll find on a smartwatch nowadays, but it does have a neat trick – you can switch off the main color display and revert to a low-power monochrome screen for when you’re running low on battery life.
The watch features an air-pressure sensor, accelerometer, pyrometer and magnetic compass. Of course, the watch also offers all of the features we’ve come to expect with Google Wear OS, but it’s really the Rangefinder app that unlocks the PRO TREK’s most unique features.
To that effect, while smartwatches are super handy to have, Casio realized that many outdoor sports activities take place in areas with no cellular reception. This is where the WSD-F20 PRO TREK shines and offers a very unique premise – it’s able to provide full-color maps with navigation – even while being offline. That said, you’ll need to download the maps via the Rangefinder app ahead of your activity.
We took the watch hiking with us and were super impressed with how it guided us, step by step, along our hiking path. It didn’t matter that at certain points in our path we had no cellular signal, because the watch was still able to keep us on our path with the offline maps. The watch will even alert you if you stray too far off from your path. This can be literally a life-saving feature in certain situations.
Unfortunately, the Rangefinder app only works on Android, so iOS users are out of luck. That said, iOS users can still take advantage of the watch’s rugged design and most of its other Google Wear OS smartwatch features. In addition to the Rangefinder app, Casio has worked with other app companies to feature certain outdoor-activity driven apps.
Battery life for the PRO TREK WSD-F20A is on par with what we’d expect with a Google Wear OS smartwatch. You can get about two to two and a half days of moderate use from it, or one to one and a half days of active use with GPS turned on.
Bottom Line
The Casio PRO TREK WSD-F20A might not have the fastest smartwatch CPU under its hood, nor does it have the best smartwatch display, but it makes up for that with its superb ruggedness and useful offline mapping features.
Casio’s PRO TREK WSD-F20A Smart Outdoor Watch retails for $399. That is a bit more than some other competing Google Wear OS powered smartwatches out there, but you’ll be hard pressed to find one this rugged and one that comes with such neat offline GPS features.