While most high-end GPS sports watches now come with basic notifications, they remain a far cry from a full-fledged smartwatch. Simply put, there’s a big difference in what a Samsung Gear S3 does compared to a Suunto or Garmin wristpiece. The Nixon Mission looks to be an attempt to bridge that gap.
A full-fledged sports watch, it comes with built-in GPS and activity tracking, so you can use it to track your runs and workouts, complete with full location data. It’s also designed to handle extreme sports, with 10 ATM of water resistance, a shock-resistant case, a heavy-duty crystal made from Corning Gorilla Glass, and a stainless steel roll cage bezel, ensuring you can keep it strapped whether you’re surfing on the ocean, snowboarding on powder, or riding a mountain bike downhill.
Unlike traditional GPS sports watches, the Nixon Mission comes with Android Wear, making it a full-fledged smartwatch, too. That means, it can display any notification you want to keep track of, accept voice commands, play offline music, provide turn-by-turn navigation, access Google Now’s intuitive notifications, and, with the upcoming Wear 2.0 update (yes, this watch will get it), even run standalone apps. Nixon has an exclusive app, by the way, that can display surf and snow data in real time, making it doubly handy for anyone who surfs, skis, or snowboards. It comes with a 48mm case, so this is a big watch, with 12 options in bezel finishes and 24 options in silicone band colorways.
Slated for availability in October, the Nixon Mission is priced at $400.