13
votes
Is there a GPS watch that does not have any wireless radios?
I’m looking for a device that can track runs, whether it’s a watch or small device, which just exports raw GPS data via USB. I don’t want it to have Bluetooth, and it’s not enough to be able to disable it, I would just like it to not have any wireless radios whatsoever. Have you guys ever seen anything like this? I feel like it doesn’t exist on the market.
After a quick google I found this article which seems to have 2 bluetoothless GPS watches:
The 'Soleus GPS Sole' and 'Timex Ironman GPS', which both appear to only have USB connectivity.
Wow that’s great, thank you. I might splurge for that timex one eventually. It looks like it does exactly what I need.
I've got Garmin Forerunner 10. It's not the newest, but it's exactly what you're looking for - tracks the runs using GPS, and after that you plug it into your computer, it's displayed as a removable drive, with which you can freely manage the saved tracks. They are saved in some Garmin's proprietary format, but gpsbabel handles them just fine - so probably there are also more user friendly applications. So not only you don't need any wireless to handle it, you don't need any proprietary software either.
That’s awesome thanks! Do you have a particular desktop program that you use to organize or view your gps routes?
Not desktop, but I've found NextCloud's GpxPod is great for that
Sadly I don't think you'll find much luck. That entire market is driven my miniaturisation from the smartphone boom, which has involved a lot of feature cramming. Anything small enough to go on a wrist is going to have some range of wireless connectivity on the same chip I bet.
If you really do find nothing and start to get desperate, you could start looking into the ifixit/whatever repair forums to see if any look particularly "hardy" and might survive you taking a blunt stab at it with the soldering iron (there's no realistic way to be accurate and DIY). Who knows, maybe the firmware wont care or maybe it'll brick it.