[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. Today, we're gonna be talking about game changing electronics for backpacking, and they're not going to be what you think. Maybe one of them, but it's not gonna be your phone. I'll just say that. So, if you're new to the podcast, this is the liberal chart podcast. And we're all about getting you on the trail, more comfortably, more confidently, just helping you get out
[00:00:21] Tayson: and do more and build that through confidence, and maybe a little bit of gear. So today, we've got Brigham back on the podcast as well as Tyler and we're just gonna be talking about some game-changing Electronics. One thing I wanted to bring up is that this is this podcast is sponsored by our lives, right membership over there at vitals. So some of the gear will be talking about will be available to
[00:00:47] Tayson: members at their additional discounts and with rebates.
[00:00:50] Tayson: So be aware of that. The membership is awesome and that you guys are loving it. So, Okay, let's just Dive Right In. We've got two Electronics, we're going to be talking about today. Again, not your phone, not a battery bank, or something like that, but two, highly highly useful products. And both of them actually happened to be from Garmin. We're going to talk about the inreach. GPSs. And we're also going to
[00:01:16] Tayson: be talking about watches. The watch side is pretty interesting and it's gonna be, I would just expect you to you're going to want to listen. There's like the watch has changed the game for me this year and it's been something stuff that I didn't know. I didn't know, but we're gonna talk through all of it and go nitty-gritty and talk about use cases in the field. How much they've helped us why
[00:01:41] Tayson: they've helped us and why it's important enough that we're doing a whole podcast about it. So let's start with the Garmin in reach. We've recently, talked about that on a podcast or just talked about the usefulness of it, right? So those of you that don't know the Garmin in reach,
[00:01:56] Tayson: Particularly in the mini is what we're using. Is a three and a half, maybe four ounces GPS device that it's really small lost smaller than a phone or anything like that, and you can just tack it onto your backpack and you're able to Now text wherever you go, as well as do things like tracking. And even a little bit of navigation, I've actually been able to use my Garmin device to pull
[00:02:22] Tayson: location into my phone without having to turn my phone's location on. So, there's some added benefits there, but where you guys want to start with this? Like, what's the, if you're just highlight, maybe a time or place that the government devices has just been a game changer for you? What comes to mind?
[00:02:42] Brigham: um, I mean I, I don't know if I could really narrow down to one time or one place, but I talked about it on the last podcast. You know where it really started becoming important for me to like make the decision to get. One was just, you know, being married for several years and having kids and Always doing most of my backpacking trips or almost any Outdoor Adventure by myself. So, you
[00:03:13] Brigham: know, just feeling the responsibility and kind of the need To. Be more safe and be able to have the ability to communicate with my with my family. so and that that gave my my wife, a lot of peace of mind, you know, not she'd probably still worries, she's just a worrier but knowing for her knowing that she can communicate with me if she needs to but also her knowing that I have
[00:03:44] Brigham: basically you know I have the SOS button in kind of the worst case scenario but you hit just so they didn't
[00:03:52] Tayson: get none of us have ever had to be really
[00:03:55] Brigham: hardly hit that you have. go through a process, but Yeah. It that was it for me.
[00:04:04] Tayson: I can think of a scenario. I mean obviously I agree 100% with that. In fact, tomorrow night, there's good possibility. I'll be going out and doing a solo backpacking trip in some crazy cold temperatures and that brings a lot of peace of mind, right? I'm pretty dang. Sure. I won't have cell phone service warranty on going. I'll be Solo in like 37 degrees below freezing temperatures, right? So pretty extreme situations brings
[00:04:31] Tayson: a lot of peace of mind and just just, it's a level of security that is just nice to have. But Going into the story side of like, when I've most recently used it, I would say was on the Highline trail that we did earlier this summer. We had the whole team out there and one of our team members was suffering from what I now think is elevation sickness, but he was thrown
[00:04:55] Tayson: up getting dehydrated, couldn't he couldn't drink and he needed to get off Trail and we need to basically push the gas pedal down, and get down the trail and we use that in her age, to send a bunch of messages to double and triple confirm locations pickups and so on so forth. And then even I was able to confirm, you know, the next day was he picked up everything good and that,
[00:05:17] Tayson: that would not have been possible whatsoever without that in reach. I mean, we would have all had to stop the trip. Would have all had to leave and try to get away for him to get off the mountain,
[00:05:27] Tayson: just sort of, in the end of that whole Endeavor and it and that would have been the only solution really.
[00:05:35] Tyler: Yeah, so the other side of the value of the inreach for that trip specifically was after he got off the trail, we were in that 12,000 foot high pass and we're trying to decide if we were going to be able to safely, make it over the past and into the next 12th high pass. And so pulling, those weather reports from the inreach was really helpful in our decision-making process and so that
[00:06:04] Tyler: was another side of it. Where it really helped,
[00:06:06] Tayson: I've never pulled weather as much as I did on that tree. If we were just constantly which which in something valuable to know, because I wasn't even sure when I was pulling the weather, like the cost
[00:06:16] Tayson: on pulling. The basic weather report is the cost. The equivalent cost of sending one message. So whatever plan level you're on, there's like three tiers of plans from like a very super basic level, which is what I'm typically on. Sometimes, I'll scale that up to a medium or the highest tier, which the highest tiers then like full of limited. but you know, I think I was on the medium tier, but yeah,
[00:06:38] Tayson: just that's just something interesting to know when you're considering this,
[00:06:41] Brigham: I think I think we need the backup and Start by talking about like what the Garment inreach device is, you know, kind of the stories we've related are harder to understand if people don't understand what the device does. So it's a gps-based. So satellite-based receiver, basically, it's very small, it's like an inch and a half by two and a half inches and it can function as a GPS navigation device. On its
[00:07:14] Brigham: own, although as a very small screen so it's not that useful but I think of it more. As a satellite Communicator that functions on the Iridium Network just the same as a satellite phone does. So anywhere on the globe you are, you can communicate with this device. So the
[00:07:30] Tayson: early been 40 miles from the northern tip of Alaska texting on it, right?
[00:07:37] Brigham: So you can also sync the device via Bluetooth to a cell phone. And that way, you have the access to a larger screen and and things like that. So what else you can do with it, aside from it positioning your, your device on the earth which is what it does, it can send out text messages and receive text messages which you can do on the device itself or through your cell phone,
[00:08:03] Brigham: you know, via Bluetooth, which is it's easier. um and then what the other thing like we talked about, you can pull weather reports from it, you can track your, you can send To pre-designated email addresses. Basically, breadcrumbs of the track that you're on at an interval that you customize, you can tell the device through your account settings, how frequently to send your GPS coordinates, to those pre-designated contacts. That being said, you,
[00:08:39] Brigham: you have an account that's associated with your garment account that you can designate certain contacts and it can also sync to the contacts on your phone, which some of these are. It's really important to understand because it really helps to understand the usefulness as a whole of the product. So as you can send those those coordinates at a pre-designated interval, anytime you want, you can also set up. Preset messages that are
[00:09:14] Brigham: text messages that don't count against your text message quota that you pay for in your subscription. So there's different tiers of subscription. Even the lowest tier has a set number or no, an unlimited number of preset messages that you can send out. If somebody responds that counts as a as an incoming message. But so it's really nice because you can Say with, with my wife I have a preset message that says
[00:09:43] Brigham: checking in all good. Here I have another one that says just got back to the trailhead or just got to camp. And another one says going to bed, I love you. And I don't have, you know, I could, you can set up, you can set them up to be whatever you want. And as long as you the person that you Is on your contacts, that receives those, they understand what the system
[00:10:07] Brigham: is, then the very useful.
[00:10:09] Tayson: You can really get away with doing the cheaper planes with I utilize. Yeah,
[00:10:14] Brigham: that's what I do. I just I use the bare minimum plan which I think is like 10. texts a month, but Maybe. Three months out of the year. I've gone over that quota and it's like three so it's like, you know. All right. Here you're strict program.
[00:10:30] Tayson: I full-on conversations on mine? Yeah, I mean, yeah.
[00:10:34] Brigham: And you know to each their own however you you do it. It's it really is that's I think the great thing about it and then so
[00:10:42] Tayson: what is your cost? What is your cost a month? I think it's
[00:10:44] Tayson: 11, 12 dollars, a month should be about 11 bucks a month on the yearly package. If you do it on a yearly basis versus a monthly, you do have the option to do a monthly and turn on and off. There's a yearly fee with that every, you know, but and and I that's what I did initially. It's called the freedom plan. But after really wing it and how much I was using
[00:11:03] Tayson: it, year-round I switched to the yearly plan. I do the basic one but there are just months where I'm like, all right, I'm Gonna Bump this one out because of this. Yeah,
[00:11:12] Brigham: that's that's a good point. Because you can do that, like, you know, you're going to be travel heavy, you
[00:11:17] Brigham: know, then you bump it up. So you don't worry about paying extra for the text and then one thing I was just gonna say, like I think the kind of the The worst case scenario best feature of the thing is is like the ultimately the ultimate safety. Net is, is the SOS button and like we talked about last podcast, it how it works is. If you hit the SOS button, it sends
[00:11:43] Brigham: out Direct communication to the closest. Authorities rescues. If it's police, whatever it is, whoever is closest in a in a big radius. It hits who's closest first and then it expands that out until there's contact made to the soonest person that can help in a rescue situation or whatever. The response needs to be First Responders is probably the most blanket way to describe that. But and then what it also does is
[00:12:19] Brigham: it notifies, well, one, they will attempt to start communicating with you the user of the device or if you're, you know what I mean? Like, if or if somebody you're with, you know, if you push the button and your totally fine or they're, they're unconscious or Obviously if you're unconscious not going to work, but but they do try to establish contact with the person using the device and then they all contact
[00:12:46] Brigham: pre-designated contacts on your contact list in your account, to communicate with them to notify them. And, and from what I understand, they will also go. Let's try to get as much information about the person in need as
[00:13:01] Brigham: possible. So if it's a spouse, you know, they'll ask questions, do you know What did they tell you? They were going to do, where were they going to go? What was the plan? Did they do they have Gear with them? What's their experience, level? And those are all things that they probably asked the person, you know, pushing the SOS button as well, but I think that is a huge thing. And then
[00:13:24] Brigham: yeah, so so kind of like understanding how all those things work. I think kind of make a lot of help make a lot of sense out of, like, the advantages and to really how it can, Just help or improve the experience. Because you know, like like you said with Brennan on The High Line Trail like that was a that was a logistical application of really like, it wasn't an emergency, like it
[00:13:51] Brigham: wasn't a real emergency. It was, it could be, it could become and that's the nice thing about. It's like we didn't just have to just hit the SOS button and deal with potentially massive charges. Right for Rescue Services but say, I You know, I backpack. Now, I take my girls, you know, and and, and I've taken them by myself. I've taken them where there's been other adults present, but, you know, I'm
[00:14:19] Brigham: very, very confident in and pretty, pretty high, on skill level when it comes to Backcountry stuff. And so, I'm confident in my ability to a very high level of handling, a bad situation with my kids, but that doesn't, there's a ceiling to that, you know what I mean? Like, if you never know Edge that if I am their legs, exactly. I'm five miles into a Wilderness Area where there's very little traffic,
[00:14:46] Brigham: you know, and something happens having that ability to to Get some rest. You help is it's a huge. It's a huge deal.
[00:15:00] Tayson: Yeah, I think we ought to just kind of break down a lot of stuff you just talked about. So going back to the tracking aspect of it, the different tiers tracking can be, tracking is actually free on the medium and high Interiors on the medium tier. You just have to do it like, at a certain interval. So
[00:15:16] Tayson: I haven't used that a tan. I haven't needed to use it a ton. I did use it. When I went to Alaska. We were driving from Fairbanks about 450 miles north, and there is literally one place to even get fuel between there and it's like a it's a shack basically. Like it's there's nothing right. You're just driving north into nothing. And so what we when we got up, you know, way it
[00:15:41] Tayson: well into the Arctic Circle, almost to the northern tip of Alaska. We were getting on another plane and then they're flying as farther out. In the tundra and stuff. And that guy that Outfitter were meeting with was saying, you know, turn on tracking, make sure we're on there. And if we see you, stop, moving for a certain amount of time. We know there's a problem, right? Like, that's a really good application.
[00:16:00] Tayson: So, so we did that, they're getting pinged. Every I don't remember what the frequency was. But and they messaged us at one point. I think we stopped to do some fly fishing. They sent a message saying, hey everything good. Yeah. Okay, you know and keep going, that's a really proactive way and really practice tool. And if you've got, you know, someone who's watching you, that's, you know, more of a warrior than
[00:16:23] Tayson: that, like, is a constant check-in, and you don't have to worry about ever doing anything with it. It just happens automatically, once you set it up. So, that's a really cool feature. It's also cool like sometimes professional athletes will do it for their followers, right? Their followers want to see him go on this trip, or hike or whatever, and the enriches
[00:16:39] Tyler: can kind of do that aspect as well. Another reason that that part is really good is because sometimes, when you're headed into the back country, you may not know Know exactly which grout you're going to take when you're going out there. Like, we have that on Highline, where there was a couple times where there was Forks that, you know, they led to the destination going either direction, but the decision that we
[00:17:03] Tyler: made, in that moment was based on. The snow conditions and the burn conditions from, you know, that's true,
[00:17:10] Tayson: they didn't get to that point but there was gonna be some navigation and off. You know which path did we decide to take of three options to get through a burn? And
[00:17:19] Tyler: yeah, so that's Red Crown part is really helpful there because then The people who are watching can tell which route you took. Yeah. You
[00:17:28] Tyler: know, they kind of understand we're up against. Yep.
[00:17:32] Tayson: Yeah, I like that. You talked a little bit about using it on your phone so and that's something kind of ties into this. I've had the full size one, and I've had the mini, and I actually sold the full size one to get the mini, because The full size one, you can do a little bit more on-screen but it's just so much easier to do it on your smartphone. And the mini
[00:17:53] Tayson: still gives you the ability to to do stuff in a pinch. Right? And so, it was like, well, the only time I remember using the full size, one on its own screen, and own device individually is in a pinch, right? So so I actually sold the full size, one went to the mini. And I've never had any regrets with it, so, but most of the time you are going to be using
[00:18:14] Tayson: it on your phone. The maps you can use the maps on there and navigate that way, the texting and just any other like pulling the weather is going to be a little you know easier on your phone to look at and see tracking you know you can get on your phone and see every time it pinged out while you're tracking. So you will end up using this a lot with your phone.
[00:18:32] Tayson: But you don't have to which is what I like about the mini. I guess my battery was dead on my phone. It doesn't mean I'm sitting dead in the water at all. I can still text, it'll take me longer because I've got two buttons to go through a whole alphabet with but like I can do it. So that's something to note to and then along with that, I want to talk about
[00:18:50] Tayson: battery life. What's been your experience with battery life program?
[00:18:55] Brigham: Well so my contacts is like you pointed out. I'm pretty Frugal with the use of any any Electronics really? Whether it's my phone or my enriched here to get away.
[00:19:04] Brigham: Yeah I do very minimal but my inreach on one chart I've had it. On for four days. Five days on one charge. Yeah. So that's
[00:19:15] Tyler: you turning it off. It's turning it off at night
[00:19:18] Brigham: and sometimes, I'll Turn it off for a period during the middle of the day. But but that is doing you know, at least three preset check-in messages and then everyone's while a little bit of navigation like pulling my phone out and Checking the navigation. So that's, I would say that's probably on the like the the high-end of, like,
[00:19:47] Tayson: I'm realistic. I'm I'm a little bit more of a power user on it. Like, I'm not constant on it, but I leave it on all day and I never cycle it off during the day. I turn it off at night
[00:19:56] Tayson: and I'm sending messages. I'd say on average, like either a preset or a regular message. every two to three hours is That's probably the average but usually it's like clustered, you know, at night time, I'm at Camp, I'll send a couple morning on my send a couple or something along those lines, but and I will, I would have no problem planning on three days of
[00:20:19] Tayson: use. One other thing to note, though, along with the battery life is the other, the bigger garment in reach Not the many. It's about eight ounces. I double the weight and double the size, at least and, but when you need to charge it, you have to realize like, it's a bigger screen. It's a bigger device and it has a bigger battery. So, one thing I've kind of been noticing this year is
[00:20:44] Tayson: just like, if you do need to charge the mini, like, it doesn't drain as much off of your battery Bank either. So it's not, it's not a, it's not a cell phone size battery in there. You know what I mean? And it's still lasting three plus days. So it is and I do think you could definitely get much longer out of it if you're really kind of cycling it on and off
[00:21:02] Tayson: as needed. And, and stuff, I that you could get close to five days. If you're really diligent, if you needed to, but battery life is just always been very, very good with those garment devices. Both both of my energy is both big and small but
[00:21:16] Tyler: the full size, wasn't any more battery than the mini though, right for how many days,
[00:21:21] Tayson: lasted the same amount of time but I think it just takes more to charge it. So yeah.
[00:21:28] Tayson: Ton of usefulness. Talk about the weather reports. I've actually not used the weather reports much and tell this last year. And now I'm like, those are really valuable. And I, I think I thought they were like a lot more money. I thought they were like, Five dollars to pull the weather report or something like that. And so when I realized that it was just the cost of one message, I was like,
[00:21:47] Tayson: dang that is really worthwhile. There's a premium, whether one I did find out this year that that really just doesn't give you any more data. I thought it was going to and I paid for pulling a premium weather report and I would say, just stick with the basics. It basically takes the same exact data and gives it to you every single hour rather than like in four hour increments. And when you're
[00:22:10] Tayson: on the mountain and it's just all generic numbers, anyways like The basic was well worth you know just really wasn't any more data pulled out of the premium but they do have some options there. It's aware of
[00:22:21] Tyler: what's the radius around your location that they pulled the weather for? Like I
[00:22:26] Tayson: I just I think they just do the best they can and in different areas they're going to have more accurate data. So I don't know. I don't think I'm an expert on knowing exactly how they're pulling it, but, you know, it's highlighting it kept saying like 50% chance or something like that, but it was like, 100% chance that sometime in the day, it would be raining or snowing. But like the weather,
[00:22:50] Tayson: you know, so there's maybe a little bit of learning curve to understand that Brigham. Like Brigham says, the best ways. Like if it's a 50% chance, If you're on the Peaks, it's 100% chance. You know what I mean? So, so learning to kind of understand that can be important, but overall, the in reaches are awesome. What are kind of the cons people should be aware of with with them? I mean, we
[00:23:13] Tayson: we're big Fanboys, we use them, but like, what are the negatives? People should just understand. I would say one for me is, you know, typically I'll put it on the outside of my pack so that I can stay more connected and have better ability to stay connected. But like, don't expect this to work like a cell phone, where it's like, instant, send and instant receive like It just doesn't work quite like that. It's
[00:23:34] Tayson: more like, it'll pull every 15 minutes. It'll attempt to pull in a message. You can you can obviously dial that up and down and then when you send a message out, you know, and my experience is like, on most days Clouds and there's stuff like that. And so it typically has to have a pretty good line of sight to to pull in messages or send them out now, not that clouds. Stop
[00:23:58] Tayson: them, but I'm saying like, if I put it in the top of my backpack, like that would probably affect it to where it wouldn't be able to get messages in and out, through the fabric, even so just keeping it line of sight with the sky. That's probably, like, one of the just don't think it works like a cell phone where it's like, instant Send instant. Receipts, going off of increments and intervals
[00:24:18] Tayson: in pulling that into safety battery.
[00:24:21] Tyler: We also, we had a unique situation in a fastpack trip through the Tushar mountains, where casein and Brennan were needing to go a slower Pace than the rest of us who are running the trail. And since we had two in reach Minis on the trail, we split up with fairly comfortable with that, but at the same time, like, I don't know if it was because it was extremely overcast, it was raining
[00:24:46] Tyler: a ton and there was just a ton of whether there but like your messages back and forth were quite delayed?
[00:24:52] Tayson: Well, no, it was actually, I couldn't message him. Because Garmin Vice to Garmin device. You have to message them through a garment email address, rather than I can't, I couldn't message His Garment devices number because like your grandma's device will have its own number. It wouldn't let me said, you're trying to text. Someone who is another Garmin user, you need their garment ID. So
[00:25:17] Tayson: we have to swap our government IDs before, we were able to message back and forth. So that's that's a Nuance that's worth knowing for. Um, oh, one last thing is anytime you send out a message. It will auto tag your location on it. Without you, like, meaning the message that the receiver gets. So if I messaging my wife, she gets that, it'll have a, like, a link or whatever, at the bottom
[00:25:41] Tayson: that she can click and it'll show exactly where I'm at on the map without me doing anything extra. That's definitely another added benefit of it for just kind of keeping those constant tabs. But, yeah,
[00:25:53] Brigham: I mean, if it is, it is an added one more item that you take a charge and half the charge. If you're going to do, if you're going to do multi days. Like, if you're going to do more than three days, I would probably just plan on having the way to charge it. Yeah, you know, because then, what's, what's the point in carrying around? So, yeah, it is one, one to two
[00:26:15] Brigham: more items that you're taking. So, that's a little bit of weight, a little bit of Bolt. You know, and I guess it's not necessarily downside, just something to keep in mind, it's like it. It is a, there is a financial price to it, you know, it's not a son insignificant purchase in my mind, the
[00:26:32] Tayson: people that I've talked to recently that are like getting them, right? Like, a great way that like helps them understand the value of it or extra value of it, because some of them are power users. Like, we are using them every week or every month at a minimum Is like the other benefits of it. Let's say, you leave it in your car, and your car, breaks down where you don't have cell
[00:26:54] Tayson: phone service. Let's say, For me, like my brother, what kind of convinced him to get one is? He's like, he's getting it, but he's looking for uses and he's like, you know, I live next door to our parents. They're always going out on these Jeeping trips and, you know, there's really like doing the Overland stuff and it's like, I can just send it with them and then they can stay connected. And
[00:27:13] Tayson: then we all feel safer about it, right? So there's just there's additional ways to use it other than just backpacking on the trail. So, be aware of it, you know,
[00:27:21] Brigham: for sure. I mean, so, I grew up doing a lot of snowmobile, dealing, like, Backcountry snowmobile billing. And like, Avalanches is just like, it's like number one priority. It's like, Constant Avalanche awareness. And you know, people people in Utah die every year and avalanches and but, you know, if I think back to like when I was in high school and I have helped people. Get out of sinkholes that have had, like
[00:27:48] Brigham: really bad accidents. I've helped injured people, but now like thinking now whereas, like say I was riding with somebody and they got caught in that one. Well, Beacon safety is huge. It's like it's a thing. But that's on that person, you know, I mean, and oftentimes, like when I so granted, this is a long time ago. I'm sure there's People doing this already but it's just an example that I can think
[00:28:14] Brigham: of as like if I'm writing with somebody and they get caught in an avalanche or have a bad wreck and and there's some serious damage. Back then it was you ride back to the trailhead and hope. You can get service or have somebody drive down the canyon 45 minutes to get service to call the ambulance and then now you're two three hours post event that like so just thinking about that as
[00:28:37] Brigham: I were riding with somebody and they had an accident or an avalanche. Yeah, they may punch their Beacon but I'm punching the SOS because I'm, I'm alive, right? And I'm so just, yeah, things like that off-roading, like a lot of backcountry travel, you know, motorized and Stuff like that. Just you
[00:28:57] Tayson: don't want to buy SIM card or pay roaming, you can just use your interviews. I hadn't taken it internationally, I guess. Yeah. But that's a That's a good point.
[00:29:09] Tyler: Some people who they use it that way and it's like, they don't have to do a whole lot of communicating, when they're not on Wi-Fi, you know.
[00:29:18] Tyler: So they'll do Wi-Fi calls. And that's,
[00:29:22] Tayson: that's really interesting. Okay, so we're we're gonna transition onto the next piece. I think will be really. I'm, it's fascinating to me, but just so you guys know, these are now available. We are now retailing. The Garment inreach minis for our liver ultralight members, those who don't know what the liberal tribe membership is. It's a ten dollar a month store, credit membership and they charge you, they will automatically charge you, ten
[00:29:49] Tayson: dollars that instantly loads into your account as store credit. And then you get things, like, 10% off. You get instant rebates on the retail item. So like this carbon in each just gonna have a pretty good rebate on it or whatever. It's trekking goals, or anything else that you retail food is. Honestly, the thing that moves the most, a lot of people look at the membership is like their food fund like
[00:30:09] Tayson: 10 bucks a month that goes into backpacking
[00:30:10] Tayson: food and you cannot buy backpacking food cheaper than through our membership. So that's a good way to look at it too, but just be aware. We do have the enriches on the website, we don't have a massive stock of them and we have to wait a while to get this stock. So if you are interested, you probably want to move quickly on that. Before we dive in the next one, too. Just
[00:30:31] Tayson: wanted to remind you guys that if you've got questions or comments as you listen to this, make sure to send those over to us. There's two ways to do. That one is to just email us at Live Ultralight podcast at gmail.com. Again, that's liberal choice podcast@gmail.com. Or we do have also a We're posting these up and a big reason that we did that just recently was to be able to communicate with
[00:30:58] Tayson: you guys and have the comment features. So Just be aware of that, that we will do that. And I'm actually going to read a comment a little bit later on. So reach out to us let us know what you think. Let us know if you have questions or anything related to the topic. So all right let's talk about Garmin watches. I guess doesn't have to be Garmin but we're pretty dang biased
[00:31:19] Tayson: towards Garmin personally but I don't even know where to where to start with the Garment. Maybe maybe give. We need to tell what it is and what it does.
[00:31:31] Tyler: so, depending on which model you get, Its. Smart a smart watch essentially, but it comes with the Garmin functionality for outdoors. We'll just kind of start their back when when I was running my own brand. I was selling Apple watch, straps. And I was really bought into the whole Apple watch world, but after a few years of trying to use them Outdoors, it just was not the right fit for me. For
[00:32:05] Tyler: one, the watch itself was really heavy and it would bounce a lot and hurt my wrist, like, when I was mountain biking. But also battery life wasn't great and there was just a lot of things that that I was looking for. So I started this big surge I was looking into Polar and son too and Garmin and Fitbit and Samsung and just all of these different Fitness based GPS enabled. Kind of
[00:32:36] Tyler: watches. and, I settled on the Garmin one because it kind of hit everything that I was looking for, like had the GPS functionality had amazing Fitness tracking. The watch that I chose is a tactical version, which meant that you can use it with gloves on which was great for winter stuff and for mountain biking and for the motorcycle that I do and then two it didn't have any of this stuff that
[00:33:06] Tyler: I like didn't want like one thing that drains a smart watches battery faster than anything else. Is that super bright LED touchscreen as well as like the music functionality? So I like wasn't interested in that at this point. And so that was why I went to Garmin And and like from there, we've learned an incredible amount about our own. Fitness and our navigation and and just Our trips by using these watches. Yeah.
[00:33:39] Tayson: So Garmin themselves have a whole series of SmartWatches with LCD screens and music and stuff like that. And some of the people in our office used those one of them because he wants music like it was a big deal that he had music on his watch really important to him. Um, but from just a tactical and backpacking perspective, training perspective, maybe not quite as good as what, what we prefer. Well, what
[00:34:04] Tayson: we're retelling, if you can read between the lines, we are going to the offering these which is the Garment Instinct solar that piece is definitely the more a little more tactical and kind of like Tyler said you can get as many notifications on it. As you want you can you can read messages, you can counter invites and stuff. And and I think the way that you pitched it to me back when
[00:34:26] Tayson: I was first getting it as I like it because it has the right amount of notifications and not extra. Like I'm not getting on here and and like texting and doing my whole life through it. It's like my phone's on my pocket. If I need to send a text a big text or something like that, I can do that. Anyways we're like I'm not going to be getting on whatever other app
[00:34:46] Tayson: that are tiktok or SnapChat or you know I mean whatever it is I don't need your watch to do those things. You have your phone which to me is really great because basic of a watches, you know, obviously to tell time and have timers and alarms and stuff like that, but it does give me the notification. Oh like this meeting is about to start. I need to be in it or I'm
[00:35:05] Tayson: getting. I got a text message I can quickly glance and see like I need to take care of this now or not so it has a really good balance of that. But the biggest thing with these Is really more of the tracking so it has a heart rate monitor on it and mine Tyler's is a little older model. Also has an O2 sensor on it as well and that's really I think
[00:35:23] Tayson: what changed the game for me along with the tracking. So I first got this watch earlier in this year we were looking at doing some training and just thought it was like I need to be aware of what this product is. Anyway, so I got it and it was like a switch for me at least to kind of gamify training and health and I just latched onto it. So we were looking
[00:35:49] Tayson: at starting to run and I haven't I haven't run or trained to run in so many years. I don't even know. I don't it's high school or something, but I had attempted to trail run before I had a tempted, some stuff. And I just burned out and have the right reasons. Why and me personally like I could I could run a mile or two on a treadmill and every time I did
[00:36:11] Tayson: that, I was like watching the numbers and trying to set these Mini goals for myself. Like my personality is just kind of that way. And so when I put the watch on and started running instantly, I was able to kind of gamify it and see how I was doing compared to yesterday or the day before. See what my heart rate's at. See if I can get it, lower with the breathing technique
[00:36:29] Tayson: or and I just started it allowed me to gamify it and kind of enjoy the fitness side as well as being outdoors. You know, I was always going to the gym because I enjoy the fitness side, but I when I go to the gym I feel like a hamster in a wheel and set of like I kind of getting fresh air and and those other elements that they can be important. So
[00:36:49] Tayson: for me this big switch turned on of like a level of training gamification that I really really liked. And allowed me to really get in the best shape I've been in for over 10 years, this last year, so that that aspect is really cool and there's a lot more with the health tracking. So I remember when Tyler, first said I sleep with my watch on people were like, what is wrong with
[00:37:12] Tayson: you? You're crazy. But why do you do that? So,
[00:37:14] Tyler: yeah. So like for me, one of the biggest Values of using Garmin watch is that you get this. This. Baseline Health kind of metric, just from normal day, living like it. It can tell you how many calories you're burning. It can tell you like how much energy you have versus last week and it can tell you just kind of like, How to plan for things really. And so, the reason that I
[00:37:49] Tyler: sleep with it specifically is because it tracks your sleep, it tells you how much time you're spending in light sleep, in REM sleep, and in deep sleep, and it just helps you to like, make better decisions before you go to bed to get better rest and then you have better energy the next day, then you can push harder. You can do more and it just kind of all builds and so, yeah,
[00:38:14] Tyler: I sleep with it. I shower with it. Like, it it really only comes off if I have to charge it and and I do that because once I have that kind of Baseline of how much I'm sleeping, what my body battery is and like, how many calories I'm burning then when I go on a trip, it's like, okay, the last trip I went on, I burned this many calories. In a normal
[00:38:40] Tyler: day, I burned this many calories and so it helps me to plan like, how much food to bring and I actually like, you can go so deep as to know, like okay, I'm comfortable running a 3000 calorie deficit. Like like if I'm out on a trail and I'm doing something extreme, then you can kind of plan backwards from like the deficit that you're comfortable with and and then you know, like that
[00:39:05] Tyler: you're not over packing food or under packing. And so there's, there's like just so much that you can get from it. Yeah, there's, there's an incredible amount of data that you would never, guess you could get from just analyzing your heart rate. Obviously calories burned, we're seeing we're burning 6 to 8,000, calories out on the trails as we were going this summer, you know and if you don't know that you don't
[00:39:28] Tyler: know that you can't plan around that sleep is Big that, you know, you can see how good a sleep you're getting and try to improve that Garmin obviously is being a, the massive company. They are, they all have something that they call Body battery.
[00:39:42] Tayson: And that basically takes in your heart rate, variability, and, and some other factors and spits out like a, how rested or fresh, or how well are you doing in that? And so, you know typically at night it'll charge up and then throughout the day it'll kind of drain but sometimes like you'll wake up and you'll be still at like a zero or a five out of a hundred. And so then you
[00:40:06] Tayson: can start to analyze like, oh, something's not right? I didn't get good sleep or I'm getting sick. Sometimes you can be preemptively like seeing that you're getting sick or stress. Like hey man I've got a ton of stress right now. It's affecting my health and so on so forth and that's a that's a really interesting thing to watch. That that's just data given to you. You can you know as you get
[00:40:27] Tayson: really into you can see things like if if you're really
[00:40:30] Tayson: talented to this I've I wouldn't say it. I'm I can kind of see it but it's not something. I'm like there's I think there's trainers out there that programs like you could see if you are dehydrated by your heart rate, being higher, you can see just all sorts of things. Data that you can pull out of just simply knowing your heart rate and knowing it all the time, a big one, a
[00:40:51] Tayson: big one, which I'm going to do a dedicated podcast and video on this has to do with elevation. So when I go to Elevation and I sleep, the first night, my resting heart rate, normally is in the low 40s when I sleep When I go to Elevation the first night, I might only get down to 70. I've had it actually only get down to 80, my resting heart rate is 80. And
[00:41:11] Tayson: that's, that's a recipe of either. I'm not acclimated or I'm about to get elevation sickness. If I can't get my heart rate to go down lower and so you can learn and adjust from things like that. And again, I'll do a dedicated podcast about that because I actually went back months and analyzed certain scenario and was able to extrapolate extrapolate data from that and help analyze it. And then once I understand
[00:41:34] Tayson: that now I can actually do something about it right before. It's just this big unknown and and when you've got the data and you've got that, then you can start to the Garmin device that I have the newer ones that are available now, also have an O2 sensor in it, so you can track your two levels which is something that I had turned off on my watch and I Didn't realize the
[00:41:55] Tayson: data that I could have been collecting their specialty when I go to, like high elevation and seeing like, how much my O2 levels are dropping when I'm sleeping or throughout the day and checking in on that, because that's a major factor in something like elevation sickness as well. So yeah, there's there's so much You can do there and garmin's dashboards are really, really helpful as well for seeing that a big one
[00:42:18] Tayson: that I like to do is we like, to, you know, I like to link. I like, like, I'll run the same trail and I can just compare data side by side where I can go back. Like, all right on this Trail, a month ago, am I improving? Let me. Look at the data and see like, what was my average, heart rate, how fast that? I run the splits. However, you know, so
[00:42:34] Tayson: on so forth, which then just builds this whole arsenal. The other thing that we like to do and all that, you talked about this Tyler's link it to Strava for even more additional functionality and we will get to how we use it. Backpacking. We're kind of geeking out about the training side right now and some of that but absolutely, this is critical for backpacking for me now and we'll cover that in a second.
[00:42:54] Tyler: Yeah, for sure, the Garmin Connect app is the dashboard that you get, when you have a garment Fitness device and that Garmin Connect app has pretty amazing functionality just on your smartphone, but when you get into The web browser. There's a crazy amount of data that you can get and that's that's really like where the rubber meets the road for these kind of systems is you can get a lot more info
[00:43:24] Tyler: from this than you can from like apples. Fitness app or from the Fitbit stuff. That I've tried in the past and so, like Tyson said, Strava is a big one. We have Connected to these. And Strava is awesome for a few reasons. First of all, Strava is a kind of a cross between a fitness trainer and a social media platform where like you can you can follow friends, you can have followers
[00:43:56] Tyler: on there or you can keep it all private, it just depends on how you want to do it. But so you've got like, the social aspect where you can kind of compete with each other. You can see their times on a trail. You can see your time so you can see your best segments. It's huge for cycling and running and it's all so fun for hiking and and everything. So for us
[00:44:18] Tyler: as a as a company here, we encouraged everyone to get on Strava so that we could count, how many miles everyone was hiking. And that's a pretty cool little tool that we have, you can build a club inside of trauma and it's just, it's a fun way to track your hikes and runs, and rides and, and to be able to, like, share routes, or create segments. And you can
[00:44:47] Tayson: find Trails through Strava and then you can see what other people are doing them in, and kind of like, Give you an idea of how fast you might be able to do it. Or you know, if you're big trail Runner, obviously, they're already all on there because they're like basically racing against each other but like Different days, different times different scenarios. It does kind of add another level of fun. And to the watch. Yeah. So
[00:45:12] Tyler: I've actually used it as kind of the R&D log for product testing, like, anytime that I go out a new product, I'll as soon as I finish that hike or fastpack or something, then I'll just throw my photos in Strava all like do a little debris in there and then when Brigham starts asking me questions about how much I used something I can and kind of get in there and I can
[00:45:37] Tyler: see the route that I did. I can describe the terrain like I there's all this other info. So that's that's a really good thing as well. Yeah. So there's
[00:45:49] Tayson: there's people that could Give you so much more information on the usefulness of the training side and the health side. And I just know personally my personal Situation with it is, it's been a game changer for me. I do not see myself ever, not having a watch like this going forward.
[00:46:10] Tayson: And if it broke tomorrow, I buy another one right away because like, I would be like, oh man, I'm losing losing data. You know what I mean? Because it's like, I just lean on it and learn from it so much. you know, and again like even like going back to the boder battery thing, it's like, You're more likely to get sick if your body battery is low, you know what I mean?
[00:46:28] Tayson: Like, and just trying to maybe just avoid stuff like that. And so on so forth. But let's talk about a few more of the features and functions. So why the heck is Important to. that so, what I learned and the biggest aspects for me were When you go out on trail, you're navigating. You are sometimes tracking yourself, you are using your phone as sometimes an alarm clock, you're using it, as all
[00:46:56] Tayson: these different things. By having the watch, I was able to basically turn off my phone or put it in Airplane Mode. No
[00:47:03] Tyler: location is turned on anything.
[00:47:06] Tayson: Like I can basically make my phone battery lasts and exceptionally long time because I'm using the watch, the watch is tracking my mileage, the watches, you know, it's where I'm getting the time from. I can I can do some navigating on my watch if I choose to use it that way. I just gives you this ability to not have to use your phone, a big one that I have learned and now
[00:47:29] Tayson: I'm like addicted to is when I go to bed at night, I used to leave my phone on, you know. I put it in my sleeping bag and try to keep it warm and save some of the battery life. But a lot of times I was setting an alarm in the morning because I wanted to be up and on the trail or something at a certain time or example. Tomorrow night, I'm
[00:47:47] Tayson: going to go out on this, this little overnight Excursion, but I have to be back for one of my kids activities at 9 a.m. the next morning, which actually means I've got to wake up and be on trell when it's dark out. It's gonna be freaking cold sucky, but, but like, I can use my Watch as my alarm clock. Now I can turn my phone off and now it's not on all
[00:48:08] Tayson: night draining, my battery more and more and more. So there's some massive like, phone battery, saving benefits to having to watch as well as I can see. Like, am I like when we plan out, especially something like Highline and we're trying to do 25 miles a day, are we on Pace for the day? Like, how many miles are we in right now? What's our average pace on trail? Are we falling behind?
[00:48:30] Tayson: Is that a problem? Is it? You know, all of that type of stuff? Now I do off my watch, which I probably use my phone. 50 to 70% Less on trail than I used to just because of my watch and my watch gets really good battery life. If I'm running the GTS all day then I'll typically charge it. Like at the end of that day, it'll need to charge. I'll use 70
[00:48:54] Tayson: or 80% of the battery that's running it, like
[00:48:56] Tayson: that's for 12 hours or something in a day. Um, and keep in mind, it's a small battery again. So it's not a big drain on a battery bank, but if I'm not using it for that, I go weeks and weeks without charging it. If I'm just tracking, like let's say, I go on two Trail runs a week and I'm tracking that and then I'm tracking like my gym, like going to the
[00:49:17] Tayson: gym. Like it'll track a treadmill. It'll track just like cardio, I track everything but using like the tracking features or
[00:49:24] Tayson: something related to that like for, let's say an hour a day on average, on my watch, I can go two weeks without charging. Sometimes, the solar Edition does does give it an edge for sure.
[00:49:38] Tayson: Like it doesn't, it's not going to fully charge it or anything like that, but it'll last a long time and I've had situations where I was running out of battery on trail. and it got to a point where is like, well I can't track myself anymore and because I'm going to run out of battery and I don't want to charge it, I didn't have the ability to charge but if I can
[00:49:57] Tayson: turn it in like ultra power, save mode, And basically it could run forever like with the solar aspect of my watch. I could tell time keep alarms track my heart rate type as those types of things. I could do that indefinitely just with the solar charging, but I couldn't like use the GPS function of the watch. So, but that's been like, the biggest game changing for backpacking, is all the data. I'm
[00:50:21] Tayson: pulling. I can see stuff about, like, elevation sickness. Am I putting myself at risk? What's my expenditures? I can pull 02 levels and I say just a ton of battery on my phone. So that's that's my like, why it's a game changing piece for my backpacking but I don't know. Yeah, I think on top of
[00:50:39] Tyler: that, just kind of the planning aspect of it, like the more you use it. When you're backpacking, the more into with yourself, you'll be when you go to plan your next trip. So you'll, you'll know better. Like, what kind of Miles you're comfortable with how much food to bring? If the elevation is going to affect you? just all of those things like having that data building up, just gives you more confidence
