Customer Reviews

Freestyle Mens The Nomad Water Proof Watch Black 81202, Grey 81203, White 81204, AUTHORIZED DEALERS, 81204 - White/Grey

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I bought this watch for my Father on his birthday, and after having read about it and all of its various features (temperature measurement, altimeter, barometer, digital compass, chronograph, alarm, time and calender) I decided to get one for myself to use on camping/hiking trips.

I read at least 2 detailed outdoor enthusiast reviews of this watch (including one good review by backpacker magazine) that had detailed hiking/camping trips with pictures and all and both of these reviews gave the watch good reviews. So I figured that a couple of bad reviews were just people complaining, unfortunately I was wrong.

My father was quite happy with his Nomad watch, but didn't really test out the extra features all that much, just used it mainly for the time and date. So, when mine arrived, I decided I was going to set up the altimeter and compass on both of our watches. When I was setting them I discovered that almost all of the features on his watch (of which was only about 3 weeks old at that point) were not functioning!! In fact only the time and digital compass seemed to work on his watch, while the temperature, barometer, and altimeter all would just display empty dash marks and no number values (-- -- -- ft for example), which was really frustrating. After spending about 3 hours trying to figure out and change the settings as guided by the freestyle Nomad Watch instruction manual I tried to set my watch. My watch, which as I said before is the same watch (a Nomad Freestyle), just a different color from my Father's watch seemed to be functioning correctly on all the different functions when it first arrived. Note that I asked my Dad, and he said he has not taken it swimming or under-water at all in the time he has had it, which as I have mentioned is only about 3 weeks to a month old.

After reading another person's review online I discovered that the Temperature function actually measures the temperature of the watch-backing, which if being worn will be the temperature of your wrist, and to get an accurate temperature that one would have to set it aside for a few minutes and then check the temperature. Initially it seemed that my watch was telling the temperature correctly, however I tried playing with the settings (and the Offset settings) and now my watch is way-off saying its 22 degrees F when its actually about 80 degrees F, and it just sits at temperature. My Father's watch, still reads empty dashes and strangely allows an offset of 105-125 degrees F, while mine gives the option of 14-34 degrees F for an offset, and there doesn't seem to be a clear way to turn off the offsets once they are set??? So my fathers watch on average misreads temperature way too high at 100 degrees F at all times, and my watch reads it way to low at about 14 degrees F. So the Temp. setting is a gimmick as far as I am concerned, and why have a function on the watch if it doesn't really do what its supposed to do, which is to accurately measure temperature????

After playing around a bit more I continue to find that my fathers Nomad Watch seems to only really work for Time and Compass, while mine seems to work for everything except Temperature. So I am wondering if it is just a matter of time before all the functions on my Nomad watch go out, like my Fathers has, seeing that mine is a little bit newer than his.

All in all, for the price it is a nice watch with a massive watch-face, and what I like about Freestyle is that they design very handsome watches relative to other manufacturers, so if you just going for the look and a timepiece than I say go for it. As far as functions, the only ones that really seem to work very well on this watch are the time and compass functions. And I have read other reviews saying that the compass is not all that accurate, just points in the generally correct direction, so its no good if your hoping to use it for navigation or for marking. However, I have found that most watches of the same price seem to only tell time or have a world clock, or some generally useless function like tidal-estimates anyways, so it is quite cool to have a watch that at least has a working digital compass.

Unfortunately for Freestyle, I have little patience with a product that claims to have all of these great functions when most of them don't really work. It could be compared to buying a car that could drive, but whose extra features such as power steering/windows, anti-lock brakes, A/C, Stereo didn't work at all. Now I have considered contacting Freestyle about this, but in the end I know that my Father really only wants a watch that can tell time, which this one does, and that because I ordered it off of Amazon they would most likely just give me a run around like most companies these days do I will probably just keep both watches and just hope that the functions start working again. If anything it was a good lesson for me to realize that to really get good products these days, especially when shopping online. I hope this helps anyone looking at this watch make a better decision than I did, and to realize that all of the great functions advertised really are too good to be true. Thanks for your time.

I bought this watch under the impression it was good for diving or scuba, and when i recived it and read the manuals INSIDE the box, it states this model offered here is NOT suitable for diving or scuba, or snorkeling, not even light splashes! amazon should review the add and have it modified. I am trying to return this item. DONT BUY IT IF YOU WANT iT FOR SCUBA, DIVING OR SNORKEL.