Started trying to figure out if I could get a watch that is also a compass. Started looking on different shopping sites and did find a lot of options but I noticed a weird pattern, is that they were all explicitly branded as MANLY RUGGED OUTDOOR MILITARY WATCH FOR MEN. Additionally they *tended* to follow designs which are bulky and greebly to no obvious end other than to "look rugged". Are there not women who live in cities and sometimes get confused about which way is north

@mcc Ah, but in the northern hemisphere every analog watch is also a compass! Hold it horizontal, point the hour hand at the point in the horizon closest to the sun, and halfway between there and 12:00 is due South.

Really!

@msbellows I don't like looking at the sun, it feels bad. Also sometimes buildings block it

@mcc If you're willing to pay a ridiculous premium, Garmin does have relatively small versions of the Fenix 8, which has a compass (and a couple of kitchen sinks for good measure)

@mcc I just checked my Amazon purchase history, and excluding gendered clothing and listings with the magic phrase "for men women kids", I found one outlier.

This steering Bohemian Baja Blanket Enthic Blue steering wheel cover I bought for my camper van is only usable by women. How embarrassing. My next steering wheel cover will need to be more tactical.

@ryan it's a pretty nice steering wheel cover. I like it when objects are blue.

@mcc not sure if there are any that are particularly feminine, but look for compasses that attach to a watch band. Many are at least small and unobtrusive.

I have one that I use with my wrist sundial (which is actually made of stone, for the full Flintstones effect).

@peter I think I can take a broad view of feminity but the thing is a lot of these "for men" watches are just awkwardly bulky and call attention to themselves. They would be hard to integrate into a look.

I am in awe of the wrist sundial.

@arktronic not looking for a smartwatch but if I were this one seems nice.

@mcc The new pebbles have a magnetometer and compass apps are available from the app store. Works nicely on my Core Duo 2. There also are compass watch faces available but these usually are battery hogs.

The Pebble Round 2 doesn't look like survivalist equipment at all.

Pebbles: https://repebble.com/watch
Compass: https://apps.repebble.com/compass_540f7cafbc27450164000157

@thilo does the compass on the new pebble work good? The compass on my phones never seems to work good. This is one reason I kinda long for just a frickin magnet in fluid medium

@mcc I have an old Timex W-225 Tide-Temp-Compass watch, but it has some of the characteristics you are not looking for, large size, very rugged looking, etc.

I had a Tissot T-Touch titanium a number of years ago with a compass function. Touching the face would access the various features. It was fairly expensive though.

Casio watches have a variety of sports watches.

All three have women's variants so you might want to check those out.

@mcc indeed, are there not women who navigate the Grand Line and sometimes need to know where the next island is?

@jplebreton hmm a compass in a walking stick would be interesting

@mcc Seiko has a few compass watches that aren't too aggressively masculine, but they're generally on the expensive side of watches.

@mcc (& A link to one of the seiko watches: https://seikousa.com/products/spb117?_pos=3&_sid=e875d8ef3&_ss=r
Not exactly femme coded, but, at least their's aren't aiming for the 'prepper guy who stockpiles more ammo than food' demographic)

@miss_rodent y'know my focus is less "affirmative femme" and more "can unobtrusively integrate with an outfit".

Casio has some nice styles. I'll check that. Thx

@mcc I think casio also made a women's watch line with a digital compass at some point?
(got distracted looking)
Looks like a few in the 'ProTrek' line fall into the 'unisex' range, it looks like they discontinued most of the ones I was thinking of, or they were japan-only (maybe both).

@mcc (for one of the 'unisex' casio ones I mean: https://www.sakurawatches.com/casio-pro-trek-wsd-f20-bk since it's ... really difficult to find any useful info on casio's actual wwebsite, for some reason.
Letting businesses on the internet was a mistake.)

@mcc I have a watch with a compass but it runs a whole OS and needs battery charging daily and I assume that's not what you're looking for >.>

@nicolas17 the best case scenario for me would be a needle floating in liquid

@mcc
Male here, but I had similar issues, mainly that all smartwatches seemed to be just way too large for my taste, looking silly on my wrist.

For this reason and others I ended up buying a Pebble 2 Duo. It has a compass.

Maybe that watch, or (given that it's out of stock) - its successor Pebble Time Round is suitable for you? They definitely do *not* look rugged.

#Smartwatch

@tynstar does the pebble compas seem accurate?

@mcc i have had the BIGGEST problem with finding watches as well, that are a) not smartwatches or something that needs smartphone to operate, b) not too masculine, c) not too feminine, d) not bulky AF

this is already very hard but becomes WAY harder if you want actual practical features like a compass I settled for a very basic casio (one of the ones from https://www.casio.com/ca-en/watches/casio/) but none of these have compass feature I think

@mcc For fitting with outfits, swapping out different watch bands does help a lot (even if the body is large and ostentatious)

@mcc @msbellows how will you know where you are if you don't stare at the sun?

@mcc a few years ago i had a much longer beard, so i looked into some beard oil

they were all marketed as RUGGED, MANLY, WEAR PLAID AND CHOP TREES bullshit

this is oil to make my beard look fancy, can we drop the masculine pretense and just enjoy things, you insecure dorks?

@cxiao I think the basic casios are great! A lot of them look unobtrusive and they're so cheap you can get a couple $30 ones and swap them out.