Casio's new compact step-tracker enabled watches go on sale

Casio's GMD-B300 series has officially gone on sale, shortly after they went live on Casio Japan. The two watches - the GMDB300-2 in navy and the GMDB300-7 in off-white - are now listed on Casio's US website with active purchase buttons, priced at $135 each. That's a slight premium over the Japanese retail price of ¥17,600, which converts to roughly $113.

The GMD-B300 is a compact G-Shock. At 46.4 × 43.8 × 12 mm and 41 grams, it's considerably slimmer than most G-Shock models, and Casio has also adjusted the band length to better accommodate slimmer wrists, which explains why the GMDB300-7 is listed under Casio's Women's category. 

The main addition over a standard digital G-Shock is the step tracker. An onboard accelerometer counts steps automatically throughout the day, and the watch displays both total daily steps and progress toward a user-defined goal - settable anywhere between 1,000 and 50,000 steps in 1,000-step increments. There's also an hourly step graph covering the past seven hours, broken into six levels. Data syncs over Bluetooth to the Casio Watches app, which handles life log management, stopwatch data transfer, auto time adjustment, and a phone finder function. The app also gives access to around 300 world time cities, which supplements the watch's onboard dual time display.

The rest of the feature set is standard G-Shock digital: five daily alarms, a countdown timer with interval measurement support and auto-repeat, a 1/100-second stopwatch that logs up to 200 records, Super Illuminator LED backlight with auto-light and afterglow, and a full auto-calendar running to 2099. Water resistance is rated at 200 meters, and the construction is shock resistant despite the slim profile. Battery life runs to approximately two years on a CR2016 cell. The case and bezel use a combination of standard and bio-based resin, and the band is bio-based resin as well.

Both models are priced at $135 and available now via Casio's US website. Alternatively, you can check out the Casio WS-B1000-2AV on Amazon - it comes with a step-tracker as well.