The Coros Vertix extends the brand’s product line to a mountain adventure orientation.

In this post, we’re looking at its basics; its looks and menu/operation.

Menu Walkthrough

If you don’t want to read, here’s my video of the menu walkthrough:

Coros Vertix Looks

The Coros Vertix has a titanium back (I assume) and bezel, some kind of composite body, and a sapphire glass with DLC (diamond-like coating).

This glass looks to be even more shiny-reflective than normal sapphire glass, but the coating seems to keep off smudges like nothing I have seen before.

Screen

The screen is the usual transflective display, i.e. rather dull if there is no light shining through it. With light outdoors or with its backlight active – and the Vertix has a dedicated backlight button – the screen is nicely readable.

It is still no OLED (which would eat up battery), but the colors are quite recognizable.

One side of the watch (opposite the crown/buttons) holds the alti-baro sensor, like many outdoors watches.

Operation

The watch is operated with two buttons and the digital knob in the middle.

The upper button is just for the backlight; the lower is to go back and into the quick access menu; the digital knob serves as a scroll wheel and a pusher.

Button Autolock/Unlock

Autolock for the buttons can be activated separately for watch mode and for sports modes; it can be set up to unlock by holding the digital knob or by turning it.

The “scroll to unlock” turning shows a gauge-like display on the screen which indicates whether the crown was rotated far enough to unlock or not yet.

This is perhaps the safest way to unlock, but (because) it requires some dedicated turning – which can also be quite annoying.

The “hold to unlock” is more convenient but also more prone to perhaps being deactivated inadvertently e.g. while hiking with trekking poles or holding on to some rock or rope with the wrist bent.

Watch Face(s)

Coros offers a selection of watch faces.

Five of them can be loaded onto the watch to be quickly switched right there; some “theme” colors of some (but not all) of them can also be selected by the user.

Additional watch faces are available in the app; loading a new watch face into the watch requires exchanging it for one of those already on the watch. (I.e., if you want to load a new watch face, the app will ask you which watch face already on the watch this should replace.)

Most (all, probably) of the watch faces show some data (usually steps, calories, battery charge, altitude, sometimes also sunrise/sunset times) that can be switched by pushing the lower button.

There is no way to get your own picture as a watchface or anything like that…

Basic Displays

Scrolling down leads to displays of:

• Calories burned, steps taken, active (and exercise) time, and floors climbed during the day
• Heart rate
  (current at the top, graph of last 6 hours below, also indicating min/max/avg)
• Altitude
  (current and graph of last 6 hours, also indicating min/max/avg)
• Air pressure
  (current and graph of last 6 hours, also indicating min/max/avg)
• Temperature
  (current and graph of last 6 hours, also indicating min/max/avg)
• Notifications

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‘History’ Data Screens

In heart rate and outdoors displays (altitude, air pressure, temperature), a push on the digital knob leads to a second screen with a data graph one can scroll through (left, back in time, by turning the knob).

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This way, it is possible to see historical data for this item in the 10-minute intervals in which the watch stores all such data.

For altitude and air pressure, in particular, this can be quite useful.

It is also rather odd, though, as scrolling further back than 1-2 hours quickly becomes tiring, given all the knob-turning required (and that there is no faster scrolling).

It takes a push on the back button to get back from these displays to the main screen for this item of data (from where it is possible to scroll up/down to other screens again).

Main Menu

One push on the digital knob (when on the watch display) leads to the (first hierarchy level of the) main menu.

Here, one finds:

• AI Trainer
  This is the logbook of activities (available farther down within this menu item), and first when entering into this item, the watch’s estimate of one’s stamina and recovery status (or time remaining to full recovery)
• System
  The main menu for settings, see below
• Sports Modes, which I’m labeling like that but actually are displayed as the whole list of available sports modes immediately.
  On the Vertix, at present, there are sports modes for:
  • Run
  • Indoor Run
  • Trail Run
  • Mtn Climb
  • Hike
  • Bike
  • Indoor Bike
  • Pool Swim
  • Open Water (swim)
  • Triathlon
  • Gym Cardio
  • GPS Cardio

In the “System” menu, the first level has settings for

• Do Not Disturb mode
  (on or off)
• Workout Interface
  • Background Color (white or black)
  • Font Size (medium or large)
  • Auto Scroll (off, 2/4/6/8/10 seconds)
• Pair Phone
  (which displays the QR code used in the smartphone app to pair)
• Accessories
  • Add ANT+
  • Added List
  • Broadcast Heart Rate
• Calibrate
  • Elevation (Use GPS or “Enter Elevation” manually)
  • Compass
• “More“

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That “More” menu gives access to:

• Language
  (English, simplified or traditional Chinese, Deutsch, Español, Français)
• Watch Face & Theme Color
• Backlight
  (off, all day, or auto)
• Wrist Hand
  (left or right; this is used for step count, mainly)
• Digital Knob
  (left or right; this is used to switch the display and button layout 180 degrees for use by left-handed people, wearing the watch on the right wrist)
• Vibration
  (key vibration for button presses; alert vibration to accompany alerts)
• Tones
  (key tones; message & call tones; alarm tones; activity alert tones)
• Auto Lock
  (in standby mode and/or in workout mode, off / scroll to unlock / hold to unlock)
• Units
  (metric or imperial)
• Date/Time
  (24-Hour; Auto Sync from the app; Time Zone; Set Time manually)
• GPS
  (GPS normal or GPS+GLONASS)
• GPS Satellite Location Data
  (which displays when the help file for GPS reception on the watch will lose its validity and should be updated by syncing watch and app)
• Altitude Alert
  (which gives an alert when you are at an altitude above 2500 m and your activity is too intense)
• Device’s Info (just the ID, software version, and all that)
• Reset All
• Turn Off

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Quick Access Menu

Holding the lower button leads into the circular quick access menu.

This offers some shortcuts, but also some additional things:

• Do Not Disturb mode
• Alarm
• Compass
• HR Measurement
• UltraMax
  (lower GPS fix ratings to extend battery life at the cost of lower accuracy)
• Navi. Settings
• Map
• Altitude Performance
• Stopwatch
• Timer
• Watch Face
• Night Mode
  to keep the backlight active at all times, until the next sunset)
• System
  (shortcut into the System menu as described above)

Quick Access Menu in Sports Modes

This quick access menu is also available in sports modes (with “Workout Settings” added)

There, it is important if e.g. compass is needed, you want to activate UltraMax during an activity to record extremely long events (though on the Coros Vertix, this should mean activities above 60 hours – so, some 2.5 days… – in length).

Navi Settings and Map

“Navi(gation) Settings” there work to activate a route;
“Map” actually gives the breadcrumb track recorded during an activity, which mainly serves as a backtrack feature.

HR Measurement

HR Measurement shows another version of the current HR screen, which displays HR in larger letters and shows what HR zone this number of bpm (beats per minute) corresponds to on an outer circular displays. (The other current HR screen is two screens down from the watch display when in watch mode; it shows current HR in small on top and the last 6 hours’ HR values in a graph – see above).

Altitude Performance

Altitude Performance is the Vertix’ headline acclimatization feature, which combines spO2 measurement with altitude data (and even, if I’ve understood it correctly, performance data during activities, so HR and/per distance, elevation change?) to give an indication of acclimatization status.

Aaand, that’s that. Let’s get to training and more data!

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