A new line of luxury watches from Garmin has propelled the Olathe GPS giant into an entirely new market.
"We're sold in shops where Rolexes are sold," said Todd Register, a creative lead and product manager for Garmin.
He's spent the last several years crafting the company's new MARQ line of watches. The new line includes five distinct watches, each focusing on a different activity: the Aviator, Driver, Captain, Expedition and Athlete.
While they're infused with Garmin's latest technology, the watches were created with an eye on the past.
Years ago, the sophisticated gadgets on so-called tool watches helped divers gauge how much time they could spend under water and allowed pilots to calculate in-flight speeds and track distance traveled. But over the years, technology has evolved so much that those tool watches are more for fashion than function, Register said.
"We saw these beautiful watches out there that people just love to wear and kind of make an expression about their inspiration in life," Register said. "And we said we have the technology to really make that kind of tool useful again. So our vision was to really make a modern tool watch."
The MARQ line represents Garmin's first leap into the luxury watch market. And it may send a broader signal about where the 30-year-old company that pioneered GPS technology is heading.
"We're definitely in the watch business. We're here to stay," Register said. "If you're just looking at us as a consumer electronics brand, I think you are missing where we're going."
Garmin has long offered smart watches and fitness trackers that appeal to broad swaths of the market _ the company website shows the current lineup of devices begin under $100 and top out at $899. Watches in the MARQ series, on the other hand, begin at $1,500 and reach as high as $2,500.
The watches were in development for nearly four years. Register said designers scoured the globe looking for the best materials, including a nylon band for some watch models made by weavers in the South of France. All the new watches are forged from titanium and include lenses made of durable sapphire crystal and a ceramic bezel inlay to fortify the watch.
"It's not only about the utility. You can get a much cheaper watch with most of the functionality in just a plastic watch or something like that," Register said. "What you're really buying with MARQ is premium craftsmanship and materials that you can make a statement about what your passion in life is."
But there's plenty of utility included, too.
For racing enthusiasts, the Driver watch comes programmed with information on more than 250 race tracks around the globe. The Compass includes a built-in altimeter, barometer and compass, along with real-time metrics on current and upcoming climbs.
Register said some premium watch shops were initially skeptical about carrying Garmin products, but were shocked when the products moved so quickly.
"We're slowly changing peoples' minds that the MARQ collection belongs there," he said. "When people see it and feel it, the finishing and quality is on par or exceeds our Swiss counterparts."
Garmin celebrated the new line of watches on Wednesday evening with an event at North Kansas City's Meierotto Jewelers, the exclusive local seller of the line.
While the watches sat near the shiny displays for other high-end brands like Skagen, Rolex and Tissot, Register told the crowd that the product line represented the "next level for Garmin."
"It's this marriage of artisanal and modern," he said.
Tyler Meierotto, part of the family who owns the store, said smartwatches continue taking a larger share of the overall market for watches. And Garmin's expertise with navigational, aviation and marine technology gives it a leg up in that arena, he said.
"They build things for boats and planes," he said. "They do have some things that are unique to them and have a little bit different advantage."
He said there is a market for highly specialized tool watches. He pointed to his own customers who routinely spend several thousand dollars fixing up Porsches or kit cars to race on local tracks.
"So it's little difference to spend $1,000 or $2,000 on these Garmin watches," he said. "I see a market for it. I think the more feature rich the watches are the better."
Customers have so far responded positively to the new watches, Meierotto said, with some even clamoring for them before they were in stock.
"People are definitely interested," he said.
