A compass will always point to magnetic north, which is not the same as geographic north. Out of the box, the SGW100 points to the same place a regular compass would, magnetic north. Once the declination is set correctly for where you are in the world, it will always be correct, provided you calibrated the compass correctly per the manual's instructions (which is also stupidly easy.) True, it's not solar nor does it have atomic timekeeping. The watch has +/- 30 seconds a month for accuracy, so if you assume 1 second gained or lost per day, at worst you will only see the time off by 6 minutes after 1 year of not adjusting the time at all. And that's truly not bad. Certainly better than any mechanical watch. So why did I buy the SGW100? As noted above, I didn't get it for bug out purposes, but rather because it has every single thing I want out of a digital timepiece.

I did not buy the Casio SGW100 (mine is the SGW100B-3V model) for bug out purposes, but the more I examined it, the more I realized that this timepiece really is the best budget bug out watch one could buy. Examples of typical bug out watches

This is a term used by those who believe strongly in disaster preparation, whether for natural disaster, economic disaster, financial disaster, disaster brought by war, etc. People of this ilk are called survivalists or "preppers", depending on whom you talk to.

Think of this the same way as using a regular oral glass thermometer. When used in the mouth, the temperature changes because it's touching the body. When left to sit in a jar, in about 20 minutes it will show the room's ambient temperature. What makes the SGW100 the best budget bug out watch?

Model Comparison

This is my new daily wearer. I thought I could get away with wearing a simpler Casio digital, but as it turns out I really appreciate a watch that shows weekday/month/day on the face, has multiple alarms, countdown timer with auto-repeat and stopwatch. And I'm really liking the larger display as well. I thought it might be too large but it's not. The design is right. Featuring a resin band material, the watch is designed to withstand the rigors of outdoor adventures. Its water resistance depth of 200 meters ensures that it can be submerged without getting damaged. However, it is worth noting that the watch is not completely waterproof, so caution should be exercised.