The G-SHOCK GG-B100
As featured on Hodinkee
In addition to the shock resistance of G-SHOCK, the MASTER OF G series was designed with outstanding functions to withstand use in harsh natural environments on land, at sea, and in the air. The latest version of this legendarily tough series, the MUDMASTER GG-B100, sets a high bar in proving that a rugged watch designed to play in the most extreme environments can also deliver an understated handsomeness to the wrist, though it has a long line of predecessors to thank for the ease with which it accomplishes so much.
The pioneer of this series was the DW-5500C, which was introduced in 1985 and featured a mud-resist structure on the push buttons to dustproof and mudproof. The DW-6100, equipped with a temperature sensor, followed in 1992, and the DW-6700, with a pressure sensor in addition to the temperature sensor, was released in 1994, attracting attention for its added performance not seen in previous G-Shocks. The DW-6300 was a turning point in the history of G-Shock, not only because it was the first full-fledged G-Shock diver's watch, with its outstanding ISO-compliant 200-meter water resistance, but also because it was the first to be given the pet name “Frogman”, establishing the concept of the MASTER OF G series.
Today, the MUDMASTER moniker is more than apt: Special protective filtering and protection from intrusive dirt, dust, sand, rubble and sludge will keep this timepiece working away on even your most mucky off-road driving, biking and hiking adventures, but it was designed to withstand nothing short of a natural disaster site.
A tough carbon case, in a stacked Carbon Core Guard construction, now sports impact-resistant buttons and a three-layer transparent resin/carbon fiber/shock-absorbing resin bezel. The Quad Sensor can measure vital altitude information, barometric readings, record steps and activate a hyper-accurate digital compass.
And as a connected timepiece, syncing the GG-B100 with its Smartphone’s app opens up a new level of customized wrist functionality: Think syncing the second hand to continuously point in the direction of any saved location (like your adventure’s starting point), sparking an LCD distance reading from that location, and logging and sharing the exact GPS route you’ve taken from that point (including altitude changes). In other words, with the GG-B100 on the wrist you’d have to work very hard to get lost. And high-brightness LED lighting helps you find your way back, even as the sun disappears.
All this professional-grade capability is delivered in an easy-to-read analog/digital dial design. In the new GG-B100-8A, the timepiece’s extreme nature is further tempered with a chrome coating on the bezel’s carbon fiber, which blends in with the overall grey tone.
In the high-flying sibling to this new MUDMASTER, the GR-B200-1B GRAVITYMASTER pilot’s watch, all the reliability and technical functionality of the Master of G Series takes off. With a button array mimicking the shapes of controls on a modern jet joystick, the new GRAVITYMASTER, in concert with its associated device app, offers up even more aviation-specific functionality, including flight data collection and logging.
All content including images is credited to Hodinkee.