When you first get your hands on a GARMIN Descent MK1, the sheer number of features can feel overwhelming. Without a clear understanding of the buttons and navigation logic, it's easy to feel frustrated right from the start. But after spending some time tinkering with it, once you grasp a few key elements, it all starts to click — because the MK1 packs in far more functionality than a single-purpose dive computer, and having a unified interface to control everything is simply necessary.
This article introduces a few key elements from a diver's perspective, with the hope of helping fellow divers unlock the full power of the MK1. A huge thank you to a friend who lent me their MK1, giving me the chance to wear this rather distinguished dive computer for a while. During that time I made a trip to Green Island and a few trips to Chaojing Park, which gave me plenty of material for this article.
GARMIN Descent MK1 Button Logic
Front view of the watch
- Top-left: Backlight / Long-press for quick menu
- Middle-left: Up / Widget / Long-press for Settings
- Bottom-left: Down / Widget
- Top-right: Menu
- Bottom-right: Back / Exit
The first thing that feels counter-intuitive when you pick up the MK1 is that the Up button is on the middle-left. Once you get used to it, navigation becomes much smoother. Within any activity, long-pressing the Settings button (middle-left) will bring up additional settings for that activity.
The Menu and My Favourites
Press the top-right button to open the activity menu. The upper portion with a white background is "My Favourites," the lower portion lists other activities, and at the very bottom you can add even more. The watch comes with a wide range of built-in activities, and if there's something you do regularly that isn't listed — like horse riding — you can add it yourself.
- Add / Sort / Remove / Rename activities in the menu and My Favourites. Any activity you don't need for now can be safely removed — you can always add it back later.
- Using your phone to type in Chinese
When I first discovered you could rename activities, I found it a bit puzzling — how on earth do you type Chinese on a watch? That seemed like a real challenge. Although a brief on-screen tip does appear when you enter the editing screen, telling you that you can type from your phone, about 80% of people probably don't catch it. Another 80% will get stuck at the text input screen, panic, back out without making changes, or accidentally delete a character with no way to undo it — forever turning "Single Gas" into "Single Ga" dive mode.
Garmin's engineering team is actually pretty impressive. I was genuinely pleasantly surprised when I discovered this feature: when the watch is connected to your phone and you enter a text input field on the watch, the Garmin app on your phone automatically pops up a text input interface. The experience is remarkably similar to typing on AppleTV — very slick indeed. If it doesn't pop up automatically, open the Garmin Connect app on your phone, pair the watch, then go to Settings > Quick Input, and you can type directly from your phone to the watch.
Press top-right to open the menu > Long-press the middle-left Settings button on Single Gas to open Single Gas settings
Enter Single Gas settings
Scroll down and select Rename
Widgets
Another major interface area on the MK1 is the widget panel. Pressing the Up or Down button opens widgets — think of them as additional home screens. Here are a few particularly useful ones for divers.
Surface Interval
- Surface Interval
- Dive Log
- Weather Information
- Wind and Waves
- There are many other sport and health-related widgets — press Add to include them.
- I'd also love to suggest that Garmin add a tidal information widget. Being able to glance at whether the tide is coming in or going out would be really handy for deciding when to get in the water.
Dive Features
Watch faces available during a dive activity:
- Timer — the standard underwater display you'd expect from any dive computer
- On the compass screen, press the top-right button to mark a bearing; press it again to choose between locking to that heading or cancelling the bearing mark.
- This is the standard dive computer display plus the current time.
- Stopwatch.
- The watch comes with the above four screens built in, and you can configure which ones to use during a dive and set their order.
- How to configure: Menu > Select Single Gas > Long-press Settings > Enter Single Gas Settings > Go to Training Pages. Press the top-right button to edit and reorder; scroll down and select the "+" icon to add a new training page.
- Double-tap to switch screens: When I first got the watch, the double-tap screen switching feature was turned on by default. However, the sensor seemed a bit too sensitive — every time I raised my wrist to check my depth underwater, the screen had jumped to a different view. At first I thought I was accidentally pressing something, but eventually I realised it was switching on its own. I'd recommend turning this feature off if you experience the same issue. In dive mode, you can switch screens using the bottom-left button anyway.
- Setting up enriched air nitrox (EANx)
- Go to the Single Gas page, press the bottom-left button to enter edit mode, and you can configure the gas mix from there.
- Underwater Alerts
- You can set custom depth and time alarms underwater. Each dive mode has its own independent alert settings, so feel free to experiment.
- For more underwater alert options, refer to the official manual on Garmin's website.
The App
In this day and age, a companion app for a wearable device is practically standard. The watch screen is still small, so being able to review your dive log and access more features on your phone is extremely convenient. But just like the watch itself, Garmin Connect is equally feature-rich and complex. Unlike other dive log apps that emphasise social features, Garmin's app focuses primarily on personal training records.
Here are a few of the main dive-related sections.
- Dive Log
Log List
Dive log record
You can review each of your dive records. If you accidentally entered a decompression obligation, that will be shown in the profile as well.
- Underwater Heart Rate Log
The first time I synced my dive log, seeing my heart rate recorded throughout the dive was pretty fascinating. That said, if you want heart rate data for every dive, you'll need to wear the watch against your skin — not over your wetsuit.
- GPS Coordinates for Entry and Exit Points
While Garmin's app doesn't have a built-in dive site directory, having GPS coordinates for your entry and exit points is extremely useful — whether you're exploring a new dive site, looking back on past dives, or sharing a spot with friends.
In practice, the entry point sometimes doesn't get recorded. It seems you need to switch the watch into dive mode during your pre-dive checks to ensure the entry point is captured. The exit point should record reliably under normal circumstances.
Summary
The Garmin MK1 sits at the top end of the dive computer market in terms of price, and its feature set genuinely lives up to that positioning. It can feel a bit complex at first — both on the watch itself and in the app — and it takes some time to explore and get comfortable with. But once you properly understand the navigation logic, you'll really start to appreciate just how capable it is.
For divers who also run, swim, hike, and enjoy a wide range of other activities outside of diving, the MK1 is a genuinely compelling choice. One watch that takes you from mountain to sea, ready for whatever you throw at it.
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