Nearby aircraft on your wrist — gliders, tow planes and powered traffic from the Open Glider Network, named and nearest first.
GlideWatch shows the aircraft around you — gliders, tow planes and powered traffic reported by the Open Glider Network (OGN). From your GPS position it lists the nearest first: distance as the headline, the target's clock or compass bearing, its altitude, and a short type-and-climb line. It holds the live nearest target by itself; UP/DOWN browse the rest and START locks onto one. A red heading triangle rotates each target's ground track into your own frame, so your heading is always up. Each target is named where it can be — a registration, and a glider's competition number when published, rather than a bare hex id; airline and GA traffic is resolved too.
A vertical alert band keeps the display to traffic at your height: set it in 100 m / 300 ft steps and aircraft far above or below are filtered out. An altitude ladder reads the target against your own level, its needle red inside one rung — the co-altitude case — green at one to two, black beyond. It buzzes and beeps when new traffic appears, so you look up even when you are not watching the watch. Parked and taxiing aircraft are left out; altitude reads in metres or feet.
OGN is the default feed and works for everyone. If you hold a PureTrack Pro subscription you can switch the traffic source to PureTrack from the menu, for coverage that reaches beyond OGN/FLARM to ADS-B and other tracker services; pair it once with your PureTrack login and the watch remembers it. OGN is always there to switch back to.
Traffic is streamed live through your phone whichever source you pick, so GlideWatch needs the Garmin Connect app and an internet connection on your phone throughout the flight — unlike the other apps in the suite it is not an offline tool. A traffic-awareness aid, not a collision-avoidance system: OGN coverage is incomplete, positions can be delayed, and many aircraft do not transmit at all. Never rely on it for separation — keep a visual lookout and follow see-and-avoid. One online activation ties the licence to your watch. No account, no subscription.
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