AFAIK all Garmin watches have only ever recorded skin temperature (unless you use an external sensor like the Tempe). Being so close to the skin, trying to accurately measure the air temperature wouldn't be possible, it would be like trying to measure year-round room temperature with a thermometer stuck to a radiator. You couldn't even use a calibrated offset as skin temperature isn't constant, and any clothing covering the watch would skew the validity.
So what's the point of measuring skin temperature? I guess it's something else to put on the features list.
So what's the point of measuring skin temperature?
It’s not measuring skin temperature as such. It’s providing a temperature measurement to assist the barometric setting. The temperature will be a combination of skin temperature and ambient temperature.
The one scenario where the watch temperature is the same as the surrounding environment, is when swimming (so the watch is almost continuously submerged). In that case I’ve found the temp on the watch correlates really well with other measures of the water temp. Beyond that though, the air temp measured by the watch is not particularly useful; as Philip mentions, it’s used by the watch in the calculations to turn barometric pressure in to elevation.
