20 Best Gps Watch For Running And Hiking (2023 Updated)

Bought the blue version of the Instinct Solar. I come from as a long time Fitbit watch owner and a more recent Apple Watch owner. My original Fitbit is the Fitbit Versa (1st generation), which is square shaped and fairly simple tech.

It provided what I needed, which were steps, date and time, water proof for common usage. It allowed me around 3 days’ worth of battery life. It is square shaped. It was free from work, otherwise, it would not have been my first choice for a watch.

I bought my wife an Apple Watch Series 6 to wear, but after several months she stopped wearing it and went back to her own Fitbit watch. She explained she was tired of having to recharge the Apple Watch every day.

She preferred her Fitbit watch that lasted 6 days before a recharge. I took the Apple Watch thinking I would make better use out of it as a techie, but I also ran into the issue of it required a recharge every day or every 1.

5 days at most. It was not recommended by Apple to be worn while showering even though if you go swimming Apple states that is acceptable. I literally was afraid of looking at the Apple Watch Series 6 due to the battery drain.

The inconvenience of having to remember to charge the watch before I sleep to monitor my sleep, remembering to take the watch off before jumping into the shower, and multiple other issues just wore me down too.

The sleep data for Apple Watch Series 6 is nothing close to Fitbit sleep data and anything more advanced, you have to buy from third party app developers. I could not find anything free that was similar to Fitbit and especially not something where you could just pay a one time fee.

I preferred a circle shaped watch anyways. I did some research on what was available out there that would not cost an arm and leg to purchase but had all the bells and whistle. My criteria were: – Long battery life.

– Steps count, heart rate, sleep monitoring. – Some kind of GPS feature. – Not super expensive, but not a cheap throw-away watch either. – Can take a little bit beating but doesn’t have to be military grade ruggedness.

– Circle watch and looks good (obviously). I know that “smartwatches” will not last as long as a non-smartwatch, unless the battery replacement is simple, LCD screen will last for a long time, etc. This Garmin Instinct Solar seems to fit all my wishes at this price range.

The battery life is crazy good, I mean enable everything including the pulse ox and you should get at least a week+ worth of battery life easily. This is with the watch not absorbing any sunlight at all.

It has a simple GPS, nothing fancy, but I bike ride and will be using an external dedicated GPS device for routes. I just want something for casual hiking and biking, nothing serious. I can wear this to sleep, the sleep data mimics close to Fitbit’s details.

Really nice and it’s built-in to the watch, you do not have to make a separate purchase. I do not know how accurate ANY of the watches’ heart rate are, but wearing the Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin working out, the rates show to be within 15 beats of each other.

Take that for what its worth, I don’t need the accuracy for any critical medical monitoring conditions. I read that external heart rate monitor strap would make the readings accurate, so I am considering to get that should I need it later (5K/10K running, etc).

There’s a lot of other features from this watch that I have not yet used, so that is just a bonus goodie for me. I have used Garmin to connect to Strava, the data recorded is great and as expected (same with Apple Watch and Fitbit), no complaints there.

I wear this watch showering, sleeping and everything in between. The recharge of the watch is fast too, if I am standing around working, I plug in the watch and I think within 30 minutes I can get a full charge from 50% (I never really paid attention how long it takes to fully charge).

There’s got to be something not that great about this watch, you ask? Otherwise, why the 4 stars instead of 5 stars? Yes, the PULSE OX feature is a bit flaky. At night, it seems to measure the oxygen level all over the range.

As log as 80, and as high as 100. I wore the Apple Watch Series 6 and my wife’s Fitbit Luxe, they all had above 90 range. Now, one thing I am starting to realize is how you need to wear the Garmin Instinct Solar and online research also confirms.

You have to wear the watch higher on the wrist, it cannot be loose. When you sleep, just slide it up the wrist and make sure it’s tightly pressed against your skin. I need a few more sample nights to test, but I had one night where it was 85 or higher, the next night it was 90 or higher.

I’ll sleep on it a few more nights and then see, but looks hopeful now that I have the watch tightened a bit more against the skin. If you measure the Pulse Ox manually, it is always 95 or higher, this is as expected.

Overall, highly recommended watch. I would buy again!.

I own a Garmin Forerunner 220, which finally died on Wednesday Night. I used it for tracking HR, intervals, and keeping tabs at outdoor competitive running events. So, I needed something that could do similar.

While I could easily afford a Forerunner 245 (at Black Friday prices), I needed something I didn’t have to wait for, so after some brief research (here and on the Garmin website to make sure this could do everything I needed), I pulled the trigger on the Instinct.

After using it for a few days, I’m glad I did. It is actually a major upgrade from my Forerunner. It has much more battery life than my old Forerunner, does everything I need to do (like hr alert so I don’t go too high on workouts), and has extra features I will be exploring later.

The only downside from my perspective? The screen is too small for me to see (I wear glasses that I take off while working out). The workaround for me is to intently listen to the alerts emanating from the watch, and wait until I can download my tracked workout results to my home computer so I can see them on Garmin Connect.

Also, it doesn’t automatically connect to my external hrm (I wear a chest strap), but I can simply just get it to pair up prior to doing a workout, so it’s also not a big deal either, just different.

Pro tip: make sure you disable the internal hrm if don’t use it like I do. Otherwise, it may use it if your chest hrm loses contact with your body (and skews your hr readings, as wrist hrm’s are not as accurate as the chest ones are),.

I purchased my Garmin 255S about two week ago. The smaller size in gray is perfect for a small-framed person and the gray is nice. Initially in love with many of the sweet features (much faster GPS acquisition, improved sleep info, training guidance, HR based suggestions, etc), that love diminished when the watch started glitching.

At times, the originally blazing fast GPS acquisition takes significantly (seriously, almost 5 minutes) longer from my driveway and steps don’t show up for long periods of time BUT the kicker is heart rate zones.

The reason I use a watch with HR zones is to train effectively. Many of the features are based on those heart rate zones and time spent in them. Unfortunately, after attempting to customize my zones, they are now stuck on seemingly random numbers and cannot be altered (my zone 4 won’t budge from 140-145 bpm).

Garmin is aware of this problem as it appears many purchasers are dealing with the same issue. They are working on it but I’ve been told that it’ll be “a while” before engineers have the problem fixed.

Customer service, always stellar, can’t fix the problem as it seems to be a software issue. This watch has a ton of exceptional features that I expect runners ranging from weekend warriors to locally competitive racers will find very useful… once the software glitches are worked out – which I hope will be soon.

Until that time, its usefulness may be much more limited.

I came to Garmin after being a long-time Fitbit user. The latest Fitbits seem less focused on health and fitness and more on being ‘smart’. I am mostly happy with this model. I actually prefer the buttons to the touch screen – it is more reliable to use for me, between sweating on the summer runs and wearing gloves in the winter.

The GPS, HR and altimetry are very good. The UI is well thought out and a pleasure to use. The selection of watch faces is just enough for me – I strongly prefer the analog look and there is one that is very pleasing.

The only imperfection is that the sleep tracking is not as accurate as the previous fitbits were, mainly in the area of tracking time when I am awake but laying quietly. It consistently underestimates the awake time by up to an hour.

This is puzzling since the sensor suite is the same or better than the old fitbits. I can only guess it is the data analysis algorithms. Fitbit required a subscription to get the accurate analysis. I would be willing to pay for a similar subscription with the Garmin if I could get comparable accuracy.

As it is I have bought an Oura ring to get the sleep tracking accuracy. I’m looking forward to when I can give that up and get back to just one tracker!.

Still working to figure out the product. I’ve had at least 3 previous Forerunners and a bunch of other Garmin products for 20+ years. It appears they fixed the charging cord issues with this version, which is nice to see.

There’s a lot of capabilities that I’m working to figure out. Still, some of the reporting stuff is a pain and not relevant. I did a 5. 2 mile run/walk yesterday and the watch told me it was unproductive.

Pretty lame notification. I think I figured out how to shut off that. Hopefully, I can figure out how to turn on the stuff I want and turn off some of the lame biostatistics and feedback that are really not useful.

My chest heart monitor worked a little, but not very well. The good news is the wrist monitor seems to work great and is accurate. Shaving my wrist helped a lot. The font on the watch face is too small for normal older people that depend on reading glasses.

The run indicators work very well – they are large enough. This review request came from Garmin, I have no idea who Bazaarvoice is and it’s pretty lame that my information may be shared with an entity I do not know.

I can’t submit this review without agreeing to the Bazaarvoice privacy policy.

I’m a marathon pacer — one of the people who runs at a set pace holding a sign for a specific goal time. Pacers don’t rely solely on their watches, but we do like lots of accurate data to help us do our work.

I’ve been using Garmins for a long time and I used to have to buy their 4-series watches — the 405 and the 410. But features make their way down and I’d been using a couple 230s for several years. After my daughter got a 45 a few years back I was impressed that now the “0 series” was getting almost feature-rich enough to meet my pacing needs.

With the 55, the “0 series” finally has enough features for a pacer. Since I got this a month ago I’ve paced three half marathons and a marathon, wearing my old 230 on my right arm and the 55 on my left.

I haven’t noticed any issues with the watch, other than its GPS getting confused in a deep woods section of a half marathon and thinking I’d run 1. 1 miles when both my 230 and the course indicated I’d run a mile, but that kind of GPS error happens occasionally on any watch and it was abundantly obvious it had happened.

Wrist-based HR monitoring seems to have come a long way in the last couple generations – while it’s still not as responsive as a chest strap, so far it’s always reported accurately after just a short lag as compared to my chest strap with the 230.

Of course, pacing doesn’t involve a lot of rapidly-changing HR, or very-high readings, so I’ll need to see how it does on an intense track workout before I can say it’s good enough for HR training, but it seems to be fine for pacing a marathon.

The most amazing thing about this watch is its battery life. Back in the days of the 405 and 410, a fully charged watch could barely make it through a 4 hour marathon; my 230, when fully charged, is at about 60% by the end of a 4 hour marathon.

But this 55 was still reading 100% at the end of a 4:05 pacing job, and evidence indicates that it really didn’t drop much — four days and four runs later, wearing 24 hours a day and without charging, it’s still at 60%.

So far I’m also impressed with the “lifestyle health” software on the watch, as it seems to have adapted pretty quickly to my specific HR, sleep, and activity patterns to give me reasonable estimates of my training state.

Obviously this is all algorithmically driven so I wouldn’t trust it to really know what’s going on, but it’s a useful indicator. I have yet to try its “track mode”. I had seriously considered a Coros because Garmins have always been mediocre on the track and my friends with Coros watches have been really impressed with their track mode.

Supposedly Garmin has acted quickly to get their “track mode” into the same range of accuracy as Coros, so I’m excited to try it out once I’m back to that part of my training cycle again. This watch obviously isn’t appropriate for a triathlete, and some of the more expensive Fenix type watches may be better for trail runners and hikers who intend their watch to be their primary device.

But for runners who train and race primarily on the roads I think the 55 represents a turning point where the “0 series” watches are finally good enough for anything.

The Garmin Forerunner 55 is my first experience with a Garmin smartwatch, and I consider myself a relatively new runner (started running about 8 months ago). The amount of features this watch has was sufficient for me, and the main selling points for me were: GPS, better accuracy in step counts than my GPS phone application, ability to manage Bluetooth earbud music from watch-to-phone connection, and the smartwatch came out recently so the software should be up to date/get consistent updates.

I’ll address my experiences with each of those selling points respectively. GPS- The default GPS settings on the smartwatch were very precise, marking times when I crossed the road and ran on the sidewalk correctly for the most part.

Sometimes the GPS data would be a little off but for the most part it was very accurate. After starting an activity you need to wait for the GPS signal, which takes ~5-15 seconds before you can start tracking your GPS location.

Music- I like listening to music when I run and having the watch paired to my phone, I can pause, skip back/forward, and adjust volume all on the smartwatch without having to take my phone out of my pocket which is a plus for me.

Newer product- There seems to be a lot of support for the smartwatch, and there are plenty of apps and widgets that are available for free and for money in the Connect IQ store. I really enjoy the notifications widget that comes default with the smartwatch that shows you notification pop-ups from your phone on your watch.

This is handy for my work where I get frequent messages and can check them on my wrist. There is one infrequent software bug that happens though, where if you delete the last notification in the list it will still say that there is one notification, but hopefully this will be fixed in the next software update.

Bought this to replace Forerunner 30. The 55 is a significant upgrade in terms of the info provided for running. Lots of features and it’s super fast at picking up GPS. I’ve found the facility to set intervals and targeted pace, split time and finishing time (via app) especially useful – I thing this will be great for setting, and sticking to, a race strategy.

Training plans for 5k, 10k and half are available on app but they are only for pace up to 7:00 per mile, so quite limited. Features like stress measurement and ‘body battery’ included. probably bit of a gimmick, but fun.

I have a small wrist and was worried that watch would look too big but it is fine. Watch face can be changed for free via app – lots of choice and some are much better than the default ones on the watch imo.

Battery life excellent (I’m getting at least 1 week) and really quick to recharge. My only negative is that the screen is much duller than my old watch and difficult to view indoors without turning on back light via button on watch; it’s fine in daylight outside though.

Knocked off one star for this but, for £130, this is a great value watch which provides everything most runners will ever need.

Great watch for the price. Chose this over Coros Pace 2 for two main reasons. First, it has physical start/stop and lap buttons and it has been extremely helpful for interval training and while running on track (compared to the single scroll button on the coros).

The other is of course, music through spotify (you can also sync local music to spotify and then download it to the watch, so even audiobooks work! No phone needed), which is usful for long runs. One thing I was a bit concerned about was navigation during running on trails, but after doing it many times, I can confidently say that it works great.

I highly recommend downloading Komoot through the ConnectIQ store, the local region is unlocked for free!! but you can also make routes in the Garmin app or through Strava. That being said, now with the release of Garmin 255 (for which no music version exists), the price of this one would likely go a bit lower and it still would be an excellent value for price compared to the more expensive 255 which doesn’t have too many benefits over this.

6 more hours of gps battery life better UI are the major ones in my opinion. Power metrics for Garmin watches around this price are still not there unlike Coros pace 2 (which is also available at a great price here, making it a very viable choice if you don’t mind the lack of physical buttons and the lack of a website to check your training data with a slightly more basic app).

For me, this is 4. 5 stars at the current price and would probably go higher if the price gets dropped more in the near future.

I normally use a Swiss Automatic to tell the time, so a sports watch with its myriad functions was a big change for me. I adapted rapidly. A week or two and I totally embraced it. It’s easy enough to set up and get to know straightaway.

I found the phone app easy and intuitive to use and full of useful information. Watch and app connect sweetly. The watch itself is very customizable so you can really tweek it to your own specific needs.

I use it manly for running, cycling and swimming, but I’ve set up yoga workouts and track long walks as well. It’s a bit hit-and-miss with outdoors swimming, for which I had to create a custom workout, but I find it quite accurate for running & rides.

Connecting to Strava was a breeze. It’s a great little motivator & I found the training programs useful too. I count to beat my 10k and half-marathon times with it. It charges really quickly and looks good on my wrist (not too big or bulky compared to the Swiss Automatic at least).

I liked the bendiness in the silicone strap, easy to wear snug but not tight. Overall, after 2 months, I am very happy.

This watch does a great job of tracking your exercise and providing *detailed* information about it. It’s honestly great if you’re looking for a very outdoors/exercise-oriented watch. Here are the reasons why I’m personally returning it for an Apple Watch: -For the price, I think it should do more and be more accurate overall.

Not just with exercise stuff, but with every other feature it offers -I found the watch and the Garmin app generally kinda buggy, and Garmin doesn’t seem very responsive about fixing these bugs. -The lifestyle measurements (e.

g. sleep tracking, high heartrate warning) were not always accurate. For example: I was awake for well over an hour the other night, but the app said I was awake for 7 minutes. The alarm also started going off a separate time telling me I was experiencing a dangerously high heartrate, but it was sitting on my bedside table and I wasn’t even wearing it -There’s no touchscreen on this, and the physical buttons are hard to intuitively figure out.

The medical assistance alarm was triggered when I naturally hopped off my bike, and I had no idea how to stop it as I randomly pressed any and all of the buttons in a panic -The screen brightness is also really dim because the watch is designed to be viewed outside.

There’s no option on the 245 to increase the brightness, which is useful for when you’re indoors in a dark room, for example -There’s a Garmin store (in addition to the Garmin Connect app that you have to download) where you can install new watchfaces and stuff, but the designs aren’t great and a lot of them you have to pay extra for.

The Garmin Connect app, and the store app, aren’t very intuitive but they do the job. It’s just a pain if you’re an apple user to download yet another 2 apps to your phone I could go on, but generally I’m personally looking for more balance of a lifestyle watch, so this wasn’t the one for me.

GREAT though if you’re looking for something very outdoorsy/workout oriented, without all the bells and whistles of other watches.

This is my third and most expensive SUUNTO watch. I started out with an AMBIT 1 which worked fine until the buttons no longer functioned properly after two years. I replaced that watch with an AMBIT 2 which served me faithfully for about 8 years.

I upgraded the software, cleaned it up and passed it on to my daughter who is training for a Triathlon. The AMBIT 2 was replaced this Christmas with the 9 Baro Titanium. The dimensions of the watch are similar to the AMBIT 2 but the 9 Baro T is lighter and the dial is not as striking.

The watch is very configurable in that the user has the ability to choose from a number of watch faces as well as control of the accuracy of GPS and brightness of the watch. These decisions will radically affect the battery life so choose wisely.

I was very surprised to find that the watch rapidly discharged during the first two days that I wore it because I had the watch set for maximum brightness and most accurate GPS setting during my workouts.

After getting about 1. 5 days of use, I changed a number of settings to try to extend the battery life. The main drawback was that the display became almost unreadable. Something needs to be done about that.

The wrist HR monitor is an excellent concept that doesn’t quite work well in execution. When starting out, the sensor registers little change in heart rate and then often, during the middle of a workout, the heart rate jumps to an abnormally high rate.

If I weren’t aware of my physical conditioning I might become worried. The GPS appears to be fairly accurate and responsive, however the pace rate is off. A modification to the SW may be able to correct that.

While I like the design of the 9 Peak, I choose to get the 9 Baro because I felt that the larger face would be easier to read. That may be true but the lack of screen brightness is a significant hindrance.

I am not sure that the 9 Peak would be any brighter. The watch sits comfortably on my wrist and doesn’t look out of place even though I am not a large person. The strap is also comfortable although the 9 Peak strap looks even more comfortable as well as more easily adjusted.

Overall, I find myself still a bit unconvinced by the watch after almost two weeks wearing it. The battery life is a disappointment as well as the lack of screen brightness. The design, performance and features are good as is the build quality.

I also like very much how the watch is integrated with the new SUNTO App to provide an athlete with a number of metrics.

I have been a sunnto fan and this is my 4th Sunnto watch. I primarily use the watch for hiking, climbing, backpacking and at times running and working out, in addition I use it for navigating outdoors and tracking elevation and barometric information.

while Sunnto Ambit 3 peak was an incredible practical watch, this one packs tons of useless features and hides / removes / makes it hard to access the practical ones. The heart rate monitor is very inaccurate to a point of making it completely useless.

The screen is dim. is it readable yes but do you enjoy having a watch you can barley read? no. Impractical screens, there are tons of screens to toggle to and back, some can be configured but most can’t and while you are toggling between those screens you are waiting, it takes a second, and as you find yourself toggling the dim lid watch and getting frustrated by the wait and the useless information it presents you, you wonder why the makers made the watch counter intuitive.

The watch is touch screen but you first have to press the middle button in order to active it. They have removed the locking button which while in exercise mode prevented accidents. Accessing the most basic information such as “what is my elevation” requires many screen changes.

This watch is very confused as to what it wants to be. While being an outdoors watch was its core I fear its trying to compete with apple watch. If I wanted an apple watch I would have bought one but I want a real outdoors watch, one that can give me the information I need in a pinch, as I navigate and route, and make sure my heart can take more of the stress I am forcing onto it.

This used to be Suunto but not anymore.

I previously had a forerunner and was able to make it work for me really well. Unfortunately it died. After a year or so I finally got the fenix 6s, and thus far its been great. I’m still working on customizing it to my liking, but it’s easy to work with.

I think the garmin connect updates have all been steps in a positive direction. And the additional features of the watch are pretty fun for a data nerd like myself. Especially paired with the new hrm-pro, I’m quite interested to test out the new power measurements in xc skiing, overnight pulseox seems to work alright, and being able to do HRV through garmin and not a 3rd party like I used to have to is quite nice.

It pairs well with my sleep app and makes it easy to track and log my daily ‘health’ in a variety of ways. I’d like to see a few more garmin connect updates, particularly related to generating a functional training log for athletes/coaches to analyze.

But not many workout apps I’ve tried do a good job on that front. In any case, I’m impressed. Battery life has been excellent. The wrist HR monitor is about like any other watch, not really reliable, particularly for exercise.

But I don’t knock the product for that. If you want that data it’s pretty much an absolute necessity to have a chest strap of some kind. The price is a bit steep, but hopefully it will continue to last and make it worth the purchase.

As a person who upgraded from a forerunner 245, I’m in love with all of the gadgets and who’shewhat’s it’s on this new watch. I like the different widgets. I like that you can custom the watch face. I really like the heart rate and pull socks.

However sweaty and outside running the heart rate seems a little bit unreliable as you get going. But of course it is a wrist-based biometric not a chest strap so you got to take that into consideration.

Overall though pretty good on the biometrics. I really like using this watch for walking, hiking, ellipticaling and all of the other upright activities I do. I do wish however there was a way that was simpler to hook a foot pod for cycling.

I have a wahoo cadence monitor for my bike but I have not found a reliable distance and speed attachment for my bike that actually talks to the watch that thus can talk to the Garmin application. Overall though for charting of my activities seems to be great.

One thing I would like down the road is get rid of the gold. I love the white. That’s why I went with white. But the gold is something to be desired.

I have used various outdoor wearables over the last few years, starting with a FitBit, mainly as a step counter, through several other types before arriving at the full blown Garmin GPS option. I have owned an Instinct and a Fenix 5 before taking the plunge with a Fenix 6 Sapphire.

The Fenix 6 range are not cheap but are, in my opinion, the Rolls Royce of outdoor watches by virtue of the level of information that you can utilise from both a fitness and navigational perspective.

In addition you have the significant back up and support provided by the Garmin Connect and Explore Apps to which they sync. These Apps give excellent repots for fitness statistics over time and the Explore App is also useful for planning routes which can then be transferred to the watch.

I have found GPS acquisition times to be fast which enables quick ‘getaways’ when out on the trails and battery life is also acceptable, although don’t believe all the figures that Gamin provide in this respect – if using the watch as intended I would expect to top up the battery every 3-4 days.

The watch is well made and strong with an excellent screen with good clarity. Operating procedures are very similar across the Garmin Outdoor watches, so when you can use one you can use most of them – aided in no small part by the on-line GRP Training Courses.

Negatives – not that many. I would like a longer battery life but the watch is big enough already. Additional straps are expensive for what they are, although easily changeable and I tend to stick with Garmin ones other than clones as I don’t want the watch falling off.

It would be great to have OSGB mapping rather than TopoActive, but that is probably a step too far for this size and definition of screen. If I did lose it I would not hesitate to buy another – good enough recommendation, although I would not head out backpacking without a Handheld Gamin GPS (OSGB Mapping) and a compass and paper map as well!!.

You’d think in a time of self driving cars and robotic surgery, a basic functioning fitness watch that tracks GPS, steps, and heart rate at this price point would be reliable and dependable! Not so with this watch! Stay clear.

I’ve done 2 warranty claims and none of these watches (I’ve had 3) works well. The problems 1) heart rate all over the place (sometimes the whole exercise is tracked at ridiculously high hr, sometimes way too low, at times it just jumps around erratically despite no change in the activity, often it’s just under by 10-15bpm the whole workout) – this is annoying as not only does it misrepresent your workouts and calories burned, but it also misrepresents your “minutes of intense exercise” as your hr needs to be in a certain hr zone for at least 10+ minutes before it even starts tracking your workout as “minutes of intense exercise”.

I can go for a 30 minute run and get 0 minutes of exercise logged!) 2) randomly doesn’t track something like steps, km, exercise minutes, calories (some things you can add in later and others like steps you cannot manually enter, (or sometimes it tracks it in the individual activity but does not update daily totals) 3) sometimes does not switch settings to the next day until you restart the watch and then you lose all the activity you have already done for the day, starting your numbers back at zero, including calories burned and steps 4) GPS works great when it works, but it needs constant attention as it will start to work then stop working or just not even track km at all (bizarrely I still have the map I’ve run or biked but no km logged, which again can be entered later if you want to do the math yourself using another ap) 5) spotty Bluetooth connection (there’s no reliable connection to he had between this watch and my phone – it updates sometimes when it wants, despite having a very good phone with no other Bluetooth issues) Just a consistent and correct HR reader would improve this watch greatly.

There is no excuse for such terrible software and all these bugs at this price point.

This is a basic watch, which is all I wanted. I only power it on a couple of times a week to do my run and then I power it off, so it leads a soft life. Nevertheless, this morning it woke up and then locked up the screen.

I timed my run with a WIND-UP TIMEX THAT IS 30 YEARS OLD. After my run I went to the Garmin website and discovered that this is a known problem with this watch that they “are working on a fix” for. The watch will get stuck on a screen and become unresponsive.

The reboot is to mash the power button and hold it for a really long time, then plug the watch into power and mash the power button again for a really long time, then it wakes up and has the wrong time and date.

I am frustrated and disappointed. My wife bought me this watch as a gift and she is pissed that it didn’t even last a year when it hardly gets used.

I bought this watch specifically because I wanted a heart rate/foot step tracking watch and it was both highly rated by Consumer Reports and was less than $100. It does those features well. Using the smart phone app, I see that it also tracks my sleep between light and deep sleep which is interesting but it does not track REM sleep for some reason (there’s a spot for it in the app but it is always blank).

I think it would be more intersting to see how my sleep is divided amongst all three but nbd, really, since it was not a feature I was buying for. Also, I don’t currently do any cardio so I don’t use the run/walk feature, but I have noticed that the watch tracks “intensity minutes” whenever my heart rate is elevated above a certain level when working out.

This is interesting to me since it shows that I am above the threshhold throughout my entire workouts. The watch is setup by defualt to adjust your daily step goal based on the prior day. I thought it was a neat feature until the watch kept prompting me to move.

I guess it would be a nice feature if it was something I had been looking for, but I quickly found it annoying and turned it off in the app. The battery has been lasting about a week+. It would probably last longer but I always charge it when it is on its last bar andits usually charged in a few hours.

Don’t lose the charging cord since Garmin uses a proprietary cord and I am guessing that it would be expensive to replace.

I purchased the watch in the fall of 2020 and I love it. However. after about a year of wearing the watch I noticed that the thumb side of my wrist starting to itch and turn red. I took the watch off and cleaned it with soap and a soft toothbrush then put it back on.

The itching got worse and my wrist started to look and feel blistered. I cleaned the watch again with alcohol, then peroxide, then vinegar. No change. Blistering got worse, I stopped wearing lotion and body oil.

No change. So I finally just stopped wearing the watch. I reached out to Garmin online and was told to contact customer service via telephone. I did so. Spoke to a very nice gal, Sierra, who took my information and sent me to another customer service agent, Debbie, who I can only assume offices in the bowels of the Garmin headquarters far below the sunshine.

Debbie asks me to send pics of my wrist and the watch to her. I complied. and wouldn’t you know it, all this is my fault! The part of the band that I told Debbie looks like a coating had worn off was actually “residue” to her discerning customer service eyes.

And as it turns out, I was wearing the watch incorrectly! She so observantly pointed out to me that it was clear I was wearing the watch too tightly as you could see the indentions on my wrist. having not worn the watch for several days I was surprised to hear this but, she’s the professional, yes? After listening to Debbie explain to me how to properly wear and clean the watch as if I were a toddler with an expensive toy, I asked her to forgo the remainder of her well rehearsed lecture and just let me know If this was something she was going to be able to help me with or not.

It was then that Debbie told me that despite my complete incompetence she would benevolently send me another watch band, along with another copy of the care instructions that I followed the first time.

Of note: I had the feeling Debbie had taken a call like mine before so I asked her “I’m guessing you guys have had this issue before”, to which she sardonically replied “yes. “. Comforting to now I’m not the only schlemiel out here trying to navigate the intricacies of the modern wristwatch.

Former marathoner/half-marathoner, getting back into running after almost a 10 year hiatus. I used to have one of those huge, earlier model Garmins that was like a huge block on my wrist, but it was awesome for what it did.

I always hated chest straps but like to monitor heart rate during runs. I have an earlier model Mio, which is stylish and great for wrist heart rate alone, but no GPS. Had been using my Iphone for distance and pace, but I hate opening my phone case, finding the app, etc.

to check during a run. On training runs, I want to see 4 things and really only 4 things: distance, pace, heart rate and time. And I don’t want a chest strap any more. So I researched some (not enough) and settled for the Forerunner 45, knowing that the screens were customizable and, from the photos, it “looked” fairly stylish.

I was worried the face would be huge on my wrist, but the pictures are deceiving. The watch face itself is not that big at all. In fact, it is quite small and my wrists are not that big. Unfortunately, the watch band is also small – disproportionately small.

It therefore is not very stylish for a man. It seems flimsy and just looks a little weird. That said, it’s size and lack of weight make it unobtrusive during a run. The controls are not intuitive but if you can read a guide online, you can figure it out.

On a test run, the GPS linked up pretty quick. The wrist heart rate seemed pretty accurate, so the measuring functions seemed okay. The distance was about the same as my Iphone measured. However, the BIG drawbacks are: (1) you can customize the data fields on each running screen BUT YOU ONLY GET A MAX OF THREE DATA FIELDS per screen; and (2) there is no auto-scroll permitting you to move through two screens to get that 4th element of data.

This is entirely ridiculous because there is plenty of room for 4 data fields, and non-auto-scrolling is just dumb. (for example, you could make two running screens, one distance, heart rate, pace – and the other distance, time, pace, so only the middle value would change during an auto-scroll – but you can’t do that – you have to press a button to change the screen).

So, in short, if you want to glance down at your wrist during a run and see time, pace, distance and heart rate – you cannot do it without manipulation. The watch is lightly packed with some other “smartphone” features most people who buy it for running will never use.

The treadmill setting is totally inaccurate, particularly if you are not swinging your arms the entire walk or run. There is a calibration setting, but I am skeptical. The battery life seems fine. So, in short, the watch works fine, though a little clunky to set up and manipulate (note 5 buttons – I defy anyone to figure out and remember what they all do).

However, it is not a “pure” runner’s watch like the older Garmins. The wrist band is WAY to narrow for a man’s style and disproportionate to the watch face size. For the price, it is what it is, and I will use this for my runs – not ideal but the best for what I have right now.

However, I wish I had been a little more patient and shopped around for something more streamlined for running. If you’re someone who is not a quasi-serious runner and are looking for something with those functions and is also a wearable, this might fit the bill.

But the key features are the wrist heart rate and GPS, which really only make sense for outdoor runs (or walks), and if you’re doing that, you’re probably more serious of a runner than this is a running watch.

Great cosmetic and functioning shape, but only 4-5 days battery life as a refurb versus 5-7 days advertised for new. Compared to my previous entry-level Forerunner 35, the 45 acquires GPS signal quicker (1-5 seconds versus 15-300 seconds), tracks location better (especially at the start of a run, eg doesn’t say I ran a 4-minute-mile in a circle for the first 10 seconds of a run), and provides more insight (eg sleep tracking, stress / body battery).

It’s not perfect as the sleep tracking fails, ie “unmeasurable”, for 30 minutes every night at random times unrelated to waking up or getting up, so it underestimates sleep by 30 minutes. It also poorly distinguishes between sleeping and simply lying in bed, so if you wake up 30 minutes early and lie in bed before getting up, then it counts that as sleep and overestimates your sleep by 30 minutes (requiring you to remember when you actually woke up and manually edit your sleep end time).

#sweepstakes.

I bought the Instinct 2 Solar to replace my 735 XT, which I had used happily for triathlon training and racing for many years. When it looked like the 735 might not last much longer, and I saw that it was discontinued, I looked for a replacement.

I had received an email from Garmin touting the Instinct 2 and decided to buy it just over a month ago for the following reasons: 1. Better battery life plus solar charging. 2. More rugged. 3. More accurate GPS.

The battery life is indeed better and it recharges very quickly, but I am not convinced that it would last 29 days without GPS usage. After such a short time I can’t judge how rugged it is or how accurate the GPS, but I am willing to believe those claims.

A pleasant surprise is that the Instinct 2 pairs with my smart bike trainer. I have been using the timer for ice treatments and stretching and the sleep monitoring functions, which I did not do with the 735.

Like the 735 and maybe all such watches, the Instinct 2 does not do a great job counting laps in the pool; it always misses a few turns, understating the distance and distorting the overall statistics.

My only real complaint is that with its abundance of features I personally do not need, it is a bit more complicated to use than the 735 for simple workouts. Also, the display is harder to read during a run or pool swim during rest through swim goggles) with the tiny numbers in the small circle in the upper right-hand corner.

I liked the 735 display better, even though the Instinct 2 has more pixels. To accommodate all the features, Garmin has added a third button on the left side of the watch; since that reduces the spacing, it is harder to change screens during a run.

They also added a function to enable or disable the lap key, essential when doing interval workouts or measuring distances along a hiking route. I could not figure out why I could not measure laps until I called the always super-helpful Garmin support team, who told me about this function, which is inexplicably not included in the full-length manual.

In summary, I love being able to record and view all my training statistics with this watch, and am getting used to accessing the functions I need, but it is not a perfect 5 for the reasons mentioned above.

Purchased this upgraded edition of the Instinct Solar as soon as it appeared. The feature additions were exactly what I was looking for without having to go with the high-end touchscreen devices. This device checks all the boxes for me.

Battery life is exceptional (best-in-class) and a must-have feature for my usage which includes many all-day or multi-day excursions. This device features more satellite system integration so tracking is extremely accurate and fast to acquire.

The menu system is logical and intuitive and operation is quick and responsive. (Garmin has come a long way in making their devices functional and intuitive from their disastrous past implementations, IMHO).

I really appreciate the variety of built-in sports applications – I use many of them, and like that I can add/subtract them easily as my list changes by seasons. The addition of Pulse Ox, V02 max, and other health features aligns this device with the higher-end devices as a great price-point.

Finally, I appreciate the addition of safety features such as Incident Detection. Note, however, that one must be prepared for false alerts, and know how to cancel them – this is not described in the manual nor online so you have 15 seconds to figure it out the first time it happens! Don’t worry though, if you send a false alert the device gives you the option to send a follow-up “I’m Okay” message (if you participate in a lot of activities that involve a lot of motion you will end up exercising this feature – but, I think it is worth the peace-of-mind if something bad does occur).

So far, operation has been near flawless, although I have had experience with Garmin’s connect system going down, and other device/fw bugs, with other Garmin devices, so not holding my breath. Garmin Connect app is top notch and phone integration is also near perfection.

Bottom line: if you need extended (potentially infinite) battery life for longer excursions, and are looking for a fully-loaded fitness/activity/health tracking instrument, this is IMHO the best there is.

It’s a great smart watch, most likely the best rugged on the market in that price range, I specifically chose a Garmin smart watch for its connectivity with inReach and the ability to trigger the SOS from a distance of the inReach device (like when being ejected from your bicycle in a crash with inReach on the bike).

However, the battery life claim is way overstated. I get 9 to 10 days with reduced sensors use and without triggering any fitness or GPS tracking function. Reduced sensor means only tracking HR 24/7 and PulsOx when sleeping, with a backlight at 10% (default is 20%) and the ABC sensor on.

The claim of 28 days battery life is certainly if you do not use any sensor and don’t use the watch for what it is intended, so if you need a solar watch only, my “other” solar watch has been working for over 20 years only on light recharge (there isn’t even a charging port on it).

A staggering difference is that it recharges on indoor light, the Garmin does not at all. It is disapointing considering the “other” technology is at least 20 years older than the solar panels on the Garmin watch.

I turned off the temperature sensor as like my “other” watch, it is pretty much useless since it records the watch internal temperature, which is warmed up by your body heat, rather than the external temperature, unless you take it off your wrist.

One thing I do find frustrating about the Garmin is that you can’t schedule to turn off the bluetooth connectivity. To turn it off you have to go to the BT menu (which is very well designed) and turn it off manually, we should be able to schedule that just like an alarm, for example to avoid BT EMF exposure near the head while sleeping.

Garmin if you are listening, please and thank you. I love that you can program most if the watch from the phone app, this is extremely useful compared to the previous model and the Connect app gives useful health tracking information.

I took advantage of the year end sales to buy a Forerunner 945 LTE, rather than wait a few weeks for the far more expensive Fenix 7. Typically I have always gone for the latest and greatest. However, after experiencing the reality that Garmin watches essentially function well for 2 years (for runners like me that clock 2000+ miles per year) before needing to be replaced, I decided that I needed to assess what I really needed from a tracking watch.

It turns out that the Forerunner 945 LTE has everything I need, except perhaps better battery life. It lacks the touch screen of the new Fenix 7 and the soon to be released Forerunner 955, it’s missing a couple of the newest features like Stamina measurement, and the battery life is not nearly as good as the Fenix 7; daily recharging is essentially required, especially after longer runs.

But I love the size and light weight, the LTE eliminates the need to carry my phone (safety tracking is really important to me) and it has all the regular features like Pace Pro that I use a lot. I’ve never really used the maps feature, because I’ve always found the turn by turn directions to be really good on Garmin watches.

From all the reviews that I’ve read, the new touch screen capability on the Fenix 7, functions really well for Map navigation. But that is not something that I need. So paying the discounted price of $525 for the Forerunner 945 LTE, vs $999 for the new Fenix 7, was a no brainer for me.

I’ll be replacing this watch, like all my previous Garmins, in 2 years. It’s always nice having the latest and greatest, but in all honesty, the Forerunner 945 LTE gives me everything that I need, and delivers far greater value for money.

Upgrading from a 735xt. I checked out a lot of pofessional reviews and YouTube videos before feelng comfortable making the change, and I haven’t been let down! Battery life on the 735xt was excellent and the 945 is the same.

I haven’t used the amazing in-built maps feature out and about yet, but it’s there and functional so impressed there. My main reason for upgrading was to access bluetooth music capabilities not present on the 735xt and the 945 doesn’t disappoint here; plenty enough GB space, connects fast to the Jabra Elite Active 7s I use and it’s not a massive hassle to download music from your phone Spotify to your Spotify on the watch (after downloading the Spotify app for the watch via Garmin Connect app).

Also there’s the Garmin Pay ability that comes with this watch which is nifty. However, the range of compatible banks is limited so check that before you buy. I’m making a Revolut account to take advantage of this feature as my bank is not accepted.

Also double check your headphones will be compatible but that’s a much less likely issue. GPS and stats were very accurate for running in my experience on the 735xt and this 945 is again, more of the same, yet more features as well.

Only critique I have is the buttons are a little less tactile than the 735xt and not quite as good looking, not too much in it though. And there’s a lot of dead space between the screen and outer edge comparatively (something that’s fixed in the recently released and more expensive 945 LTE).

Please check lots of reviews, do your full research, to make sure this is the watch for you as it is a little pricey despite it’s reliabilty and chock full of features. Overall very satisfying watch and will be lasting for years.

If you are looking for a watch to handle full distance 140. 6 triathlons, DO NOT BUY this watch. This watch went from 100% to DEAD in 11:35 during ironman Texas. I bought this watch has an upgrade over my beloved 945, which only used 45% battery for Ironman Florida.

Never had connectivity or battery problems. The LTE however, will just drain excessively. Even sitting on my nightstand it will drain 50% over night. I have to plug it in every night. Unlike the 945 I would plug in once a week.

Connecting to earbuds, iPhone and bike trainer are also an issue. I have a Tacx FLUX (Garmin) trainer, the watch will connect to the trainer and speed/cadence but have issues connecting to the power, so I have to connect manually.

To connect to the earbuds I have to turn the watch off and back on. Getting notifications from my iPhone is hit and miss, prolly receive about 70%. Again, all problems I didnt have with the 945. I worked with support, their answer was to remove any/all apps and turn off as many features as you can, so basically just use to tell time.

Support did swap out the watch but the new one has all the same problems as the previous one.

I’ve switched from a forerunner 245M, a 945 LTE, and now a 955 watch. While I loved the option for LTE with my 945, I simply couldn’t resist higher music storage, more accurate GPS tracking, and the addition of a touch screen.

I’d say firstly that the best of all these additions was the GPS tracking: it’s extremely fast at getting a reliable signal and I love being able to review my tracks now that they can encapsulate a better picture of my running journeys, and I have yet to encounter an offensive case of miscalculated distances or speeds.

The multiband is simply a great spec to have. As for the rest of the features, I’d say they are relatively subjective in their usefulness. I like listening to podcasts on my runs, so having a higher capacity for music and stuff like that is a nice thing to have in a watch of this price range.

I also do find myself using the touchscreen quite a bit as it’s especially useful for scrolling the menus and viewing the navigation map: the best part of having such a thing on this device. I do feel it is underutilized in some places however, as I think it doesn’t quite make sense not to have a qwerty style keyboard for quick messages, at least for android as iOS is still very exclusive to the ecosystem that Apple has built.

All the other features of this watch are pretty much the same as all the available options from Garmin though. I know it now sports a new sensor for supposedly more accurate heart rate monitoring, pulse ox monitoring, and is now being used to calculate HRV, but honestly I haven’t yet observed a drastic improvement over the previous sensor in terms of accuracy.

But, for the price Garmin has posted for the 955, it’s a pretty good deal: you get the latest and greatest tech from Garmin in a lightweight device that will last years for a price much cheaper than even their last gen forerunner 945/945 LTE.

I really love this device and the practical aspects of owning a Garmin watch, as battery life is fantastic while offering advanced training metrics and options to get users fit, and as a standalone watch, of course it gives you everything you’d want from one, and has mostly satisfactory smart features, though as I mentioned with the lack of a proper keyboard, it still is a bit away from being a perfect hybrid of a sportwatch and smartwatch, but it’s close enough for now.

However, there is one big flaw with this device, and that is the numerous bugs. Sometimes I hold the music button and before I can even scroll or do anything, the menu backs out. The map navigation was only a few weeks ago rather finicky with the tough screen, as even a little swipe to the left backed out of the map and moving about the image was really tricky, though it appears to have been fixed in the 11.

12 version update. People have also noticed that editing power/heart rate zones is useless as the watch will just revert back to syncing its own calculated values. People have noted battery drain issues as well, though I can’t personally attest to that, it just seems to be a common problem given how many complain about it.

Luckily though, Garmin seems to be patching all these things, and that’s the best part at least: all the bugs are absolutely fixable through software, and at the very least, the core functionality of the watch seems to be very stable and usable, which is why I’ve given this product a 4/5 and not a 3.

Overall, you’re getting the best of the forerunner Garmin watches in one device, with a better price, and you are also getting new key features and more in the future. I think altogether if you’re new to the Garmin world and want to pick up a watch now for running or marathoning and want more longevity from your purchase, I’d totally recommend this watch or the cheaper 255 as it does pretty much the same things, just less music storage, no touch screen, and shorter battery life.

background: i’ve owned a FR210, 735XT, 935, 945LTE prior to this. i only upgraded from the 945LTE because my friend was interested in it, and i saw it as an opportunity to upgrade to the newer GPS which would presumably give me better instantaneous pace while running.

i hope the bugs (some listed below) will be resolved and this can settle into being a “4 year watch” for me just like the 935 which served me very well for over four years. The good: – the GPS is all that it is advertised.

i get much better instantaneous pace and accuracy, especially in tree covered running trails than i did with my 945LTE and 935. this alone makes the upgrade worthwhile. – the 1. 3″ screen is a welcomed size upgrade from the 1.

2″ on the 935 and 945LTE. – the Solar ring offsets the large bezel and does appear to give a noticeable boost if i get enough time in the sun. i think it takes in a fair bit of solar insolation while driving, running, and cycling, but less so while walking/hiking if one’s hands are at their side and the screen isn’t facing the sun.

– i seem to have lucked out (see below): for my uses, the battery life has been in line with spec for both smart watch usage and GPS activities. that is not the case for many of my cohorts on the Garmin forum (see below) – i was glad to see the “price drop” relative to the 945 series.

at $500 (for non Solar), it’s much more competitive with other watches out there. if it had been $100 more, i probably wouldn’t have upgraded. i paid the extra $100 premium for the Solar in hopes that it would give me a little more endurance while backpacking and also i felt it would lend a visual feature that reduced the size of the apparent bezel (which is very wide, IMHO.

especially in this day and age) – Garmin finally seems to have mastered their backlights. while not OLED quality, contrast is very good at night. surprisingly it’s even better than the 945LTE, which in itself was a huge step up from the 935 and 945.

– the touch interface, while half baked (see below), is a nice addition to the UI. i am slowly undoing muscle memory as touch does allow me to do certain things more efficiently. The bad/ugly: bugs, bugs, bugs – surprised to see the return of the backlight settings bug that plagued early firmwares of the 945LTE (the backlight activates on certain glances even if all the setting should have it not illuminating) – many people are seeing continued battery drain after an activity due to presumably sensors that are continually being connected or searched for (this is again a carry over bug from the 945LTE).

as i noted, i’ve so far avoided such issues, but i can’t ignore the fact that many people are having problems, similar to what i was seeing with my 945LTE not living up to specs in the battery life realm.

– the extra 0. 5mm thickness is noticeably over the 945LTE. i’m getting used to it, but i hope they don’t keep making these watches thicker. – the touch features don’t appear fully baked. e. g. , unlike the Fenix 7 watch, if you double tap on the map, it doesn’t zoom in.

i hope this is fixed in a future firmware release. – the built in watch faces don’t use touch to send the user to glances/widgets as they do on the Fenix 7 (touching heart rate doesn’t bring up details about the HR via the HR glance) – this watch doesn’t have the more feature-rich Power Manager that the Fenix 7 (and Fenix 6 for that matter) have.

– watch auto setting max HR and HR zones without notifying the user. this has never happened with my prior Forerunner watches. – random bugs that are not repeatable including but not limited to: spontaneous reboot of the watch (happened once), not being to sync to Garmin Connect via bluetooth, random dropping of GPS lock (GPS only mode) during a run during a manual pause and then taking 12+ minutes to relook GPS giving me really bad data for a significant portion of my run (screwing up VO2max due to inaccurate speed/distance over 1mile).

in the end, i’m going to be cautiously hopeful that Garmin will iron out my critiques above. i’m a bit concerned at how slowly and little attention has been paid to some persistent issues with the 945LTE which released over a year ago.

i’m hoping that’s not an indication of Garmin’s ability to rectify significant problems in their firmwares. Featurewise, the watch is fantastic, and bugs aside, the watch is what i’ve been wanting over these years as the Forerunner line has evolved: the larger screen (hoping some day the bezel will be small enough to give us a 44mm screen a 47mm watch) and dramatically improved GPS are welcomed improvements to this long time user.

i am a long time button users, but i am slowly being won over by the efficiency of doing certain things by touch. i hope Garmin quickly brings feature parity to the 955’s touch interface to match the Fenix 7.

The 955 Solar was a wonderful Father’s Day surprise. I reluctantly made the switch from Apple Watch after beginning to train for an Ironman. Despite the laughably poor battery life of an Apple Watch, I really liked that device as it helped me shed 60 pounds and keep it off.

However, that tracker simply didn’t work well while swimming, and it would never make it through an Ironman. A friend gave me his ancient and enormous, square Forerunner from years ago, and that was far better in the water, but it did not offer heart rate data while swimming.

After complaining enough, the Father’s Day elves produced a 955 Solar that was transformational. For triathlons and open water swims, it is clearly superior in every way. The battery life is fantastic of course.

That said, I could not give up the Apple Watch easily because it was such an integral part of my life. Wore both watches for a while to compare how they tracked data, calories, etc. Turned out the Garmin was much more stingy with calories – the Apple Watch might indicate I burned 1400 active calories, while the Garmin indicated 900.

That was very relieving because I got accustomed to knowing target calories to burn daily, etc. Was happy to find Garmin does not allow easy results. Found a watch face in Garmin IQ (its online store/app platform somewhat like the Apple Store) that mimics the Apple Health Rings/Activities, so that is cool to migrate from Apple to Garmin if you are familiar with and enslaved like I am by the Pavlovian rings.

:)) The Garmin integrates very nicely with Training Peaks that I am using to prepare for the Ironman – but… the swim plans are a big pain. For whatever reason, everything integrates (bike, run, etc. ), except swim.

You must swim and then sync the swim back and forth with Training Peaks. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, and it’s really not, but it’s those little things that begin to add up and frustrate. Surely, this software glitch – and who is to blame for it – will be fixed.

Nobody cares whose fault it is. Just fix it. :)) The device and the apps already play well together except for swim plans, so fix the swim. Please. :)) Otherwise, I find the watch screen to be not quite as stunning as it is portrayed in the ads that appear to use OLED screens like the ones on my daughters’ Venu watches.

No clue why Garmin would set an expectation for the brilliance of an OLED screen with a watch that is already so good that it doesn’t need such a battery-draining bell and whistle. I would recommend Garmin stop using the sexy watch screen images in the ads and use what is more realistic.

It looks like that is already happening in the more recent ads that are showing up, which is good. Keep expectations real, especially when the device is already so good. So, with all of that said, I still give this watch 5 stars.

It has exceeded my expectations in the swim and open water swim areas. The battery life is legendary. The accuracy is way better than the Apple Watch. It works better with other third-party apps (it will be perfect when Training Peaks and Garmin play well together with the swim plan), and overall it has emerged to be a better tracker in just about everything- I’ve even noticed I have more in common with my daughters now that we can talk about body battery and stress scores, which they also have on their Venu watches – but which I never had before.

That underscores why this watch was not only a great triathlon trainer but also an outstanding Father’s Day present. :)).

I had a Garmin Forerunner 645 W/ music for about 1 year before buying this watch and I wanted something with more battery and better GPS. The Fnix 6 has not disappointed with an awesome battery life that is holding up well to my often 1-2 recorded activities a day.

And the GPS connects quickly and I have never lost connection during my trips in the mountains alpine skiing to the woods XC skiing. I will say that this is a HEAVY watch and it took me a few days to get used to the weight but now it is just part of my wrist.

Also my biggest annoyance with it is how my sleeves from jackets and clothing catch on it when I am trying to move them over the watch which is due to its rather large thickness. Though overall I love this watch and I am so happy with my purchase, BUT I would not buy this watch at full price.

I have been hunting for one on sale or used and it was really worth the wait. I just couldnt justify spending $550 minimum on something that told me things I dont NEED to know, but I do love all the data it gives me :).

And speaking of data this watch has so many different metrics and activities which can be overwhelming at first but after some use it is easy to navigate. With all fitness watches take all the metrics with a grain of salt but they do seem pretty accurate when I cross-reference them.

Definitely try the watch on before buying! I have rather small wrists and the watch is the width of my wrist! Doesnt bother me at all but something to keep in mind. Finally I recommended a screen protector and even a bezel protector if you climb! My first day of ownership I scratched the bezel and one of the top screws by accidentally scraping it against a climbing wall, just cosmetic damage but if you are particular then a $7 case will go a long way.

Also one of the photos is my Forerunner 645 next to the fnix, and as you can see the fnix is significantly bigger and I would say double the weight. The last photo is also my fnix with the case on it, something I always put on if I climb with my watch on.

I have owned several smart watches and historically, have been a hardcore Fitbit connoisseur. However, when my most recent Fitbit died (it was only 6 weeks old), I decided it was time to start researching all of the available brands.

The Apple’s newest release (Series 7) seemed like great choice, as it is very compatible with my iPhone – I went so far as to go into a box store to purchase it but they were only taking back orders.

While there, I took a closer look at the Garmin lineup and I am so very glad I did! If you’re used to a smart watch with a touch screen, you’re in for a bit of a learning curve, as the commands / applications on the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro rely on physically pushing the buttons.

Having said this, spending some time familiarizing yourself with the features pays dividends. The applications on the Garmin are far more detailed and thorough than any other smart watch I’ve used. One of my favorite features is the ability to set the watch face to a fancy analog screen (like an old school watch) and then when necessary, within a few seconds, I can switch to a digital clock face containing everything from my heart rate, the weather / temperature, gps and so many other features.

All the other features of a smart watch are included in the Fenix 6 as well: text, call and email notifications, as well as calendar reminders and pop ups for things such app updates, etc. The Fenix 6 pro is a bit bigger and heavier than other watches I’ve owned but the larger screen makes viewing all of the details so much easier at a glance.

I am still experimenting with all of the applications but I’ve installed and run just about all of them throughout each day and the battery life is very impressive – I’m averaging about a 7-8 days between charging.

To summarize, I am very pleased with my Garmin smart watch. Even on sale, it was more money than other smart watches I was looking at and was a bit of a gamble for me but it truly paid off and I’m so glad invested in the Fenix 6 Pro.

Facilissimo da configurare con App Garmin Connect. Prodotto di qualità eccellente. Batteria infinita. Pienamente soddisfatto!

Acquistato durante il black friday quindi con un po’ di sconto…il prodotto comunque vale tutti i soldi spesi…bellissimo!

Ottimo prodotto con innumerevoli combinazioni

I loved the FR935. It was lower profile, fit well under a dress shirt cuff, did all the activities that I wanted, and was durable (although the bands would typically fail every five months or so). The Garmin ecosystem is something that I enjoy.

The FR955 Solar is almost everything that the 935 was but with solar, which I really wanted. I had considered the Enduro because I wanted the solar capability but that watch is too large to wear in a work environment (dress shirt) for me and would have been an activity-specific tool, and who wants to shell out that kind of money for a watch you only wear when you go out to train? So when the 955 came out, I ordered one.

I was skeptical that I would like the touchscreen on a workout watch and that there would be too many features I did not want. The touchscreen feature can be turned off altogether or just during an activity.

All the functions, like music and Garmin pay, can be controlled via the watch and turned off if preferred. There are several very in-depth videos out there on the tube that can walk you through these and answer most every question you might have.

Now I only deal with the features I want and have the others turned off and out of the way. It would be nice if you could delete those from the watch to free up memory space for maps. If I had a complaint, it is that it is a bit thicker than the 935 on the wrist.

It does not fit under the cuff as well as the 935. I get it; those solar parts must go somewhere, but it is my review, and I get to be picky if I like. I wanted a watch that I would wear all the time, working, training, sports, and outdoors.

The 935 did that spectacularly. The 955 is the natural progression of that watch to add solar. If this is what you are looking for, then this is the watch for you. It is almost the Fenix lite.

If you’ve been deciding a forerunner over an Apple Watch or Garmin in general I hope my review helps. 1- The battery life alone is insane. I got my watch 09SEP and didn’t have to charge it until 21SEP.

That’s with multiple workouts in a day, downloading music onto my watch, updating my settings, and overall just playing around with it. 2. The user interface is simple, and you don’t have to rely on the touchscreen while working out! All you have to use is the side buttons.

It takes some getting use to if you went from an Apple Watch, but I never realized how much more convenient it is while running/exercising! 3- The morning report is super cool, and gives you pretty accurate data.

Sleep reports, body battery, recovery time, recommended workouts, etc. It’s honestly one of my favorite features. 4-It’s nice to see the watch focuses on YOUR health, in regards to just notifications from social media and apps.

I have Narcolepsy and I was interested in seeing how accurate it tracks my sleep and it sure enough is accurate. 5- This watch doesn’t have a super great display or brightness, but that something that doesn’t even bother me.

When exercising outside in the sun, the screen is VERY clear. I don’t know how to explain it, but even with sunglasses this thing is crisp. 6- I transitioned into barefoot running/zero drop shoes and wanted to keep better track of my running stats.

I’m not a marathon runner or anything like that, but that stats it provides has actually improved my times. This relates back to number 5 above actually. When running I run on trails usually and the fact that I can just bring my wrist up and easily see the screen is amazing.

Overall- it’s expensive, but comparing this to an Apple Watch? Hands down choose this. Garmin focuses on you and your health. Never would’ve thought I would’ve loved a watch as much as I do now.

Love my garmin forerunner 10! I’ve had it for 3years now and love it! I ran cross country and track in college. This watch really came in handy for training. If I needed to do speed pacing, the watch allowed me to track that.

Additionally, I was able to track my distance and pace per mile. I really like that feature of the watch. You can break down each mile time of your run to see where your slowed down and analyze how you can cut more time off.

When you are physically running it will beep at you each time you hit a mile. I like that because then it pushes me to go faster each time I hear the beep. I like that it keeps track of your history too.

You can go back so far to see what you’ve ran and your times. The watch also keeps track of your longest runs and their times which is pretty cool. This product is definitely worth the money! I highly recommend it.

It’s effect and comes in several color options. You wouldn’t be disappointed with this watch that’s for sure.

I loveeee garmin! The gps accuracy is great for trail runs. I like the vo2 max function, stress measurement, energy measurement, and your progress. Getting this watch has helped me get better about working out.

This helps monitor my heart rate and sleep quality as well (:

In order to complete my current marathon training, I eventually came to the realization that a GPS watch was going to be essential. While distance and calorie information seemed helpful, my main goal was to find a reliable GPS watch that give me a quick read of my current and average pace as well as distance.

After spending an unseemly amount of time researching the reviews online for various GPS watches on the market, I realized that, in terms of extra features, higher price points may provide something extra.

But in terms of reliable pacing/distance information, even some of the highest priced products had reviews with folks saying both were all over the place. Finally, after consulting with my coach, I decided to give the Forerunner 10 a try.

Online, the watch seemed to have the most consistent positive reviews and this was actually the watch he used. I can report that after a few weeks of use I would absolutely recommend this watch for beginning runners, as well as those taking their running to the next level.

This may not be the best watch for those looking for heart rate data, but if all you’re looking for is reliable distance and pace – this is your watch. And that may be all you need. Further, it’s frankly pretty affordable compared to some of the other watches out there.

Just as a quick note for newbies using this watch or for those never having used a GPS watch for pace – it does go all over the place initially. For the first half mile or so, give it time to accurately capture your pace.

And also realize that if it is wildly varying it may actually be you, and not the watch, that is changing pace. Running at a consistent and sustained pace is a learned technique and you will learn it in time.

Just be sure for the first few weeks to check the pace on your watch every couple hundred feet to see if you need to speed up a little or slow down. If you’re like me, you’ll be flying at the beginning and the end, so that may be the first learning lesson right away.

Garmin Connect is a great tool to analyze your results. Also, there are a few online tools to export this data to Nike + if you’d like. All in all, probably the best there is in terms of a basic, reliable product of this kind!.

After my frustration with Garmin, I tried the SUUNTO 5 watch for 2 days and returned it after. Let’s start with some minor issues. The interface is extremely confusing. It took me hours to figure out how to set up the notification the way I wanted it.

No tone but vibration but not for all apps is what I wanted. The interface almost appears to be made by a non-English speaker. The heartrate monitor is not on 24/7 and when I turned it on, it took like 2 minutes to figure out the actual heart rate (compared it to a Garmin watch with a chest strap).

So here is the biggest single reason why this watch is not good, I can’t see the time! The display is so dark, it’s impossible to see anything without turning on the display by pushing a button. There is no brightness setting at all! The setting that turns on the backlight when moving the wrist only works like 1 out of 5 times and even with that backlight, the display is not very bright.

So to actually see something I had to always push a button and turn on the full display. This is something I can simply not get my head around how they make a watch on which it is impossible to see the time.

I bought the watch in a boxing day sale so bought a much better watch than I had originally planned. Excellent display, very clear and the colours are great. Easy to use (although I did have to get used to it as everyone does with new tech).

The features are great and I particularly like the training status feature and the Garmin coach options. The GPS is very accurate and quick to connect unlike my previous (very basic) Garmin model. It’s light weight and attractive on my wrist.

Easy to personalise with different watch faces etc. All in all very pleased with the watch and would definitely recommend it.

I love this watch. I love to run and do 4-5 mile runs daily. It tells me my steps which is nice to know. It tracks my heart rate all day and night, and also tracks my stress levels. I don’t really pay attention to that too much but it’s nice to have the option.

The Forerunner is just streamlined in functionality. Five button; three on left and two on the right side of the face. So its easy to navigate, scroll and go back to ‘time face’. The only thing I miss is the elevation when I go hiking.

It could be there, but I havent been able to find it.

I didn’t realize I was ordering a non-touchscreen watch. Duh, didn’t do my research before hand. I was thinking I’d be sending it back but this watch is great. I love the battery life, lasts 5+ days.

Even went it is dying I can put the clip on with it still on my arm and charge it up while at my desk. The buttons take a little bit of learning but they are getting more and more intuitive. Super readable display and arm lift detection is pretty good.

I’d buy it again, especially at this price. It was refurb but looked perfect to me, probably someone returned when they realized it wasn’t touch capable. I typically don’t like plastic/silicon straps but this one is crazy soft and very comfortable.

First off, I am NOT a techie and am in my middle 60’s. I was happy with my existing watch, but as I like to hike, mountain bike, and paddle, my kids decided that I should have a GPS watch. I really wasn’t convinced that I needed one, or more importantly, even wanted one and figured that they were kind of a gimmick.

However, after continued urging from my kids who had pooled money for the purchase of a GPS watch, some internet searching and also advice from others who own GPS watches, I settled on the Garmin Fenix 5X, even though I thought is was unlikely it would supplant my trusty Timex Ironman.

When I got it, my first impression was that it was huge and that I would probably be really uncomfortable wearing it. I put it on and it turns out that I was wrong! Aside from when I wear shirts that have tight cuffs that don’t slide easily over the watch, I don’t even notice that I have a larger watch on – it is very comfortable.

Even though comfortable, I was still not sure that I would use it much, and am the first to admit that the capabilities of this watch go far, far beyond what I will ever use it for! However, I have found that I use it all the time.

Its handy as its always there on my wrist and I can use the activity widgets to track my walks, hikes, bikes, and paddles. (Note that it will track many, many more activities that this, but these are the things that I use if for.

) Often before getting the watch, people would ask me how far I went when I did my activities and I never really knew but would give them what I would call a mental estimate. Now I know! And, while doing my activities, I can monitor my elevation changes and pulse in real time.

I have to say that I find having the kind of information the watch delivers a very positive motivator for being active and I never would have expected that. Another nice feature is having the GPS map right on my wrist.

Often I will hike or mountain bike into areas I am not familiar with. (The GPS map even includes many local trail names that are not on my Oregon 450 GPS with Canada TOPO map. ) Having the map allows me to see at a glance where my wanderings have taken me relative to trails and as my route is constantly tracked, I can easily see if there are shortcuts to “get home” when the daylight is beginning to run out or I’m getting hungry! Likewise if I am ocean paddling and the fog comes in, I have my route out right on my wrist and I can follow it backwards to get safely back home.

I have not had the watch long enough to make much use of all of the parameters regarding training and physiology that it tracks that get downloaded to Garmin Connect on a smart phone (which I don’t own) or computer.

I am sure that I will never really scratch the surface in that department, however just the simple day to day information that I get from the Fenix 5X is impressive, and it gives me self satisfaction that I can see it at a glance.

Who doesn’t want to know that the activity they just did burned off 1057 calories! For me, one of the highlights of the Garmin Connect is that the download shows what you have done. As an example, for a hike, some of the things shown are a map of your route and it gives metrics along the way including elevation, pace, heart rate, and temperature (not sure how accurate this is based on the fact that the watch is often covered during winter), calories burned, distance travelled, Aerobic and Anerobic Training Effects, steps per minute (average and maximum), speed (average and maximum) and of course elapsed time.

I don’t know how long it will run on a charge and from what I have read, that depends on what you are using it for. Use of the GPS function will use up battery much faster than if it is just being used as a watch for example.

I do find that as I am active every day or so, I connect it to my computer through the USB cable supplied with the watch and when that it connected the watch charges up quite quickly. So as an early user, I would say that I am very surprised just how much I really like my Fenix 5X and the information that it provides! Knowing what I know now, I would strongly recommend this watch to anyone who goes in the back country or out on the water as a valuable tool – not just a gimmick! The added benefit is that getting all that information it can provide is kind of fun!.

The screen quality is not what is depicted in the pictures. It is nowhere close to that bright or clear. It is low resolution and even with the back light turned up to 100 its kind of a let down. I wish I had done more research before buying.

It is good quality, heavy duty and the battery will last 3+ days with the GPS on. You can read messages on it and reply with short saved messages but you can’t send custom messages each time. Apps/widgets are very limited.

I think if you were using it in the Bush often or using it on hiking trips it would be great. After 3days of use I have a different one ordered and on the way, I will keep this one for hunting and fishing trips.

Garmin Fenex 5x is the best smartwatche at value today. The Fenex 6 is the newer model so the Fenex 5 has recently gone down in price. It covers all the basic smartwatche functions needed in today’s world and has additional features that active users can take advantage of.

Pros: -Sapphire watch screen is pretty indestructible as watch faces go. Even refurbished watches have god screens and beet up everything else. -Easily replaceable bands. -Good heart monitor -Waterproof enough to swim or shower with -Good GPS system that uses multiple constellations of satellites.

-Health tracking easy to use and accurate -Good interface back and forth with smartphone, I can reply to texts and receive updates. -Good market with custom watchfaces and apps. -Easy to find a watch face I like that meets my display needs.

-Widgets and apps easy to use on watch. -the 5x comes preloaded with topo maps of the US that show run routes, hikes, bike rides, etc. If this does not matter to you get the 5 and save money. Cons -Not the best GPS, If you run in a dense city or forest look at Fenex 6 with more powerful GPS.

-Maps are hard to interface with. Little disappointed in comparison to my fortrex. Does great tracking of where I am and where I was, hard to route plan. -No call feature on watch, can only pickup phone calls.

This feature is traded for waterproofing and I agree with the feature trade. -GPS mode drains battery to 12 ish hours, longer races are a no with this watch. Overall very pleased with this watch. It meets all my basic needs and being the older model it’s currently very affordable.

The Fenex 6 only improves things this watch does and does not add very many new features.

I bought this watch last year to use during my runs mostly, and for that purpose it’s great –> It has a lot of good settings and is easy to navigate with. However i you want a watch that you can use for other sports like swimming, strength training or biking, you should look somewhere else.

It does not take puls when you swim (it does support laps etc for pool swimming though) neither does it support any puls band that you can pair it with for swimming either. On bike it’s not always calculating the correct distances, also does not take your puls always.

The strength training setting is awful and won’t take your puls if you hold weights in your hands so after a 1-2h hard/heavy strength workout garmin will tell you that you haven’t done any training basically and goes like: hey you can work out again soon! and decreases your workload.

It’s not helpful. would actually not recommend to boy this watch :D.

I previously used the Garmin 235 and liked it (due to simplicity) for running + cardio, but the heart rate monitor was never consistently accurate. The 645 is very nice and seems better made for sure.

The heart rate monitor over the first week of use seems very accurate and consistent, which is great. I am still learning about all of the bells and whistles on the watch, and customizing it for what I’d like to see.

It’s a big upgrade and I’m sure once I get used to it and get it set up for my needs, I’ll appreciate it even more. I like that the watch face can be customized and change (colors, analog / digital, settings) for some variation.

The 645 is also a nice size for me compared to other fitness watches, as it’s a bit smaller for my petite frame. The metal band is a nice touch in making this watch look a bit more “everyday” than all gym / running all the time too.

After a long search and a tiring comparison of sports watches, I end up at 645, deciding it was the best for me. Excellent for monitoring sports metrics as well as daily monitoring of one’s condition.

The version without music is just great (I never needed music on a device like this). Despite being an exclusive watch dedicated to runners it allows a vast monitoring of other sports. Already with barometric altimeter and other important specifications, for me is one of the best watches I could buy.

Nothing is behind Garmin’s top of the line.

I bought this nearly a month ago and I have been very impressed. The many watch faces are a fantastic way to personalize this watch. I compared this to a previous item and it reads in a more accurate manner.

I wish there was an integration for Strength. It’s quite a bother to have to stop and press the pause/go button while working out. Fortunately, on the desktop, you can go and edit/add anything that is missing.

It is tedious work but I’m glad that that is an option. I have not been let down by the battery life, I was worried at first since the watch screen was always visible, regardless of if the back light was on or not.

I’m notoriously bad at charging any electronic I have, finally made it a habit to plug it in when I shower and it’s a fast charge for sure. The Bluetooth connection hasn’t been a letdown. The buttons and how-to are a bit clunky and I would say have somewhat of a learning curve/adjustment.

But once it’s figured out it’s nice to have on a run where I don’t need to take my phone. Once you move away connectivity becomes spotty if you’re not wearing the watch for whatever reason, and it’s expected of most Bluetooth-supported devices.

The widgets are hit-or-miss, that’s all. Overall, I’m really impressed with the features it has, I wish it had more integrations, but that’s personal want for some who regularly does weightlifting.

At first, this watch is great. You can use it underwater, music plays to Bluetooth earphones, I like seeing my texts pop up on the screen, but otherwise it really misses the mark, which sucks considering it’s an expensive device.

First of all, the heart rate monitor is not accurate at all. It often overestimates my heart rate at rest or light activity. When I’m working out hard and my heart is pumping at what I know has to be above 130 bpm, it just farts itself and sticks to around 110-120 bpm.

Doesn’t matter if the watch is snug, lower wrist or higher wrist, it never has an accurate reading. Which is unfortunate considering that was one of the main reasons I bought the watch for. Second of all, the user interface and software on the Garmin Connect app is not user friendly, often inaccurate and leaves something to be desired when compared to software from Fitbit.

Sometimes the watch won’t connect to the app and it requires a whole process to reconnect that can be frustrating. The guides online are also not clear and often unhelpful. This is a great smartwatch if what you’re looking for is basically a wrist extension of your phone, but fitness wise it is way to expensive to be worth it and is a bit of a joke.

Honestly thinking of selling it an upgrading to a newer Fitbit.