Garmin Megathread-Ask your questions here-See post 1 on how to search thread

OOnegative

Pearl Scarce Polygamy wrote: »

Santa brought me a new Garmin 735XT this morning, took her out for a test run this evening and was very disappointed in how dim and small the display is compared to my Polar M400

I've looked online to see if there's anything I can do with the display in terms of brightening it up and making the data bigger but can't seem to find anything.

Anyone else here have the same issue and found a fix?.

Nope, I’ve same watch since February and if it’s anything like the one I have it’s incredibly glitchy. With mine the minute you have and kind of overhead coverage(trees, tall buildings etc) the pace falls away and lately if you run any distance at all it’s recommending at least 3 days recovery!!

arybvtcw0eolkf

OOnegative wrote: »

Nope, I’ve same watch since February and if it’s anything like the one I have it’s incredibly glitchy. With mine the minute you have and kind of overhead coverage(trees, tall buildings etc) the pace falls away and lately if you run any distance at all it’s recommending at least 3 days recovery!!

I've tried it twice today.. I took my dogs for a walk (it doesn't have a walk profile, that was disappointing since my dogs are walked all the time), the first walk the watch didn't record for almost the first km, the second it didn't record any distance or pace but just the HR.

Right now I'm putting it down to operator error because I use a Garmin cycle computer which has never given me a moments trouble.

Right now I'm finding it hard to access my data from my laptop, Garmin is telling me I don't have the privilages to view my own data!.

Hopefully these are just teething problems which I'll iron out, but from memory my Polar worked great from the off.

I was attracted to the Garmin for open water and indoor pool swims, I hope they're smoother running that I've found the running profile.

Fingers crossed, thanks for the reply

arybvtcw0eolkf

Two days at this watch now and I'm about ready to return the thing and go back to my reliable Polar M400.

It is driving me completely banana's.. I'll be wearing both my Polar and this piece of crap for tomorrows parkrun but using the Garmin as my primary watch (Polar backup). At this stage I've no confidence in it recording reliably.

As for setting up the data fields, forget it. I just can't seem to get it showing what I need. I downloaded what I thought I needed from the Connect store but, followed all the steps to finding it on my watch ~ it ain't there.

So far my recommendation for anyone looking for a GPS sports watch is to go with Polar, this may change if I ever get this thing sorted.

arybvtcw0eolkf

All sorted, all fields in my running and swimming activities are done, now to do my cycle stuff and I'm a happy bunny.

The watch was great in the pool tonight, it was brilliant having it count down my laps (1,250), took a lot of the guesswork out of my workout.

Northern Monkey

The fenix 5 plus titanium is £350 on sports pursuit at the minute (possibly need an account to view it)

https://www.sportpursuit.com/sales/garmin-161219

event

Is this good value lads?

https://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10152&catalogId=15051&langId=111&productId=1613060

Whats the battery like, hearing its not great?
And is the music side of it good?

EDit

crisco10 wrote: »

Have 735Xt, I know the wrist based HR is only a guideline. But has anyone else experienced it just not really picking up the increase in HR at all when running? (e.g. average HR of 120 over a 20 min 5k)

It seemed to work okay for me over the summer, but recently it's gone pretty crappy. Does sweat (something there isnt much of in winter) help the connection or something?

I have the 935 and the wrist-based HR has been iffy since the latest software update a week or so ago (not sure if the 735 had the same update?). Worst example is that it had me in Zone 5 while on a light jog earlier in the week! TBH, if you hold much stock in HR for your training, probably best to get a chest strap monitor anyways.

Northern Monkey

event wrote: »

Is this good value lads?

https://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10152&catalogId=15051&langId=111&productId=1613060

Whats the battery like, hearing its not great?
And is the music side of it good?

That’s £175 on SportPursuit at the minute with a different colour strap.

event

Northern Monkey wrote: »

That’s £175 on SportPursuit at the minute with a different colour strap.

Not the music version?

https://www.sportpursuit.com/catalog/product/view/id/1895441?click=eyJxdWVyeSI6MTc4MTIsInBhZ2UiOjEsInBhZ2VTaXplIjoyLCJwb3MiOjJ9

Reg'stoy

event wrote: »

Is this good value lads?

https://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10152&catalogId=15051&langId=111&productId=1613060

Whats the battery like, hearing its not great?
And is the music side of it good?

Picked one up prior to Xmas for €239 in Harvey Norman's thanks to their price match promise (it was on sale in Argos for €239.99)
The watch is very light, compared to my previous forerunner 30 and the strap is unbelievably soft, so very comfortable to wear. I had been looking for a new watch and had been planning on buying the forerunner 45 for €170 but really fancied the chance to listen to music without carrying my phone, plus it's a nice looking watch (I have the black strap).
I matched up the watch with these bluetooth earphones bought on amazon for £8.99 and they work perfectly. I was able to download my spotify playlists no bother including podcasts. I even took an old crane bluetooth heart rate chest strap which had refused to connect to runtastic any more out of retirement and it hooked up no bother.
Loads of information on garmin's connect App and website and the watch sync's with my phone in seconds once you finish a run and it finds GPS signals straight away.
So the battery life, well I'm coming from a second hand forerunner 30 and that watch lasted 5 days with a couple of runs and did a 4-30 Dublin Marathon and still loads of life left in it. If I connect the earphones and chest strap and go for a run it does obviously use more battery but nothing that makes me worry. It does charge very quickly (2hrs or less) and they're are loads of hints about saving battery life online. I've tried loads of different watch faces, connect IQ is great between watch faces and data screens, one thing I do do to save battery is not display my heart rate or seconds on whatever watch face I'm using. I've let it get down to 10% battery life and that was wearing it for nearly 4 days with about 2hrs of GPS tracked runs. You can download a battery widget which will prompt you to charge the watch and show you the discharge levels.
I really like mine and haven signed up to do the Cork Marathon and will have to do the training by myself so I'll be using the music on it much more.
I'm also looking forward to using garmins training plans (hopefully they'll do a full marathon one soon). I also like the community on garmin, a couple of friends and myself do challenges, as in steps and distance and it does actually make you want to do more.

Sam the Sham

event wrote: »

Is this good value lads?

https://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10152&catalogId=15051&langId=111&productId=1613060

Whats the battery like, hearing its not great?
And is the music side of it good?

I've had that watch for a little over a year. Make sure to upgrade the firmware to 6.5 as there have been problems with (the calculation of?) battery life on earlier firmware. I find the battery life to be fine but I'm not attempting to run ultras with GPS + Galileo while playing music the entire time... Playing music and using bluetooth/ANT+ sensors will run down the battery more quickly, so I would forego some of that if I were running a marathon. Even so, I'm pretty sure the watch would last 4 hours even with all the bells and whistles going.

The Music side is a mixed bag, mostly because the Garmin Express app--at least the mac version--is a piece of junk. If you plan on syncing some part of your music library to the watch, there are a few restrictions. For one thing, you have to be using iTunes (or maybe Windows Media Player in Windows). And, at least in the iTunes/mac scenario, your music cannot reside on an external hard drive and has to be on your startup drive. There are workarounds, but all of them are inconvenient. And, even in the best case, the syncing of music is just too time consuming and a hassle.

That's why most people (I'm pretty sure) just do what I eventually did and use Spotify on the watch. It's much better. You don't get cover art (big swing) but you can sync any playlist (or podcast) via wifi and don't even have to hook the watch up to a computer.

Amazon Music I found was a lot slower and not as good as Spotify, so I just use that. You will need a Spotify subscription, though, whereas with Amazon Music you can use their free tier.

If I were shopping now, though, I'm not sure I'd buy the 645M. The newer watches have some features (PacePro, notably) that make them attractive and I'd say Garmin has learned a bit about music from the 645M experience. What the 645M has that the 245M does not, and which may be important to you, are Garmin Pay, which only really works with KBC or some Revolut cards in Ireland, and the barometric altimeter, which is necessary for measuring running power with an HRM-Run chest strap. I've found the barometric altimeter to not be very accurate, but I don't really care that much...

YMMV (literally)

Down South

Just to say that I added a Boon MasterCard to my 645 today

Only have since Xmas but v happy so far. V comfortable and looks great. Lots of nice extra performance features over my previous 235. Too soon to comment on accuracy

event

Cool. I have a 235 already (220 before that, and few others before that ) so love the garmins.
The music is what will swing it for me, got a pair of JBL bluetooth earphones for xmas so would partner with this fine. I only use spotify so be perfect. PLus the price. I dont "need" a new watch (do we ever) but at this price, it looks good. I might sell the 235 though, less than a years use with it

Tigerandahalf

Couple of questions -
Is it possible to find routes on strava (when visiting new areas) and bluetooth them onto your garmin device to get turn by turn instructions?

Looking online I find strava poor for finding long run segments. They are all just short segments.

Also does the forerunner 230 support 'back to the start'? (As in retrace your route, not as the bird flies?

Thanks

DeepBlue

Anyone know how to exit the diagnostic menu on the forerunner 45?

Never mind. A reboot appears to have fixed it.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Another question, I've just about got to grips with my 735XT.

At least twice a week I cycle to work and immediately go for a run, can I seamlessly switch from the cycling profile to running without having to stop & save the cycle before continuing with the run?.

I know I can do it in the triathlon profile if I'm recording a swim (a spring triathlon is on my radar) but I'm wondering if I can do it with just the cycle to run?

keane2097

Pearl Scarce Polygamy wrote: »

Another question, I've just about got to grips with my 735XT.

At least twice a week I cycle to work and immediately go for a run, can I seamlessly switch from the cycling profile to running without having to stop & save the cycle before continuing with the run?.

I know I can do it in the triathlon profile if I'm recording a swim (a spring triathlon is on my radar) but I'm wondering if I can do it with just the cycle to run?

Triathletes, duathletes, and other multisport competitors can take advantage of the custom multisport profiles (Creating a Custom Activity Profile). When you set up a multisport profile, you can switch between sport modes and still view your total time for all sports. For example, you can switch from biking mode to running mode and view your total time for biking and running throughout your workout.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner735/EN-US/GUID-4282AA88-E40D-4E61-921F-A189E6E98768.html

arybvtcw0eolkf

keane2097 wrote: »

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner735/EN-US/GUID-4282AA88-E40D-4E61-921F-A189E6E98768.html

Great, I appreciate that quick response.

Thank you

keane2097

A question of my own now. I've accidentally managed to replace the Dashboard on my version of the mobile app with 'Challenges'. Any idea how to get it back? This is on Android.

RunDMC

On mine, just hitting the back button or swiping right brings me back to the dashboard screen.

R

RugbyLover123

Does the Garmin FR45 connect with AirPods/spotify allowing you to run without having to bring your phone?

Sam the Sham

RugbyLover123 wrote: »

Does the Garmin FR45 connect with AirPods/spotify allowing you to run without having to bring your phone?

No. You have to get a 245Music or a still more expensive watch for that.

aomh

Is this a good deal on this watch lads?

https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8060327/Trail/searchtext%3EGARMIN.htm

Seems to be out of stock on Amazon, but think the lowest it's been was 165 pounds. Looks a good watch, and as much as I'd need from one.

Sam the Sham

aomh wrote: »

Is this a good deal on this watch lads?

https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8060327/Trail/searchtext%3EGARMIN.htm

Seems to be out of stock on Amazon, but think the lowest it's been was 165 pounds. Looks a good watch, and as much as I'd need from one.

That's a good price. One thing to look out for if this is intended to be used for running, is that almost all of the interaction with that watch is via touchscreen. That is not ideal if you have sweaty hands or are running outdoors with gloves on. If that sounds like it might be a problem, the Forerunner 645 Music might be a better choice and has been available in recent weeks for only slightly more than that price.

aomh

That's a good point, and running is mainly what I would use it for.

At over €100 more, is it worth getting the Forerunner 645 music for that.

Sam the Sham

Probably a better choice still (on reflection) would be a 245 Music, as it's a newer watch.

big_drive

aomh wrote: »

Is this a good deal on this watch lads?

https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8060327/Trail/searchtext%3EGARMIN.htm

Seems to be out of stock on Amazon, but think the lowest it's been was 165 pounds. Looks a good watch, and as much as I'd need from one.

I've been doing a good bit of reading on it since Xmas. Gets great reviews, and that a really good price. But as others have mentioned the touchscreen seems to be the issue as when running most have said its awkward. Most reviews seem to say if running isn't your number one priority its a great watch on the other features, etc. but if a large percentage of your activity is running then a non touchscreen seems more user friendly

aomh

Reading some reviews, the touchscreen seems to be a dealbreaker for runners. Think I'll pull the trigger on this

https://www.eglobalcentral.eu/garmin-forerunner-245m-gps-wrist-based-heart-rate-sport-watch-black-010-02120-b0-support-eu-languages-1.html

Has anybody ordered from this website before, it's the cheapest by a good bit.

webpal

Anyone getting server errors from garmin? Trying to sync music and also garmin pay issues.

webpal

aomh wrote: »

Is this a good deal on this watch lads?

https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8060327/Trail/searchtext%3EGARMIN.htm

Seems to be out of stock on Amazon, but think the lowest it's been was 165 pounds. Looks a good watch, and as much as I'd need from one.

I find it ok, you set up the screens in such a way that you don't have to touch the screen. Get yourself some wireless earbuds too and you control the music that way.

That said gps plus music means your battery doesn't last long. Music, check, garmin pay, check, notifications, check. If only it could lock and unlock the car