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

Slideways

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122337997#Comment_122337997

On point 3, in Garmin data you will have Left/right balance data with HRM, you do not get this with a watch alone

Saint Sonner

Hi. My Garmin Forerunner 45 just died and I thought I might replace it with a reasonably priced Samsung Smart Watch. I like to exercise, running mainly but other sports like swimming too. Is Samsung Smart Watch good for this? Will I lose all my Garmin activity or can I keep adding to it with Samsung.

Any advice. Thanks

ILikeBoats

Stick with a Garmin

sk8board

stick to Garmin. If you want the nice oled screen, on top of all the Garmin functionality, look at the Garmin 265 type watch. I’ve no idea how it compares price wise to a Samsung Smart Watch, but if you’re wearing it 24/7, it won’t make much difference

Reg'stoy

Most platforms be it garmin or samsung, will sync to third party sports apps such as strava, smashrun etc. Honestly, watches apart from the more expensive ones are not great at recording swimming. If you want a smart watch that does sports, stick with garmin if you are more interested in the quality of the recorded sports activities, if you are more interested in the smart watch side of things, personally i'd always go with an apple watch if I had an iphone and samsung watches for android.

I have no real interest in a smart watch, a buddy of mine has an apple watch which looks great, but he still takes out his phone to reply to texts, emails etc as the vision is going.

You know what you want from a watch, don't fall into the trap of getting one for what it can do, rather than what you want it to do.

Trampas

Anyone know a place around Sligo or Donegal that sells a charge cable for 955. Left it at home and won’t last how long I’ll be here for

eon1208

Hi

My old sentimental trustworthy Garmin 405cx got destroyed in a fire last week. From reading the previous few pages the Garmin 255 seems to be my answer. I dont normally use HR but I like the idea of a wrist monitor built in. Any suggestion folks. Been a while since I posted and I dont keep up to date on such items. Suggestions really appreciated. I presume all are bluetooth connected nowadays. Is the 255 specifically a running watch/smart watch….

sk8board

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122469856#Comment_122469856

the 255 is from the Garmin ‘Forerunner’ range - so running is the priority, however the 255 will do a lot of sports, including triathlon races/transitions etc.

Yes, it uses Bluetooth, and is a decent smart watch for the basic notifications from your phone, that you want to receive. Obviously you can switch that off too

ILikeBoats

I have a 255, highly recommend

sk8board

I have the 255 too - find it on sale for under €299 and you’re getting a great value watch.

The 2 key differences between it and the top of the range €650 forerunner 965 are the OLED screen (which looks amazing but is hard on battery), and the ‘training readiness’ score - which won’t matter much if you train on the same days every week - and you can easily work it out yourself from the resting HR, recovery time remaining, HRV and sleep scores etc.

For me, the main benefits were the altimeter and the dual band gps - I run a lot of hilly roads in crap gps areas. The gps is incredibly accurate on tight paths in wooded parks

Trevorfromtheshoppingcentre

Samsung dont have the most reliable optical HR sensors. Garmin and Appple are the best at this tech.

Forerunner 165 is a very powerful low tier watch, no open water swimming though.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122455318#Comment_122455318

sk8board

anyone else notice the s/w update yesterday (Aug 9th) massively improved their race predicted times?

I mean, 9-10min improvement in marathon time etc etc. all woefully unrealistic btw!

The s/w update is the only thing i can imagine would change it.

a change to the Garmin s/w is the only thing that would make such a difference in the calculation

G1032

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122469856#Comment_122469856

Have an Instinct 2, which was recommended to me on the cycling forum. Find it a fantastic watch tbh. Incredible battery life too because of the monochrome display. The more expensive Solar version had potential infinite battery life.

eon1208

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122474697#Comment_122474697

Thanks..

I bought it a week ago. Very happy with it. First time ever to run off HR. Impressed. BTW What is dual band GPS. I'm usually tired training. Recovery is poor due to work obligations. Need to work on that. Do you find wearing it to bed is a good info. I don't like it on a night.

DeepBlue

Dual frequency / multi band GPS allows for more accurate GPS tracking. It allows for connecting to more satellites and error correction. Good article here on it → Why Multi-band? Q&A with Garmin Engineer Jared Bancroft It's probably most useful if you run near tall building a lot or on routes with a good bit of tree cover.

You will need to wear it at night for approx 3 weeks for it to get a baseline for HRV. I find it easy to wear at night which is not something I'd have done previously. I find the race predictions considerably more accurate than my previous watch. It did take the watch a while to stop telling me that practically every day should be a rest day so I guess it takes a little while to get used to you.

Reg'stoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122521319#Comment_122521319

There are two race predictions on my watch (955), one under current VO2 max which is way off and one under my race calendar, which is more inline with my own personal prediction. I find predictions on runalyze to be totally inline with both my current fitness and what I'm currently training for. Garmin under VO2 max reckons I'd do a full in 4hrs 4mins, not a chance, runalyze reckons 4-47, I'm not currently training for a full.

Garmin again under VO2 reckons 48-15 for 10K, race prediction under race calendar reckons 49-47, runalyze predicts 49-33. Currently training for gaelforce trilogy series and Naas 10K, Naas set as primary with hills thrown in on easy runs. 5k times are even more off on garmin 22-50 v 23-53 on runalyze which is much closer to current fitness, 24-08 is best time this year.

I tend to take a lot of garmin's predictions, suggestions etc with a pinch of salt. In saying that, HRV is pretty much inline with how I feel, heads down too much booze or cold coming on but weirdly it recently went way up for a few days, before I got a horrible dose of covid. Don't get me started on hill/endurance score's, hill went down after galforce Bray and the Man O'war race, so I completely ignore them.

barry181091

I have been loaned a 245 Music by a friend and its amazing. Its great for running and gives really cool metrics. I basically wanted to stop carrying my phone on runs, also I hate wearing the chest strap heart rate monitors. The only thing is the sleep tracking is awful and it doesn't work with my ear buds, constant stuttering when in an activity.

I would love some more "standard" smart watch features though (So it would be a good general smart watch) like maps, better notifications (Whatsapp pictures for example!), speaker/mic. A lot of smartwatch features are next to useless, like controlling phone camera etc but some more standard ones would be nice.

Do any of the later models provide the above? I was going to try out a pixel watch which seems to have good fitness stuff but also smartwatch stuff. I see a lot of people online ultimately always moving back to Garmin tohugh 😅 Has anyone made the move from Garmin to a standard smart watch? If only connect would work with other watches..

T-Bird

Garmin currently have a sale on their website celebrating their 35th Birthday.

Onaragatip

Hi All,

Has anyone noticed a drift in their heart rate zones on garmin connect over the kast 6 to 8 months?

I have a garmin fenix 7, and my max heart rate for example in zone 3 is currently 147 beats / minute, 6 months ago my max heart rate in zone 3 was 156 beats / minute. I am 49 years of age, and I am doing better training now than I was 6 months ago and feel stronger. Just doesn't make sense.

Thanks

Onaragatip

T-Bird

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122619668#Comment_122619668

My max HR was adjusted a couple of times a month or so ago. I think it was as a result of updates, but it could have been because I was also recovering from illness. Both were around the same time, so its hard to know.

Euro Fred

Having an issue with my Garmin 245 Music.

When playing a podcast I can’t pause it , the button works for everything else, starting a run , to play a podcast but it won’t pause which leads me to believe it’s a widget issue.

Any ideas?

I have turned it off and back on again to no avail.

Dipsomaniac

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122619668#Comment_122619668

Hi, I did 2 park runs earlier on the year where I went full gas. On both runs I had a max HR of 195.

I allowed my garmin to auto adjust my max hr which began lowering it over a few months to 183 as I was doing mostly easy runs with a few intervals thrown in here and there. This lowered all my zones.

I have now set the max hr manually and stopped it from auto adjusting itself.

Unknownability

I'm thinking of upgrading my Garmin Solar Fenix 7x if anyone is in the market please let me know.

Kerry Gooner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122636620#Comment_122636620

What are you thinking of replacing it with.

Unknownability

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122639709#Comment_122639709

I'm going to get the Garmin Enduro 3.

The Black Oil

I'm a n00b re using gpx files. Have a rural marathon in the UK coming up. Added it to the watch. Is it as straightforward as picking the course and going from there, phone doesn't need to connected for the duration?

opus

Pretty much, you load the gpx file in Garmin Connect & then you can send it to the watch. As well you could do a pacerpro plan for the run if you're after a particular time.

Once it's on the watch, you selected the course from the Navigation menu in Run Settings.

mindhorn

Looking to pick up the Forerunner 255 Music (can't justfy the extra expense for the 265). I'm assuming it'll go on offer shortly for Black Friday, what sites would you recommend keeping an eye on?

I see the 255 is already on sale in Decathlon but it's the regular version, not the music one.

Trevorfromtheshoppingcentre

Amazon should have some good deals on Garmin products

mindhorn

Thanks. It's going for €285 there and I see some places here have started to discount. Curry's coming in at €299 for what seems to be the music version.

Think we'll see it going for much less than €299 in other places once the sales kick off?