Product Updates. After that, you’re at the GPS and HR waiting screen. – mode (vibrate, sound), You also have more than one alarm, and enable / disable them, After … simply sinc FR45 and alarms will be active, Hi, as always, great review – always come to this site before i buy anything techie . The app asked me each time to ‘register’ / ‘re-pair’ the watch (as it would have never been paired). Oh hell no, bring on the fury of the internet! I’m headed to Washington DC – what do you recommend for training? I am happy with this watch , I have been using it for over a month now. You do the running. The Pebble Time is close to death so I need a replacement and this looks ideal. This is a key feature for due to health insurance rewards programs. Here’s the data set: It’s a clear out and back. The easiest way set up the alarms is in the Connect website site, there you can easily configure the alarms: I totally agree with you. I have a Garmin 305 and I love it but the battery is dying…..get one hour max now. From a continuous heart rate standpoint, it tracks this constantly and then uploads it into Garmin Connect mobile as well. Hi, thanks for the excellent review. You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. Stunning Designer Fitbit Charge 3 Bands & Accessories. Huh. What’s more, there’s an abnormal heart rate alarm too – which defaults to 100bpm while you’re at rest. However, this actually isn’t pre-canned (well, not entirely): See, you have to do a test workout first (it’s only 9 minutes), and then based on the results of that test workout, it’ll fill in exactly what the structure and intensity is to reach your goal time. The FR45 shows the GPS pace in 5s increments also, so it’s not related to the footpod in itself, rather I think it’s a display choice Garmin has made. That would be a huge bonus compared to Garmin’s lower end trackers and to many competitors. Not ideal but at least I can see it before stopping the activity. Hi! Essentially the whole concept of marginal gains. I just bought one. How frequent is the 24×7 HR measuring? The Forerunner 45 clocks in at $199.99, which, as Garmin’s lowest priced entry, might not seem hugely affordable, but still ranks among the lowest cost running watches on the market. Sorry, it was darker than I thought out, but the text says: ‘Run 0.25mi 5:45-6:15/mi’ – just like it does above in the programmed instructions. The FR935 is used as a reference in this case. I was hoping the watch faces could help out there but as far as I understand those only comprise the watch part itself and are not very useful while running. Garmin Forerunner 45/45S review: What you need to know. Thanks ! Shop with a local business from Australia. It’s readily available in the vivo (active) series and i can see this becoming more available at lower price points with each new release… assuming Garmin stick to their current trends. Looking for the equipment I use day to day? We have new replacement straps in a huge range of colours! You should check out my videos. Yup, you can add the ‘HR – Average’ field to any data page. Then hit up Wiggle at the link below! So we’ll load up one of The Girl’s more steady-state workouts she did out and back along the lake. Not really. – Changed from 4 to 5 buttons (which actually makes a world of difference) DC Rainmaker 2019 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. Thank you. My preference is that the auto-lap will continue to record every 1km regardless of my manual lap-presses. The other sensors have no meaningful issues here. What is your opiNion? Back on FR 35 they added quick actions like “Mark to read”, which marks a message as read on the phone. I am trying to learn more about the lapping function. And finally, here’s a handy list of accessories that work well with this unit (and some that I showed in the review). what time you expect it is with Optical Heart Rate turned off? Did you decide on one Matt? Site powered by Upfeat Inc. And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. I just noticed the “music controls” feature on the Garmins (i don’t know how i missed it before) and i think it will be good enough solution. $169)? So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds! Even more, if you use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with coupon code DCRAINMAKER, first time users save 15% on applicable products! Data Page 5 (Optional): 1, 2, or 3 metrics each of your choosing Where is this information stored? You'll want to use that if you're taking your Forerunner 45 to the track – as current lap data isn't shown by default. We’ve not been made to wait ages, thanks to a wide range of satellite support, including Russian GLONASS. The FR45 is pretty basic, mirroring that of the FR30/35 before it. for example PACE, DURATION, its shown only by 2 numbers placed in rows, no text around). The FR45’s GLONASS/Galileo has to be the answer. Small mercies. I bought this for my daughter and hope she is not experiencing the issue. It's become my go-to speed sensor. If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s 2018 Gear Guide too. Data Page 2: HR Zone, Heart Rate, Calories I just bought one. Note: Not all watches support Running Dynamics/Swimming HR backfill, check your watch first! Strangely though if I search for ‘steps’ on the activity’s web page it does tell me there’s one match, but I can’t see where. If you’re looking for a running or sport specific watch, then continue reading. As only some of Garmin activity trackers support stress score is there any chance that you include it in the comparison tool (same could be for stairs/floors count, so maybe provide new section about fitness tracking details)? Note that while the sensor hardware itself on the FR45 compared to that of the other new units noted, it doesn’t have PulseOx enabled. Most of the time. With music streaming, GPS and advanced training features, it lets you keep moving to the music without lugging your phone along. Our Garmin account is locked to Strava, which we prefer for viewing data and is a much more social experience. Lol. If however, you’re looking for more of a lifestyle watch – then honestly other offerings are out there that have far better non-sport features. is the ability to use the Quick notification actions on some Android notifications. She said she didn’t get any low battery notifications (it’d been about 5 days since the most recent charge, no activities had been done). Can you tell me if it has this screen view? Those workouts include a wide variety of intensities and conditions, making them great for accuracy testing. A couple of minor quibbles – unlike the FR35 you have to take it off to charge it because the socket is on the back. Unlike Garmin's other new wares - the Forerunner 245 range and Forerunner 945 - the 45 and 45S are instead aimed at running beginners, with heart rate … Thanks! As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well. I use 2-6 other devices at once, trying to get a clear picture of how a given set of devices handles conditions on a certain day. Let’s head indoors for a moment then to a workout yesterday. Do you know if the battery display on the FR45 just displays in certain intervals? Great reviews and posted so quickly. And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. It’s slim, comfortable and fairly good looking to boot. Once you answer a few questions online and start your Garmin Coach plan – it will synch to your app (and workouts will sync to your watch). Thanks! You can have a max of 6 activities loaded onto the watch at any one point in time. Now onto the real deal: GPS sports tracking. I don’t usually like out and back workouts, because it makes it harder to spot GPS errors, but in this case I think we’re going to luck out. I know all the other Garmin’s I’ve had had a low battery notification but I just wondered whether this one does? So, I left it there for now. First of all, great in-depth no BS reviews. It's no surprise that the Vivoactive 3 does fitness well. Our runners deemed the sporty-look Forerunner 245 tops … Garmin is trickling down features across its range and you get more for your money than ever before: heart rate, smartwatch notifications – even VO2 Max is all here. Ray says, that only numbers are displayed, and when you go from screen to screen, the names comes out, and then are substituted with actual values (but the names disappear. $199 in aus it’s a good buy I think. In this case, The Girl is running with the watch (I’ve got another set, also on the track at the same time). With the latest 3.90 firmware release pushed out in October 2020, the CPE (Connected Predictive Ephemeris) file update process with Garmin Connect app is broken. Why haven’t you yet released a review for XYZ product you mentioned months ago? – Added color display We recently discovered that unfortunately Garmin Forerunner 35 displays boxed question mark [?] In any case, back to our run. The one last thing I want to touch on in the sports section is Garmin’s Incident Detection and Assistance features, which are seeing widespread rollout to Garmin devices – especially with these three (FR45/245/945) product launches. It’s a nice break from the day to day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it! Which, for a lot of people is a key driver in the decision tree. Note that unlike the higher end Forerunner watches, the FR45 doesn’t support a privacy mode for smartphone notifications. Thanks for the tons of reviews. Note, for those units on my hands, they *are not* using optical HR. I checked with Garmin Support … and they told me that this is the expected behavior. I like that the FR45 has the option for custom workouts. If you want to go even smaller, there's also the Garmin Forerunner 45S, which shrinks the design down to a 39mm case. . Once the phone has internet access … the phone can take to synchronize the data from phone to (Garmin) ‘cloud’ using either wifi or data. I agree I think a good line in the sand is at least allowing simple offline sync of just the workout files, but perhaps not trying to boil the ocean for all your other daily metrics (sleep, activity, steps, stairs, 24×7 HR, body battery, on and on and on). Approximately one coffee cup’s worth. For everyone else, start with the Forerunner 45 video: Of course – if straight to the bullet point facts are more your thing, then hit up below for my attempt at outlining all the newness in one consolidated list. It *should* record those stats regardless of whether it’s recording an activity or not… and so if it’s battery dies partway through a hike/run/walk/whatever that it doesn’t lose your basic data. In terms of accuracy, this is not really about accuracy over all distances and terrain (although in my experience a calibrated footpod can often be as accurate (or more) than the GPS esp. Roughly. As I noted earlier on, Apple has been toying with letting some larger retailers push the Apple Watch Series 3 down to $199 for short term sales. We do own a FR15 and in this important respect the user experience has not improved unfortunately. Why can’t they just make it a standard attachment so people can put any watch strap on it. It disappoints me though that Garmin had omitted the barometric altimeter from the watch (even the cheaper vivoactive has it). The workouts you see here are just my normal daily workouts. I’ve read quite a number of reviews saying it lacks accuracy and not worth cryin over ‍♀️, Oh, not tracking stairs correctly is a real bummer. This is a FR45 (not the FR45s, as I only had those for a short period of time), compared to the FR225. Hi, Are you willing to review or test beta products? – Added Garmin Coach compatibility Now this wasn’t the only device released today. thats fine, I just needed some approximation.. With all that setup done, we’re ready to press start on our run and get cookin’. This is different than Apple, which has fall detection 24×7. In the “Other” mode, does the watch read from a cycling cadence meter? I swim, bike and run. How to choose between 245 and 45? I have this situation where the watch doesn’t count my steps I take when I run a structured workout. Here’s that data set: What’s fun about this game is that it’s immediately obvious who did well. Submit feedback to Garmin via forum’s etc… Never know but they might release new colours…. thanks. You can see from the graphic above that the two runs were almost identical apart from hill sprints which exposed the limitations of the optical sensor. Why not offer it in black and blue. The gradual increases you’d find in a race or training run are more than adequately tracked – but explosive HITT from a standing start, well, there isn’t a wrist-based optical sensor out there that can handle that, and the Forerunner 45 is no different. My older vivoactive had this. I also have the FR220 and decided to “downgrade” to the FR45. I see that I can select lap intervals of 1km / 1mi but can I set increments eg 0.5km, 1.3km etc or is it set to 1km / 1mi? Additionally you can also look at your workouts on the Garmin Connect website as well, for example, this workout here of mine (link if you want to toy around a bit): Further, if you’ve connected Strava, MyFitnessPal, TrainingPeaks or any other sites, all of those will receive a copy of your workout instantly as well. After I did the current update on both the watch and Garmin app a few days after I got the watch, it now randomly and frequently disconnects from the Garmin app. There’s a ConnectIQ app that does something similar like that NavMe app (called Maps Nav on ConnectIQ and the Android companion app is called Nav Garmin)). On the bright side, at least the Forerunner 45 did well there – which shares the exact same optical HR sensor package as the FR945 does. Next, as noted, I use just my daily training routes. Thanks to your review. In any case though, for the FR945/FR245/FR45 watches, I kept them all on GLONASS for the bulk of my testing (I did try some Galileo runs/rides and saw less accuracy than with GLONASS). Thank you again for your time going through my questions. However, as a whole I wouldn’t say it’s an up-sell feature. They collectively nail it, nobody gets lost and plots a wonky GPS point on the other side. No more writing them on my hand. The 45 is perfect for me and the 245 is too much for my running hobby. I just read your review on the Polar Ignite. Once you’re done you’ll go ahead and press the start button to pause it. Below are the most popular. I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). Any ideas if I can change that besides just using a personal workout setup? I have a FR245 music. At this juncture you can eat some ice cream and then press resume to continue running, or, you can end it for realz. OK I get that the FR 225 is much bigger than this watch – but when I think of a “beast” I think of the old FR 205/305! This has happened during two runs in which I use the Live Track for safety so my husband wasn’t able to continue following me through the rest of my runs. Did you pause the activity for a lengthy duration? This is the pinnacle of Garmin chest straps, and includes dual ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart, Swimming support, Running Dynamics, as well as back-fill of HR/Steps/Intensity Minutes/Calories if not wearing the watch in certain sports. This is far more basic than most other Garmin watches show, but it gets the job done: A few seconds later, the watch is automatically transmitting this information over to your phone via Bluetooth Smart. However, there are a few extras on board. Almost perfectly within the bounds of the track. You’ll get steps, calories, active minutes for the week, as well as heart rate, stress levels and body battery – a metric that tracks how ready you are for your next training session. Not sure if it is possible to start a Garmin Coach program from the phone app directly. Though I expect we’ll see the Forerunner 35 probably drop in price more quickly over the coming months, as Garmin will likely aim to attract buyers at the $100-$139 price point that they’ve largely vacated with current products (it used to be the FR25 that fit in there). The Forerunner 45 is primarily a running watch, which we’ll focus on here. But how does it all work – and is it the right running watch for you? Hi, will Forerunner 45 work with Dynamic Pod or HRM run strap? We see a bit of a brief bobble by the FR245’s optical sensor at about the 1-minute marker. I think that would make this watch what most people are looking for. Thanks a bunch for the clarification! I am not a fan of huge wrist watches, and the 45S is by no means dainty. Since the Forerunner 45 doesn’t have cellular in it, you need to be within range of your phone. May/2020…$149. For example, while I did the above workout as a manual one-off, I did it with numerous steps and complexity that’s just not possible on Fitbit, Apple, or Samsung watches with default apps. I also do cycling. Here’s a few brief moments where the Polar Vantage V and Suunto Trainer go for a dip in the lake. Every review photo, every video on youtube the watch seems to be bright, the colours stand out, while mine seem a bit saturated (its as if I still have the plastic label over the face, that probably describes it quite well). I’m sure you’ll get it replaced without issue. We do not have a specification for GPS without OHR, but this would certainly increase the battery life. Looking for an entry-level watch for my daughter, who is starting to run (training for a half now) and likes to hike. Hi has any tested to see if you can charge the fr45 while running, There should be no issues with that.. just get one of those charging dock cradle things that DCR reviewed a few weeks back and plug it into a portable battery pack, Any watch can be charged while running just trying to find out if this one will charge with the gps tracking and recording. The good news though is that you can download thousands of custom watch faces from Garmin Connect IQ store, which is Garmin’s free app store. Ended up ordering a new one and sending the old one back in case it’s just faulty. Works a treat. It easily hits the actual work portion, but seems to stumble fully recovering. HR comparison: Forerunner 45 (top) vs Fenix 5 Plus and chest strap. The app did not show heart heart and other stats ; only steps. In that scenario – Garmin delivers buttons – five of them. Does the 45 support audio prompts of HZ and pace and does it display training effect? In terms of battery life, the slimmer case makes a big impact, in comparison to the likes of the Fenix 5 Plus and Forerunner 945. Safety Assistance: This allows you to, with one button, send a predefined message to emergency contacts with your initial location, followed by a live tracking link. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. The vivoactive 3 ticks all the boxes for me but a better heart rate sensor is always welcome…. Data Page 4: Time of day clock page I thought that this watch could not record anything related to swimming. It would be great from somebody from Garmin (Garmin-Blake, for example) … to comment … and better yet … to raise this scenario to the FR45 Product Manager. Announcement of FR45 model makes a really hard decision whether vivoactive 3 is still worth its money. Thanks! Though unlike Garmin’s higher end units, you can’t customize the stock watch faces (changing data and such). You will find Coach plans there. I’m starting the half marathon plan next week. It works well and is easy to follow. Is the strap interchangeable with non-Garmin watch straps? I currently have the 220. Does the FR45 have an equivalent turn-by-turn navigation feature because if it does, I will definitely buy…? That’s not to say that the Garmin is incapable of reaching Max HR. But the FR45 only supports ConnectIQ watchfaces, you’d need a watch that supports ConnectIQ device apps, like a Forerunner 235/245 or a Vivoactive 3. Here’s the results if we toggle to just the FR45 and FR945. Generally that’s instantaneous since it’s constantly tracking HR 24×7 anyway. Ray, Can you write something about support for emoticons in the SMS messages notifications? I noticed this too, would really need data labels displayed continuously. Hows the lag on pace metric for these new releases (45,245,945)? – Added Pace/Speed alerts You can toggle between a couple of different stock watch faces. 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