This product has been discontinued by the manufacturer. It's been replaced by the Garmin Forerunner 945, you may want to check out that review instead.
Today, Garmin has officially announced the successor to the FR910XT triathlon/multisport watch, the FR920XT. The swim-bike-run focused watch effectively takes all of the recent new features from a number of other new Garmin fitness devices and plunks them into this watch. Yet at the same time there’s also a number of features which aren’t seen elsewhere on Garmin devices such as cycling-specific VO2Max, a new metronome mode, and then support of Garmin Connect IQ, which allows companies to make apps for the watch.
I’ve had small windows of time with the watch over the past few months, so definitely consider this in the camp of a ‘first look’ post and not an in-depth review. Which means I’m mostly focused on explaining all the new features and functionality, versus deciding if it’s worth the cash (that comes in my full review). Sound good? Grab a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and let’s get started.
The New Features:
In many ways there are few major unexpected surprises when it comes to the FR920XT. This is largely because as most people assumed the feature-set really builds upon that established by the Garmin FR620 and Edge 1000 – Garmin’s latest cycling and running units. So one is squeezing out all the new features from those units and adding it to the FR910XT. Still, it’s a substantial list. Here’s a rundown of the purely new items (over the FR910XT):
– Addition of Bluetooth Smart, WiFi connectivity
– Addition of Daily Activity Tracking (steps, Sleep, etc…)
– Ability to create Internet connected apps, widgets, data fields (Connect IQ)
– Addition of Live Tracking (requires you carry a phone)
– A Color Screen (that actually really shows colors)
– Creation of Activity Profiles (allows you to create your own)
– Running Dynamics (Vertical Oscillation, Ground Contact Time, Cadence)
– Recovery Advisor, Recovery Time, Race Predictor
– Cycling VO2Max
– PR’s (Personal Records)
– Regular Watch Mode
– UltraTrac (for up to 40 hours of GPS activity…with ANT+ sensor data)
– Addition of GLONASS (for increased GPS accuracy)
– Garmin VIRB action camera control
– Indoor Treadmill support (without a footpod pace/distance)
– Metronome Functionality
– Swimming Drill mode (as found on Garmin Swim, Fenix2)
– Swimming Interval Rest Timer
– Racing against past performances, downloaded performances
As you can see, while there are some completely new things (like the metronome and cycling VO2Max), virtually all the remaining features can be found in other recent Garmin products (FR620, Edge 1000, FR15). Which, I’ll point out might actually be a good thing – as it means those particular code chunks have had time to ‘bake’ a bit more and get the bugs worked out.
Now, there are a few things that many people saw in the wild rumor mill that aren’t in the FR920XT, specifically:
– No support for heart rate while swimming (though, there should actually be a workaround there with Connect IQ)
– No optical heart rate sensor in the unit itself
– No 3G/cellular connectivity
– No Bluetooth Smart sensor support (i.e. BLE heart rate sensors)
– No Di2 support at this time (though, this too could likely be added in Connect IQ)
– No small ponies
Also, note that the screen is not touchscreen. For a triathlon watch where it’s all about water, I think that’s probably a good thing at this point.
To that end, this post will largely focus on all the new stuff. In general, unless I specify otherwise in this post you can assume all the previous FR910XT functionality is carried over. So everything from indoor/outdoor swim metrics to regular GPS running/cycling recording to power meter functionality and anything else that’s been on the FR910XT or the FR620, is here. In my full in-depth review (based on final firmware/hardware), I’ll dive into all those regular features like I always do.
But in the interest of most folks who just want the new stuff, we’ll keep it quick and short here. Actually…who am I kidding? Nothing is short or quick here. And for those not so into reading and photos, I’ve put together a bit of a video detailing my first tri with it, as well as the analytics side of the data afterwards. You can watch that below:
With that, let’s start diving into the details!
Colors, Size, & Weight Comparisons:
The FR920XT comes in two color variations, seen above. They are a red/white option and a blue/black option. Like all previous multisport watches, there is only one size of the watch (meaning, not separate sizes for women or men).
The FR920XT reduces its size a bit compared to the previous FR910XT. To begin, it’s effectively the same thickness now as the FR620, which makes it pretty darn thin:
Here’s a quick glance at the difference in size between the FR920XT (right) and the FR910XT (left). As you can see the screen is similar in size though slightly smaller, additionally, the outer shell has shrunk a bit. Note, in the below image the status bar at the top is showing, but that disappears after a few seconds giving more viewable screen space (as seen in other photos here).
And looking at the Fenix2 (regular and special edition), it’s got a substantially bigger screen size, though the overall width/height of the watch isn’t terribly different – just rectangle instead of square.
You can see quite a difference in thickness there as well:
And for completeness, here’s a few on my wrist, and one with the Fenix2 on my wrist:
Next if we look at the color differences you’ll see it’s much more vibrant than the FR620 was, which didn’t really use the colors for any practical purpose – nor did it have terribly sharp colors.
Finally, weight-wise the FR920XT sits in at 61g, a reduction of 11g from the base FR910XT which is at 72g (without quick release kit).
Daily Activity Monitoring & Regular Watch Mode:
The FR920XT adds to it all of the common daily activity monitoring/tracking functions found in typical activity trackers like Fitbit and Garmin’s Vivo line (Vivosmart, Vivofit). These metrics include daily steps, step goals, distance walked, calories burned, and sleep. Most of these specific metrics will also be transmitted to Apple’s Health Kit (which is semi-implemented right now).
You can see your daily activity on the above page, which shows your progress towards the daily goal, as well as metrics related to that. This page is accessible from the lock screen by just pressing the up/down side buttons. Like other Garmin Vivo devices, the step goal is dynamic and will shift slowly from day to day depending on your step count trending. Thus if you walk more, the goal will increase. If you instead watch more Ironman Kona TV marathons, the goal will likely decrease.
Additionally, the unit includes a move alert, which will trigger if you’ve been sitting idle too long – a reminder to do something. You can always override the goal setting, as well as simply turn off activity tracking altogether.
The new activity monitoring function is also directly accessible on the watch-face home page. The watch mode is now accessible 24×7 in non-GPS mode for 33 days without having to re-charge the battery. And if you have activity monitoring and smart notifications enabled, it’s about 30 days of battery (1 month). If you turn off activity tracking, you’ll get 4 months in straight watch-only mode.
This is a significant change from the FR910XT in a lot of ways, but most notably in that it didn’t offer a regular watch mode at all.
The unit also supports the creation of a single time alarm, to help you wake up at 4:45AM for that joyous morning swim session (or not, as in my case).
Now I will say that when it comes to the endurance athlete, sometimes less is more here. Meaning that if you’ve gone out and done a 120 mile long ride followed the next day by a 20 mile long run, it’s quite likely that the end-state goal shouldn’t actually be to hit 10,000 steps for the next day. Instead, recovery is likely a better approach. In that respect, Garmin doesn’t quite seem to have the same cohesive picture of activity total (including steps) vs recovery that the Ambit3 has. I’m not sure if it’s a significant loss as the FR920XT still has recovery time inclusive of those activities you do in sport modes.
Wireless Connectivity (Bluetooth/WiFi), Smartphone Notifications, Live Tracking:
The FR920XT adds in all of the wireless capabilities found on the FR620 that was released roughly a year ago. That means it starts by adding in Bluetooth Smart phone connectivity. This connection to Android and iOS phone allows for the following functions:
– Live Tracking
– Completed workout uploads
– Transfer of Step/Sleep data
– Ability to transfer scheduled workouts
– Firmware updates
– Course transfers
– Satellite pre-population data
– Smartphone notifications
Smartphone notifications enables your iOS or Android device to send notifications to the unit from apps or services. For example, incoming calls or text messages, or an update from Twitter or other critical apps like Words with Friends.
Live Tracking enables you to send your current location as well as ANT+ data (like heart rate, power, cadence) via your phone to friends and family tracking you. They’ll see where you went and where you are. This feature works exactly like the FR620 (rather than the Fenix2) in that it does allow concurrent ANT+ data transmission and recording a swell as location transmission via Bluetooth Smart. Note that some races prohibit the use of cell phones, so you’ll want to double-check that before you get DQ’d.
In addition, some connected features are also available via WiFi. For example completed workouts can be uploaded via WiFi, as well as download of firmware updates and satellite pre-population data.
Satellite pre-population data (officially known as EPO, Satellite Ephemeris), allows the unit to predict satellite locations and thus allows for super-quick satellite reception, typically within 10 seconds or less. So yes, just like in EPO doping, the EPO for these devices makes it faster too.
In using units in three different global locations, I found that all three picked up satellites within 10 seconds, and in one case the unit hadn’t been turned on in that country previously. The EPO data can be downloaded for 7 days in advance.
(Update: Apparently not, this page seen below was only on one beta unit I happened to grab photos for.) This information can be quickly checked via a handy little page in the settings menu, showing you the current age of the EPO data, and when it expires. Sorta like the date stamp on a gallon of milk:
Anytime you connect the device to your phone, WiFi network, or computer (with Garmin Express installed) it’ll automatically pull updated EPO information.
The FR920 adds in many of the same functions found initially in the FR620 and then in the Fenix2/Fenix2SE. For example, it now supports Running Dynamics, which is the collection of running metrics that include Vertical Oscillation and Ground Contact Time. These metrics come via the HRM-RUN heart rate strap. The strap also provides cadence, however, the unit itself will do wrist based cadence without any heart rate strap. And further yet, if you have a footpod you can get cadence there too.
In addition to Running Dynamics, the unit supports VO2Max estimation on not only running, but also cycling. This is the first Garmin unit to support VO2Max estimations on cycling. To get such estimation, you’ll simply do your normal rides. Ones with slightly more intensity will help give more accurate results however.
Next, there’s Race Predictor. This takes the estimated VO2Max values and then corresponds it with data for your particular gender and age from the Cooper Institute to determine the theoretical best case time for a given distance. Note that this doesn’t mean you’ve trained enough to do so, but rather just that your VO2Max would allow you to do so.
Additionally, for astute readers, you’ll note that these figures below are a bit low for me. This was just on a watch I happened to borrow, so the numbers were for someone else.
Finally, there’s Recovery Advisor and Recovery Time. These aim to give you information about how quickly you’re recovering. Recovery Advisor will display about 6-10 minutes into an activity and let you know how recovered you are from your previous workout. I’m interested to see if this has improved over the FR620, which I found is ‘too nice’, and rarely tells you that your recovery is ‘Poor’ (ok, never tells you that). Note that Recovery Advisor will not use step activity from the activity monitor, but only heart rate based activity data. This is because it’s looking at heart rate variability to determine its results.
Meanwhile, Recovery Time is a post-workout thing that tells you how much time it’ll take to recover from that workout.
For multisport athletes the recovery time should best be judged more along the lines of ‘how much time until the next really hard workout’, rather than just any workout.
Training Calendar, Racing an Activity (Virtual Racer):
The FR920XT carries into it the Training Calendar, which allows you to download training plans and scheduled workouts from Garmin Connect into your watch. These workouts are sync’d each time you sync your watch, and then can be executed on the watch itself. They are always structured workouts with specific steps. On Garmin’s site it offers specific training plans for different running, cycling, and triathlon events. These training plans comprise specific workouts for certain days of the week that will then appear on your watch to complete on that given day.
Next, is ‘Race an Activity’, better known as ‘Virtual Racer’. This feature took a bit of a break within the FR620, so it’s good to see it’s not been cut from the FR920XT. In the case of the FR920Xt, it’s been expanded a little bit however and split into two specific sections.
First is the ability to race your past efforts that happen to be on the watch. For example, if you run the same route each week you could race last week’s effort. It’ll then show where you are in relation to that time last week during your run.
Secondly, you can now easily send other activities (not yours) to the watch. For example, you could send a Pro Athlete’s training or racing file to your Garmin (assuming they’ve set that activity file as public), and then race against that. The same could be done from family or friends for given routes/races. For example, I could go run a 39 minute 10K on a specific course with specific speed sections, then give it to The Girl to go execute and follow the same pacing.
Indoor Treadmill Mode, Metronome:
The FR920XT follows the FR620 and adds an indoor treadmill mode that doesn’t require a footpod to be utilized to gather pace and distance. This means you can get both metrics indoors (or in places with no GPS signal like tunnels) without paying extra for a footpod.
Of course, the accuracy of such technology for pace tends to be a little…variable. I haven’t had a chance to test the FR920XT’s treadmill accuracy, but in recent tests on both the Fenix2 and FR620 (which uses the same technology), I’d give the accuracy a ‘B+’ grade. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse. It’s rarely (never) perfect for me, but each person has different running styles. It’ll be something I’ll be testing in more detail in my in-depth review. For cadence data (also gathered from the wrist by default), I find it virtually spot on.
Next, Garmin has added one feature completely out of left field – which is the metronome. This functionality allows you to set a specific beat, typically a run cadence, which can be used for anything from running drills to trying to maintain a specific stride rate.
Within the feature you can set the specific cadence and it’ll beep just like a traditional metronome would. You would then align your footsteps to that. You can also set an Alert Frequency, which will allow you to reduce how often the beat happens, such as every 2,3,4, or 6 beats. Further, you can at any time hold down the menu button and select ‘Mute’ to tell the metronome to STFU.
Generally speaking there’s a strong link between running cadence and running efficiency. This is interesting because this falls inline as a component that could be used to actually improve the Running Dynamics metrics you get. I’ve often lamented that Running Dynamics metrics were more about marketing fluff than actual beneficial things that were/are scientifically proven based on a training methodology. With the metronome you could leverage that for various drills and/or focus on running turnover.
Swimming Features:
There’s been a few minor swim enhancements. First is that the unit now adds the Swim Drill mode that was found in the Garmin Swim watch (and on the Fenix2 watch). This mode allows you log drills that might not be easily recognized by the watch, and then simply lets you enter a total distance for those drills.
The second item is a more clear interval/rest timer for swimming. This makes it a bit easier to see how long the previous interval was and then what your current rest time is. This is useful so you can setup a timer for how long your rest should be and then keep each set consistent.
Note that it doesn’t add full pre-defined structured workout support for swimming however like in running or cycling.
The FR920XT largely keeps the status quo when it comes to sensor support, which means it natively supports the following ANT+ sensor types previously found on units:
– ANT+ Heart Rate sensor
– ANT+ Bike Speed Sensor
– ANT+ Bike Cadence Sensor
– ANT+ Bike Speed & Cadence Combo Sensor
– ANT+ Bike Power Meters
– ANT+ Running Footpods
In addition, it also adds support for this new type of ANT device:
– Garmin VIRB action cam control
With that, the unit can now control your Garmin VIRB action cam, such as starting/stopping recordings as well as taking photos from it.
It does not at this time support either the Edge Remote, or Shimano Di2 data recording like the Garmin Edge 1000 does. Nor does it support the ANT+ weight scale (a loss from the FR910XT) or the rarely seen Fitness Equipment (ANT+ enabled gym treadmills/bikes/rowers).
Note that the unit officially supports the above ANT+ sensors, as I discuss in the section at the end around Garmin Connect IQ, it can now effectively support any ANT devices out there via custom apps and data fields. Thus, devices like BSX, Moxy and even the ANT+ weight scale could be added by 3rd party developers with relative ease. I would expect to see that occur pretty quickly by some 3rd party developer.
Also note that the FR920XT does not support Bluetooth Smart sensors, thus while there is Bluetooth Smart within the unit, it’s used for connecting to the phone and not for sensors. In discussing this with them, Garmin has “no plans” to enable Bluetooth Smart sensor support on the FR920XT.
Next, the FR920XT adopts the Activity Profile concept found on the Edge 510/810 and then in the Edge 1000. In the case of the FR920XT, it aligns more to the Edge 1000 variant as it includes the sensor pool concept. This means that instead of having to manage sensors separately for each bike, you simply pair all your sensors. Then, you define specific activity and multisport profiles. You can have up to 10 single-sport profiles, and 5 multisport profiles.
The unit will automatically use whatever ANT+ sensors are enabled when you start that profile, just like the Edge 1000. This actually works out fairly well and allows you to easily create a different set of data pages for training than for racing. Or perhaps yet another set different for a running race (single-sport) than a triathlon (multisport)
The FR920XT brings with it the navigation features found on the FR910XT (but not found on the FR620), while also adding in an UltraTrac mode found on the Fenix series, and then finally adding in support for GLONASS for increased GPS accuracy in some environments (note: WAAS is not included).
The navigation component has two core areas. The first is to follow downloaded courses (routes) that you created ahead of time on Garmin Connect and then synchronized to the watch.
The second is more ad-hoc navigation. In this scenario you can navigate back to the start, while also saving waypoints along the way. So you could save a waypoint for the start of a trailhead (or where you parked your car), and then navigate back to it (or forward to it).
In this mode it’ll show you exactly how far you are away from the waypoint. It was here that I was fairly impressed with the satellite accuracy shown on the device. As I stayed put to where the marker was, the accuracy of the unit stayed within 1-3ft (not meters, but feet). Then as I walked away it increased, and walked back to the same spot it went back to those 1-3ft. Garmin notes that they made changes to the antenna placement and positioning on the unit that should offer increased satellite performance.
All of this navigation also utilizes the units onboard magnetic compass.
As noted, the unit also supports GLONASS, similar to some of the newer Edge devices like the Edge 1000.
Next, the unit adds in an UltraTrac mode. In this mode you can reduce the GPS recording rate down to a less frequent rate, but enables you to get upwards of 40 hours of GPS-on/recording battery time. Outside of that, it’s now 24 hours of 1-second recording GPS data (a bump up from the previous 18-20 hours).
When in the UltraTrac mode you will see reduced data points however, so you’ll want to use this only in cases where your single activity is going to be more than about 24 hours. Otherwise, you’ll lose a lot of data/accuracy due to the reduced recording rate of approximately 15-20 seconds on, and 40-45 seconds off, per minute. The approach is slightly different than the past, because it’s more dynamic than previous units which simply jumped up and grabbed a data point every 60 seconds and went to sleep.
Further, unlike like previous units the FR920XT will record ANT+ sensor data at the same 1-second or smart recording rate in UltraTrac mode. The UltraTrac only impacts GPS updates. This is potentially huge for ultra runners that want to maintain that additional sensor data, but don’t mind as much on the GPS track being less accurate.
Garmin Connect IQ Apps Support:
Last week Garmin announced Connect IQ, which allows 3rd party developers to develop apps for supported Garmin devices. At the time of the announcement though, no such devices had been announced – making the announcement slightly…intriguing. The FR920XT however will be the first device to support Connect IQ apps. The unit will support all four modes of apps. These modes are:
Apps: Full blown multi-level/interactive apps Custom Data Fields: The ability to create custom data fields that you can add to any data page Widgets: The ability to create basic screens that pull data from other sources Watch Faces: The ability to create customized watch faces, from a picture of your bike to something more data oriented.
The real power for the FR920XT will be the ability to support sensor types that aren’t traditionally supported by Garmin. For example, I’d expect that someone like BSX would look at adding in support for their sensor via a simple app. The same could be true of anything from hydration sensors to aerohelmet position sensors.
I won’t re-hash all the Connect IQ functionality/components here, for that simply read last week’s post for all the details. Note that the Connect IQ app store doesn’t launch until January, so you won’t see that functionality quite yet on the FR920XT. However, developers can already download the SDK and there will be an updated emulator that’s clearly marked as the FR920XT soon (though, the default rectangle one is actually the FR920XT already…).
Garmin Connect Changes:
In addition to a slew of hardware changes, Garmin is also rolling out changes to Garmin Connect, one of which is specifically aimed at the triathlon crowd. That change is the addition of a new Multisport display mode for triathlon data on Garmin Connect. Currently (or, I suppose previously), the triathlon watches would split up each segment of your race/training day into separate activities. So one file for swim, one for bike, one for run, etc…
This made it somewhat complex to see the triathlon as a single cohesive event. Now, that’s changed. For Garmin FR920XT, FR910XT, FR310XT, and Fenix2 and Fenix2 Special Edition users, the new activity view allows you to see your triathlon as a single activity:
You can still view each individual leg if you’d like to, but this gives a cleaner picture of things. My understanding is this change should go live sometime today on the site.
In addition to this, Garmin has tweaked a few other areas. First is a new activity detail page. The new page cleans up the view a bit and includes a larger map and then consolidates the player feature that was on the second tab, as well as now shows cumulative lap times. I haven’t spent time with this new view, so it’s unclear to me yet if other things were ‘lost’ as part of it, for that we’ll have to dive into it later today.
Next, there’s now the ability to group different activity trackers together to determine which data you want from which devices. For example, you could have step data from the Vivofit, whereas have running data from the FR15.
Finally, there’s a new Group Leaderboard that ties into mileage and step goals.
This is primarily aimed at being more social with your daily activity amongst friends on Garmin Connect.
Product Comparison Charts:
I’ve added the Garmin FR920XT to the Product Comparison Tool, which means you can mix and match it against any other watch’s/unit’s that I’ve ever reviewed for feature comparisons.
For the sake of simplicity, I’ve just selected the Garmin FR920XT, FR910XT and Fenix2. However, you can easily make your own chart with any device you want here at this link.
The tables are updated dynamically and thus if/when things change that’s represented automatically in this section. And again, remember you can create your own charts easily here with any product you’d like.
Wrap-up:
There’s no doubt considerable new features in the FR920XT. I suspect it hits almost every feature people have been asking for, short of heart rate recording while swimming and Bluetooth Smart sensor support. Even more exciting in my mind is it will be the first device to support Connect IQ apps, which opens the door to tons of creativity for apps that people are already thinking about – but also apps people haven’t even considered. For example I suspect we’ll soon see people writing custom alerts and apps for remembering to take your hydration and nutrition during a race as well as even queue sheets for sections of a race on guidance. So much incredible potential there.
Of course, the proof will be in the pudding when it comes to validating there aren’t teething pains with the new device – be it stability issues or GPS accuracy issues. For that, I’ll need the remainder of the month with a production unit and production firmware. I can only hope that Garmin used the extra time they spent moving the previously planned release dates out from various earlier planned dates that the unit got extra testing and bug squashing. It hopefully helps that Garmin enlisted a group of athletes outside the company to beta test the device since this past spring.
As for availability, a semi-small number of units will be available at Ironman Kona (next week). Beyond that there are extremely limited numbers of units available globally for the next few weeks before production is significantly ramped up. Thus, expect that it might not be until at least mid or late November that Garmin is able to get through a backlog (or even longer). The whole early bird and worm thing is definitely at play here (just like it was for the FR620 running watch last year).
Next, the unit does see a slight bump in price to $449US for the base, and $499 for the version with the HR strap. I suppose this might be to match both Suunto and Polar triathlon watches which have higher prices (yet those units arguably have far less features).
Finally, as noted a moment ago, I plan to spend October putting the final unit through it’s paces. I’ve got a very accommodating work travel schedule that takes me to the perfect places that I need so I can easily get in the openwater swims, bricks and other triathlon focused activities that I need to beat the crap out of the device. Thus, expect a full Garmin FR920XT In-Depth Review the first week of November, just in time for me to decide whether or not the unit makes the cut for my 2014 Fall/Winter Sport Device Recommendations.
With that – thanks for reading! Feel free to drop questions below, and as usual I’ll try my best to post answers.
—
Found things here useful? Wanna help support the site?
You can pre-order the Garmin FR920XT below now via Clever Training, which helps support the site and makes posts like this and other reviews possible. They also have all the other FR920XT accessories such as the quick release kit, extra colored straps and the like available. Here’s the link to the FR920XT pre-order page, you can use the drop-down menu on their site to choose which edition (with or without HR strap), and which color you want.
Hi Ray,
Any news on a European deal for DCR readers?
I want to order a 920XT but I am holding for any special European deal you may come up with, so that I also support your site.
+2 an European / UK Deal would be great as I’m looking to order one of these for Xmas (Xmas present from me to me ;), lots of paperwork though is not good when you clearly have limited time but fingers crossed :-D
Live Tracking testing request, if Ray and/or the room doesn’t know the answer:
What do my friends at home see for a Live Track that begins while having cell service, but then leaves the range of the cell towers, and then comes back?
I have a longer trail race coming up, and suspect that this might be an issue.
When you come back into range it should back fill the points for your friends. Live Track samples every minute so not a huge amount of data. I once did a run where started a LiveTrack but left my phone with my wife at a cafe when I went for the run. On returning the watch paired up again (so like regaining cell signal) just before the end of my run and the whole LiveTrack was there when I checked. I don’t think my wife was at all interested though :) !!!
Hello Ray. First of all very nice reviews you have here!
Just double checking on battery life with activity tracking and smart notifications ON all the time it’s 30 days? My Fenix 2 lasts one day with smart notifications enabled via bluetooth.
Yes, that’s correct. The difference is that the Fenix2 wasn’t designed for it from a hardware perspective. It was sorta added as a bit of a ‘Hmm, let’s see if we can get this figured out now on this hardware just for the heck of it since geeky triathletes might like it’. Technically, it was introduced on the Fenix/Tactix.
With the 920XT though, the underlying hardware supports the low-power mode that makes it work.
Just a quick note on something I noticed in your comparison chart, the 910XT does support training calendar. I used it for a half marathon back in May with a Garmin training plan. Then manually made my own for a couple of triathlons.
But, does the 910XT show the correct workout for the day you’re on? Or just have them sync’d and available for you to choose? I thought it was just being available, versus having it set for ‘today’s workout’.
Yes, the 910XT “mostly” provides you with the correct workout for the day. I think there is a time zone bug in there tho. When I would do late night workouts (past midnight GMT) it would recommend tomorrow’s workout. I am in California.
The Edge 500 works like you suggest, it just puts all of the workouts on the device, then you need to know which one to run. I used that for a while too.
I have all 16 weeks worth of my interval workouts on the GC calendar, and downloaded to my 910xt. You go to Scheduled and choose today’s workout (I only have one per day scheduled, so nothing really to choose) and it’s ready to use.
Ive looked over your initial look and comments a few times and don’t see this question.
Could you wear this day in and day out with it not being too cumbersome?
I own and love my FR220 but have been thinking of adding a vivofit. I don’t wear my FR220 all the time. If the 920 isn’t too bulky for 24/7 wear I might just upgrade.
Also, any scuttlebutt on maybe an early refresh of the 220/620 to 230/630 to include activity monitoring?
Thanks for the response Tim. While the face is larger it does not look like its thicker than the 220/620. I tried to look through the pics again and didn’t see a direct comparison, probably because the 220/620 and the 920 are not directly comparable products.
My only hesitation is that I currently would not use the swim or bike mode in the unit. I would love a 620 with a vivofit baked in, but the 920 might be my best bet. Plus it could give me a reason to expand into the bike/swim.
Now to determine if I get it do I want to get this before Disney Marathon Week in January where I will run 4 races (5K, 10K, 13.1, 26.2) in 4 days.
I have Firstbeat a few days ago asked which way the connection between the 920XT and Firstbeat Athlete done. The Firstbeat Technologies answer was:
The data from Forerunner 920XT is uploaded to the ATHLETE software the same way as from the Forerunner 620. Please see the first Q&A from our ATHLETE FAQ link to firstbeat.com
TBD seems appropriate then when that article only mentions the 620 and not the 920. I understand however that the file they mention there to enable R-R recording should work on a 920. Is that what Firstbeat confirmed with you?
I’ve just downloaded the enablement file and tossed it on the 920XT. After disconnecting the unit it showed ‘Updating’. I’ll report back after my workout later today to see if it actually did anything.
My Question to Firstbeat was: How Firstbeat Athlete arrives at the FIT-files from the Forerunner 920XT? Wie gelangt Firstbeat Athlete an die FIT-Files von der Forerunner 920XT?
For those that have the FirstBeat Athlete software, here’s tonight’s run file from the FR920XT after I had placed the enablement Fit on there. I’ve run out of computers to keep installing the trial version of FirstBeat Athlete on…
You have both the 620 and the 920. Will you keep both? The reason I ask, I have the 620 as well and a 510. I was thinking of using the 920 for multi sport mode and set a target and for swimming.
Would you still use both the 920 and 620 for runs?
Don’t think asking us two whether we will keep devices would give much of a representative answer as I have got a bag of “vintage” Forerunners and chargers back to the first 201 :) Ray must have a whole room of “stuff” !
Will I still use the 620 for running – yes – but I tend to wear 2 devices anyway – just in case something goes wrong (user error or otherwise) plus it gives more things to look at a glance …
For biking I would still use my Edge 810 as my main head unit – it’s just optimally positioned for me to see it and of course you can see far more stuff at a glance.
As Tim noted, neither of us are likely to part with any devices.
For me, initially I would have suspected that I’d go back to the FR620 after I’m done with the FR920XT review, but, it’s slowly growing on me as a runners watch (I prefer the smallness primarily of the FR620), so we’ll see.
Any chance that you can take a pic with the 620 and 920 side by side on your arm? I love all the features, but have a 220 now, but also want the cycling, and (eventually) swimming features, plus the battery life seems promising. I always run with my phone in an ultra backpack so the message push seems intriguing too so i don’t have to pull out my phone every time i get a message (at leas the important ones) :-)
Hi, Your impression about GPS accuracy and sensivity to pace variation?
I’ve a 610 and I usually run in a urban city “canyoning” scenario with boring GPS behaviours….
I’m reading about 920xt in order to see a real improvement related to GPS+GLONASS support.
If you scan through here Ray and I have both posted links to activities with the 920. Generally tracking looks fine. I tend to think that GLONASS won’t “improve” tracking to say military degree standard but rather reduce the likelihood of having a really bad track. As I understand it GLONASS just adds the ability for the unit to see those sats as well as the “GPS” ones so hence increase the likelihood of having enough sats locked on at any one time.
That’s true – using Glonass support only will not improve accuracy, since it from a single system point of view is slightly less accurate than GPS (see link link to navipedia.net). It’s the combination of both systems that make it out for better performance, hence you’ll have to both systems to get slightly better accuracy.
If GLONASS works in anyway as it does on chips used in mobile phones, GLONASS will only kick in when needed because not enough GPS-satellites are possible to connect to. So running where GPS-signals are weak (dense forest for example), GLONASS will obviously improve accuracy for that particular run.
I agree though, that in an open field with plenty of GPS:satellites available, GLONASS will make no difference.
There are apps for your smartphone. I’ve played with ‘GPS Test’ for Android. It shows you how many GPS/GLONASS satellites are connected. I usually get around 9 GPS + 3 GLONASS where I live
I think it’s a bit more subtle than that. GNSS chips have a limited number of channels, and generally will track as many GPS satellites as they can, then use any remaining channels for GLONASS satellites. The MT3333 chip which seems to be in the 920 can run up to 33 channels, so might do a little better even in fairly open spaces, though there atmospheric effects are probably going to limit accuracy. It would probably be able to track every satellite of either constellation that’s above the horizon with capacity to spare – that number of channels would only really get used when newer constellations like Galileo start coming online. Sounds as though your phone can handle 12, which is common.
My plan is to begin with Swimrun competitions in Sweden and I therefore wonder if the 920 can do multiple changes between running and swimming in one single activity?
Yes, you can simply tap the lower left corner (side) button and then change to any of your sports. You can seemingly do this as many times as you’d like, swapping around free-form.
Alternatively, you can always create a specific multisport order as well and pre-establish that.
As luck will have my RCX 5 needs to be replaced. Now I was looking at the v800 but had some reservations about Polar quality because my RCX5, HRM and Speed/Cadence quality leaves much to be desired.
Will it be worth it to wait for this to become available, or does Garmin also have its quality issues
I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to, but just for clarity – the FR920XT can connect to a HR strap, but while swimming and wearing a regular HR strap it won’t receive the data due to the ANT+ transmission not going more than about 1-2″ underwater (same for Bluetooth Smart).
Can you turn off all distance tracking (GPS / internal accelerometer / footpod / HRM-Run Cadence) for a specific activity profile like weight training? Thanks.
You certainly can use the HRM-Run for cycling.
As a matter of fact I have been using one (from the Fenix 2 pack) for the last 4 months without any issue.
You will however not get any Run Dynamics (or any cycling equivalent) while cycling though.
thanks for great review. Do you please have more specific information on availability/shipping date? Clever Training says “preorder – expected in November”. But I saw in the comments that some guys already have their 920XTs.
I`m asking because I`m from a small country in Europe and going to US soon. I can order one to my friend`s place and then take it back home with me. I have a limited time to pick it up though and wouldn`t want to leave 2 days before the package arrives.
Garmin has made a handful of units available at a few races globally, such as at Ironman Kona this past week (a couple hundred units), along with a couple of other races. Internationally a few smaller local running/tri shops have had luck getting in one or two units (this is sometimes done simply so Garmin can say they’re actively shipping to a given country…).
Beyond that though, all other retailers are waiting shipment notifications from Garmin. As noted at the bottom of the post, Garmin doesn’t expect to get anywhere near demand from a manufacturing perspective until at least early November.
As far as Clever Training goes, historically they are very conservative with ship dates. They prefer to underpromise and overdeliver, especially since most manufactures tend to do the opposite. The dates seen for availability on the site are for new orders placed today, based on the most recent information given from Garmin. Pretty much everyone globally is in the same boat there.
For Clever, they’ll be sending out weekly updates with the most current information from Garmin (as the have for other major product launches). As usual you can pre-order now and cancel anytime if it doesn’t meet your timelines, though, it does charge the card upfront (which would be refunded if you cancelled).
Thanks for the support for the blog here, via Clever Training!
I ordered on 10/1 and was promised a shipping date of 10/3. A few days later I was told I would have it by 10/17. Today I was notified that I should have it by 11/24. Definitely disappointed but anxiously awaiting.
Why do they charge the card upfront? Most place I am familiar with charge it only when they get the items and can ship them. I think it’s a shady business practice and allows them to get a free loan.
Honestly, as one of your partners it makes me think twice about giving them my business.
Mikey:
I ordered through them as i was able to get a discount and get the bundle for $449. They have not charged my card and will not until the item ships.
Sorry for any confusion. When I posted that I ordered through “them” I was referring to Road Runner Sports. I did not order through Clever Training and they in no way have ever mislead me, or made any type of promise regarding product availability. Sorry again for any confusion this may have caused.
How is the 920 managing run pace now? Like the Ambit ie through accelerometer cadence + GPS? Pace smoothing was an issue with some Garmin products so much so that users tended to use lap based pace rather than instantaneous pace reporting which would be too erratic?
Interested to know..it is a feature I love about my Ambit 2.
Bit of an obscure question, maybe, but I’m considering travel around areas like Central Asia – will I find the GLONASS support in this to be significantly more reliable than the GPS in, say, Fenix2? (Aside from the differences I’d already see in the US or Canada, I mean.)
Just because it’s a Russian system it doesn’t make it work better over Russia or near Russia than GPS. The strength comes from using the combined constellation which does improve accuracy everywhere in the world. link to navipedia.net
I believe the rules are quite clear in that you should be matching to the frame. After all, you’d otherwise have to keep crashing to ensure bruise matching.
Thanks for all the info Ray. I’ve placed my pre-order through Clever Training.
I was wondering: does the 920 support double-tap to turn on the night light as the 910xt did? That was very handy, and I miss it in my poor frequently-confused Fenix2.
Also, I’m really impressed by how you police these comments. Keeping comments civil is a Sisyphean task, well done.
Does it seem possible geocaching support to be added via third-party app? I find it curious that the Fenix2 sports this, but it’s missing from the 920XT. I wonder if it’s purely a marketing decision for product differentiation, or maybe solely an issue of each device reflecting its particular team of origin within Garmin.
Yes, I’d guess we’ll see a Geocaching app at launch from someone (perhaps an employee/example one). It’s probably one of the more direct and easy to implement things. Especially true since so many members of the Connect IQ team hail from the Outdoor Team, which has a much closer affinity to Geocaching than the Forerunner team.
Ray, As always, thank you for the great review. I currently wear a normal watch in addition to my vivofit. Do you know if the 920 activity tracker and the vivofit can reconcile steps at the end of the day if I wear my vivofit for the normal portion of the day and then switch to the 920 for workouts?
At the moment, when I go for a run, I wear the 910xt and vivofit on the other wrist. A very small “ask” really but would be great if the new model did reconcile this as I’m not too keen to wear the 920xt as my daily watch.
Thanks again!
PS – tried to enter a comment on your giveaway for the 920/Fenix 2 but there wasn’t a option to at the bottom of the comments section
Hmm, I’ll have to see. You have to specifically set one as the ‘Activity Tracker’ on Garmin Connect. But I haven’t checked to see if you can set the Vivo as the activity tracker, then do a run with the 920XT and get the step data fed into the daily total (at least on GC).
As for the giveaway, sorry for the minor snag – you should be able to enter now. :-/
Activity Tracking
What is activity tracking?
Some devices provide 24-hour activity tracking (steps, sleep, etc.), so you can get a full picture of your daily health. An activity tracker can only be used by one person at a time, not shared between friends or spouses. Garmin Connect will only sync with one activity tracker at a time. If you have multiple activity tracking devices, set the device you wear all day as your activity tracker.
Question about Multisport mode and the New Garmin Connect View for Triathlon data (which I think is great) and Strava auto sync.
In the old mode the Multisport activity was split into separate files (e.g. Run, Bike, Run) and now with the auto sync to Strava life was sweet.
Now the new view is showing the data file as one activity with a view to see the Run\Bike\Run (e.g. Duathlon) and it seems the sync to Strava has changed as all the 3 event have been logged as a Run (including Bike) and I am now he record holder for a lot of Segment. This has also skewed by personal bests for running.
Did you see this with the 920? Is it just a Fenix 2 thing? or just a Strava Thing which Strava will need to fix?
Very much doubt importing from US to UK will be cost effective. You will have to pay import tax and whenever have ordered stuff from US your package tends to help up in customs until you pay up. I forget the exact amount but recall added about £50 to a £200 purchase. It is sort of worth it as I could buy item in the UK. Wiggle have been selling some 920s in the UK as an “exclusive”.
Thanks for the reply. This behavior is different and definitely has changed since the Garmin Connect change to show all files in one page.
I have previous Triathlons showing as Swim\Bike\Run as separate files and as such did upload to Strava automatically correctly, Below are links to Garmin Connect for a Multisport event as separate files running firmware 3.90
Surprised for the cost that it doesn’t include an AC charger like with the 910xt. One doesn’t always have a pc around. I’ve found that charging with a pc or a simple plug in ac/usb is really slow. I’ve found the same with the Virb, that it charges much faster plugged into the garmn 910xh ac charger. Do you know if they have made improvement in the ability to charge by usb or would I be better off to keep the 910 XT charger and not sell it when I sell my 910xt?
I assume you can plug the usb cable into any standard usb charger. By now most people will have quite a few usb charging outlets in my locations. The 910xt charger is the most clunky charger I have (but I still use it and don’t charge my 910xt elsewhere…force of habit).
Yes that doesn’t answer the question I asked . Clunky or not the std usb charger in my experience has not worked nearly as fast. Difference of hours. I assume something regarding the charging current. So it there something in the new charge cables that work better? Which as I’vesaid before has’t been the case for either the 910xt or Virb.
Typically speaking USB charge times are purely a function of amperage of the specific adapter. For example, many iPad adapters are rated at 2A, but typically Garmin adapters for watches are rated at .5A. Depending on which port on your PC you used, it might vary.
Fwiw, using my laptop last night to change the FR920XT from 0% to 100% took about 2 hours.
Either way, many USB devices these days aren’t coming with power adapters given just how widely available USB ports.
That charge rate is similar to my experience as I went up 20% in 30 mins with a laptop USB port so 2.5 hours in all at that rate. Battery life is quite good on a 920 as I suspect, in most cases, about an hour’s “top-up” would see you back to 100% after using it that day.
After spending quite some time in defining what i need from a smart watch i have come up with one important thing for me that i cannot seem to find information on anywhere: Will it be possible to link this or any gps watch to a phone (IPhone) and have the Iphone give audio audio cues while pressing the lap/split button?
I spend quite some times running in mountains and when going uphill it is quite awkard to look at a watch (or a phone for that sake). I need a solution where i can press the lap button and have the phone notify me on my time, pace etc. Is this possible with this watch? :)
I am not aware of any way of doing that at present but maybe something that somebody may implement when Connect IQ comes online next year.
I use the Strava app as a bit of a “backup” and have set that to “talk” 1/2 mile splits to me which isn’t quite what you want but potentially useful and on the same lines.
Hmm, that’s perhaps one of the most puzzling files I’ve ever seen (especially since I actually understand/know the course fairly well).
Looking at the little player option, it’s like you started the run, and then a quarter mile in shut off the GPS. But, I can’t forse you actually doing that. Can you upload the .FIT file to some other random site to see if it’s by chance a GC issue (such as Strava, TP, MapMyFitness, SportTracks, etc…)?
It is very odd, The TCX file you can export from GC shows the last point with a GPS position was at 2014-10-12T12:34:05.000Z which looks about 9 mins after you started the timer (as GC shows)
It seems that every elevation reading was zero after then.
Also did you start very hard as HR is very high for that first 9 mins then drops right off. It does look uphill however but even so looks like a HR spike to me.
You seem to imply you started the timer late? I guess it is possible that starting the timer on the move may mean the GPS signal was weak initially and finally dropped out at 9 mins. I did once (and have seen others) have runs with the 620 where GPS would suddenly cut out like this and not return. The “problem” with these devices with the internal accelerometer is that it reverts to that when GPS is lost and so does not give GPS reception warnings like older Forerunners and maybe there is some issue where it does not revert back to GPS again – well assuming it ever found it again.
The whole story… I picked the 920 up at the Army Ten Miler race expo while picking up my packet. I took it home and set up some screens the way I like them… Pace, lap pace, and HR with time, distance and cadence mixed in. I also connected a HRM, HRM-Run and a foot pod. I know this sounds stupid… because it was stupid, but I never hit the start button, not even once!
While waiting on the starting line I turned it on and it synced with the HRM-Run, foot pod and established satellite reception. As I, along with 35,000 of my closest friends crossed the starting line I hit the button that was the start button on my 620, unfortunately, this is not the start button on a 920. In heavy traffic it took me a few seconds to figure out where the start button was and get it started.
The 920 appears to have operated properly, until I crossed under Memorial Ave while, running up Jefferson Davis Hwy, where it looks like the 920 lost satellite reception and failed to recover. It retrospect, the friend I was running with and I where occasionally comparing pace and they just didn’t seem right, I was constantly showing just a little slower that she was, she was wearing a FR410.
The elevated heart rate at the beginning was a result of my failure to moisten the HRM strap. I had a screen setup with cadence and HR next to each other and noticed HR was a mirror of cadence for a little while.
The race had me at a 9:28 and the 920 had me at a 9:38 average pace. Not too bad for the foot pod, I assume that is where the data came from.
The trouble is, where I live and run, I never lose satellite reception so I will have to be creative when testing this.
Captain – What I’d do is go ahead and re-pair all your devices sitting at home on the touch, that way you can ensure they’re paired to your sensors others. Just be sure to do both heart rate and footpod. If you don’t have a footpod, go ahead and delete out that sensor.
I’m not sure where exactly in the DC area you live, but, when I lived there the best place for testing what happens in a tunnel was oddly enough near my house on Cameron Run. A few miles upstream where Cameron Run (the running path) goes under I-395 there’s a series of long tunnels fairly deep underground. So, if you’re looking for a different running route than normal, that’s a good one (and, if it’s your normal area, then perfect!).
I dont really find anything strange in Your run.
It seems pretty simple scenario: You started recording (doesnot really metter late or not) with GPS, then passing through some obstacle (tunnel?) the watch lost GPS reception and started to use foot pod. What the problem is, watch never got GPS back and simply continued with foot pod until the end. That’s why Your map shows only small part of the route (until GPS was receiving signal) but the run is fully measured fo whole 10miles from Your foot pod (all pace, HR data is there). Only GPS data is missing (map, altitude etc).
I had similar situation with my Suunto Ambit 2. I have started the run without good GPS signal (or should I say no signal at all). The watch recorded my distance and pace from the built-in accelerometer until it actually found GPS lock, and from then onwards used GPS data and that is when route on the map also started. You can see that on movescount, where distance is 14,6km, but only 13,9km are on the map. First about 670m are added from accelerometer:
Look Tony – you can either be polite here, or you can go elsewhere or be blocked. It’s a simple option. I have zero tolerance for people being rude to others. I’ve told you this numerous times over the years. Hundreds of other people are able to comment each day without being rude to others, I’m sure you can find a way. This is your final warning.
I called Garmin this morning and send the .fit file and device info over… we’ll see what they say. The folks in Kansas are always pleasant to deal with.
Hi All, thanks Ray for all the input and time that you spend answering all these questions.
Have you heard about bragi “The dash”. These are earphone that will be able to monitor Heart Rate, Oxygen in blood and a lot of other features. These can be connected in bluetooth to a smartphone for example and record or send these monitored values to different types of Health software.
I am really interested by the 920xt but also about these “dash”. Do you think that there could be a way of connecting the dash to the 920?
Here is the link to the dash (available early 2015) : link to bragi.com
At present, there’s no method of connecting The Dash to the FR920XT, because The Dash doesn’t do ANT+ (or, one could say the FR920XT doesn’t do Bluetooth Smart sensors).
Forerunner 920 only available at the end of November due to manufacturing problems (see Dutch text and website below).
‘We hebben net bericht gekregen aangaande de Forerunner 920 XT. Momenteel zijn er fabricage problemen waardoor de leveringen pas eind November verwacht worden! ‘
Any chance for a garmin device coming with
Optical Heart Rate Sensor
MP3 Player
Virtual Racer
4 Data Fields
Running Dynamics
The 920xt is appealing over my Fenix 2, but if I could opt to not use the chest strap and carrying my MP3 player on easy days that would be wonderful… I understand I would still have to wear the strap to get dynamics, but most of the time cadence is all I care about so it’s not a huge loss.
You are probably playing with a device that does exactly this, but are sworn to secrecy through some kind of fancy smancy non-discloser.. ha ha
Hi Ray, it’s 2-3 years that i’m following your site and I’m very impressed on the big amaount of work you are doing!!
my big compliment !
I’m an ultratrailrunner ( Tor de Geant- Lavaredo ultra -dolomiti extreme- Sella ronda sky and so on…)
my very big interest is on the running side expecialy the long run where the battery, the precision of the gps, the altitude and the amount of ascend are important.
I’ve read all and try the fenix 2 and personaly in the mountain forest with high tree the signal is very poor especialy if you run, and the ultra trac of fenix in the mountain is ridicoulus when you run ( it lose the signal and bye bye).
so in conclusion for ultratrail athlets what will be very importan in your in depth rewiew will be:
-the ultra trac modality fr 920xt vs ambit 3 ( an in depth comparison betwen fr920 and ambit 3 will be great)
-gps acuracy in canyon , mountain and forest
-a good altitude test
– a really good test on what happen when you lose the signal and it come back intermittent like the alps forest.
– an on trail tetst of recharging the unit with usb battery set while you are running ( in case of super long run with 1 second interval gps for maximum acuracy)
Not sure Ultratrac will be your ideal solution although what is the key issue here – a detailed GPS track recording and/or the activity as a whole from more of a performance point of view?
I tried Ultratrac as an experiment and it seems to wake up GPS for a little bit to take a point and shut off again and does this about every minute. Also note what it says in the 920 manual link to static.garmincdn.com about using the accelerometer to compute distance & speed in this mode when GPS is off – which will be more often than not it seems.
GLONASS may improve ability to get a GPS signal in challenging terrain but apparently its use reduces battery by about 20%. That said it still gives, in theory, 18 hours or so which is still pretty decent. How long are your ultras?
Unfortunately you can’t charge the 920XT and keep the timer running.
I tend to think the best workaround might be to use 2 devices and then merge the tracks after the run.
Elsewhere in the comments here I posted a link to a run I did with the 920 in relatively hilly and twisty trail terrain with some tree cover. It did pretty well but afraid I don’t personally have any mountains nearby to see how it works there.
thank you for the information and fast answer.
now what i’ll be waiting is the in depth rewiew and i hope that some one wear the fr920 and ambit 3 for an ultra and share the data to make a super comparison expecialy to see the difference betwen the 2 gps cheps how they work in forest, mountain etc.
thankyou again
Just a bunch of random updates on things people have asked that I get clarification on from Garmin:
A few Garmin Connect oddities over the past week: Some saw the map centering on Kansas if not logged in, and others also saw the first few minutes of files showing a flat HR. Both were fixed in Garmin Connect last week.
Lack of Map Zoom: from Garmin: “We do not have a manual map zoom capability on the 920 which was a decision based on feature priority, focusing on developing the highest value, most used features first.”
TCX courses on FR920XT: from Garmin: “For technical reasons the 920 does not have a XML parser which is required to ingest TCX files.”
Autolap by position: from Garmin “We are looking into bringing this back and I’ll keep you posted on timeline if it is returning.”
Metronome while in swim mode: from Garmin” We weren’t happy with the quality of the metronome while swimming and didn’t want to provide customers a disappointing experience so it wasn’t featured in the watch.”
Inability to change speed source to a footpod: from Garmin “There is not a way to change the speed source to a footpod in the 920 but we will be looking into if we can work it back in a maintenance release.”
There’s also a few other minor items/issues I’ve run into that they’re fixing in an upcoming update including inability to send courses to the FR920XT from the iOS app. Items which aren’t on the short-term list but are being looked at include oddities with initial elevation setting where it takes a while for the barometric altimeter to adjust to your location (versus using GPS to get ‘close’ and then the altimeter to finalize adjustment).
Thanks Ray. Annoyingly, I’m just going to ask you another question. Did they suggest the map zoom might get changed in a later release, or is that pretty much set in stone now?
Re Metronome while in swim mode – “We weren’t happy with the quality of the metronome while swimming” – I’m not surprised. I’m not happy with the quality of the vibration alert and sound while in water.
On my 910 I had distance alerts set which I found really useful indoors and open water. I could feel the vibration 95% of the time and even hear the sound most of the time depending where my arm happened to be in the stroke.
On the 920 the vibration and sound both seem to be weaker. I cannot feel nor hear alerts in the pool no matter how hard I try. I’ve tested at home, plunging my wrist into a tub of water. The water kills the vibration. Would be interested to hear other’s opinions – is the vibration weaker or is it just my unit?
Hi Ray, Great info here. Any update from Garmin on heart rate while swimming? Will they be leaving heart rate active on open water swims and activating it for pool swims?
I’m an enthusiast, but not a competitive athlete by any means.
I have two bikes, have a cadence sensor that I don’t really use, but enjoy tracking my route, heart rate (I have a garmin strap) and other stats Strava and/or Garmin Connect in order to get better, even though I don’t compete.
I enjoy hiking, mostly day hikes, and just as with the bike, I love tracking my route, elevation gain of the hike, etc.
I also run at the gym and outdoors, recreationally. And I really, really want to get back in the pool :)
In the past I’ve owned several different devices, many tailored to a specific activity (Fenix for hiking, Edge for biking, etc).
It would be great to have one device that I use as a semi-casual-yet-interested athlete, as opposed to several devices where I pretend to be hard core for every activity.
It seems to me that this device, while having a few more features that I’d need, might be the only device I need for everything, based on my actual needs as listed above. Is that correct?
A friend picked up a 920xt in kona and I’m helping him set it up. For pool swimming unless I am missing it there is no “Last Interval Time”. We use this doing descends to make sure we are on track. Am I missing this or is that field omitted?
I was fiddling around with my unit wondering where ‘Last interval time’ and ‘Last interval pace’ were.
I think ‘Int Time’ that is displayed on the rest timer is in fact ‘Last Interval time’ you also get ‘Int. Distance’ displayed which i think is last interval distance.
Haven’t had a chance to swim with my 920 yet but from playing with the screens and data fields the above seesm to be the case.
That is right. There is no way to have data fields showing current interval and last interval simultaneously while in an active interval as far as I can see. When in rest mode the fields such as Int time effectively become “Last Int time” etc until you end rest mode again.
Note that as well as the rest timer being configurable you can also scroll to your other configured pages while in rest mode. Very flexible and I really like that.
I use my current Garmin for programming and tracking rowing works (boat not erg). I would be thrilled if the built in cadence sensor could be used to record stroke rate, e.g., 15-45 spm, while worn on my wrist. I don’t need to see the watch face while rowing, I just want to be able to look at the stroke rate data later. What do you think, will the sensor work in that low range?
If it doesn’t work natively there is a chance connect iq will allow access to the sensor at a low enough level that it could work there.
I know you said you aren’t interested in erg use but there is a chance the a connect iq app could be written to talk to a pm4 head unit from a concept 2 rower as it broadcasts the row over private ant during a row (they just want you to sign a nda to get access to the private ant config info)
Another quick question for those of you in “the Garmin know” (or as close as you can be to being in the know): Is the inability to charge while recording an event a factor of software or hardware? On the fenix, if you plug into the PC, you are done. If you plug into a usb charger, it keeps in whatever mode it is in. I am wondering if you have checked that out with a usb charger instead of the pc’s usb port.
The probability right now is low that I would need 18+ hours so this is mostly curiosity.
Keep up the great work. This is great intel for those of us that are impatiently waiting.
No difference on USB charger. If an activity is going it stops the timer and saves it and starts charging.
The FR10/15/220/620/920 all do this whereas the Fenix line up don’t. Not sure why but we do know the “Fitness” team look after Forerunners and the different “Outdoor” team do the Fenix.
Hi Ray. I’ve been told today by a french physical shop that Garmin has recalled all the 920 XT already sent to the resellers. The reason would be a water proofing problem on the first batch.
Have you heared something about that, or is it just a “rumor” ?
I know there’s been a production delay, but Garmin hasn’t specified what that is exactly. They haven’t asked for my unit back, or to my knowledge any other media outlets. I’ll ping them though on this.
So I checked on this, here’s the official response:
“We have not recalled any 920s but are being cautious during the ramp-up phase. A couple beta testers reported running into waterproofing issues after the first round of production units went out so we are adjusting hardware before shipping any more product as a precaution.”
Fwiw, I’ve been openwater swimming every day this week and haven’t killed it yet, plus swims over the past few weeks.
1) No. And this ‘no’ means ‘110% no’ as the watch, even in battery saving ultra trac mode, will last only 40hrs (best case scenario which I suppose means no beeps, no vibration, no any future apps, no backlight screen on, no navigation, just recording) and cannot be recharged during activity!!! If attached for charging, watch will end current activity, save it and go to charging mode (this though, if enough people will ask, might changed through firmware release)
2) somewhere here in the comments (also in some online shops) You can find info stating 4 months.
For #2: The watch mode is now accessible 24×7 in non-GPS mode for 33 days without having to re-charge the battery. And if you have activity monitoring and smart notifications enabled, it’s about 30 days of battery (1 month). If you turn off activity tracking, you’ll get 4 months in straight watch-only mode.
i used my 910XT , which can last 24hours without vibration , dark backlight ,but i can continue my activity during charging mode. The workout was continue even though the watch screen appeared charging bar,after unplug the cable the activity keep recording.But as you mentioned , this watch stopped /end activity during charge that is not great option to choose this as my next ultra race watch. i don’t like Fenix as my option , because the display designed with round , which cause some data not fully appear in proper screen & add that the screen color is orange. rather monochrome or 920 is great interface design.
i wish can get update for final firmware which able to charge without sacrifice to end the activity.
Thanks again for the great review and personal comments. I live in South American and will be in the US mid-november for a couple weeks. I was hoping to be able to buy the 920xt, but am afraid it wont be available then. I am mostly a runner and openwater swimmer and do fast tris sometimes. Should I go for the Fenix 2 or Ambit 3 instead, or do you think the 920xt is the best watch and is worth the wait?
I have a big question regarding courses:
I do some trail running, and most of them have the gpx trail available. So I create a tcx course of it with the aid stations programmed in them (using tcx convertor because I cannot find a way of putting waypoints in garmin connect, and then the old training center and ant agent, because the) so that when running I can see total distance remaining, and distance till next aid station.
If the 920 is unable to read tcx files, and garmin connect is unable to do it, so am I missing something, or is this completely impossible?
and will the old way of doing this still work, or will I be loosing some major (for me) functionality?
My feeling is that you’d need some way to convert the tcx file to a fit file containing the same information, and the fit file would then work (since it is possible to transfer courses to the 920xt). That should give you the course; I have no way to know if the 920xt would respect the waypoints. I haven’t found a gpx/tcx course to fit converter, and this is something I’m starting to tinker around with myself at the moment, but for now I’ll only be able to try it on a fenix.
If you have a TCX course you can import that to Garmin Training Center and then you can send the courses to the 920 as it effectively converts each one to a FIT file and copies that over to the device.
Sure there are other ways but course creation always do seem a bit of a “black art”.
So GTC still works with the 920xt? That’s great news. If you have customized workouts with labels, does it display those labels instead of the generic labels from GC workouts?
I’m willing to make a fit file with waypoints in it if you give me a course,gpx,tcx link to garmin connect file to start with. (I hope that when I export it to my 910 I will find it somewhere on the disk, in the other case, I just downloaded the FIT SDK :))
Another interesting approach…. If you have an Edge (i.e. 500 or 800 I’ve tried, I assume the newer models work too?).
You can create a TCX with waypoints, load it to the Edge and then pull the FIT file off (after the edge parsed it).
The FIT course can then be loaded into something like the 910. I actually found a way to do it with Express… but it was a mess.
Something like:
1) Exporting a course from Garmin Connect
2) Finding the FIT file it loaded to my PC for Express to use
3) Replacing said FIT file with my own ripped from the Edge
It worked, but was quite an interesting process.
I’ve tried to mess with TCX Converter but never really got it to work right. I wish I could find a better TCX to FIT course tool… (or wish ridewithgps or bikeroutetoaster could export as FIT).
I’m going to try and write something to change a tcx file into a fit file. If you have some samples for me to try out. feel free to send me a gpx and I’ll send you the fit file back.
I also started poking at a C# XML parser -> FIT course converter and it looks pretty simple. In the past I hadn’t checked the formats, but as one probably would have expected, the TCX fields and the FIT course fields are basically the same (with the obvious text to binary differences).
I’d love to see the main course generating sites (read: bikeroutetoaster) export FIT directly.
Secondary questions for those with a 920 already:
1) Can you load a FIT course file from the USB connection?
2) If so, have you tried loading a FIT course with directional course points to see if you get any indicators / prompts (like the 310 and 910 would in the past).
I’m already able to read the tcx file (well I just imported the xml schema I found on the garmin site)
I should be able to write the output fairly easily using the fit sdk
so the main thing to do is write the actual conversion :)
Do you know where you had to put the files so that the watch picks them up?
ps: if you want to mail me, it’s a gmail adres with pluimpje before the @ :)
I was wondering if the 920xt has a satellite page where the strengths and numbers of acquired satellites is displayed. I know that on the 310xt you can access it like this: link to dcrainmaker.com
But how about the 920xt?
My feeling is that all GPS watch manufacturers (including Suunto) are in an arms race for the “fastest” signal acquisition but I am not quite sure how many satellites that guarantees. I would personally trade off some delay in the start of my runs to make sure that I have as many satellites as I can.
Marios, there is no satellite page. All you get is a signal-strength type indicator on the status bar and a “GPS ready” alert. It is blazing fast at acquisition even indoors in surprising places and has totally eliminated the “GPS dance” outside the house waiting for the GPS. I guess this is mostly due to the ephemeris pre-loading ability and probably antenna placement as I have yet to enable GLONASS.
However, as you say, there is nothing to indicate the quality of the fix. They seem to have stripped a lot right back to the minimum. It used to be with Garmin handheld devices that you would have an accuracy specification in the device specs/manual, a satellite status page (signal strength/sky plot) and an error estimation (“EPE” for Garmin devices). Now it is totally dumbed down to “ready or not.” I guess your average user won’t care.
Wait, so there is no menu option in settings or anything to see actual satellite strength (EPE or otherwise)? So many times my Fenix 2 has been “ready” and it really only has 200ft accuracy and it’s saying I’m moving 6:45min/mile… while standing still.
Alternatively, I suppose you could just set a page to instantaneous pace and see when it stops saying you’re moving.
Yes – that’s basically what I do (on any Forerunner) – once it says “GPS Ready” (or similar on other devices) look for a solid period of “zero” (stopped) pace/speed before starting timer.
Well, it’s a practical test you can try and generally has produced good results for me.
The GPS accuracy number only seemed to be a calculation based on signal strength anyway so whilst “interesting” was never going to guarantee anything.
I currently have the Fenix2 and one of the features that I like is that I can make a custom multisport on the watch. I assume that the 920xt allows this as well. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks.
Yes, you can make custom multi-sport (it’s mentioned in the review). Unlike the fenix2, you can set up indoor swim as one of them. In fact, you can also (as mentioned above) do an indoor triathlon (indoor swim, indoor bike, and outdoor run).
In an odd way I really dig the indoor triathlon option. We get enough snow and ice in the winter that I don’t ride outside, an indoor/outdoor brick from home would be fun to make a habit out of.
It’s actually even cooler than the past when it comes to custom multisport. Previously you could change between sports at will, or setup a single order for a multisport event. But now, you can mix and match and set it all up ahead of time. But, you can do it for a number of different potential events. Really kinda neat.
You can also “make it up as you go along”. Do one sport “normally”, switch over to another sport profile and hit the start/stop button and you then start that one whilst still having the first in the same activity file and so on…
Hi Ray, do you know how large the memory is on the 920? I ask because apparently the reason the fenix 2 keeps on faltering when on long runs (20/30mi+) is because it runs out of space to record the activity?
I just used the Fenix 2 on a 50 mile run (1s recording) and had no issues. There was a ton of other runs on their as well. Where did you hear/read that memory was the issue with long runs?
Yeah, you’d have zero issues recording a 20-30mi run (I’ve done 20-26.2mi runs just fine on the Fenix2), from a space perspective.
The FR920XT has a 10MB storage capacity, with roughly 8-9MB available for you to record files. On average, you can budget about 100KB (.1MB) per hour of recording with full 1s GPS & ANT+ data (worst case scenario).
I bought 4 different Garmin watches due to his too positive comments and all 4 were crap! Especially the 620! But he keeps on defending them! And now, with the 920, the story is just repeating itself!
Also his statements on GPS accuracy are worthless!
The best way to test GPS accuracy is by running a known distance ( eg 10 km) and see what the deviation is. Just like fellrnr does it on his blog.
And NOT by comparing watches against each other on an unknown distance.
If 3 of the 4 watches indicate that you ran 10,6 km and 1 indicates that you ran 10,2 km than Rainmaker would say that the 3 watches are more accurate than the one which is actually more accurate (on this 10 km track)!
That’s why I’m so upset the last few years! He’s a Garmin boy, he won’t bite the hands that feed him!
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
You'll support the site, and get ad-free DCR! Plus, you'll be more awesome. Click above for all the details. Oh, and you can sign-up for the newsletter here!
Here’s how to save!
Wanna save some cash and support the site? These companies help support the site! With Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products.
You can also pick-up tons of gear at REI via these links, which is a long-time supporter as well:
With TPC (The Pro's Closet), you'll save $40 on purchases over $200 with coupon code DCRAIN40 for tech and non-tech purchases!
Alternatively, for everything else on the planet, simply buy your goods from Amazon via the link below and I get a tiny bit back as an Amazon Associate. No cost to you, easy as pie!
You can use the above link for any Amazon country and it (should) automatically redirect to your local Amazon site.
Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? No problem, the product comparison data is constantly updated with new products and new features added to old products!
Wanna create comparison chart graphs just like I do for GPS, heart rate, power meters and more? No problem, here's the platform I use - you can too!
Think my written reviews are deep? You should check out my videos. I take things to a whole new level of interactive depth!
Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Check out
my weekly podcast - with DesFit, which is packed with both gadget and non-gadget goodness!
Get all your awesome DC Rainmaker gear here!
FAQ’s
I have built an extensive list of my most frequently asked questions. Below are the most popular.
You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. 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! It’s a nice break from the day to day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? 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 Gear Guide too.
Hi Ray,
Any news on a European deal for DCR readers?
I want to order a 920XT but I am holding for any special European deal you may come up with, so that I also support your site.
Thanks,
Rodrigo Valle
It’s being worked through, but a local option for Europe folks doesn’t quite look like it’ll be available in the next few weeks. Lots of paperwork!
+1
+2 an European / UK Deal would be great as I’m looking to order one of these for Xmas (Xmas present from me to me ;), lots of paperwork though is not good when you clearly have limited time but fingers crossed :-D
Fear not, it’s not me doing the paperwork. It’d never get done if so! ;)
And yup, we’re working to make it happen as fast as possible. Thanks for the support!
Live Tracking testing request, if Ray and/or the room doesn’t know the answer:
What do my friends at home see for a Live Track that begins while having cell service, but then leaves the range of the cell towers, and then comes back?
I have a longer trail race coming up, and suspect that this might be an issue.
When you come back into range it should back fill the points for your friends. Live Track samples every minute so not a huge amount of data. I once did a run where started a LiveTrack but left my phone with my wife at a cafe when I went for the run. On returning the watch paired up again (so like regaining cell signal) just before the end of my run and the whole LiveTrack was there when I checked. I don’t think my wife was at all interested though :) !!!
Lol.. I would say you are right. And the timing we go for runs (wee hours of the morn, they won’t even bother waking up to check. Lol))
Hello Ray. First of all very nice reviews you have here!
Just double checking on battery life with activity tracking and smart notifications ON all the time it’s 30 days? My Fenix 2 lasts one day with smart notifications enabled via bluetooth.
Thanks!
Yes, that’s correct. The difference is that the Fenix2 wasn’t designed for it from a hardware perspective. It was sorta added as a bit of a ‘Hmm, let’s see if we can get this figured out now on this hardware just for the heck of it since geeky triathletes might like it’. Technically, it was introduced on the Fenix/Tactix.
With the 920XT though, the underlying hardware supports the low-power mode that makes it work.
Thanks for the answer. Does the Ambit3 has a low power mode like the 920xt or has the same principle as Fenix 2?
Thanks!
The FR920XT is the same concept as the Ambit3 in that regard, so it lasts for a long time. Different than the Fenix2 which lasts for about a day.
Just a quick note on something I noticed in your comparison chart, the 910XT does support training calendar. I used it for a half marathon back in May with a Garmin training plan. Then manually made my own for a couple of triathlons.
But, does the 910XT show the correct workout for the day you’re on? Or just have them sync’d and available for you to choose? I thought it was just being available, versus having it set for ‘today’s workout’.
Yes, the 910XT “mostly” provides you with the correct workout for the day. I think there is a time zone bug in there tho. When I would do late night workouts (past midnight GMT) it would recommend tomorrow’s workout. I am in California.
The Edge 500 works like you suggest, it just puts all of the workouts on the device, then you need to know which one to run. I used that for a while too.
I have all 16 weeks worth of my interval workouts on the GC calendar, and downloaded to my 910xt. You go to Scheduled and choose today’s workout (I only have one per day scheduled, so nothing really to choose) and it’s ready to use.
Cool, appreciate it. Just updated the database, thanks!
Double checking that a previous Garmin HR strap will work for this one too.
I’m checking that the previous Garmin HR strap will work for this one too.
Yes. HRM3 will work with this watch.
Ive looked over your initial look and comments a few times and don’t see this question.
Could you wear this day in and day out with it not being too cumbersome?
I own and love my FR220 but have been thinking of adding a vivofit. I don’t wear my FR220 all the time. If the 920 isn’t too bulky for 24/7 wear I might just upgrade.
Also, any scuttlebutt on maybe an early refresh of the 220/620 to 230/630 to include activity monitoring?
You could wear it as a normal watch – I have been. Or course you need to if you want to make best use of the activity tracker.
It’s a bit bigger than a 220 of course however.
There has been some comment about how it might look with business attire but clearly that is a personal choice you need to make.
Thanks for the response Tim. While the face is larger it does not look like its thicker than the 220/620. I tried to look through the pics again and didn’t see a direct comparison, probably because the 220/620 and the 920 are not directly comparable products.
My only hesitation is that I currently would not use the swim or bike mode in the unit. I would love a 620 with a vivofit baked in, but the 920 might be my best bet. Plus it could give me a reason to expand into the bike/swim.
Now to determine if I get it do I want to get this before Disney Marathon Week in January where I will run 4 races (5K, 10K, 13.1, 26.2) in 4 days.
Does it come with a quick release bike mount similar to the 310xt?
Hi,
thanks for this great Review.
Ask a question:
which means “TDB” in “Compatible with Firstbeat HR tools TBD” ?
Regards Horst
Sorry, small mistake
is correct: which means “TBD” in “Compatible with Firstbeat HR Tools TBD”?
Horst
To Be Determined – just means it’s not obvious from the manual and it’s not been tested by Ray yet.
Thanks,
learned something about this again.
I have Firstbeat a few days ago asked which way the connection between the 920XT and Firstbeat Athlete done. The Firstbeat Technologies answer was:
The data from Forerunner 920XT is uploaded to the ATHLETE software the same way as from the Forerunner 620. Please see the first Q&A from our ATHLETE FAQ link to firstbeat.com
TBD seems appropriate then when that article only mentions the 620 and not the 920. I understand however that the file they mention there to enable R-R recording should work on a 920. Is that what Firstbeat confirmed with you?
I’ve just downloaded the enablement file and tossed it on the 920XT. After disconnecting the unit it showed ‘Updating’. I’ll report back after my workout later today to see if it actually did anything.
My Question to Firstbeat was: How Firstbeat Athlete arrives at the FIT-files from the Forerunner 920XT? Wie gelangt Firstbeat Athlete an die FIT-Files von der Forerunner 920XT?
And now I just hope that it works well.
For those that have the FirstBeat Athlete software, here’s tonight’s run file from the FR920XT after I had placed the enablement Fit on there. I’ve run out of computers to keep installing the trial version of FirstBeat Athlete on…
link to dcrainmaker.com
Cheers.
Thanks for the FIT file.
It works very well.
Now I just have to find a dealer in Germany who has the 920XT in stock.
regards Horst
Thanks for the confirmation – just updated the tables. Enjoy!
When you create a map on Garmin Connect, is it possible that you post a Picture how the Navigation of such tracks Looks like?
thank you so much in advance,
Stef
I included some navigation photos in the last section of this post: link to dcrainmaker.com
WOW nice thank you!!
Tim or Ray,
You have both the 620 and the 920. Will you keep both? The reason I ask, I have the 620 as well and a 510. I was thinking of using the 920 for multi sport mode and set a target and for swimming.
Would you still use both the 920 and 620 for runs?
Doug
Don’t think asking us two whether we will keep devices would give much of a representative answer as I have got a bag of “vintage” Forerunners and chargers back to the first 201 :) Ray must have a whole room of “stuff” !
Will I still use the 620 for running – yes – but I tend to wear 2 devices anyway – just in case something goes wrong (user error or otherwise) plus it gives more things to look at a glance …
For biking I would still use my Edge 810 as my main head unit – it’s just optimally positioned for me to see it and of course you can see far more stuff at a glance.
Thanks…Just trying to justify the cost and the need/want for a new watch.
As Tim noted, neither of us are likely to part with any devices.
For me, initially I would have suspected that I’d go back to the FR620 after I’m done with the FR920XT review, but, it’s slowly growing on me as a runners watch (I prefer the smallness primarily of the FR620), so we’ll see.
Any chance that you can take a pic with the 620 and 920 side by side on your arm? I love all the features, but have a 220 now, but also want the cycling, and (eventually) swimming features, plus the battery life seems promising. I always run with my phone in an ultra backpack so the message push seems intriguing too so i don’t have to pull out my phone every time i get a message (at leas the important ones) :-)
Mike
Hi, Your impression about GPS accuracy and sensivity to pace variation?
I’ve a 610 and I usually run in a urban city “canyoning” scenario with boring GPS behaviours….
I’m reading about 920xt in order to see a real improvement related to GPS+GLONASS support.
If you scan through here Ray and I have both posted links to activities with the 920. Generally tracking looks fine. I tend to think that GLONASS won’t “improve” tracking to say military degree standard but rather reduce the likelihood of having a really bad track. As I understand it GLONASS just adds the ability for the unit to see those sats as well as the “GPS” ones so hence increase the likelihood of having enough sats locked on at any one time.
That’s true – using Glonass support only will not improve accuracy, since it from a single system point of view is slightly less accurate than GPS (see link link to navipedia.net). It’s the combination of both systems that make it out for better performance, hence you’ll have to both systems to get slightly better accuracy.
If GLONASS works in anyway as it does on chips used in mobile phones, GLONASS will only kick in when needed because not enough GPS-satellites are possible to connect to. So running where GPS-signals are weak (dense forest for example), GLONASS will obviously improve accuracy for that particular run.
I agree though, that in an open field with plenty of GPS:satellites available, GLONASS will make no difference.
There are apps for your smartphone. I’ve played with ‘GPS Test’ for Android. It shows you how many GPS/GLONASS satellites are connected. I usually get around 9 GPS + 3 GLONASS where I live
I think it’s a bit more subtle than that. GNSS chips have a limited number of channels, and generally will track as many GPS satellites as they can, then use any remaining channels for GLONASS satellites. The MT3333 chip which seems to be in the 920 can run up to 33 channels, so might do a little better even in fairly open spaces, though there atmospheric effects are probably going to limit accuracy. It would probably be able to track every satellite of either constellation that’s above the horizon with capacity to spare – that number of channels would only really get used when newer constellations like Galileo start coming online. Sounds as though your phone can handle 12, which is common.
I see, thanks for clarifying. It seems everything indicates that 920xt will have better accuracy than any previous unit
Out of curiosity, how do you know which satellites are GPS vs GLONASS? Is there a list somewhere?
Hello Ray
My plan is to begin with Swimrun competitions in Sweden and I therefore wonder if the 920 can do multiple changes between running and swimming in one single activity?
/Martin
Yes, you can simply tap the lower left corner (side) button and then change to any of your sports. You can seemingly do this as many times as you’d like, swapping around free-form.
Alternatively, you can always create a specific multisport order as well and pre-establish that.
Thx a lot
/Martin
As luck will have my RCX 5 needs to be replaced. Now I was looking at the v800 but had some reservations about Polar quality because my RCX5, HRM and Speed/Cadence quality leaves much to be desired.
Will it be worth it to wait for this to become available, or does Garmin also have its quality issues
Also, BTLE vs Ant+, what is the way to go
You spoke about there not being a heart monitor, do you mean that there isn’t a heart meter altogether or just when you’re swimming?
I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to, but just for clarity – the FR920XT can connect to a HR strap, but while swimming and wearing a regular HR strap it won’t receive the data due to the ANT+ transmission not going more than about 1-2″ underwater (same for Bluetooth Smart).
Can you turn off all distance tracking (GPS / internal accelerometer / footpod / HRM-Run Cadence) for a specific activity profile like weight training? Thanks.
Hi Ray,
do you think HRM-RUN heart rate strap could be used also for cycling?
You certainly can use the HRM-Run for cycling.
As a matter of fact I have been using one (from the Fenix 2 pack) for the last 4 months without any issue.
You will however not get any Run Dynamics (or any cycling equivalent) while cycling though.
Hope this helps
Hi Ray,
Are you able to try to directly import the 920xt workout to Sport tracks desktop version?
/Chris
Hi Ray
Looking forward to your in depth review.
One quick question; do you now whether the quick release system works with the Barfly TT?
/Morten
Yes, it’s compatible.
Thanks for a great review. Do you think there is a chance that Fenix 3 will include routable/visual maps? I´m waiting for that in a watch.
Also, can you view your activity on a map in your phone like you can on the Ambit 3?
Thanks again.
On last point – yes, during the activity, if you do a LiveTrack and afterwards in the Garmin Connect mobile app.
Hi Ray,
thanks for great review. Do you please have more specific information on availability/shipping date? Clever Training says “preorder – expected in November”. But I saw in the comments that some guys already have their 920XTs.
I`m asking because I`m from a small country in Europe and going to US soon. I can order one to my friend`s place and then take it back home with me. I have a limited time to pick it up though and wouldn`t want to leave 2 days before the package arrives.
thanks
Boris
Garmin has made a handful of units available at a few races globally, such as at Ironman Kona this past week (a couple hundred units), along with a couple of other races. Internationally a few smaller local running/tri shops have had luck getting in one or two units (this is sometimes done simply so Garmin can say they’re actively shipping to a given country…).
Beyond that though, all other retailers are waiting shipment notifications from Garmin. As noted at the bottom of the post, Garmin doesn’t expect to get anywhere near demand from a manufacturing perspective until at least early November.
As far as Clever Training goes, historically they are very conservative with ship dates. They prefer to underpromise and overdeliver, especially since most manufactures tend to do the opposite. The dates seen for availability on the site are for new orders placed today, based on the most recent information given from Garmin. Pretty much everyone globally is in the same boat there.
For Clever, they’ll be sending out weekly updates with the most current information from Garmin (as the have for other major product launches). As usual you can pre-order now and cancel anytime if it doesn’t meet your timelines, though, it does charge the card upfront (which would be refunded if you cancelled).
Thanks for the support for the blog here, via Clever Training!
I ordered on 10/1 and was promised a shipping date of 10/3. A few days later I was told I would have it by 10/17. Today I was notified that I should have it by 11/24. Definitely disappointed but anxiously awaiting.
I assume that order was through Road Runner Sports though, correct?
Why do they charge the card upfront? Most place I am familiar with charge it only when they get the items and can ship them. I think it’s a shady business practice and allows them to get a free loan.
Honestly, as one of your partners it makes me think twice about giving them my business.
Yes it was. Looks like i will now get to see your full review and have plenty of time to cancel my order pending your recommendation.
Mikey:
I ordered through them as i was able to get a discount and get the bundle for $449. They have not charged my card and will not until the item ships.
Sorry for any confusion. When I posted that I ordered through “them” I was referring to Road Runner Sports. I did not order through Clever Training and they in no way have ever mislead me, or made any type of promise regarding product availability. Sorry again for any confusion this may have caused.
How is the 920 managing run pace now? Like the Ambit ie through accelerometer cadence + GPS? Pace smoothing was an issue with some Garmin products so much so that users tended to use lap based pace rather than instantaneous pace reporting which would be too erratic?
Interested to know..it is a feature I love about my Ambit 2.
Dan
I’ve included a video of instant pace here, if you’re interested in seeing what it looks like: link to dcrainmaker.com
Bit of an obscure question, maybe, but I’m considering travel around areas like Central Asia – will I find the GLONASS support in this to be significantly more reliable than the GPS in, say, Fenix2? (Aside from the differences I’d already see in the US or Canada, I mean.)
Just because it’s a Russian system it doesn’t make it work better over Russia or near Russia than GPS. The strength comes from using the combined constellation which does improve accuracy everywhere in the world. link to navipedia.net
Minor point irrelevant to Patrick: IIRC GLONASS is particularly optimized for the Northern hemisphere.
Thanks, folks!
Really important question…
I have the 2014 Giant Trinity Composite 2 (Red and White frame). Should I get the white and red 920 or black and blue 920.
Match the frame or match the bruises?
I believe the rules are quite clear in that you should be matching to the frame. After all, you’d otherwise have to keep crashing to ensure bruise matching.
Thanks for all the info Ray. I’ve placed my pre-order through Clever Training.
I was wondering: does the 920 support double-tap to turn on the night light as the 910xt did? That was very handy, and I miss it in my poor frequently-confused Fenix2.
Also, I’m really impressed by how you police these comments. Keeping comments civil is a Sisyphean task, well done.
It doesn’t appear to do anything when I single or double tap it while in running mode. :-/
(Quite honestly, I never even knew you could do that with the 910XT, but, did just validate you can…learn something new every day!)
Does it seem possible geocaching support to be added via third-party app? I find it curious that the Fenix2 sports this, but it’s missing from the 920XT. I wonder if it’s purely a marketing decision for product differentiation, or maybe solely an issue of each device reflecting its particular team of origin within Garmin.
Yes, I’d guess we’ll see a Geocaching app at launch from someone (perhaps an employee/example one). It’s probably one of the more direct and easy to implement things. Especially true since so many members of the Connect IQ team hail from the Outdoor Team, which has a much closer affinity to Geocaching than the Forerunner team.
There was a Garmin guy and a Potomac River Running guy in a booth with a hand full of 920’s at the Army 10 Miler packet pickup tonight…. I got mine!
I am going to have to read manual with no in-depth review out yet.
Full price though. Have a 610 so think I’ll save $50 and wait a month for clever training
Ray, As always, thank you for the great review. I currently wear a normal watch in addition to my vivofit. Do you know if the 920 activity tracker and the vivofit can reconcile steps at the end of the day if I wear my vivofit for the normal portion of the day and then switch to the 920 for workouts?
At the moment, when I go for a run, I wear the 910xt and vivofit on the other wrist. A very small “ask” really but would be great if the new model did reconcile this as I’m not too keen to wear the 920xt as my daily watch.
Thanks again!
PS – tried to enter a comment on your giveaway for the 920/Fenix 2 but there wasn’t a option to at the bottom of the comments section
Hmm, I’ll have to see. You have to specifically set one as the ‘Activity Tracker’ on Garmin Connect. But I haven’t checked to see if you can set the Vivo as the activity tracker, then do a run with the 920XT and get the step data fed into the daily total (at least on GC).
As for the giveaway, sorry for the minor snag – you should be able to enter now. :-/
No, I do not believe you can “blend” steps from different devices.
From link to connect.garmin.com
Activity Tracking
What is activity tracking?
Some devices provide 24-hour activity tracking (steps, sleep, etc.), so you can get a full picture of your daily health. An activity tracker can only be used by one person at a time, not shared between friends or spouses. Garmin Connect will only sync with one activity tracker at a time. If you have multiple activity tracking devices, set the device you wear all day as your activity tracker.
Question about Multisport mode and the New Garmin Connect View for Triathlon data (which I think is great) and Strava auto sync.
In the old mode the Multisport activity was split into separate files (e.g. Run, Bike, Run) and now with the auto sync to Strava life was sweet.
Now the new view is showing the data file as one activity with a view to see the Run\Bike\Run (e.g. Duathlon) and it seems the sync to Strava has changed as all the 3 event have been logged as a Run (including Bike) and I am now he record holder for a lot of Segment. This has also skewed by personal bests for running.
Did you see this with the 920? Is it just a Fenix 2 thing? or just a Strava Thing which Strava will need to fix?
Thanks in Advance.
Anyone with experience importing a watch from clever training to the uk? I guess they add 20% & 30$ shipping but any other costs?
Strava with the FR920XT works out perfectly. You get three events (Swim/Bike/Run), though it doesn’t show transitions (which is fine).
The issues you noted are a Fenix2/Strava thing within the multisport profile. Strava is aware of it (and has been for some time).
Very much doubt importing from US to UK will be cost effective. You will have to pay import tax and whenever have ordered stuff from US your package tends to help up in customs until you pay up. I forget the exact amount but recall added about £50 to a £200 purchase. It is sort of worth it as I could buy item in the UK. Wiggle have been selling some 920s in the UK as an “exclusive”.
Sorry need an Edit facility!
That should be “It was sort of worth it as I could NOT buy the item in the UK.”
Thanks for the reply. This behavior is different and definitely has changed since the Garmin Connect change to show all files in one page.
I have previous Triathlons showing as Swim\Bike\Run as separate files and as such did upload to Strava automatically correctly, Below are links to Garmin Connect for a Multisport event as separate files running firmware 3.90
link to connect.garmin.com
link to connect.garmin.com
link to connect.garmin.com
Here is a Multisport event on Fenix2 running 4.0
link to connect.garmin.com
It is like Garmin updated Connect to read multisport files better but as a result the upload to Strava is for the 1st event on the Multisport.
Just something to bear in mind.
Correct, all activities uploaded after Oct 1st get thew new view.
As for Strava, it’s actually always been dorked up that way with the Fenix2 and multisport profile (such as my July triathlon). :/
Surprised for the cost that it doesn’t include an AC charger like with the 910xt. One doesn’t always have a pc around. I’ve found that charging with a pc or a simple plug in ac/usb is really slow. I’ve found the same with the Virb, that it charges much faster plugged into the garmn 910xh ac charger. Do you know if they have made improvement in the ability to charge by usb or would I be better off to keep the 910 XT charger and not sell it when I sell my 910xt?
I assume you can plug the usb cable into any standard usb charger. By now most people will have quite a few usb charging outlets in my locations. The 910xt charger is the most clunky charger I have (but I still use it and don’t charge my 910xt elsewhere…force of habit).
Yes that doesn’t answer the question I asked . Clunky or not the std usb charger in my experience has not worked nearly as fast. Difference of hours. I assume something regarding the charging current. So it there something in the new charge cables that work better? Which as I’vesaid before has’t been the case for either the 910xt or Virb.
Typically speaking USB charge times are purely a function of amperage of the specific adapter. For example, many iPad adapters are rated at 2A, but typically Garmin adapters for watches are rated at .5A. Depending on which port on your PC you used, it might vary.
Fwiw, using my laptop last night to change the FR920XT from 0% to 100% took about 2 hours.
Either way, many USB devices these days aren’t coming with power adapters given just how widely available USB ports.
That charge rate is similar to my experience as I went up 20% in 30 mins with a laptop USB port so 2.5 hours in all at that rate. Battery life is quite good on a 920 as I suspect, in most cases, about an hour’s “top-up” would see you back to 100% after using it that day.
After spending quite some time in defining what i need from a smart watch i have come up with one important thing for me that i cannot seem to find information on anywhere: Will it be possible to link this or any gps watch to a phone (IPhone) and have the Iphone give audio audio cues while pressing the lap/split button?
I spend quite some times running in mountains and when going uphill it is quite awkard to look at a watch (or a phone for that sake). I need a solution where i can press the lap button and have the phone notify me on my time, pace etc. Is this possible with this watch? :)
I am not aware of any way of doing that at present but maybe something that somebody may implement when Connect IQ comes online next year.
I use the Strava app as a bit of a “backup” and have set that to “talk” 1/2 mile splits to me which isn’t quite what you want but potentially useful and on the same lines.
Hello,
On Youtube I found: Garmin FR920XT Instant Pace Demo.
link to youtu.be
I’m more familiar to speed than to pace time.
So can the FR910XT add a “Instant Speed” field?
Thanks,
Yes you can show “Current Speed” as well as/instead of “Current Pace” on the 920 (and the 910 for that matter).
Sorry I made a typo, I meant:
So can the FR920XT add a “Instant Speed” field?
I know that it supports “Current Speed”, but does it support “Instant Speed”?
Instant Speed is Current Speed.
link to connect.garmin.com
First run…. I have never seen anything like this.
The map data doesn’t show up? Any ideas?
The distance is my fault…. I didn’t start it,. :/
Hmm, that’s perhaps one of the most puzzling files I’ve ever seen (especially since I actually understand/know the course fairly well).
Looking at the little player option, it’s like you started the run, and then a quarter mile in shut off the GPS. But, I can’t forse you actually doing that. Can you upload the .FIT file to some other random site to see if it’s by chance a GC issue (such as Strava, TP, MapMyFitness, SportTracks, etc…)?
When I shared this actvity on Facebook, the link showed up in kilometers.
It is very odd, The TCX file you can export from GC shows the last point with a GPS position was at 2014-10-12T12:34:05.000Z which looks about 9 mins after you started the timer (as GC shows)
It seems that every elevation reading was zero after then.
Also did you start very hard as HR is very high for that first 9 mins then drops right off. It does look uphill however but even so looks like a HR spike to me.
You seem to imply you started the timer late? I guess it is possible that starting the timer on the move may mean the GPS signal was weak initially and finally dropped out at 9 mins. I did once (and have seen others) have runs with the 620 where GPS would suddenly cut out like this and not return. The “problem” with these devices with the internal accelerometer is that it reverts to that when GPS is lost and so does not give GPS reception warnings like older Forerunners and maybe there is some issue where it does not revert back to GPS again – well assuming it ever found it again.
I’ll try that when I get home.
The puzzling part is that the player plays the whole race, it just does not show the track on the map.
The whole story… I picked the 920 up at the Army Ten Miler race expo while picking up my packet. I took it home and set up some screens the way I like them… Pace, lap pace, and HR with time, distance and cadence mixed in. I also connected a HRM, HRM-Run and a foot pod. I know this sounds stupid… because it was stupid, but I never hit the start button, not even once!
While waiting on the starting line I turned it on and it synced with the HRM-Run, foot pod and established satellite reception. As I, along with 35,000 of my closest friends crossed the starting line I hit the button that was the start button on my 620, unfortunately, this is not the start button on a 920. In heavy traffic it took me a few seconds to figure out where the start button was and get it started.
The 920 appears to have operated properly, until I crossed under Memorial Ave while, running up Jefferson Davis Hwy, where it looks like the 920 lost satellite reception and failed to recover. It retrospect, the friend I was running with and I where occasionally comparing pace and they just didn’t seem right, I was constantly showing just a little slower that she was, she was wearing a FR410.
The elevated heart rate at the beginning was a result of my failure to moisten the HRM strap. I had a screen setup with cadence and HR next to each other and noticed HR was a mirror of cadence for a little while.
The race had me at a 9:28 and the 920 had me at a 9:38 average pace. Not too bad for the foot pod, I assume that is where the data came from.
The trouble is, where I live and run, I never lose satellite reception so I will have to be creative when testing this.
How stupid one can be…
Going for a run with such a device ‘out of the box’…
I hope your soldiers don’t read this….
TonyH – Don’t be a dick.
Captain – What I’d do is go ahead and re-pair all your devices sitting at home on the touch, that way you can ensure they’re paired to your sensors others. Just be sure to do both heart rate and footpod. If you don’t have a footpod, go ahead and delete out that sensor.
I’m not sure where exactly in the DC area you live, but, when I lived there the best place for testing what happens in a tunnel was oddly enough near my house on Cameron Run. A few miles upstream where Cameron Run (the running path) goes under I-395 there’s a series of long tunnels fairly deep underground. So, if you’re looking for a different running route than normal, that’s a good one (and, if it’s your normal area, then perfect!).
Enjoy!
I dont really find anything strange in Your run.
It seems pretty simple scenario: You started recording (doesnot really metter late or not) with GPS, then passing through some obstacle (tunnel?) the watch lost GPS reception and started to use foot pod. What the problem is, watch never got GPS back and simply continued with foot pod until the end. That’s why Your map shows only small part of the route (until GPS was receiving signal) but the run is fully measured fo whole 10miles from Your foot pod (all pace, HR data is there). Only GPS data is missing (map, altitude etc).
I had similar situation with my Suunto Ambit 2. I have started the run without good GPS signal (or should I say no signal at all). The watch recorded my distance and pace from the built-in accelerometer until it actually found GPS lock, and from then onwards used GPS data and that is when route on the map also started. You can see that on movescount, where distance is 14,6km, but only 13,9km are on the map. First about 670m are added from accelerometer:
link to movescount.com
here same run in strava, that takes only GPX file and does not include distance from the begging of the run:
link to strava.com
At least I have a dick…
Am I getting blocked from your site now, mr Cupcake ?
Look Tony – you can either be polite here, or you can go elsewhere or be blocked. It’s a simple option. I have zero tolerance for people being rude to others. I’ve told you this numerous times over the years. Hundreds of other people are able to comment each day without being rude to others, I’m sure you can find a way. This is your final warning.
I called Garmin this morning and send the .fit file and device info over… we’ll see what they say. The folks in Kansas are always pleasant to deal with.
It’s not a big deal, just interesting.
Please block me and delete all of my messages!!!
What is the best : Garmin 920 XT or suunto ambit 3?
What is the best: Garmin 920 XT or suunto ambit 3?
Hi All, thanks Ray for all the input and time that you spend answering all these questions.
Have you heard about bragi “The dash”. These are earphone that will be able to monitor Heart Rate, Oxygen in blood and a lot of other features. These can be connected in bluetooth to a smartphone for example and record or send these monitored values to different types of Health software.
I am really interested by the 920xt but also about these “dash”. Do you think that there could be a way of connecting the dash to the 920?
Here is the link to the dash (available early 2015) : link to bragi.com
Thanks for reading,
MH
Yup, you can read more about my thoughts on The Dash here: link to dcrainmaker.com
At present, there’s no method of connecting The Dash to the FR920XT, because The Dash doesn’t do ANT+ (or, one could say the FR920XT doesn’t do Bluetooth Smart sensors).
Forerunner 920 only available at the end of November due to manufacturing problems (see Dutch text and website below).
‘We hebben net bericht gekregen aangaande de Forerunner 920 XT. Momenteel zijn er fabricage problemen waardoor de leveringen pas eind November verwacht worden! ‘
Source (in Dutch): link to nav-shop.be
Any chance for a garmin device coming with
Optical Heart Rate Sensor
MP3 Player
Virtual Racer
4 Data Fields
Running Dynamics
The 920xt is appealing over my Fenix 2, but if I could opt to not use the chest strap and carrying my MP3 player on easy days that would be wonderful… I understand I would still have to wear the strap to get dynamics, but most of the time cadence is all I care about so it’s not a huge loss.
You are probably playing with a device that does exactly this, but are sworn to secrecy through some kind of fancy smancy non-discloser.. ha ha
So between the 920XT and the Suunto Ambit 3, which would you get for ultrarunning, or is it a toss-up? Is the 920 smaller than the Ambit?
Hi Ray, it’s 2-3 years that i’m following your site and I’m very impressed on the big amaount of work you are doing!!
my big compliment !
I’m an ultratrailrunner ( Tor de Geant- Lavaredo ultra -dolomiti extreme- Sella ronda sky and so on…)
my very big interest is on the running side expecialy the long run where the battery, the precision of the gps, the altitude and the amount of ascend are important.
I’ve read all and try the fenix 2 and personaly in the mountain forest with high tree the signal is very poor especialy if you run, and the ultra trac of fenix in the mountain is ridicoulus when you run ( it lose the signal and bye bye).
so in conclusion for ultratrail athlets what will be very importan in your in depth rewiew will be:
-the ultra trac modality fr 920xt vs ambit 3 ( an in depth comparison betwen fr920 and ambit 3 will be great)
-gps acuracy in canyon , mountain and forest
-a good altitude test
– a really good test on what happen when you lose the signal and it come back intermittent like the alps forest.
– an on trail tetst of recharging the unit with usb battery set while you are running ( in case of super long run with 1 second interval gps for maximum acuracy)
thankyou for your time and sorry for my english
Not sure Ultratrac will be your ideal solution although what is the key issue here – a detailed GPS track recording and/or the activity as a whole from more of a performance point of view?
I tried Ultratrac as an experiment and it seems to wake up GPS for a little bit to take a point and shut off again and does this about every minute. Also note what it says in the 920 manual link to static.garmincdn.com about using the accelerometer to compute distance & speed in this mode when GPS is off – which will be more often than not it seems.
GLONASS may improve ability to get a GPS signal in challenging terrain but apparently its use reduces battery by about 20%. That said it still gives, in theory, 18 hours or so which is still pretty decent. How long are your ultras?
Unfortunately you can’t charge the 920XT and keep the timer running.
I tend to think the best workaround might be to use 2 devices and then merge the tracks after the run.
Elsewhere in the comments here I posted a link to a run I did with the 920 in relatively hilly and twisty trail terrain with some tree cover. It did pretty well but afraid I don’t personally have any mountains nearby to see how it works there.
thank you for the information and fast answer.
now what i’ll be waiting is the in depth rewiew and i hope that some one wear the fr920 and ambit 3 for an ultra and share the data to make a super comparison expecialy to see the difference betwen the 2 gps cheps how they work in forest, mountain etc.
thankyou again
Great review as always, thanks Ray. Thinking of moving from the 910xt to the 920xt.
Hi All-
Just a bunch of random updates on things people have asked that I get clarification on from Garmin:
A few Garmin Connect oddities over the past week: Some saw the map centering on Kansas if not logged in, and others also saw the first few minutes of files showing a flat HR. Both were fixed in Garmin Connect last week.
Lack of Map Zoom: from Garmin: “We do not have a manual map zoom capability on the 920 which was a decision based on feature priority, focusing on developing the highest value, most used features first.”
TCX courses on FR920XT: from Garmin: “For technical reasons the 920 does not have a XML parser which is required to ingest TCX files.”
Autolap by position: from Garmin “We are looking into bringing this back and I’ll keep you posted on timeline if it is returning.”
Metronome while in swim mode: from Garmin” We weren’t happy with the quality of the metronome while swimming and didn’t want to provide customers a disappointing experience so it wasn’t featured in the watch.”
Inability to change speed source to a footpod: from Garmin “There is not a way to change the speed source to a footpod in the 920 but we will be looking into if we can work it back in a maintenance release.”
There’s also a few other minor items/issues I’ve run into that they’re fixing in an upcoming update including inability to send courses to the FR920XT from the iOS app. Items which aren’t on the short-term list but are being looked at include oddities with initial elevation setting where it takes a while for the barometric altimeter to adjust to your location (versus using GPS to get ‘close’ and then the altimeter to finalize adjustment).
Cheers.
Thanks Ray. Annoyingly, I’m just going to ask you another question. Did they suggest the map zoom might get changed in a later release, or is that pretty much set in stone now?
Re Metronome while in swim mode – “We weren’t happy with the quality of the metronome while swimming” – I’m not surprised. I’m not happy with the quality of the vibration alert and sound while in water.
On my 910 I had distance alerts set which I found really useful indoors and open water. I could feel the vibration 95% of the time and even hear the sound most of the time depending where my arm happened to be in the stroke.
On the 920 the vibration and sound both seem to be weaker. I cannot feel nor hear alerts in the pool no matter how hard I try. I’ve tested at home, plunging my wrist into a tub of water. The water kills the vibration. Would be interested to hear other’s opinions – is the vibration weaker or is it just my unit?
Hi Ray, Great info here. Any update from Garmin on heart rate while swimming? Will they be leaving heart rate active on open water swims and activating it for pool swims?
RE: Vibration differences: I haven’t noticed any difference between the 910XT and 920XT when it comes to the vibration motor.
RE: HR while swimming, I didn’t hear back yet on those ones.
Map Zoom: The only response I received there was what was noted above. :/
Hi all,
I’m an enthusiast, but not a competitive athlete by any means.
I have two bikes, have a cadence sensor that I don’t really use, but enjoy tracking my route, heart rate (I have a garmin strap) and other stats Strava and/or Garmin Connect in order to get better, even though I don’t compete.
I enjoy hiking, mostly day hikes, and just as with the bike, I love tracking my route, elevation gain of the hike, etc.
I also run at the gym and outdoors, recreationally. And I really, really want to get back in the pool :)
In the past I’ve owned several different devices, many tailored to a specific activity (Fenix for hiking, Edge for biking, etc).
It would be great to have one device that I use as a semi-casual-yet-interested athlete, as opposed to several devices where I pretend to be hard core for every activity.
It seems to me that this device, while having a few more features that I’d need, might be the only device I need for everything, based on my actual needs as listed above. Is that correct?
Forgot to add: I also have a Fitbit One. Yet another thing I wouldn’t have to carry.
Based on what you say then yes I think it could well fit the bill.
A friend picked up a 920xt in kona and I’m helping him set it up. For pool swimming unless I am missing it there is no “Last Interval Time”. We use this doing descends to make sure we are on track. Am I missing this or is that field omitted?
Interesting, you’re right. Though, you do have the new customizable lap banner option – so that sorta makes up for it. Kinda interesting though…
I was fiddling around with my unit wondering where ‘Last interval time’ and ‘Last interval pace’ were.
I think ‘Int Time’ that is displayed on the rest timer is in fact ‘Last Interval time’ you also get ‘Int. Distance’ displayed which i think is last interval distance.
Haven’t had a chance to swim with my 920 yet but from playing with the screens and data fields the above seesm to be the case.
That makes sense with the rest timer, but still a bit odd they do’t have it outside of that.
That is right. There is no way to have data fields showing current interval and last interval simultaneously while in an active interval as far as I can see. When in rest mode the fields such as Int time effectively become “Last Int time” etc until you end rest mode again.
Note that as well as the rest timer being configurable you can also scroll to your other configured pages while in rest mode. Very flexible and I really like that.
I use my current Garmin for programming and tracking rowing works (boat not erg). I would be thrilled if the built in cadence sensor could be used to record stroke rate, e.g., 15-45 spm, while worn on my wrist. I don’t need to see the watch face while rowing, I just want to be able to look at the stroke rate data later. What do you think, will the sensor work in that low range?
Historically speaking with the 910XT it hasn’t worked well in rowing, but, I haven’t tested it on the 920XT.
If it doesn’t work natively there is a chance connect iq will allow access to the sensor at a low enough level that it could work there.
I know you said you aren’t interested in erg use but there is a chance the a connect iq app could be written to talk to a pm4 head unit from a concept 2 rower as it broadcasts the row over private ant during a row (they just want you to sign a nda to get access to the private ant config info)
Another quick question for those of you in “the Garmin know” (or as close as you can be to being in the know): Is the inability to charge while recording an event a factor of software or hardware? On the fenix, if you plug into the PC, you are done. If you plug into a usb charger, it keeps in whatever mode it is in. I am wondering if you have checked that out with a usb charger instead of the pc’s usb port.
The probability right now is low that I would need 18+ hours so this is mostly curiosity.
Keep up the great work. This is great intel for those of us that are impatiently waiting.
No difference on USB charger. If an activity is going it stops the timer and saves it and starts charging.
The FR10/15/220/620/920 all do this whereas the Fenix line up don’t. Not sure why but we do know the “Fitness” team look after Forerunners and the different “Outdoor” team do the Fenix.
Doesn’t the fitness team do the edge units too? (Not a watch but seems like usb is done same way)
Hi Ray. I’ve been told today by a french physical shop that Garmin has recalled all the 920 XT already sent to the resellers. The reason would be a water proofing problem on the first batch.
Have you heared something about that, or is it just a “rumor” ?
I know there’s been a production delay, but Garmin hasn’t specified what that is exactly. They haven’t asked for my unit back, or to my knowledge any other media outlets. I’ll ping them though on this.
Not heard of that. I went pool swimming with mine on Monday. It survived!
Could be a long term durability issue
So I checked on this, here’s the official response:
“We have not recalled any 920s but are being cautious during the ramp-up phase. A couple beta testers reported running into waterproofing issues after the first round of production units went out so we are adjusting hardware before shipping any more product as a precaution.”
Fwiw, I’ve been openwater swimming every day this week and haven’t killed it yet, plus swims over the past few weeks.
I don’t know if this is the isssue, but I have noticed that several hours after swimming or showering, when I hit a button my finger will get wet…
Hi,
1)i need to know is this sufficient use for 48 hours as ultra trail events ?
2)how long the standby battery in days for watch mode ?
thank
1) No. And this ‘no’ means ‘110% no’ as the watch, even in battery saving ultra trac mode, will last only 40hrs (best case scenario which I suppose means no beeps, no vibration, no any future apps, no backlight screen on, no navigation, just recording) and cannot be recharged during activity!!! If attached for charging, watch will end current activity, save it and go to charging mode (this though, if enough people will ask, might changed through firmware release)
2) somewhere here in the comments (also in some online shops) You can find info stating 4 months.
For #2: The watch mode is now accessible 24×7 in non-GPS mode for 33 days without having to re-charge the battery. And if you have activity monitoring and smart notifications enabled, it’s about 30 days of battery (1 month). If you turn off activity tracking, you’ll get 4 months in straight watch-only mode.
Hi Adam ,
i used my 910XT , which can last 24hours without vibration , dark backlight ,but i can continue my activity during charging mode. The workout was continue even though the watch screen appeared charging bar,after unplug the cable the activity keep recording.But as you mentioned , this watch stopped /end activity during charge that is not great option to choose this as my next ultra race watch. i don’t like Fenix as my option , because the display designed with round , which cause some data not fully appear in proper screen & add that the screen color is orange. rather monochrome or 920 is great interface design.
i wish can get update for final firmware which able to charge without sacrifice to end the activity.
Thanks again for the great review and personal comments. I live in South American and will be in the US mid-november for a couple weeks. I was hoping to be able to buy the 920xt, but am afraid it wont be available then. I am mostly a runner and openwater swimmer and do fast tris sometimes. Should I go for the Fenix 2 or Ambit 3 instead, or do you think the 920xt is the best watch and is worth the wait?
I have a big question regarding courses:
I do some trail running, and most of them have the gpx trail available. So I create a tcx course of it with the aid stations programmed in them (using tcx convertor because I cannot find a way of putting waypoints in garmin connect, and then the old training center and ant agent, because the) so that when running I can see total distance remaining, and distance till next aid station.
If the 920 is unable to read tcx files, and garmin connect is unable to do it, so am I missing something, or is this completely impossible?
and will the old way of doing this still work, or will I be loosing some major (for me) functionality?
regards
hans
My feeling is that you’d need some way to convert the tcx file to a fit file containing the same information, and the fit file would then work (since it is possible to transfer courses to the 920xt). That should give you the course; I have no way to know if the 920xt would respect the waypoints. I haven’t found a gpx/tcx course to fit converter, and this is something I’m starting to tinker around with myself at the moment, but for now I’ll only be able to try it on a fenix.
If you have a TCX course you can import that to Garmin Training Center and then you can send the courses to the 920 as it effectively converts each one to a FIT file and copies that over to the device.
Sure there are other ways but course creation always do seem a bit of a “black art”.
Also, you can check out link to dcrainmaker.com – there’s a few options in there that I believe convert too.
So GTC still works with the 920xt? That’s great news. If you have customized workouts with labels, does it display those labels instead of the generic labels from GC workouts?
Yes can use GTC.
Can’t see the labels however.
Can somebody with a 920 test this?
I’m willing to make a fit file with waypoints in it if you give me a course,gpx,tcx link to garmin connect file to start with. (I hope that when I export it to my 910 I will find it somewhere on the disk, in the other case, I just downloaded the FIT SDK :))
hans
Another interesting approach…. If you have an Edge (i.e. 500 or 800 I’ve tried, I assume the newer models work too?).
You can create a TCX with waypoints, load it to the Edge and then pull the FIT file off (after the edge parsed it).
The FIT course can then be loaded into something like the 910. I actually found a way to do it with Express… but it was a mess.
Something like:
1) Exporting a course from Garmin Connect
2) Finding the FIT file it loaded to my PC for Express to use
3) Replacing said FIT file with my own ripped from the Edge
It worked, but was quite an interesting process.
I’ve tried to mess with TCX Converter but never really got it to work right. I wish I could find a better TCX to FIT course tool… (or wish ridewithgps or bikeroutetoaster could export as FIT).
I’m going to try and write something to change a tcx file into a fit file. If you have some samples for me to try out. feel free to send me a gpx and I’ll send you the fit file back.
We should make this happen.
I also started poking at a C# XML parser -> FIT course converter and it looks pretty simple. In the past I hadn’t checked the formats, but as one probably would have expected, the TCX fields and the FIT course fields are basically the same (with the obvious text to binary differences).
I’d love to see the main course generating sites (read: bikeroutetoaster) export FIT directly.
Secondary questions for those with a 920 already:
1) Can you load a FIT course file from the USB connection?
2) If so, have you tried loading a FIT course with directional course points to see if you get any indicators / prompts (like the 310 and 910 would in the past).
Thanks all!
I’m a java guy :)
I’m already able to read the tcx file (well I just imported the xml schema I found on the garmin site)
I should be able to write the output fairly easily using the fit sdk
so the main thing to do is write the actual conversion :)
Do you know where you had to put the files so that the watch picks them up?
ps: if you want to mail me, it’s a gmail adres with pluimpje before the @ :)
I was wondering if the 920xt has a satellite page where the strengths and numbers of acquired satellites is displayed. I know that on the 310xt you can access it like this:
link to dcrainmaker.com
But how about the 920xt?
My feeling is that all GPS watch manufacturers (including Suunto) are in an arms race for the “fastest” signal acquisition but I am not quite sure how many satellites that guarantees. I would personally trade off some delay in the start of my runs to make sure that I have as many satellites as I can.
Marios, there is no satellite page. All you get is a signal-strength type indicator on the status bar and a “GPS ready” alert. It is blazing fast at acquisition even indoors in surprising places and has totally eliminated the “GPS dance” outside the house waiting for the GPS. I guess this is mostly due to the ephemeris pre-loading ability and probably antenna placement as I have yet to enable GLONASS.
However, as you say, there is nothing to indicate the quality of the fix. They seem to have stripped a lot right back to the minimum. It used to be with Garmin handheld devices that you would have an accuracy specification in the device specs/manual, a satellite status page (signal strength/sky plot) and an error estimation (“EPE” for Garmin devices). Now it is totally dumbed down to “ready or not.” I guess your average user won’t care.
Wait, so there is no menu option in settings or anything to see actual satellite strength (EPE or otherwise)? So many times my Fenix 2 has been “ready” and it really only has 200ft accuracy and it’s saying I’m moving 6:45min/mile… while standing still.
Alternatively, I suppose you could just set a page to instantaneous pace and see when it stops saying you’re moving.
Yes – that’s basically what I do (on any Forerunner) – once it says “GPS Ready” (or similar on other devices) look for a solid period of “zero” (stopped) pace/speed before starting timer.
:-( This is really not a solution though, right? At least we know it’s possible (in the non Sirf chips) since the Fenix2 still has it.
Well, it’s a practical test you can try and generally has produced good results for me.
The GPS accuracy number only seemed to be a calculation based on signal strength anyway so whilst “interesting” was never going to guarantee anything.
Do you know if the FR 920XT HRM strap is identical to the FR620 strap? thanks..
Yes, it is.
thank you! excellent product reviews.. keep up the great work! :)
Is battery changeable in 920XT?
In a word No !
Just wondering how the colour screen is on the 920xt as the 620 is somewhat disappointing given the dazzling pictures Garmin released !
You can see the coloring of the screen in the many photos above, they’re all taken by me. It’s a legit color screen, compared to the FR620.
Thanks – good to hear the pictures are a fair representation of what is seen in the flesh. Definitely looks a step up from the 620
Ray
Do you know what type of glass is in the 920xt? Assuming it is glass and not plastic.
I currently have the Fenix2 and one of the features that I like is that I can make a custom multisport on the watch. I assume that the 920xt allows this as well. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks.
Yes, you can make custom multi-sport (it’s mentioned in the review). Unlike the fenix2, you can set up indoor swim as one of them. In fact, you can also (as mentioned above) do an indoor triathlon (indoor swim, indoor bike, and outdoor run).
In an odd way I really dig the indoor triathlon option. We get enough snow and ice in the winter that I don’t ride outside, an indoor/outdoor brick from home would be fun to make a habit out of.
It’s actually even cooler than the past when it comes to custom multisport. Previously you could change between sports at will, or setup a single order for a multisport event. But now, you can mix and match and set it all up ahead of time. But, you can do it for a number of different potential events. Really kinda neat.
You can also “make it up as you go along”. Do one sport “normally”, switch over to another sport profile and hit the start/stop button and you then start that one whilst still having the first in the same activity file and so on…
Awesome guys! Thanks for the information on this. You all answered my question and then some.
Hi Ray, do you know how large the memory is on the 920? I ask because apparently the reason the fenix 2 keeps on faltering when on long runs (20/30mi+) is because it runs out of space to record the activity?
I just used the Fenix 2 on a 50 mile run (1s recording) and had no issues. There was a ton of other runs on their as well. Where did you hear/read that memory was the issue with long runs?
Yeah, you’d have zero issues recording a 20-30mi run (I’ve done 20-26.2mi runs just fine on the Fenix2), from a space perspective.
The FR920XT has a 10MB storage capacity, with roughly 8-9MB available for you to record files. On average, you can budget about 100KB (.1MB) per hour of recording with full 1s GPS & ANT+ data (worst case scenario).
ooppssss, I’m not blocked anymore….
Rayyyyyyyyyyyy
TonyH – Seriously, is your life that empty that this is what you do with your time, troll comment boards for product reviews?
I think we shoud just igore the crazy guy. Ignorance is the worst punishment for childish people.
I bought 4 different Garmin watches due to his too positive comments and all 4 were crap! Especially the 620! But he keeps on defending them! And now, with the 920, the story is just repeating itself!
Also his statements on GPS accuracy are worthless!
The best way to test GPS accuracy is by running a known distance ( eg 10 km) and see what the deviation is. Just like fellrnr does it on his blog.
And NOT by comparing watches against each other on an unknown distance.
If 3 of the 4 watches indicate that you ran 10,6 km and 1 indicates that you ran 10,2 km than Rainmaker would say that the 3 watches are more accurate than the one which is actually more accurate (on this 10 km track)!
That’s why I’m so upset the last few years! He’s a Garmin boy, he won’t bite the hands that feed him!