I know, I can hear the screams already ‘But…but…but…Forerunner 955!’. So no, this is not a (or the) Forerunner 955 – at least in name. But in spirit, it mostly is. So much so that Garmin themselves even long debated about calling it the Forerunner 955, as they did plenty more than just adding LTE. It’s got new internals, new optical HR sensors, and a pile of new features that have nothing to do with LTE, and a lightly refreshed user interface. But ultimately, Garmin said they decided against calling it the Forerunner 955 LTE as it didn’t quite meet the bar for a complete next gen product (or name). In essence, it’s effectively a Forerunner 945 Plus. But don’t worry, I’ll touch on this later in the post again.
Still, with those gel-infused FR955 closet screams out of the way, the Forerunner 945 LTE is all about cellular connected sports adventures, both tracking and safety-wise. Which, sounds obvious yes – but less obvious is that you won’t get regular text messages via LTE on it. Nor will you stream Spotify wirelessly in real-time via cellular networks. Instead, those work just like before – text messages require your phone, and Spotify music syncs ahead of time via WiFi. Garmin’s entire focus on the FR945 LTE is about athletic connected features, not general smartwatch features.
Your workouts will LiveTrack via cellular automatically, and your friends and family can send both text and audio messages to you in real-time. All while also watching you suffer as a blue dot across the landscape. And if you get yourself in a serious pickle, you can contact Garmin’s international emergency response center, and they’ll save your bacon. The same emergency response center that has historically handled stranded boats in the ocean, crashed planes in Alaska, and stranded hikers on Mt. Everest, is now also handing emergency calls from your watch during your ill-fated trail run.
Now, I’ll dive into Garmin’s entire line of thinking on this in a separate post coming up tomorrow, as it’s pretty interesting – and clearly sets the stage for a much broader push of products in the future. Instead, we’ll focus on the Forerunner 945 LTE specifically today and get cookin’ on this review.
Note that Garmin sent over a Forerunner 945 LTE media loaner, which I’ve been using for a while now to put through its paces. Once this review is done, I’ll get it boxed back up and sent back to them. After which I’ll likely go out and buy my own for future use. If you found this review useful, you can use the links at the bottom, or consider becoming a DCR Supporter which makes the site ad-free, while also getting access to a mostly weekly video series behind the scenes of the DCR Cave. And of course, it makes you awesome.
With that, let’s get into it.
What’s New:
As noted, the Forerunner 945 LTE is more than just cellular. Though undoubtedly, that’s a huge part of it. So sure, it shares the name with the Forerunner 945, but as Garmin themselves said, the Forerunner 945 LTE is “built from the ground up” different. Here’s a quick list of how it differs from the base Forerunner 945 (which, Garmin says stays in the lineup):
– Added LTE cellular connectivity (via LTE-M network in certain countries, list below)
– Added Assistance Plus – Direct Emergency Response center (International Emergency Response Coordination Centre (IERCC)) assistance
– Added LiveTracking via cellular
– Added Live Event Tracking via cellular
– Added Spectator text messages via cellular
– Added Spectator Voice Messages via cellular
– New Optical Heart Rate Sensor (same as Garmin Venu 2)
– Slightly smaller than FR945 – 2mm smaller in diameter
– Slightly thinner bezel dead-space than FR945
– Added new automated interval categorization
– Added new ‘open repeats’ interval concept
– Stays as Connect IQ 3.2 Support (aka ‘System 4’)
– New user interface elements (not drastic, but noticeable here and there)
– New rotary-style keyboard (such as adding WiFi, or typing emergency messages in)
– Price is $649USD ($50 more than official non-LTE FR945 list price)
Some people have speculated that the FR945 LTE is based atop the Garmin Enduro internals, which have bat-crap-crazy battery life. However, that’s not the case. In talking to Garmin about that point, they chuckled (borderline laughed) at the question, because they said that was a “special child”. Instead, they noted it’s actually far more similar to the new Venu 2. Obviously, not the display, but in terms of other components internally. Hence why we don’t see crazy new battery specs on the FR945 LTE.
Now the main piece here is the LTE connectivity, and I’ve got an entire section on that. However, briefly, it’s worth noting that the LTE connectivity has *zero* dependency on your existing carrier, or whatever carrier you want. Instead, it’s run totally behind the scenes by Garmin, akin to how Amazon’s Kindle cellular connectivity works. You don’t think or care about it, you just pay Garmin $5.99/month (with an annual plan, or $6.99/month without), and then everything is included.
As I’ll explain in more detail later, this is a dramatic shift for the company, but in more ways than one. Not only does it mean you don’t have to deal with your phone company for things like setting up a secondary plan, but at the same time it means you won’t be getting your normal text messages via cellular signals. But at the same time, countries are more limited than popping a SIM card (or eSIM) into the unit, similar to how Apple’s cellular Apple Watches are limited in certain countries. Ironically, I can’t get a cellular Apple Watch in the Netherlands, but I can get a cellular-connected Garmin Watch (well, later this summer anyway). Inversely, those in Australia can’t get a cellular connected Garmin watch, but can get an Apple Watch.
The list of countries *will change*, as it’s largely dependent on firming up carrier contracts (the behind-the-scenes pieces). So don’t assume this means Australians (or Italians) are hosed forever. Some changes will happen very quickly, others less so.
Finally, note that the FR945LTE keeps *EVERYTHING* the FR945 had, yes, including maps and music.
Anyway, with that – let’s get into the basics. If you’re familiar with recent Garmin watches, you can skip this section and just hit up the sport and LTE sections. There are changes I discuss in the sport section around the intervals pieces, and then of course the vast newness that is LTE.
The Basics:
Before we get too far into this, if you’re looking for a complete end to end tour of all the FR945 LTE menus and user interface aspects, simply hit that ‘Play’ button on the video above. I go step by step through tons of features and how it works.
Now, for those of you familiar with the Garmin lineup, you’ll find virtually everything in this section as old-hat. Not much here has changed, except a slate of minor user interface styling changes. You’ll notice them throughout the watch, often matching what you see on the new Garmin Venu 2, especially in many of the widget areas. That said, this section is all about the basic operation of the watch, while the next section is focused on the sport features, and then we’ve got the LTE features in their own section.
To begin, the unit uses buttons for navigation. There’s no touch-screen here, which, follows what the original FR945 had. The FR945 LTE has five buttons that you use for familiar confirmation/escape/up/down/controls type actions, making it efficient to navigate when on a trail run or from a bike. Meanwhile, on the underside of the watch is the new optical heart rate sensor – in this case the Garmin Elevate V4, the same sensor found on the also-new Venu 2. This is the first ‘serious’ Garmin watch to include this sensor, as the most recent launch (the Garmin Enduro) used the older V3 sensor.
Practically speaking, I haven’t seen much of a difference there – both seem largely accurate and inaccurate in the same rough areas as before. But more on that later in the accuracy section.
As with other Garmin watches, you can customize the watch face either using stock watch faces, or 3rd party ones. That includes tweaking all the exact specifics on the screen like data metrics such as steps, recovery time, distances by sport, and so on. It’s pretty much endless – and that’s before you look at the Connect IQ app store.
As you depart the watch face you’ll scroll down through the glanceable widgets. These are largely the same as before on the FR945, except now with new styling, primarily once you tap into a given widget. If you’re coming from an older watch like the FR935, you’ve likely never seen these before. Essentially it takes the full-screen widgets and condenses the key information down to a 1/3rd size widget, which you can then tap into for the full screen. Here’s a glance:
And then here’s a full-size widget of that once I tap into it. Many widgets then have multiple data pages shown within them too.
Of course, these widgets are surfacing tons of underlying daily activity data. Some of that’s more common metrics – like steps or calories, whereas others can be more advanced, like respiration rate or PulseOx. Each of us value those metrics differently. And sometimes, you might be aiming to increase a given metric, while other times decrease it.
One of the ones I personally tend to watch is my training status level. Since I’m not on a coached plan right now, I’m mostly using that as a general guideline for how much training intensity I get each week – aiming to keep my numbers vaguely in the same band. Some weeks higher if aiming to make gains, some weeks lower for recovery. Similarly, I’m also looking at resting HR & respiration rate as indicators of potential sickness or fatigue.
Ultimately, all of this data is tracked within Garmin Connect and via Garmin Connect Mobile too (the smartphone app). For example, I can see my respiration rate and resting HR data. Or I can dive into the day-by-day metrics of these stats too – looking at how my heart rate ebbed and flowed throughout the day.
![clip_image001[4]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2021/06/clip_image0014.png "clip_image001[4]")
And then you can layer in more data like stress and/or Body Battery. The Body Battery metric is similar to the old school Street Fighter game in terms of measuring how much energy it thinks you have. So in a theoretical perfect blue-sky day without toddlers interrupting your sleep, you wake up at 100%, and then over the course of the day aspects like stress, workouts, and activity decrease from that. Meanwhile, things like sitting on the couch watching a TV show can re-gain energy. This is viewable on both the watch and the app.
![clip_image001[6]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2021/06/clip_image0016.png "clip_image001[6]")
![clip_image001[8]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2021/06/clip_image0018.png "clip_image001[8]")
In general, I find Body Battery a pretty good proxy for how I feel. It’s not perfect; for example, if I pull an all-nighter I find it gets all tripped up and starts going into the looney bin. At the same time, so do I. But overall, if I get a poor night of sleep it won’t show me as fully recovered to 100%, which is logical. Note that it takes a few weeks for this sort of data to settle down and become accurate, so don’t judge it on Day 0.
Of course, tied into this are sleep metrics. The FR945LTE uses the same advanced sleep metrics that have rolled out in Beta on the FR945 for the past…umm…year. My understanding is that finally goes live to production here now. Of course, these metrics have also been on the Fenix 6 series, Enduro, and a few other watches too. So this isn’t all new stuff.
The main benefit of the new sleep metrics, which are Firstbeat algorithms now, is that you’ve got a handy widget to see your sleep directly on the watch itself:
You can then tap into that glanceable widget to get more data and some general thoughts on your sleep that night. I can’t validate data points like sleep phases, and honestly, I don’t really care about them too much here. I’m mainly interested in whether or not it tracks my sleep-start and end times, as well as awake time – and thus far, it’s quite good at that – usually within a minute or two.
Remember that with the new sleep updates, this means sleep data drives quite a bit more behind the scenes than just sleep stats. For example, the Daily Suggested workouts will be impacted if you get a poor night’s sleep – even up to the point of canceling your planned workout. These are the workouts it suggests for running and cycling, based on your recent intensity, and adding slightly more intensity and/or duration with structured workouts in what is essentially a never-ending build phase. But more on that later.
Do note that naps (still) aren’t supported on Garmin wearables. So you don’t get any direct sleep credit for that, though you do get Body Battery increased points credit.
In addition, on the FR945 you can enable PulseOx, for SpO2 measurement. There’s two options here when enabled – one to only measure at sleep, and one to measure 24×7. Which in turn map to the two main purposes on how it’s used, one is around sleep (as potentially an indicator of sleep or health-related issues), and two in high altitude environments as an indicator that something is about to go horribly wrong. Two totally different use cases (note: medical folks and such also monitor blood oxygen levels too for other reasons). For the first one – sleep – you can track your PulseOx readings each night. It’s the red light that’ll light up on the back of the watch. This data is then plotted on the watch and on GCM.
I didn’t use it at all this go-around, since I just don’t have much use for it right now, living at (or technically below) sea level with no sleep issues, and I’ve covered it extensively in the past. As usual, I’d caution though that enabling PulseOx for sleep alone is basically halving your battery. Seriously. It’s a battery blowtorch. I do however find it fairly accurate if you follow a set testing protocol of sitting and being still, in which case it measures just fine and identical to certified medical devices I have. So, my suggestion is that you use it if you have a specific purpose for it, but otherwise don’t destroy all that new battery life you got with a fancy red light.
Finally, wrapping things up in the basics region, you’ve got smartphone notifications. These are fairly basic compared to something like an Apple Watch, in that it just shows text and emoji, but not photos or the ability to respond (if on iOS). You can simply clear them or cancel them (or open them to get more info). The inability for iOS users to respond to them is a limitation of Apple’s, in not allowing 3rd party apps to respond to text messages specifically. They’ve kept that ability on iOS for Apple Watch, which does allow the watch to respond to texts. I don’t expect Apple to change that.
Garmin has steadily increased the number of emojis they support here, to the point where there’s a pretty good chance the emoji will come through on the watch too. At least for all the common ones our friends use.
Sports Features:
To start tracking a workout on the FR945 LTE, you’ll tap the upper right button, which then cracks open all the sport modes. These sport modes haven’t changed from the original FR945, however, since the original FR945 launched, there’s plenty more added. Things like indoor climbing, track workouts, bouldering, and more.
The FR945 LTE also will very shortly get the Ultra Run, eBike, and eMTB profiles. Technically speaking, the regular FR945 gets the Trail Run & Ultra Run profiles (and all the trail-specific things that come with that) in the production firmware that started going live yesterday. However, the FR945 is very slightly out of sync at the moment, so it’ll get that in the next firmware update (I already have it on a beta version). As is common in software development, you split out products for release, and the timing just happened to get the LTE variant firm on a slightly different branch, before rolling those in on the next update. Expect that very shortly.
In any event, here’s the total FR945 LTE list of sport modes:
Run,Track Run, Treadmill, Bike, Bike Indoor, Pool Swim, Open Water, Triathlon, HRV Stress, Climb Indoor, Multisport (custom), Virtual Run, Indoor Track, Hula-hooping with Fire & Knives, Trail Run, MTB, SwimRun, Hike, Climb, Ski, Snowboard, XC Classic Ski, XC Classic Skate, SUP, Kayak, Row, Row Indoor, Golf, Project Waypoint, Map, Navigate, Track Me, Walk, Strength, Cardio, Bouldering, Yoga, Pilates, Breathwork, Floor Climb, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Clocks, Ultra Run, eBike, eMTB, Other.
For realz, it’s that long.
In any case, after tapping the sport mode of choice, you’ll get a new layout page that’s where you wait for satellite connections or for sensors to pair:
From a sensor pairing standpoint, you’ve got a boatload to choose from. More specifically, the following:
Headphones, External Heart Rate (ANT+/Bluetooth Smart), Speed/Cadence (ANT+/Bluetooth Smart), Cycling Power Meters (ANT+/Bluetooth Smart), Footpods (ANT+/Bluetooth Smart), VIRB Action Camera (ANT+), Tempe temperature sensor (ANT+), Shimano Di2 (private-ANT), Cycling Gear Shifting (ANT+), Cycling Lights (ANT+), Cycling Radar (ANT+), Frozen Slushy (Blue Flavor Only), Extended Display (ANT+), RD Pod (ANT+), Muscle O2 (ANT+), Garmin inReach (ANT+), Trainers (ANT+ FE-C).
As always, you can pair multiple sensor types (such as from multiple bikes), and save them with unique names and it’ll automatically connect to them when it comes within range.
Back on the ready to run (or any other sport) page, you’ll see not only the sensor status up top, but also whether or not LTE is connected and whether LiveTrack is ready to roll:
Once you’ve found GPS and heart rate, you can go ahead and start the workout and be brought to your data pages. Like past Garmin watches, you still (for now) have to configure these on the watch itself and not via a smartphone app. You can configure up to 6 data fields per page, or as few as one data field per page (with simply bigger text). And you can have more custom pages than I can think to create, each with their own data fields.
You’ve also got a slate of default pages you can add, things like Running Dynamics pages, Virtual Partner, Compass, Elevation Page, Map Page, plus a time page. Yet more pages show up for structured workouts or if navigating a course. This expands to features like ClimbPro, which automatically segments all the climbs on your run/ride course, including the downhill descents too (for runs). Note that you do have to have a predefined course loaded for this to work.
Speaking of which, you’ll see full mapping data for the region you bought. So in North America this includes North America maps, and in Europe this includes European maps, and so on. This allows you to go free-style on routing, without having a course if you want to. I find this super useful in the mountains, both for freestyle trail runs, but also just for figuring out where I should be going on a course.
Speaking of trail runs, the watch supports all of the new Ultra Run & Trail Run features, like rest timers and VO2Max stat disablement for certain activities. I dive into how all these features work on my recent Garmin Enduro post in the sports section, so I won’t rehash them here.
Instead, we’ll focus on something new for the FR945LTE, the new interval features. There’s essentially two new features here:
A) Automatic categorization of interval segments afterwards in Garmin Connect (if you simply press the lap button in the regular run modes)
B) A new data page/categorization of interval segments mid-workout, if you press the lap button using ‘Open Repeats’ mode
So for the first one, this is super simple. Let’s say you go out for a run (like I did yesterday) and don’t load a structured workout in. Instead, you just run what you want to run interval-wise or fartlek wise and hit the lap button each time you start and end an interval. It’ll then automatically categorize all these sections after the fact on Garmin Connect. For example today I did a track workout, and I just simply hit the lap button as I went along for my 800’s and 200’s. No structured workout loaded, just lazy me pressing the buttons. This is what I see afterwards, notice the fact that it automatically figures out what is each section is:
Make sense? Good. Basically, just use the lap button and after the fact on Garmin Connect you get nifty labels.
Now, the second bit takes that to being live on the watch. To do that, you go into the Run, and choose Training > Intervals > Open Repeats:
At this point it’ll ask if you want a Warm-Up or not:
And that’s it. You don’t tell it how long a warm-up, it just knows that you’ll press the lap button afterwards. And that’s literally all you need to do, you’ll simply hit the lap button at the start/end of each interval, and it’ll figure out on the watch itself whether you’re in a work or recovery portion of each interval. It does this by looking at the paces and HR’s and figures it all out. The value of that is this new data page that shows up:
This is a per-interval page that dynamically shows you your current interval number (skipping any recovery chunks automatically), and the pacing for it. Additionally, you’ll get a lap summary page that also skips showing the recovery portions, because nobody cares about those stats. They just want to know their lap details for the work portions:
Again, you don’t have to tell it how long you’re running or anything, you just run and hit the lap button like you probably already do. The only downside is that you can’t customize this lap summary page with a different metric if you wanted to. But still, it’s great to *finally* have a lap summary page on Garmin’s wearables, even if it’s a bit wonky to get in and enable it.
Then again, afterwards, you’ll also get the automatic categorization on Garmin Connect. Here’s what that looked like for a run yesterday through the forest using this feature:
Ok, with all that said and done, we’ll wrap up our run. Of course, there’s literally a million sport features I could dive into and talk about – but I feel like I’d be repeating myself. Granted, I do that a lot. But hey, time’s a tickin’.
At the end of the run you’ll get stats from the run, including your training status, which shows the direction your fitness level and load levels are trending.
If we hit down (once past VO2Max) and you’ll see the 7-day load listed. This is color-coded by the type of load that you’ve gathered, as well as the total load values:
Tap down again and you’ve got your 4-week Load Focus. This basically consolidates all the training you’ve been doing into three specific buckets: Anaerobic, Aerobic High, and Aerobic Low, and then gives you specific target zones to be within (little pill boxes):
As you can see, I’ve filled up my ‘High Aerobic’ target. If I’m short in a given area, then it’ll tell me what to do. Or, in my case, since I’m somehow not short in any areas, it’ll tell me what my training has been doing lately in terms of benefit:
If I go down again, I’ll get Recovery Time until my next hard workout:
If I was somewhere with altitude or heat, I’d get either (or both) heat or altitude acclimation. The goal behind both altitude and heat acclimation metrics is to figure out whether or not you’re acclimated to a given temperature or altitude. Obviously, both can significantly impact performance. Unfortunately, I’m neither hot nor high right now. But you can read my past Garmin Fenix 6 review for how those pieces work – it’s all the same.
All of this information is also accessible within the Training Status pages on your Garmin Connect Mobile app too – allowing you to dig in much deeper and further back.
All of this then feeds into the suggested workout pieces for cycling and running. This works by offering you a new workout each day. The goal here is essentially to provide a training load stimulus, but also not to overdo it. For example, if you get poor sleep, it’ll literally say to take a recovery day due to the poor sleep. If you’ve had too much intensity, it’ll offer a recovery workout. It’s reasonably impressive in my testing over the last 6-8 months in other Garmin devices they’ve previously introduced it in.
Here you can see it offering me a structured run workout late last week. As you can see, this ain’t no slouch of a workout.
You can tap to get more information about the workout, and why specifically it’s recommending this one to you. Additionally, it’ll detail which areas it’s targeting. Once you’ve selected the workout, it’ll iterate through like any other structured workout on the watch. Including the fact that afterward, on Garmin Connect, you’ll get to see the targets overlaid on your actual data, so you can see what the goal was versus your execution.
Finally, no matter what you do for a workout, once it’s done it’ll save that to Garmin Connect, and then sync it off to various 3rd party sites (like Strava, TrainingPeaks, etc…). Or, you can just view it on Garmin Connect Mobile or the Garmin Connect site.
- Phew, got all that? Good, by and large, aside from the interval pieces, it’s all the same as the FR945, such as I didn’t cover music or contactless payments this time around, because they’re identical to what’s on the FR945 today. This includes loading your bank cards onto the watch for contactless payments, as well as accessing music on Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, and more. I did use both, notably Spotify to check battery life burn (more down in the accuracy section).
LTE Connectivity:
So, the first thing to understand about ‘Garmin LTE Club’ (not actually called that), is that it’s a sports and safety club only. You won’t be getting your texts or Twitter updates via LTE. Instead, Garmin has decided to (at least temporarily) ditch that idea and focus on the things their customer base appears to want most: cellular connectivity for sport tracking, races/events, and safety-related features tied to sport tracking.
The second thing to know about Garmin LTE Club is that it doesn’t care who your cell phone carrier is. Got ATT or Verizon? Great, Garmin doesn’t care, because Garmin deals with the carrier on your behalf. You won’t be walking into a phone carrier store asking to set this up on your existing billing plan. Instead, you pay Garmin $5.99/month and they give you magical LTE connectivity. Easy and simple (well, except when it’s not).
The reasons behind this newfound strategy are many, but is likely heavily influenced by Apple’s policy around disallowing 3rd party watches/devices from responding to text messages directly via cellular, or from participating with iMessages via cellular…Unless of course it’s an Apple Watch, in which case it works flawlessly. And thus, Garmin is effectively blocked from making a viable cellular watch for Apple users, which undoubtedly make up the majority of their userbase (yes, I know, Android OS makes up the majority of phones worldwide, but not this market segment of customers). Without iMessage, it’s dead in the water.
Next, is to understand the cellular coverage areas. Garmin has two versions of the FR945 LTE. One for mainly the North America (+ NZ), and one for everywhere else. This is inline with how other watch makers handle it, due to frequency differences. While you can use your watch’s normal functions in the wrong region, the cellular functions won’t work out of region. Additionally, they’re launching *today* with the US and Canada, however, later this summer they’ll go more global. Here’s the tentative country list for each model, though note this will likely change over the coming months as Garmin formalizes additional carriers (and thus, additional countries):
Looking into the details of what Garmin has done, it effectively plops into two main categories for LTE: Safety features and spectator features. In total, here are the cellular features on the Garmin FR945LTE:
– Sync completed workouts and related data via LTE (including 24×7 data, workouts, courses, and so on)
– LiveTrack via LTE
– LiveTrack Spectator Text Messages via LTE
– LiveTrack Spectator Audio Messages via LTE (to your headphones)
– Emergency assistance via Assistance Plus and the Garmin emergency response center – via LTE
– Emergency assistance via your predefined contacts (via LTE)
– Crash detection triggers via LTE, to the emergency response center
– Safety alerts (aka stalker alerts) trigger via LTE, to the emergency response center
Meanwhile, here’s a list of things it won’t do via internal LTE:
– It won’t sync your music/Spotify/etc via LTE (still requires WiFi)
– It won’t receive your text messages or missed phone calls (unless your phone is connected nearby)
So, let’s just dive through all these features, one by one – by laying them atop each other until we get to the point of having to interact with the emergency assistance center (for real). First up, I’ve setup my watch to automatically trigger a LiveTrack event each time I go out for a workout. You don’t need to do that, but it makes it easier. This then sends a small group of people my track details. So as I land on the sport mode ready screen, you’ll see a new signal icon there, showing my current signal status, and then after a few seconds, it’ll say LiveTrack Ready:
(Also, to demonstrate all this, I’ve disabled the phone connection from my watch to phone, forcing it onto LTE.)
![clip_image001[7]](https://media.dcrainmaker.com/images/2021/06/clip_image0017.jpg "clip_image001[7]")
When it says ‘LiveTrack Ready’ it means it’s communicated with Garmin’s servers and has established a live connection. You can technically start without this, it’ll catch-up later if you’re in an area of bad reception. And, it’ll backfill the data.
Once we start rolling, it’ll send out your LiveTrack session just as it normally would on any other Garmin device over the past half decade or so. Friends and family will receive an e-mail link, and they can click on it to see your current position, past track, and if you’ve got a course loaded they’ll see that too. They’ll also see your pace/HR/power/elevation data:
Via LTE, this data updates once per minute, but backfills your actual GPS track within that minute. Meaning, it’s giving the full minute’s worth of data when it connects each time, not just a point every minute. In fact, that’s why you see the little warning above to the viewer that the data updates slightly less frequently.
If you want to save more battery, you can toggle on a low-update LTE option in the LiveTrack settings on the watch, which switches the LTE to update every 5 minutes instead. This still backfills the data within that 5 minute span to the LiveTrack servers, but just does it every 5 minutes instead.
Now, this is all similar, but different than Live Event Sharing. In that case, your friends and family get a text message at predefined intervals, such every lap or mile/kilometer split. You can customize this in the Garmin Connect Mobile settings. This is the same Live Event Sharing as launched a few years ago, but now via LTE. So if you’re running a marathon, you don’t need your phone anymore, your friends will get your split/position updates automatically.
By default, Live Event Sharing turns off after 24 hours, mainly to keep you from spamming your friends with text messages when you go do an interval workout and have it send a message each time you press the lap button.
Ok, so going back to regular LiveTrack (via LTE), we’re going to step it up a notch. At this point your friends have decided to send you a text message. To do that, they’ll use Spectator messaging, from the LiveTrack page. Fear not, you can turn this off too (such as if you post a LiveTrack link to Twitter, and don’t want the entire world spamming you). Within this window they enter the name they want it to show up as, and then the short message.
About 10 seconds later, it shows up on your watch. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. It’s pretty darn quick:
The only downside here is that the message disappears pretty quickly, and there’s no way to go back and see messages you might have missed. Like a fart in the wind, once they’re gone – they’re gone (especially if you’re mountain biking or anywhere you might not be able to look instantly at the watch). I brought this up to Garmin and it sounds like they’ve heard this from other folks, and are considering a way to access messages beyond just those few seconds.
Ok, so we got the text message. Now, let’s step it up a notch and do an audio message. In this case, you’ll need your FR945LTE to have headphones paired (or technically, just any Bluetooth audio device). As long as it has, then your friends/family will have the option to leave you an audio message. On the webpage, there’s the toggle to switch over to that, and then they can just use their microphone to record an audio message:
The main caveat I found with this though is that I can’t send audio messages from iOS on Safari (web browser) at this time. Garmin says they’re working on some kinks here for browser compatibility, but they don’t anticipate a workaround for iOS Safari and audio messages. That’s sorta moderately annoying, as most of my friends/family are on iOS, and most of them won’t be loading alternate browsers. In any case, once they send the message, a few seconds later it’ll just automatically play in your headphones. Like a voice from above – it instantly plays when it arrives, additionally, it shows who the message is from on your watch:
The insta-play aspects make sense, because you don’t want to fumble around trying to press play during a race. It’s just like someone cheering at your from the sidelines. Boom, they cheer…you hear.
Ok, at this point we’re halfway through the LTE features, and now going to shift towards safety related ones. And it’s a big ticket item. Essentially, the FR945 LTE not only can notify your friends and family that you’re in trouble, but now will directly notify Garmin’s International Emergency Response Coordination Center (IERCC), which they acquired just a bit earlier this year from GEOS. This is the same emergency response center responsible for Garmin’s inReach devices, should something go wrong there. Historically speaking this response center handles anything from plane crashes, to hikers on Mt. Everest, to boats adrift in the ocean, and mountain bikers in Africa.
They’re claim to fame is being able to coordinate an emergency response anywhere on earth, and by and large, they’ve got a long track record of demonstrating that, touting thousands of lives saved, and countless stories up in various places on Garmin’s site.
But this is the first time someone can just hold a button down on their watch for a few seconds and trigger a response. So, things might get interesting. Here, let me show you what actually happens.
[***Note: Please do NOT test this feature yourself for fun, except in an actual emergency. This is literally like calling 911, the second this connects it starts a chain reaction of sending emergency people to your location. For realz, don’t do it for fun. In my case, I had a pre-defined test timeslot and nearly half a dozen people on a Skype call to ensure I wasn’t about to get helicopters sent to rescue me and my mountain bike.***]
So, there’s a few ways you can trigger the IERCC:
A) Via the controls menu (upper left button), and choosing Assistance Plus, then Emergency, and then 10 seconds to cancel it
B) Long-holding the upper left button until it starts a countdown, and then 10 seconds later it’ll notify them (or you can cancel too)
C) Crashing your bike, after which you’ve got 10 seconds to cancel it
D) Leaving it in your gym bag and managing to long-hold the upper left button, after which it’ll give you 30 seconds of horrendously loud alarming to cancel it (seriously, who knew your watch could be this loud?)
The reason for the 10s vs 30s times, is that for the accidental gym bag scenario, it detects the watch is off-wrist, and gives you extra time to dig it out. Versus if it’s on-wrist, it’s shorter.
Ok, so here’s that button option from the controls menu:
And here’s what happens when you press it. It gives you that 10-second count-down:
After which it connects you to the emergency response center, immediately.
When I demoed this out in the woods by the ocean amidst tall trees, dunes, and everything else, the entire process end to end was 40 seconds by time the ‘How can I help you’ message arrived on my watch after pressing to trigger an emergency.
Behind the scenes, in their command center, you’ll hear an emergency sound ring – sorta like an alarm going off at a fire station, indicating a new emergency has come in to triage. I could hear this on my call, not only for my own test messages, but for real life emergencies coming in.
At this point, you’ll respond using a set of predefined quick-access messages, or, you can type out your own message:
And this is where you get to see the new handy rotary-style text messaging option on the FR945LTE. It’s a super slick way of typing out a reasonably long text message on a watch:
Here’s a better picture of it, when not in the trees:
Each time you send a message, it’ll show near-instantly that they’ve received it. Listening on the phone they told me each time a message came in, and it was almost instant. Again, this will vary on LTE signal, but the place I stopped in only had 1-2 bars. Also, interesting side note: If you happened to have disabled the phone/Bluetooth connection on your watch, it’ll silently re-enable it during an emergency trigger. This is to give any and all avenues of connectivity a better shot. I could watch this happen in real-time (and then watch as I disabled it again). Kinda clever.
When the emergency center person responds with their next volley, the pre-canned answers also change too, becoming somewhat adaptive. Again, you can also type your own message.
Now from the moment your first message arrived, they’ve already begun finding the correct coordination point around the world for your location. Essentially the IERCC will funnel things down starting at the country level, with liaisons for each country to figure out which emergency services need dispatching. For example whether they need to dispatch Coast Guard support, or helicopters to a mountain, or police into a city. That’s all handled by them, and handled in seconds to minutes, not hours.
They’ll ‘stay on the line’, until they’ve received confirmation that rescuers (or police) have arrived at your location and have taken care of you, this includes your constant position tracking too. When I connected, the woman on the other end knew exactly where I was, and that I was on the edge of a tree-line against the sand dunes near the ocean (by looking at maps). If you move positions, they’ll see that too in real-time.
Eventually, you can end the assistance session through a series of steps. This requires a bit of a two-way confirmation, both multi-step from you, but also then it’ll confirm that they’ve received the end-session command. Meaning, you’ll know that they know it’s over.
Ok, got all that?
Good, the exact same thing happens if you do a stalking alert, except in that case it won’t make any sounds on the watch itself. If you just long-hold down the upper left button, it’ll quietly activate it, and notify them.
Note that you can always choose to manually notify your friends/family emergency contacts instead, for non-automated triggers. Go to the controls menu (brief-hold upper left button), and then under Assistance Plus, choose either ‘My Contacts’ or the exact contact you want’ – skipping over ‘Emergency Response’:
Now, this probably gets to some key questions, notably, around crash detection. Right now as it’s configured, crash detections notifies the emergency response center, not your friends/family contacts. And if you’ve been around the Garmin block long enough with crash detection, you know it can eventually trigger false positives. Though, typically far less on your wrist than on a bike computer. Still, it seems to happen once or twice a year for me.
As of right now, you can’t disable this notifying emergency services. So you’ve got 10 seconds to cancel it. But, as anyone will also tell you, that 10 seconds can go by at lightening speed if you’re cycling in traffic and it false-triggers, or mountain biking downhill. And that assumes you even heard it to begin with.
Garmin doesn’t really have a good answer there. My guess though is that’s going to be a self-solving problem for them. Meaning, they’re going to pretty quickly realize crash detection shouldn’t auto-trigger a helicopter saving me, and they’re going to tweak that in software. Either way, the load and effort from that is on them to solve.
The next item that’s worth of discussion, but without an answer, is whether or not various sport federations will allow this. For example, both the UCI and Ironman prohibit two-way communication devices while making forward progress. Thus, in theory, this is prohibited in a race scenario. I asked Garmin if they’ve had any conversations there, and they said not yet.
Frankly, this is probably the best time ever to have those conversations. What better solution to allowing fans to cheer on their Ironman athletes virtually, since many can’t travel to races to spectate themselves? This would seem like a win-win for the sport. But then again, most things seem like that when the UCI or Ironman is involved, only to have it fizzle. Either way, we’ll see.
Ultimately, I’m impressed with what Garmin did for LTE connectivity here. Prior to digging into all the details, I presumed they’d try another half-baked Vivoactive 3 LTE variant, but in reality, ditching that concept for a sport-focused one is arguably the best decision they’ve made in years. Sure, there’s still some mostly minor kinks to work out here, but I’ve gotta believe we’ll see this very quickly rolled out across product lines going forward. It’s a no-brainer for Garmin – get a $50+ upsell on hardware, and get $72/year+ in recurring revenue. Or $216-$288+ over a typical 3-4 year-lifespan of a product. You take something like an Edge 530 (which is $299) and add cellular, and you’ve literally doubled your revenue just from subscription fees alone
Now, rollout per countries will be the longer pole in the tent, and the nuances that go along with it. There’s no doubt that my experience getting onboarded and working properly here in the Netherlands has played a part in delaying the launch of this globally. Getting that first session to work was ‘challenging’, to put it mildly. Once I’ve got it working, it’s been flawless. But like launching Garmin Pay in various countries, it’s still a house to house (or, country to country) fire fighting exercise to figure it all out. Still, at this point, I’m super happy with its performance.
GPS & HR Accuracy:
There’s likely no topic that stirs as much discussion and passion as GPS or heart rate accuracy. A watch could fall apart and give you dire electrical shocks while doing so, but if it shows you on the wrong side of the road? Oh hell no, bring on the fury of the internet!
GPS accuracy can be looked at in a number of different ways, but I prefer to look at it using a number of devices in real-world scenarios across a vast number of activities. I use 2-6 other devices at once, trying to get a clear picture of how a given set of devices handles conditions on a certain day. Conditions include everything from tree/building cover to weather.
Over the years, I’ve continued to tweak my GPS testing methodology. For example, I don’t place two units next to each other on my wrists, as that can impact signal. If I do so, I’ll put a thin fabric spacer of about 1”/3cm between them (I didn’t do that on any of my FR945 LTE activities however, all workouts only had a single device per wrist). But often I’ll simply carry other units by the straps, or attach them to the shoulder straps of my hydration backpack. Plus, wearing multiple watches on the same wrist is well known to impact optical HR accuracy.
Meanwhile, for HR accuracy testing I’m typically wearing a chest strap (either the Polar H10 or the Garmin HRM-PRO, but also a bit of Wahoo TICKR/TICKR X too in this post) as well as another optical HR sensor watch on the bicep (mostly a blend of the Polar OH1 Plus & Polar Verity Sense, as well as the Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0, with a few Whoop 3.0 band sessions tossed in for fun). Note that the numbers you see in the upper right corner are *not* the averages, but rather just the exact point my mouse is sitting over. Note all this data is analyzed using the DCR Analyzer, details here.
First up we’ve got a track workout from yesterday. Seems as good a place as any to look at optical HR, and then a quick look at GPS. For the optical HR side we’re comparing the FR945 LTE on one wrist, the FR55 on the other, and then against a Wahoo TICKR X chest strap and a Polar Verity Sense armband. Here’s that data set:
This was a warm-up, followed by a slate of 800’s, and then some 200m sprints. You can see that looking at the 800’s, it’s darn near perfect. Like, nothing of real concern here. These weren’t quite as high intensity as some of my 800’s (hang tight for that in a second), but more than enough to cause difficulties in sensors if need be. On the 200’s, these were shorter, only 30-seconds long, and thus you can see the FR945LTE with its newer ELEVATE v4 sensor seemed to struggle slightly, whereas the FR55 with it’s older ELEVATE V3 sensor did better. Of course, this could also just be quirks of left vs right hand too.
That said, even the FR55 was a bit latent on some of these, though did get the gist of it. Whereas the FR945LTE was latent on all of them. Again though, keep in mind these were 30-second all-out sprints, versus more measured intervals.
If we switch to look at the GPS tracks, all of the Garmin watches were in track mode, which means they snapped perfectly to the track after a quick one-time calibration set (3 loops around the track):
For comparison, I also had with me the Suunto 9 Peak, which doesn’t have a track mode. As a result, here’s what that looks like when added in:
While the GPS track isn’t horrible, you can see it’s essentially all over the track (and beyond). Mind you, I stayed in Lane 1 virtually the entire time. This isn’t to poke fun at Suunto’s track here, but to show the power of track mode for watches from Garmin, Wahoo, and COROS that have it.
Next, let’s take a look at a forest run from yesterday. For this I had the FR945LTE, FR55, FR745, and the Suunto 9 Peak. You can see that overall, at a high level, there’s no crazy pants ones here. Everyone is roughly in line:
Now despite all four of the watches using the Sony GPS chipset, you can still see nuanced differences. Some of it may be left side vs right side (body-wise), but I suspect it’s also just differing internal aspects too. Here’s a more dense forest section, leading out to some fields:
You can see that for most of it, all four watches are within a few meters, though there were a few times towards the bottom section that we saw more separation from some of them, including the FR55 a bit. Of course, fast forward a few seconds and it’s the FR945LTE contemplating a different path:
And then it’s the Suunto 9 Peak considering alternate facts:
The point being, none of them are perfect (though, the FR745 comes darn close), but for most people the data will be similar enough, even in the woods. Once I exit the woods, they’re virtually identical.
Meanwhile, looking at the heart rate on this run, I made this forest run an interval run too. 800’s followed by 200’s, but of course with the complexities of not tripping on roots and such. Overall, things were pretty good:
Again you see some minor wobbles (more minor this time than last time) on the FR945 LTE during the 200’s (shorter ones at the end), but the FR55 was really solid here. The Polar Verity Sense was solid as always.
Next, let’s look at an outdoor ride. I realize there’s a lot to take in here, with a lot of lines and a lot of data. Like trying to find Waldo in Where’s Waldo, it’s best to just squint and focus on one thing – or here, one color. The FR945LTE is in yellow, and the FR55 is in red. What I’d consider references would be the TICKR in Blue, and the Polar Verity Sense in green. And if you want to move around the graphs, go here.
Now, the main thing you’ll notice is that the FR945LTE seems to have a few more drops and spikes than the FR55 does. In general, I don’t find many wrist-based optical HR sensors that do well road cycling, especially with any intensity changes. The FR55 actually does relatively well here compared to the FR945LTE. It’s not that the FR945LTE is horrible or anything, rather, it’s just what I tend to see sometimes variability-wise. Meanwhile, the FR55 seems to have lucked out more on this ride.
As for GPS? Zero issues road cycling. Here’s the high level:
And here’s some tough tunnel sections under the airport runways. Mind you, you’re not getting GPS underground. But rather, I’m interested to see that it properly disengages and re-engages without throwing crazy spikes here and there. And it does that perfectly.
I’ve also got some mountain bike GPS data I’ll pull in here shortly, as well as an openwater swim I hope to get in later this afternoon.
On the battery front, things look solid per spec. For example, here are the battery rates for a run with the FR945LTE I did with music playing the entire time (and LTE on the entire time):
Versus if we take off the music and just go with pure LTE, I was seeing battery burn rates that projected about a 10-12 hour time.
Overall though, for GPS accuracy things seem largely pretty good. Nothing sticking out as problematic, beyond the usual minor GPS quirks most devices have. For heart rate, it’s largely good for steady-state and medium to longer duration running intervals, however it struggles with both short-duration intervals of high intensity, and outdoor cycling.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy portions were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.)
Wrap-Up:
Ultimately, I came away more impressed than I expected to with the LTE features. Had Garmin continued down the path they did for the Vivoactive 3 LTE, this would have been a dumpster fire. But they didn’t. They instead focused on an athlete-first solution, and overall it works pretty darn well. I like the fact that I don’t have to take my phone with me for my wife to see my current spot on the map, while out for workouts. And I appreciate the idea of the emergency response center, albeit, I’m half-afraid of accidentally triggering it unintentionally. This morning I literally woke up with the watch controls menu open somehow and it hovering above the emergency response button (seen above). It didn’t fire, but I quickly checked my phone to see if perhaps it had!
Still, these are minor things that for a first iteration will be sorted out in time. And once I got the LTE up and working in my country, things have been smooth sailing since. Connectivity appears to be quite good both in the city and out in the middle of nowhere, and if there are dropouts of coverage, it properly resumes without any issues.
Of course, many will ask whether or not this is a middle-child watch. Something that fits a temporary gap until a Forerunner 955 comes along, whereby they’ll ditch updates for it. And that’s definitely a super valid question. As noted earlier, Garmin says no, it’s not – and they plan plenty of updates going forward. Again, we’ll have to see whether that holds true. The company has a long history of middle-child watches being promptly ignored 6-8 months later when the proper sibling comes along.
Ultimately though, I’m more excited about the tech and where Garmin sticks this next. I’ve gotta believe we’ll see them very quickly run this across their product lines, because it’s both an easy-button for consumers, inexpensive, and an easy-button for them for revenue.
With that, thanks for reading!
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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
If you're shopping for the Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot.
And finally, here’s a handy list of accessories that work well with this unit (and some that I showed in the review). Given the unit pairs with ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart sensors, you can use just about anything though.
This wifi-connected scale will track your weight and related metrics both on the scale display and in Garmin Connect (plus 3rd party apps like TrainingPeaks). It'll also then sync your weight to your watch/bike computer, to ensure accurate calorie data.
This is a dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart cycling cadence sensor that you strap to your crank arm, but also does dual Bluetooth Smart, so you can pair it both to Zwift and another Bluetooth Smart app at once if you want.
Seriously, this will change your life. $9 for a two-pack of these puck Garmin chargers that stay put and stay connected. One for the office, one for your bedside, another for your bag, and one for your dog's house. Just in case.
These are one of my favorite power meters, due to both cost and accuracy. These have mostly become my defacto gravel pedals, and also get used on a lot of other comparison testing.
The Garmin Rally series is effectively 3 power meters in one, for three pedal types. I use these often in accuracy testing. While they're a bit more expensive than the Favero pedals, they offer the ability to swap pedal types easily.
The HRM-PRO Plus is Garmin's top-end chest strap. It transmits dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but also transmits Running Dynamics & Running Pace/Distance metrics, stores HR data during a swim, and can be used without a watch for other sports. Also, it can transmit XC Skiing Dynamics as well.
And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Shed Talkin' video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!
Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
Let’s hope that for new Fenix, Garmin will bring more functions. At this moment there will not be any upgrade from my side
Thanks for the review!
Does it have the same watch Face as the 745 that shows 7 day load?
Sadly not. My fav.
Great review as always, Ray! I also saw DesFit’s review on YouTube. At 1:57 into the review, that screen shot appears to be the 7 day load. However, I still have the red-headed stepchild 645M. So, I’m not positive. Thanks!
This LTE feature looks quite cool, but knowing Garmin I‘m gonna buy the second generation.
No but in all seriousness, no need to upgrade from my trusty 945, but it‘s cool that they push the boundary a bit.
Hi Ray – thanks for the review! A few random questions:
– Does the “Sync completed workouts and related data via LTE (including 24×7 data, workouts, courses, and so on)” work automatically, on a certain interval or do you need to manually trigger it? AKA, If I do a workout *without* LTE live tracking, at the end of the run, will it just automatically upload via LTE wherever I am?
– Can you use LTE live tracking while the watch is charging? (I would assume so.. but who knows)
– In your conversations with Garmin, had they mentioned considering an “ultra” or “IM” version of the live tracking where it could extend the battery life out longer (every 5 or 10 minute update)?
Yeah, it’ll force on to sync at the end of the run. It’s always in ‘Standby’ and then syncs as need be.
I haven’t tried LTE Live Tracking with charging, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. I’ll try and remember on the commute today to plug it in (which, it looks like I need to do soon anyway).
Yes, there is an every 5-minute option. I think I talk about it up there somewhere. Or, maybe I got distracted.
Not sure if it was there and *I* got distracted, but it is there now. Any idea how much that expands the battery life?
I don’t have an exact number, I’ll see if I can get one.
Somewhat interesting but not compelling enough to buy and have to pay a monthly fee. Still waiting for a new watch from Garmin or Coros for ultra running to replace my Garmin Forerunner 935. I used to do triathlons.
There is a new Ultra Watch from Garmin on the market, why don’t you pick That?
They have hula hooping with fire and knives?!?!? But not disc golf. Ugh. I feel like they already have the infrastructure for it, but don’t care enough to do it.
You’re telling me. Still no dedicated surfing!
Yeah, would like disc golf too. Was hoping for an a CIQ app.
There’s a couple of CIQ apps already for disc golf.
I use one called DiscGolf Pro. One of the very few CIQ apps installed.
Works well and provides a GPS of the course.
Thanks for pointing out those. I wanted course info like they have for ball golf, but I’ll give one or two a try next time. Not sure how I missed them, but Connect IQ search does kind of suck, can’t even force phase search with quotes. Probably why the author left out the space for DiscGolf Pro
Any word on if CIQ apps can utilize the LTE feature when not connected to a phone?
Got clarity back from Garmin on the CIQ apps and LTE: “Currently, no. CIQ apps cannot access the LTE connection.”
That is the biggest disappointment for me :(, that is the one thing that might keep me away from the watch. I hope they introduce an update for it in the future but not sure.
I suspect they are buying a package of data and want to limit what goes over the LTE. Opening to CIQ would be less predictable data use.
That’s a bummer. Would have loved it for things like WindField, weather updates, and garage door openers.
Great review thanks Ray! Tell me in comes in more then just white ;-)
Garmin’s website shows all black as well.
Garmins website is not up to date yet, it may show LTE but has no details at all of it
A few lingering questions:
10-12 hours with LTE isn’t great. Does the battery life significantly improve with LTE disabled?
Is this the exact same form factor as the 745?
Are any of the new non-LTE features coming to other watches? (particularly the lap functions for the 745)
My 945 died a few weeks ago and I’ve been using an old fr230 waiting hopefully for a 955 with some features like fenix 6-sized screen, and solar charging, so this is a bit of a bummer. I’m sure some will appreciate the LTE stuff, but it’s something I can realistically only see myself using during a big race. So now the question is whether to buy this and not use the LTE features, buy another 2 years old 945, go with the 745 (I’d miss maps :( ), or just stick with the 230.
Battery life is 35 hours without LTE.
Not identical to 745
44.4 x 44.4 x 13.9 mm – 945LTE
43.8 x 43.8 x 13.3 mm – 745
Ray only asked about OG 945 getting those features (it was “maybe”). I would bet they go to F6 series, Enduro, maybe 745.
I’d also reach out to Garmin about the dead 945 – they may hook you up with a good deal on replacing it.
I am in a similar boat. My FR935 kicked the can a month or so ago. I didn’t want to run out and buy a 945 because it is a 2 year old watch. I knew the new forerunners were coming up, and since Garmin released the FR745 last year, I figured the FR955 was on the docket for this year. I was excited and ready to buy one on launch day.
Now they release this… not that it is bad. But if you aren’t using the LTE features, then this is all too similar to the 2-year-old FR945. The body seems to be slightly smaller. The screen is the same, but the smaller body, means more of the watch is screen. Garmin seems to have also put the 945 (non-lte) on sale so it is only $50 more than the FR745 right now.
So it’s kind of an awkward position to be in. The 745 is a stripped-down 945. So it doesn’t really make sense to buy the 745 when the 945 is only $50 more (right now at least, but I suspect that becomes the new normal). Then at that rate do I want to spend that kind of money on a watch that is already 2 years old? So sure, I spend a little bit more for the “new” watch, but its almost the same as the 2 year old one. It just really is a weird position to be in. Waiting 2 more years isn’t really an option for me, I need one now. I was ready to buy the new Venu 2 because it looks really nice. But then I realized it doesn’t do training load, anaerobic/aerobic stress, no open water swim, the pool swim is stripped down to basics, no running dynamics, etc. So that puts me back into the Forerunner line. But honestly, it looks like I will be getting the FR945 LTE anyway. When you are already spending $550-$600, it makes sense to spend the extra $50 to get the newest one, even if it isn’t a huge leap.
If I was a betting man, I would guess that this watch is replaced with the 955 next year. This breaks Garmin’s 2 year cycle. But that is probably why they didn’t release the 955 this year. I bet they wanted a more noteworthy feature on the FR955 to make it stand out and hold up to its 2 year lifecycle. My guess is either solar charging or AMOLED screen. The fact that this is internally similar to the Venu makes me suspect they are moving to the AMOLED screen, which will really make the 955 stand out. Of course they could easily run into battery life problems with that. The 935/945/955 requires high battery life because it is used by Ironman athletes, ultra runners, and other endurance sports. I bet they had something else planned and couldn’t meet the deadline, so it got pushed back a year and they gave us LTE on the older model to create a stop-gap product. I know that Ray addressed that to Garmin in the video and they claim that isn’t the case. But any company would say that. They aren’t going to come out and say, “yeah this is only for 8 months until the REALLY cool one comes out”.
if you still have your 935 and are in the US, i believe you can get a refurbished replacement for $99. that seems to be a good bet if you want to wait for next year’s 955. (at least that’s my thought: i don’t think they would release a 955 in the autumn but i think in a year’s time, they might release an 955 with solar and running power. i honestly don’t think they will go OLED. that is counter to the battery life they hope to achieve in their flagship triath watch.)
Did you contact Garmin about the 945 that died? That’s… kinda not good that the 945 already died on you. It’s so new!
@Alex C-
Im in a bit same situation as you, been waiting for this new iteration. I think the 945 is still excellent though and would be an upgrade already for me with my fenix 5. I think the addition of LTE looks nice enough, so Im considering the upgrade.
When it comes to “two year cycle”, I don’t think you should look to hard on that. When you look at the releases 10-15 years back you can see it varies. Since the 910 (which was excellent) came out in fall 2011, it was 3 full years till the 920 came, and then another 2,5 years till the 935. It’s actually only the 945 which came after 2 years. Maybe the 955 will come before christmas, maybe next year or even later. I thnk the incentives for Garmin to push the envelope are relatively small as they no matter what seems to be ahead of the competition.
Thanks Ray. I’m wanting a lighter watch than my current F6 Pro. Would this be a downgrade or do you see this as an upgrade with the Elevate v4 sensor and the venu like internals?
I likely would only use the LTE on a monthly basis if I had a race.
Completely depends on what activities you want to do. Fenix 6 build materials are better than the 945 LTE and there’s certainly a few more outdoor-ish activities, but if you’re looking for a good all-round tri-watch, you’ve got a good deal. I’d use the comparison tool on the Garmin website (like under the running section, upper left) – helped me pick out my 945LTE.
I assume there won’t be long to wait to see if it’s a middle child. With the next Fenix probably dropping this summer it’ll either be really similar to this or really not similar to this, and then we’ll know :)
The one thing I’ll be really REALLY interested in knowing on the next Fenix is headphone support (be nice to know here too, of course, but I’m not planning to buy this one!). The current range don’t properly support fully wireless Bluetooth 5 headphones when the headphones use dual channel bluetooth (i.e. one connection per ear). The music skips as soon as you start an activity. This used to be fine when such connectivity was rare, but as more and more headphones adopt this, fewer and fewer are working with Garmin watches properly. I can’t tell if it’s a processor speed issue, or a Bluetooth antenna issue, but it’s repeatable on different hardware and there seems to be a very clear link. It’s definitely not interference or weak signal, and given how myopic Garmin are they can’t see past signal problems so no apparent investigation, possibly this is because they know it’s a hard limitation so can’t fix it. In case you’re bored enough to test this, any Sony true wireless after the WF-SP700N doesn’t work properly, but the 700N does, being the last time they used the retransmit version of Bluetooth. I’m told Airpods also don’t work properly but have not tested those.
That was my take too Dave. Especially given all the Firstbeat features Garmin dropped this morning on the Forerunner 55. That watch is almost at (running) feature parity with Fenix 6 at this point. New Fenix must be coming by Aug/Sept.
Don’t hold your breath for a new Fenix this summer! In time for the holiday season if you’re lucky, 2022 otherwise.
I wasn’t aware of the Bluetooth 5.0 issue. I’d also like to know if the 945 LTE is an improvement on that front as when I run with music, I use Sennheiser MTW2 earphones.
Same here.
I contacted support about the headphone problem and they came back with instructions to wear the watch on the right wrist. I kind of mentally gave up at that point.
Now, after the recent update, I’ve twice had to restart the Fenix to get it to even recognize the headphones.
My headphones are the incredibly rare, and technological relics known as “Air Pods Pro”.
AirPods are a little better than the standard Bluetooth headphone in regards to Apple devices, but I don’t think they’re any different for third party devices: if they’re actively paired with your iPhone, like my AirPod Pros do when I take them out of the case and put them in my ears, they won’t pair with a 3rd party device. (With Apple devices they do a somewhat decent try at playing the audio from the device you’re paying attention to, but sometimes even with Apple devices you have trouble getting them to play what you want.) Put your iPhone down, walk well away from it and any other Apple device, take the AirPods out and try pairing them then.
Because of the stupid way that Bluetooth works, I have separate headphones paired to my Apple TV, MacBook Pro and iPhone (for when wearing the AirPod Pros isn’t advisable, like in the snow). It’s just easier that way.
They paired fine until 16.6, since then I’ve had trouble connecting them. The bigger problem is that I have to switch the watch to the right wrist or it drops after 10 to 20 minutes of use. The latter is, I imagine, the same problem everyone else is having with the headphones.
Any details on the rotary keyboard? Didn’t see it here or in your video.
Are the new interval functions expected to roll out to the 945/745/Fenix6?
Oops, I’ll add a picture in.
As for the intervals going to the FR945 (I didn’t ask on the others), they said: “Possibly. We’re still looking into this one, so we can keep you updated.”
Thanks for the extra photo. Still not clear how it’s better for entering text than past watches. Do you scroll up/down A->Z still? Or is there something to improve this? Maybe best to wait for your UI walkthrough video?
Thanks! All in all no upgrade needed from the FR945… Only wondering, is there anything changed regarding cpu? (Significantly better responsiveness could be worthwhile wrt maps and general usage).
Hey Ray,
Do you know if it Is planned a 945 with the same size without LTE or no word on that?
Nothing planned there.
I own a 935 and am not sure to upgrade yet or not. I am excited about the new features, but my 935 does it’s job. Any recommendations?
Same boat as me. I’ve started thinking it’s time for an upgrade but it still does its job.
Might be worthwhile waiting another 8-10 months and seeing if they bring out a 955. I expect by then we’ll have a new Fenix too.
I’ve been holding out with a 935 as well, last year was close to jumping to something newer (Fenix 6x or 945 considered) but didn’t want to upgrade when something newer was likely coming soon.
This is interesting, but the discussion about the “middle child” watch is a real concern. Ray noting he asked Garmin about it is good and makes me hopeful, but I wonder what else they could really say? “Yup, we plan to abandon it in 6 months”? They may not have a specific plan for its longevity (maybe support is based on sales) and if they did they wouldn’t admit it at launch.
I am likely going to upgrade to the 945 LTE and hope when the Fenix 7 / 955 come I can skip that upgrade or upgrade and not lose too much in reselling.
My main reason to upgrade is probably open water swim GPS tracking – I consistently see my wife’s fenix 6 dramatically outperform my 935 for distance / tracking in the water. Secondarily I want the improved UI (i.e. things like widget glances) body battery, improved optical sensor etc… features of the newer watches (mostly not new here, but newer than 935).
Maybe the debate is if the 945 LTE will get any new updates the 945 will not (in the future) as I think 945 refurbished units can be had for < $500, which makes me wonder if LTE is worth $150 + subscription.
I am in the same boat. The 945 has music and HR while swimming. But I have plenty of other, easier-to-maintain music sources and the HR readings are not too accurate. The new Sony GPS chipset is not as good as the one in the 935 although it uses less power. The 945 with LTE can notify during an emergency but it will most likely cause more false alarms.
Running and biking (and even swimming) with a phone is a way of life for some. It makes it easier to look for places when lost, call people, send messages, pay for things, browse the web, play music, take pictures, check the weather, etc. without having to pay yet another monthly bill for LTE. One can live track, invoke SOS manually or through safety fall apps, provide voice feedback, even replace the Garmin watch if it has ANT+. The 935 is ideal and good enough to track swim workouts, transitions during triathlons, provide simple course navigation, cadence, and optical HR.
For me, the ‘track mode’ would be useful, and maybe the HR during swimming. If my 935 were to die I would definitely go for the 945 with or without LTE. But in the meantime, I think I’ll stay with the 935 for another year and continue to enjoy the better GPS accuracy. If the LTE version allows for live tracking while open water swimming (for some reason the Garmin app doesn’t do this even though my phone is with me inside a buoy) i would consider it for Christmas.
If my phone is in my buoy I always see the shared live track e-mail but have never checked that it works. Does the live track link / data in OWS not make it to the cloud (short time with watch out of water?) or do you not even see the live track start? (I am also using a 935 at this time).
Interesting about GPS accuracy, maybe Sony is worse for Run/Bike (or overall) but I think most of the Sony devices from Garmin offer superior GPS tracks for OWS – perhaps somehow a software effort on Garmin’s side or improved speed to acquire (while losing some accuracy?)
Wondering just how many DCR Easter eggs are in this review. Do we get a prize if we find them all? Frozen slushy (Blue flavor only). Heh.
Yeah, but he doesn’t say. Is that BLE or ANT+? And do you have to be drinking the slushy for it to pair, or does it pair if you’re just holding it?
I was more interested to see a DCR Hoola Hoop with Fire and Knives activity for a change, instead of running and cycling again
:)
Do the spectator messages show on your Edge cycling unit (more likely looking at that during the bike leg….)
You’d have to buy the Edge with LTE enabled and get a second subscription.
(comment is a little bit of a joke as such device does not exist yet and we don’t know how multiple devices would work in the system simultaneously, but I suspect something like this is how it would work out, at least initially)
I think he is using the extended display mode.
Good point, I totally forgot about the feature as I tend to dual-record (I think extended display does not record an activity on the Edge?).
but can’t you echo your 945 display on the edge as a dumb terminal?
Any hope of watch to watch live tracking? Ie to know my buddy is 250m from me in which direction?
Basically asking… Does “Group Track” work over LTE?
Can the emergency communication stuff be used with contacts for “normal” two way communication? Aka – “hey beautiful, loving, supportive wife, the weather is perfect and I’m staying out for an extra hour, don’t get worried”
From what I am reading on the Garmin site it does not appear to be the case that you can send a “regular” message:
“NOTICE: No text messaging, calls or voice functionality. LTE connectivity (monthly service plan required) enables phone-free safety and tracking features, spectator messaging and live event sharing.”
I have been waiting on an LTE version of a Garmin triathlon watch for a long time now but currently I use an Apple Watch plus a cheap Polar watch for triathlons – and I think that may continue to be the best solution for me. If I need to, I can use the Apple Watch to send texts or make phone calls to whoever I want. Without the ability to at least send a regular text message to someone, this just seems like it would be a big step backward.
This is my question too (in a way). As in, can I just send a notification to my emergency contact to say “come and pick me up” or any manually entered text. I’m thinking, for example, if I get a puncture or mechanical failure that I’m unable to fix by the side of the road. That would be useful – I wouldn’t want my wife to think that I was potentially injured by the side of the road, but would still want to be picked up.
Never mind, found it.
Garmin site does only say: When an incident is detected or you request assistance from your device, Garmin Connect will send your name and location to your emergency contacts.
So, no messaging, it will just send your location.
And then you could get the reply- “Hey, annoying, obsessive, husband- another hour? No problem! In fact, don’t even bother to come home at all”
So I currently have the Garmin inReach Mini and it does exactly what you are asking for. I know that isn’t a solution, because carrying that thing around on a run or bike is impractical. But what is practical is for Garmin to add this feature to the FR945LTE. Because they are already doing this on the inReach devices. The “Assistance Plus” features seems to be a nearly identical mapping of the inReach functionality onto the watch as it is. For anyone who has an InReach, you can see that the FR945LTE is very similar to the inReach with how it works.
The inReach is the same way where you don’t actually get a phone number for your device, so in order for loved ones to send you messages, you have to first send them a message. Then they can reply to the message and you will get the message. So it is useful to have messages saved up that are easy to send that are not “alarm-inducing”.
On the InReach you can write 5 different messages that are saved into the device so they are just one-click away. I think they are called “quick messages”. You can make them anything you want, but you set them up ahead of time and load them on the device. I have one for “Can You Pick Me Up”, “Everything is fine, but I am running late”, and “Checking In”. These messages are good to send to partners so they know you are ok without sending an emergency message. Plus since they are on-click messages they are easy to send from the inReach.. or a Watch. It is also good because as I mentioned earlier, your loved ones can’t communicate with you unless you initiate a conversation with them first. Then they have to reply back within an hour I think it is, to keep the thread open. So that is why I have a simple “Checking In” message. I just send it every hour or so because it not only sends my current location to her, but it also keeps the thread active so she can reply to me. She knows what it means if I send the check-in message too, so if she is busy she doesn’t need to immediately reply. It is just a simple update.
Garmin is doing all of this already. It looks like there is a lot of similarity between the LTE abilities of this watch the inReach. So I hope to see these features move over to the watch. Because I think it would make the LTE features a lot more attractive for more people if they send normal messages to loved ones.
Yes, you can send a “text” to your wife (or whoever is/are your emergency contact/s) using the emergency assistance function. I just tested this with my wife. It comes with three canned responses when you go to Assistance Plus>My Contacts (or pick an individual contact): “It’s an emergency. Please get help.”; “Not an emergency, but please pick me up.”; and “I need help. Follow my location to find me.” But at the very top of the list is “Keyboard,” and you can manually type (albeit painfully) any text you would like. I would not regularly use this for two-way text, but if you are just sending one text that you will be out an extra hour, it would work fine.
Not correct, please see my post below… you can tell them to come pick you up.
Did you hear anything about ebike profile for FR945? I use sometimes “other” profile for riding ebike but i need to switch it then in strava and i cant switch to ebike in garmin connect. In addition i think it is impacting my biking training load stats in bad way.
Yes, officially on Garmin’s website it shows that the FR 945 LTE comes with both “eBike” and “eBike for Trail Riding” profiles.
Look’s like you are about to spend $650!
Yup, it’s in there. Somewhere up above in this giant wall of comments text someone asked for it, and I showed a screen screenshot of what it looks like in Strava using the profile. Just search for ‘Ebike’ and it’ll come up. :)
Was the decision not allowing music streaming a technical implementation issue, battery issue, or cost of LTE issue? It seems like aside from the safety concerns addressed by LTE, live streaming of music would be the most wanted addition to a watch that LTE could solve.
Almost assuredly battery and LTE service issue. Probably equal parts both. LTE 1/min just to send track updates has significantly less battery impact than constant music streaming of multi MBs. And that’s way cheaper to workout with LTE carriers around the world.
Can you explain the Apple blocking messaging thing again? I don’t understand, non-Apple phones can text back and forth with Apple phones. Why couldn’t a Garmin watch just send and receive messages as if it were a non-Apple phone? What am I missing?
As I understand it, Apple doesn’t allow third party apps to send messages. So for example, Garmin (Connect) isn’t allowed to send messages using iMessage.
Thijs is correct
Apple doesn’t allow 3rd parties to send via text messaging services outbound via iMessage. So, for an Apple user, that’s basically everything. Without that, it’s just a hot mess of messaged marked read vs not read, duplicate delivery, and split existances. It’s like the old school days of having a pager.
Thanks for the reply, but I still don’t get it. Why can’t the Garmin watch simply act as a phone, independent of the iMessage ecosystem? Could it not simply send and receive via SMS? I get SMS messages all the time from my (unfortunate) Android friends. I don’t see the difference.
Not having to take a phone with me would be a game changer. But I don’t want to switch to Apple Watch and give up all the other functionality, would rather schlep my phone…
This watch doesn’t support SMS (it doesn’t get a unique phone number). It uses LTE for live tracking and to receive messages from Garmin servers using some proprietary protocol. I haven’t read how spectators can send messages but I suspect it will be through the Garmin map in the url they get when a live session is in progress.
It could and that’s how the Vivoactive 3 LTE worked but it would have to have a different phone number. If you’re an iPhone user, anyone who sends you a text sends it through iMessage so it would never make it to the watch. Anyone who has ever switched from iOS to Android without remembering to turn off iMessage can tell you how much it sucks to all the sudden just stop being able to receive message from your iPhone contacts.
Access to the SMS network is enabled by the various carrier networks and their infrastructure. They charge for outside access to these networks, a cost that is included in your normal monthly cell bill.
Your carrier provides a phone number to you, which associates to their SIM ICCID located inside your phone (either replaceable card, or onboard “permanently coded”). This is what enables the world to “find you” and vice-versa, that ID is what identifies your phone on the network to the carrier, and the carrier (for instant Verizon) translates that for messages to/from your device, to the world. (This is all setup when you activate your phone, tying it to your phone number on their service).
Garmin is paying the carrier(s) a fee to access that SMS network (and a pretty low one given a $5.99/user/month rate)… I remember the “old days” when carriers began adding SMS plans, it was something like $2/user/month, with a limit of “x” 160-character messages per month originally (like 50, or 100, something like that, been too long now)…
Part of the reason for limited functions, is it’s a contract-bandwidth-limited medium (again, wasn’t intended for mass data usage in the first place, but for small text-based notifications, and has grown/expanded in usage since someone first realized “hey, we can sell this to users”)
So why is this different? You don’t have a SIM card, and/or a phone number, the hardware ID is “built-in” to the phone as an LTE-based hardware ID. This means it can’t (or if it can, Garmin hasn’t said so) be changed/modified. And there is no specific carrier, Garmin IS the carrier for your watch on any random LTE backbone. This means it will (potentially, once all the agreements are sorted out) work anywhere that LTE is available worldwide (versus a “Verizon-LTE” device, that will only work on Verizon networks (or will incur extra fees to the service bill, for access to non-VZE carrier networks).
Now, why Garmin can’t (as implemented) offer unrestricted SMS implementations like you’d get on your cell phone (or full-blown cellular voice services especially) is 2-fold:
1- The fee (to increase functionality, would require increasing bandwidth/access costs to carriers, all of which would come back to you, the subscriber, as a higher bill monthly)
2- Frequencies and carrier services – Carriers use different frequencies for some of their base services (voice and data) and also, many still use GSM or CDMA for many of these services. Assuming the 945-LTE does not have variable frequency capabilities AND doesn’t support either GSM or CDMA (as that would require more chips, and knowing which carrier they need to support)… it’s pretty straightforward. Expanding to support various carriers requires “more stuff” in the device. It also requires (if allowing multiple carriers) the ability to change SIM cards for registration on the various networks…
3- Can’t remove/change the LTE SIM (LTE requires changing SIM cards for different carriers).
With the Garmin service on this device, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc, have no idea who you are (no published phone number, I would assume that Garmin does have a SIM/ICCID that points back to them specifically as the “service provider”).
In fact GARMIN is effectively the actual carrier in this instance, handling the routing/translation to/from your device via the SMS backbone over LTE, and their applications that handle the front-end features. Thus, no phone number, or SIM card, is needed, just the LTE hardware address burned into the watch. BUT that means you have to use the Garmin-provided services/applications to use anything, no one can simply “send you an SMS (or receive one) because phones (and their applications that you use for SMS features) depend on a phone number to initiate/terminate communications.
For the spectator feedback, the spectator has to use the Garmin-provided link and site, to send you a message, etc… because the Garmin infrastructure is the only system in the world that knows exactly what your device is (hardware ID) and how to route those messages to “find you” and vice-versa.
So basically the summary is:
– This watch has no SIM card slot like many cell phones do (to allow cell carriers to add it to whichever network you’d want by identifying the SIM to your hardware address)
– It currently has no customizable SIM-related phone network identification built-in to the firmware (at least not enabled if it has the capabilities, Garmin isn’t saying of course) and isn’t carrier-specifically burned-in, such as the Vivoactive LTE that is Verizon specific
COULD Garmin do a full featured “phone replacement” option with this watch? Possibly (if the chipset is fully capable and the ICCID is a “flashable SIM” onboard)… but it would cost a lot more for your monthly service subscription. If the ICCID is hard-coded (I suspect it is), then Garmin is permanently your LTE provider, and would have to scale their infrastructure up (and pass those costs to you) to be able to handle the increased volume/requirements. They also would have to add CDMA/GSM capabilities with multiple frequency support to allow flexibility for the various standards that are still in use today.
Hopefully that answers why, in this implementation, they haven’t, maybe can’t, make it a “cell phone replacement”… it’s not the goal, target, and if done that way, would cause regional/carrier limitations and/or increased costs, to provide the base services they are featuring on this model (might even make the rescue features somewhat impossible, at least as a “globally capable” unit, due to all the different carrier standards).
Meant to add but lost in edits, that $5.99/month fee is “low” because its’ probably majority of it going to Garmin’s actual InReach server center costs, the carrier-access SMS portion is probably $1-2/month of that total cost if even that much.
Hi and thanks, as always for those pretty damn cool insights,
I am impressed too by the way connectivity value was thought by garmin.
Adding monthly fees for connectivity + assistance completely make sense as well. Since Garmin is handling the provisioning of the connectivity per country, do you get worldwide connectivity when you travel or do you have to pay something else if you happen to travel abroad. I guess getting “worldwide” connectivity would be of big value to help people justify paying 6 USD per month
Also from a technical standpoint, you mention LTE-M connectivity. Do you have more technical stuff to put here. Is it a sequans or altair LTE only modem, which frequency bands are supported, does it support 3G/2G (and i guess it would not make that much sense)
Thanks anyway,
Bebaile
Speaking of middle children – who remembers the 645Music?
Let’s not forget all the children…FR225 and Epix too
Sadly, I do. I’d love to upgrade from my 645M but Garmin taught me that whatever I pick will get 2 updates then they shut off the lights and hide behind the couch when I stop by.
I’ve been going pretty strong with my F3 that I bought the week before the F3HR launched at CES. Really debating this, or the F6Pro – so rest assured if I order something the F6 will come out the next week.
They dropped the ball here. They added enough functionality to spark interest but not enough for anyone to upgrade. A couple cool first beat features probably would have tipped the balance. The personal safety features are impressive, but for the everyday athlete with a wife and baby at home, I was more interested in how LTE can be utilized to contact me in an emergency at home.This seems far to cumbersome and doesn’t solve the ultimate issue. Can I take this for a run and leave my phone behind? Unfortunately no. So the LTE functions fall flat for me and as badly as I love to upgrade I have no reason to
Ray- Do you prefer your forerunner over polar vantage v? I’ve been debating a switch to the polar universe for a while.Do you find the overall accuracy of metrics comparable? I wish we could get a device with the precision of Apple optical sensors but it seems like every device keeps getting less accurate with HR. It would be nice to just strap on a watch and go without a chest or arm band, phone etc. not much is discussed about resting HR. Garmin is fairly accurate but can get locked in from time to time. Thanks for the review as always, even though I’m passing on this on this one. Any speculation of polar or garmin releasing something more groundbreaking this year?
“So the LTE functions fall flat for me and as badly as I love to upgrade I have no reason to”
Well, to be fair if you simply enable Auto-LiveTrack like I do, your wife can use the Spectator Messaging to one-way message you that way. Works just fine. You won’t be able to respond however.
That’s the issue, she has no way to know you got the message – gotta be home to take kids to practice vs…just pretending to not see it and keep running lol
Erm, Frozen Slushy sensor?? Haha, now you got my mind running off on all kinds of tangents in what/how!!
Hula-hooping with fire and knives? Eep, I’ll pass on trying that one out :-D :-D
Trying to see if folks are reading the lists or just skimming? :-D
Great article as always! You’re still my go-to for any new equipment, even shoes, but definitely my Garmin!
Well I for one will NOT be getting one until they add RED flavour slushy support. Amateurs!
Seriously, though, I don’t think 10 seconds is very long to recover your senses after coming off your bike. I fell off a stationary skateboard the other day, winded myself and lay there for about 5 minutes recovering, in quite a bit of pain even though I knew I’d be fine eventually. It wouldn’t do any harm to make that delay a little longer.
Is the Fenix 6 still the only watch with XC ski power?
You need to read Ray more religiously!
copied from Ray’s post on ski power
1) A Garmin HRM-PRO chest strap
2) A Garmin FR945, Fenix 6 Series, Quatix 6 Series, Tactix Delta series, or MARQ Series watch (on a semi-recent firmware version)
3) Snow & Skis
Wonder when native running power is coming to the 945
Is the LTE sub a per device cost or per user (multiple devices when available)?
I too want to know this one… (I’d assume it’s per device)
But… if I buy an annual sub and upgrade watches can the subscription be transferred to a new device?
Thanks for the review
Give me a 945 enduro! I want the enduro battery life in a 945 package, no need for LTE (and get rid of that bezel!). I get the race athletes wanting the LTE, but I just think the average user either wants a full LTE package so they can ditch the phone or are going to carry their phone regardless and have no need for LTE. So this is a middle ground device that I don’t see very useful for the average athlete. Just my thoughts.
Hi Ray,
thanks for the review!
So this is essentially a 945 with InReach Mini functionality for “the normal people” (i.e. people who do sports within a network coverage region)?
The fonts look very nice, way nicer than on a current 945 / Fenix 6. Sad that it will stay like that :(
Comment from Garmin regarding Enduro being a special child kinda reminds me of Forerunner 645 watch, that was also “special” with its own platform and lack of updates.
P.S. “Frozen Slushy (Blue Flavor Only)” I wonder if it only supports the temperature or the state (Frozen, Partially melted etc) as well.
I knew that there would almost definitely not be voice on this but I’m really bummed about the lack of 2 way texting. I think the tracking and safety features are awesome but I think but being able to send texts would make me buy this today. I already get live tracking when I bike and while running would be good, that’s not enough for buying this
That’s not Garmin’s fault, blame Apple. It’s the same for any Garmin device that connects to an iPhone — receiving notifications and messages, check; replying to them, no way.
Allow it in the app at least? Or in the live track link? They could do this via the web very easily
Being able to read a message would already be a world’s difference. That way you know if you need to come back to the house for example. My wife’s water broke during my first 0.5 miles of a run and she texted me to come back.
And Garmin’s reply works great on Android phones. Even if there are a lot of iPhones in the US, they could fully support Android, and support viewing notifications for iPhones.
I was very excited for an LTE device, but this makes me consider an Apple Watch :(
She could text you via spectator messaging though. It’d be one-way, but you’d get it. I just have LiveTrack set to always e-mail my wife anytime I start an outdoor workout. That way she can now just text me via spectator messaging. Simple!
One way anyway…
Its not Apple’s fault the way I understand how this works. This is a design decision to not have people get a separate phone number for this. I can actually send a text message (sorta) today from my watch or bike computer if someone calls me and I decline. It’ll send a pre-canned SMS if I choose to.
If this device had its own phone #, it could absolutely send messages without relying on a phone app which would take away the Apple dependency. I honestly was hoping more for voice so I could take a meeting on the watch 8)
There’s definitely some good value in what this provides but I’m just not sure if its enough.
Correct, Garmin could have gone the same route as the VA3 LTE and required people to get separate numbers and carrier contracts, etc… But it’d have failed. Just like that failed (maybe Garmin doesn’t see it as a failure in terms of swallowing it as a technology learning experience, but ultimately, as a product…not so much).
This way, they can relatively easily negotiate bulk carrier type deals behind the scenes. It’s trivial compared to trying to negotiate consumer-facing deals country by country.
If its eSIM was registered with your carrier as a data-only device you wouldn’t need a phone number. Just like we can already do with tablets and computers that have the cellular hardware. You’d still miss out on text messaging but there are other ways to send and receive messages. Maybe later models will have this as an option.
I think if they made the spectator message have some permanence, I would see more value. You’re right, I mostly want to see messages from my wife rather than be able to send a message. I think she’d love to be able to track me during the swim leg of the race as well since that always makes her nervous. I always have livetrack on anyway.
I think if I think about it more I see the value especially given the cost.
Thanks for this review!
I think Garmin hit just the right balance with the LTE, and especially that you can receive txt and voice support during a race event.
Will the watch be able to use audio to read the lap times and pace info over BT?
Very curious to see how Ironman handles this. It’s one thing to have your kids send you a message about how great you’re doing. It’s another thing to have coaches sending real-time race information to professional athletes.
I don’t see how they could possibly police this for athletes. People already wear the apple watch which lets you send real messages anyway. The limited messaging on this isn’t that meaningful for coaching an age grouper
Yeah, not so much thinking about age groupers, but about pros. I could imagine it could be quite useful for a pro triathlete to get updates on the bike about how far back or ahead the competition is. Or, say, if a competitor has received a penalty. I agree that this is going to be very hard to police, which is why I’m curious if IM will even touch it or just cover their eyes and pretend it’s not happening.
This is the big question for me as well- what will Ironman do. I love getting updates like “you’re 2 minutes behind the next person in your age group” – also, the tracking for my family spectating is huge. Especially for more local races that don’t have a tracker app.
It’s not an issue for full distance racing as it only lasts 7 hours, once it’s a few months old that would be more like 6+.
Keep in mind the 7 hours figure is for LTE+Music, not just pure LTE (and you wouldn’t be listening to music in an IM race). The stats I’m seeing for non-Music LTE predict about a 10-12 hour battery duration. But I haven’t tried 5-minute intervals yet. On the list.
That’s a pretty tricky number though – plenty of folk in the 10 – 11 hour category and it looks like the watch won’t be reliable enough for its most obvious use (tracking your family member over an IM). For Olympic it is so short you can just tolerate the standing/sitting around so it isn’t really necessary. They really need to get the LTE plus GPS battery life out to the cut off time….
I’m wondering, can an app use LTE?
I could potentially build a widget, that uses LTE to mirror all notifications from the phone, without necessarily Garmin doing so. Or even build a full messaging app. But again not sure what this allows or not. 6$ a month seems slightly high for something to be only used during activities. I’ll still probably order one :/. But I’d rather pay 10$ a month and have a full LTE set.
Can the LTE functionality also be used to recover the position of a lost/stolen watch?
I’d like to know this as well. :)
How does the spectator messaging work from someone’s phone? If my wife is watching me run a race and wants to tell me “I am at mile 6 on the left” is that possible from her garmin connect app and/or garmin’s mobile site?
The one thing I’d like to see is a way to reply to messages on livetrack or some way to send outbound messages. Even just an “ok” or preset messages to a preset contact.
It’d be nice for the not quite “call an ambulance” emergencies… rather, the “get home right now” emergencies. I’d imagine the Emergency response center wouldn’t be pleased to be asked to just pass a message to the SO.
But I really like the focus. Very tempted to order one…
Doh. I see now that there is an option for friends and family emergency contact. All good, nothing to see here :)
Without the ability to text apart from the tracking feature I find it not worth the hit to the wallet or the battery life. That’s a feature id regularly use vs tracking. The sos feature is nice but I never would have used it running in fairly populated areas as a man. I could see how many women would appreciate the feature for peace of mind.
Thanks again for a great in-depth review. The one thing I miss is native power, so I can use Stryd without IQ-apps. In that regard. Is the 945LTE able to use more than 2 IQ-apps at once?
I don´t like the 1.2 ” Display and the big bezels. I don´t understand why garmin don´t uses at least the 1.3″ from Fenix 6 Pro. The same like in the venu 2, i don´t like it. So i have to wait for a light weight watch which has at least the display size of my Fenix 6 Pro (hopeful bigger, also biggest bezels ever like 10 years before ;) ).
Strangely, it’s not appeared on the Garmin UK website today (although the 55 has) so it’s difficult to know if it will be available in the UK. Any ideas?
At the moment UK is not included in any of the countries with LTE, so it makes sense not to release it before they have negotiated the carrier plans.
Hopefully they will sort that out soon and release the watch
Nearly 12 months after your post, and still no LTE option in the UK.
I wonder what happens if a person decides to send you a voice message but you don’t have headphones connected / paired with the watch. Will Garmin transcribe the message automatically? Will it prohibit sending the message in the first place (I assume Garmin can get the information from the watch on the bluetooth audio connection status)?
No, they don’t even get the option to send you a voice message until your headphones are connected. You can see the slight differences in the screenshots above between the Des one and the ‘Narrator’ one. For the Des one I had no headphones attached, versus for the Narrator one I did, and there’s a red recording icon.
Ray – i think you might be wrong about no “direct” messaging.
It appears that if you use “Assistance”, you can select a contact to send an “emergency” message to and then use the “keyboard” to type out whatever message you want. So, as i understand, there is a way to send a direct message – but it would be a pain in the butt and obviously not useful for general txting. But – as a soon to be 40 year old runner – i am looking for the ability to txt my wife and say “hey, knees are hurting can you pick me up”. Or if my wife txts and says “hey kid got hurt, can you come home”, you can respond (through assistance) with a “yes”.
I don’t give two hoots about the ability tweet or txt for fun while i am out for a run – I out for a run for goodness sake! But it seems like “assistance” could be used for non-emergency txts if you really wanted to. Perhaps Garmin will make this a standard feature rather than a work around in the future.
So, sorta. You sacrifice your workout to do it. For fun I tried it on the commute home tonight, and you trigger an assistance to a specific contact as you noted, but when you do that, it kills off your workout and then starts an assistance session.
You *CAN* though text whatever you want to that person, and then they can, using the spectator text feature, text back to you. They also get your position and a constant livetrack link.
But you can’t actually then send a follow-up message. So you can one volley to them, and they get unlimited volleys back to you. Or, you can end the session and do another volley. But it’s super cumbersome.
I agree though, I’d like a ‘non-crazy-emergency-ass’ text option for quick things to my wife for exactly what you described. Essentially taking the options to go back and forth like for the emergency assistance center, but with a defined contact.
Thanks for the confirmation! Sacrificing the workout sucks, but makes sense for how the system is supposed to be used. I like everything about the 945 LTE except for the inability to do some basic txting for situations we discussed. Clearly, the ability to do that is there in Garmin’s infrastructure (as evidenced by the workaround we discussed). Perhaps they are concerned about their network being overwhelmed at the start. But for $650, the lack of that feature is keeping me from pulling the trigger as with little kids – i know i will need it at somepoint. I am going to wait and see what happens over the next few months. Maybe Garmin will “open up” the txting options down the road – maybe you could ask?
What if you pause the workout and choose “Resume Later” could you then restart the workout after sending an “emergency” message to your contact?
LiveTrack but no music streaming via LTE? Is Garmin feeling hard for the data bill associated with music streaming?
No activity/hr syncs via LTE? This is strange, those file transfers are usually tiny.
This bodes well for 745/945 updates?
Activity/HR/step sync via LTE – Ray confirmed above.
Thanks, missed that.
Hula-hooping with Fire & Knives?
I would like to choose this activity!
But to get update notification
Are you able to take size and thickness comparison photo of 745, 945 and 945 LTE?
I’ve been toying with the idea to try the 745 due to its size, but have been holding off due to battery.
Hello, excellent review. I have 2 questions:
1) Does the Venu 2 have the function to see your HRV? Health Snapshot
2) Recovery, Training Load works well if you are not running, cycling or swimming? I would like to see my progress in HIT, crossfit and boxing
Garmin is the most infuriating company when it comes to how they make their device models.
Most companies offer a base level product with the fewest features. Then as you move up the product line you get more features as you pay more money.
But no, Garmin has to do stuff like this. A cheaper watch has HIIT, Bouldering, Health Snapshot, and cool features like that. But then a top-of-the-line model, doesn’t have some of those basic things. There is nothing in the Venu 2 that the Forerunner 945 LTE doesn’t have. So I don’t see why Health Snapshot is unique only to their mid-tier device. It isn’t a demographic problem, because Forerunner users would enjoy activities like HIIT or metrics like Health Snapshots. Likewise, HIIT and Bouldering are unique to that watch. But aren’t on their top-line watches. Usually they do propagate stuff through with software updates as time goes on, but there is no guarantee.
I like the idea of these activities, but they aren’t the main reasons I would get the watch. But the Bouldering I would use once a week (my rec center has a bouldering area and I use it as part of my workout once a week). For right now I just use a custom activity. I’d also like the HIIT activity. It can mostly be done on the F945 as a strength workout with stopwatch data field app installed. But it just seems silly to restrict it off a newer watch that is higher up the line.
Just a tiny note, that Bouldering is on the FR945 LTE. In fact, Bouldering first started off on the Fenix series last summer and was rolled out after that to other units.
That said, I do agree things like Health Snapshot should be rolled out to ‘more capable’ devices, and the tick-tock nature of Garmin’s releases between different business units (Vivo stuff is a different group than Forerunner) creates consumer confusion and frustration.
Any thoughts on when intervals will come to the Fenix 6 as an update?
Hey Ray!
Can you say anything about the availability of the 945 LTE? Garmin says “available this summer”. You apparently can already buy it in the US but for the German Garmin webshop I can’t choose to buy it.
That’s so sad. I’ve waited so long for this watch and last week the HR sensor of my 4 year old 935 died. Now it seems like I have to buy the regular 945 anyways :(
Garmin is correct. Last second changes shifted the other region availability dates to ‘this summer’. I think they want to see some stuff settle based on an upcoming firmware, and honestly, things that I stumbled into getting it up and running initially here.
Thanks Ray!
Do you think it’s a matter of days, weeks or months?
I suspect we’re talking mid-summer.
Hey Ray! I would appreciate your time and opinion again:
I now tried the regular 945 as well as the Fenix 6s Pro in the meantime… and things just got more difficult ;) I really like the compact design of the Fenix and the smaller bezel just looks so much better and more modern compared to the 945! The screen looks better as well – the 945 has kind of a blue tint compared to the Fenix. BUT the Fenix just burned through 33% of it’s battery within just 24h – normal use, with one longer track workout. I think that’s a no-go for me. I wore my 4 year old 935 on the other arm and it just took 15% in the exact same time and use case. Therefore the 945 is obviously the better choice for me, but it looks SO old in comparison. Now I need to somehow justify the over 200€ price-difference between 945 and 945LTE.
Can you say something in regards to the screen quality of the 945LTE compared to the regular 945 and maybe the Fenix 6s Pro? Other than that – the 945LTE is still not available in Germany. I have the possibility to order it through a Danish shop – do you think that one will work here in Germany as well?
Too bad. I like the emergency notification capability but won’t settle for screen size and battery life less than the Fenix 6X. Hope that the FR 955 offers that.
Why not do two way messaging in the live track link page or via the Garmin app? At least that’s a place to easily allow two ways comms. It’s not I message but it’s a hell of allot better than nothing.
Wife could bring up live track link and have chat box, or do it via garmin app.
Total missed opportunity and makes it’s worthless for me otherwise
Unless it’s just choosing preset messages like now when using connected phone, you’d have to use that rotary keyboard configuration so you’re not going to be having long conversations.
Will there be an update to the review for swim? Most interested to hear about open water accuracy and whether there is wrist based HR in the pool.
Yup! I’ll be headed to the lake tomorrow morning first thing.
I was going to go today, but I just went over there and due to being the hottest day of the year, it’s packed with partying boats right now (5PM), and honestly, kinda dangerous. But tomorrow morning I’m jazzed to get out!
The FR945 already supports optical HR in both pool and openwater. Accuracy varies as always in the water.
Awesome. Looking forward to hearing all about it. I appreciate your deep, experience-based reviews!
Also thanks for the info on swim HR. I lost track of this and didn’t realize the Garmin had finally followed the competition and made this available. Hopefully this means that swims are no longer essentially a “zero effort” with respect to training effect and recovery.
Very interested to hear if there is improved accuracy over the regular 945.
Do you know if the 945LTE is the same Sony GPS chipset as the Non-LTE 945?
6$/month for what boils down to an emergency message forwarder with hardly any utility outside of emergencies sounds kind of ambitious? That’s more than what many people pay for the insurance that would cover the actual helicopter operation.
But the helicopter can only get to you if it knows where you to find you, or that you need help. ;)
Ultimately though, you’re paying for more than the emergency stuff. You’re paying for the ability to use LiveTrack via LTE for day to day use, such as going out for runs w/o carrying a phone.
If you might need a helicopter, than I would carry an in-reach mini.
I have trained the wife to judiciously use the inreach to get me. And it only costs 10cents/hr which I can live with.
Which brings me to my question: I often carry my inreach mini on cycling and surfski (and skiiing etc) bc cell coverage is spotty where I am. If I pair an inreach, will it preferential use that for SOS and crash detection?
does it autosave workouts after a certain amount of time? The venu 2 had this feature that you couldnt turn off and it was super frustrating on rides where i would break for coffee!
On my FR645 I can choose “Resume Later” when a workout has been paused for a long break. This might be what you need to try in such situations.
Considering this vs the standard 945, if I don’t want to do the LTE plan, does this basically function like a standard 945? I’m tempted to just get onto the latest hardware available rather than invest similar money on 2+ year old hardware.
Hey ray.
LTE is a step in the right direction but any hints and when inreach will be baked into the Fenix series?
That would be a slam dunk for me…!
Since I believe many race ban headphones, at least for biking, the audio messaging or pace information would be unusable, right? I thought they might consider sound from watch, but it must add too much weight or complexity
Audio messaging would be unusable without headphones (or a BT speaker). Same goes for audio pace alerts. But display pace alerts is there.
In the UK bone conducting headphones, such as Aftershokz, are allowed for races as they do not block your ears. I feel a lot safer using those in trafic compared to in-ear headphones
Too bad this one doesn’t have a speaker like the Venu 2 Plus (or that the Venu doesn’t have LTE).
I currently leave my phone at home and run with a Fenix on one wrist and an Apple Watch on the other to stream music and let me make an emergency call/receive messages etc and have thought it would be cool if LiveTrack could work via the Apple Watch connection.
Nice solution that means I don‘t need to worry about what to sacrifice on my mobile contract that allows 3 devices and has an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch on it, if I decide to use this.
I think you‘re right that it will get pushed out on the next generation of devices pretty rapidly. Is there any indication from Garmin whether the subscription would cover multiple devices i.e. this or the next Fenix and the next gen Edge? $6 across multiple devices doesn’t seem unreasonable, $6 per device would be excessive.
Maybe a setting like the “Preferred Activity Tracker” could be implemented, in case you have multiple LTE devices in the future and you have to decide which one is using the LTE contract at a certain time. Otherwise it would be way to expensive or people would abuse it and have one contract for the entire family.
This is amazing!
Garmin has stepped it up, once again.
When cycling, I always bring my phone (stays in the back pocket of my jersey) — I take it out for the same reasons everyone else does; to take pictures, look at maps, or text/call in case you need help/emergency.
I don’t bring my phone on a run.
If I wanted Notifications on my watch, text messages, Twitter, etc; I would turn Notifications on; but I don’t. Maybe this makes me different than others, but I don’t use my Garmin watch for Notifications. If I want to check my text messages, Twitter, Email or Work Chat; I use my phone.
My Garmin is my watch (to tell time) and my primary health device and activity recorder; it is not my notifications center or my communications device. I don’t want my wife texting my during a ride or run asking when I will be back, or my mom asking me how my day was, or someone else. However, i do want my wife to text me during an emergency at home. And equally (maybe more) important, I want my device to take care of me when I am in an emergency; I want my primary contact to know but I want REAL immediate help in the event I really need that help. I’ll pay $6/mon for this.
Garmin has created something that is not just a notifications center connected to LTE – it is an extension and enhancement of the Garmin platform we use every day but now with connectivity for true real life sport relate d context. A connected Garmin platform — using their own connectivity — imagine the potential.
My guess is, Garmin saw that all the competitors (not much left after Garmin acquired Firstbeat) have very weak updates and decided not to release 955, instead they did facelift for 945. It is such “huge” upgrade, that Garmin even not putting post about it in Facebook, perhaps they don’t want to see user comments which will follow it. Don’t expect new Fenix with new features anytime soon, the best you can expect is facelifted Fenix.
Good point. It would be only logic if Garmin would issue a Fenix 6 LTE, with a couple more upgrades like the 945 LTE and then offer the new MARQ 2 with all the new bells and whistles before getting the 955 and F7 out to the public.
You guys do realize that the development cycles for these things are several months, if not years, right? I think there’s a limit to how responsive they are to others in the market, especially when you are Garmin and dominate the particular market.
I live roughly equally in two different countries that aren’t in the same common-antenna regions. So 1) the LTE stuff is pretty useless for me, right? Unless I bought two watches, one in each region? 2) Assuming that’s right, there probably isn’t a great reason to switch to this over the regular 945 (I have a 935 now) right?
Yeah, you’re hosed. Sorta like me. Living in the EU, but often in the states (on a normal year anyway). Would have to decide which one you like more.
Thanks, Ray. Super helpful as always. Maybe you are going to get at this in tomorrow’s post you referenced, but I would be curious to know what features might be looming on the horizon that we should weigh when considering an upgrade. I am still rocking a 935 and the 945LTE is a solid step up. Is there a feature set on your wish list that you are dying to see Garmin roll out? Not asking you to give away state secrets, but I don’t even know what else they could pack onto a FR that make me want to hold out for the next cycle. I am only using a fraction of all the available features – just seems unlikely that there is a game changing feature that would make me regret purchasing now.
I would’ve liked to see more fully-featured LTE stuff but ultimately, I want a watch that lets me leave my phone at home but still be able to send my wife a message that says “I’m hurt come get me” in an emergency and it seems like this can do that. Think I’m going to upgrade from my 245.
Correct, it will do exactly that, and in fact, there’s literally a pre-canned option for that. Or you can manually type it. She is then given the option to respond too.
Does it have to be a medical emergency… or could it be a be something like a bike mechanical 20 miles from the house in the middle of no where.
It doesn’t happen super often but when it does and I don’t have my phone with me… that would be amazing.
I know it’s not the same thing, but I have a couple of Connect IQ data fields which give you a lap summary during your activity. (One of them doubles as a 6-field “single run data field”, so you don’t have to waste 1 of your 2 precious Connect IQ slots on an app that only shows you a lap summary.
Lap+: link to apps.garmin.com
Lap Viewer: link to apps.garmin.com
Glad to hear Garmin finally added this as native functionality, although it would be nice to see it in all modes, and with customizable columns.
Has the display size remained the same compared to the original F945? How about the display resolution?
I would upgrade in a heartbeat if the display was upgraded to that of the F6.
Display size (1,2″) and resolution (240x240px) are exactly the same as the FR945
Bummer!
Thanks for confirming.
So when I mentioned the upcoming 945 LTE release in a comment a couple of weeks ago (after someone from Garmin told me about it and didn’t act like it was a secret) and you responded that you don’t see why that would be a thing, you already had one to do the testing?
Yup, that was back on April 20th (seems like just a few weeks ago, but was nearly 6 weeks ago). I didn’t have it then, and got it in early May.
FWIW, I was just genuinely curious. Would have totally understood your position if you had the watch already.
Release is perfectly timed for Father’s Day, already dropped a hint to my wife :)
>>Frozen Slushy (Blue Flavor Only)
This is blatant cherry flavor discrimination and I will not stand for it. Industry-wide slushy standards or bust!
Great review as always!
LTE is neat, but besides using a lot of power I wonder if some of the LTE functionality could be illegal to use in a lot of competitions according to current race rules and regulations. Especially the complication part. This is probably the case with similar watches as well.
It might be a case of tech evolving faster than the rules.
I meant communication not complication
Yup, I talk about that towards the end of the LTE section.
I’m left with the exact same problem I had before that release. My 935s altimeter is broke since ages. I sweared myself last year that I won’t head into the alps again without a functioning one. Now my HRM seems to give up as well as I just have straight lines all day – besides when I’m into a workout. So it’s really time for a replacement.
I really like the updated HRM and the smaller formfactor of the 945 LTE, but “summer” could be August which leaves me another mountain season with the broken altimeter. Additionally I probably would never use the LTE features, but pay a premium for them.
The solution could be either the regular 945 or the Fenix 6S Pro. They have maps, advanced sleep metrics and trail vo2 max – all features I’m looking forward to. Fenix has the smaller form factor and I would have something different looking on my wrist – for the cost of 11h GPS time (25 vs 36). 945 would be the same size and looks as my 935 but with the better battery. There isn’t a bad choice, right? But I can’t help myself: buying a 6S Pro or regular 945 leaves me with the feeling to pay good money for an old product.
Do you have any opinion / suggestion on my first world “problem”?
Fenix 6 has some very extended battery modes, though I’m not sure what features they may impact:.
From Garmin F6S page specs:
Max Battery GPS Mode: Up to 50 hours
Expedition GPS Activity: Up to 20 days
Just to clarify does the 945LTE not have the HIIT profile that the Venu 2 does have?
Oddly, it does not. I just triple-checked my unit again, and no HIIT. I’ll ask if that’s expected.
Thank you for checking on that. I thought it was odd too when I didn’t see that activity listed in your review, especially when the nearly $300 dollar less Venu 2 has it. That’s definitely one of the features that has me thinking of moving up from my vivoactive 4 and while there are a couple Connect apps that mimic it, Garmin’s built in option looks much more user friendly.
Piggy backing off the HIIT profile not being on the 945LTE it seems like the health snapshot option from the Venu 2 isn’t there either.
I checked on HIIT for the FR945LTE, and they said it’s coming. It’s currently scheduled for a maintenance firmware release in the fall, but as usual, things can slide around.
Thank you for the update!
between this and the 55, does that mean we can expect feature roll outs to the Fenix 6/945/745/245… to stop? I’ve had the 945 since release, so no actual cause for complaint, but I have enjoyed some of the recent improvements
I don’t expect so, at least for some features. Unknown on everything. Obviously, according to typical Garmin timeframes we’re beyond that two-year window, but there’s also not a true successor to any of them yet.