Big Garmin Public Beta Update Adds 25 New Features to 2025 Watches

Slowly but surely, we’re starting to see the benefits of Garmin’s consolidated platform take effect. I believe this is the very first time we’ve seen every device on the new platform get/start the public beta on the exact same date/time. Previously, they’ve been offset by days/weeks (even a month), but yesterday marked a notable milestone.

All of the devices below got a new public beta, of which most of those devices got near-identical sets of features. Primarily the upper-end Fenix 8, Forerunner/Venu X1 devices, with the ‘mid-range’ (in spirit, not price) getting less features (at least according to the release notes).

This is largely the result of all of these devices now sharing the exact same underlying codebase, which mostly reached full tribal-merge status back this past summer, but even those public betas were a bit scattered on release times.

In any case, this beta has a huge set of new features, including a new battery burn one that I think is super well executed. Here’s what’s new in the Fenix 8 Series devices, with many of these also being available in the Forerunner 970 series.

Added ability to show seconds when in Always on Display mode.
Added Accessibility menu.
Added Album art background for Music Controls.
Added Battery Manager.
Added confirmation page when selecting language.
Added Course Planner.
Added Cycling safety Voice Alerts.
Added Display Color Modes.
Added font scaling to Garmin Messenger.
Added Garmin Fitness Coach.
Added help text to many menus.
Added Lifestyle Logging glance.
Added missed notifications prompt after finishing an activity.
Added Mixed Session activity type.
Added more Alarm sounds options.
Added new Voice settings menu.
Added Optimal Sleep Window.
Added option to see floors climbed in Evening Report.
Added Post-Dive Activity guidance.
Added Sleep Alignment to Sleep glance.
Added Smart Notifications to the Stage Status menu.
Added Sports Scores.
Added support to launch the Health Status app with Voice Commands.
Added translated “Loading” string when switching languages.
Added Weight Tracking glance.
+ A Gazillion bug fixes per the release notes for each

Here’s the release notes for each unit series, in case you want more details. Keep in mind that if there’s things missing in the 570/970, Garmin does often add more features later in the public beta cycle (which typically lasts 1-2 months). Though, we haven’t quite seem them all launch on the exact same day before, so…not sure how that changes things (if at all):

Garmin Fenix 8, Fenix 8 Pro, Enduro 3, Fenix E, Quatix 8, Tactix 8 Series
Garmin Forerunner 570
Garmin Forerunner 970
Garmin Venu X1
Garmin Venu 4
Garmin Vivoactive 6

I also suspect there are features that Garmin added to all of these watches, but given the ordering of each watches release notes is different (probably by different teams), it wouldn’t surprise me if there are features in some watches even if they aren’t listed on the release notes. For example, the Fenix team added a gazillion bug fixes to the release notes, but the Venu/Vivoacitve team didn’t mention any. Obviously, those bug fixes are in there too…just not noted.

Also, keep in mind that with the Venu products, some of those features were *already* rolled out to those units back this past fall (or launched with them), effectively reducing the overall list a bit.

Inversely, I’d argue that slowly but surely, the Fenix E might almost be a viable purchase at the right price, depending on how much you value flashlight/ECG vs firmware features.

Anyways… in the video above I walk through all these features, most notably the new battery burn menu, as well as the sports scores feature, and a number of other ones that were most interesting to me.

With that – thanks for reading!

FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!

Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.

Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon

Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. 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. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.