Garmin SLEEP TRACKING now on the 745 – 245 gets adaptive training

Finally! many of you will be delighted that Garmin has added SLEEP tracking to the 745. The cut down version of adaptive training/Daily Suggested workouts on the 245 is also very welcome and useful.

Some caveats…it’s only in beta and the 945 should follow suit real soon.

new Full Feature Details

There are some BIG TICKET features on offer and it might be worth risking downloading these – the beta will NOT be automatically added to your watch but once the full release is released the beta will be correctly overwritten.

Forerunner 745 New Additions (Beta Firmware 4.85)

• Added sleep tracking widget with sleep score and insights by Firstbeat Analytics.
• Added the ability to rate the perceived effort and feel of a Run, Bike, or Swim activity. The prompts appear during activity save. Go to [Activity] Settings > Self Evaluation for options.
• Added Ultra Run activity profile.
• Added VO2 Max for Trail Run activities.
• Added metabolic calories into the total calories reported in the calories data field and recorded in the activity file.
• Improved results for daily Body Battery calculations.
• Improved feedback on stress level readings.
• Improvements to swimming activities.
• Updated Intensity Minutes determinations to align with guidance from CDC.

Forerunner 245 New Additions (Beta Firmware 6.85)

• Added Daily Suggested Workouts (limited) for Run activities. Go to Training > Workouts > Today’s Suggestion for options.
• Added the ability to rate the perceived effort and feel of a Run, Bike, or Swim activity. The prompts appear during activity save. Go to [Activity] Settings > Self Evaluation for options.
• Added VO2 Max for Trail Run activities.
• Improved results for daily Body Battery calculations.
• Improved feedback on stress level readings.
• Improvements to swimming activities.
• Updated Intensity Minutes determinations to align with guidance from CDC.

Forerunner 945 New Additions (Beta Firmware 6.85)

• Added sleep tracking widget with sleep score and insights by Firstbeat Analytics.
• Added the ability to rate the perceived effort and feel of a Run, Bike, or Swim activity. The prompts appear during activity save. Go to [Activity] Settings > Self Evaluation for options.
• Added Ultra Run activity profile.
• Added VO2 Max for Trail Run activities.
• Added metabolic calories into the total calories reported in the calories data field and recorded in the activity file.
• Updated Intensity Minutes determinations to align with guidance from CDC.
• Improved results for daily Body Battery calculations.
• Improved feedback on stress level readings.
• Improved altimeter auto calibration during activities.
• Improved power meter calibration and settings.
• Improvements to swimming activities.

What does all this mean?

VO2max TRAIL – we first saw this on the Enduro. Essentially this requires all the same underlying bits of data as would running power. Draw your own conclusions! If you are doing any kind of off-road running and are interested in maintaining a sensible recorded VO2max then use this profile. Personally, I would NOT do that for the occasional run and only use it if you perform lots of trail runs.

Ultra Run Profile – Again this is a ‘does what it says on the tin’ feature. The 745, 945 and 245 should have enough juice for some Ultras and if you run those kinds of races you will be happy. I’m wondering if ClimbPro descents will be added as well as the rest stops? Yes for the latter and no to the former would be my guess.

The sleep tracking widget and sleep score on the 945/745 are interesting. Sleep analysis and ranking are two massively key features for the market. At this point, it was strange that it took so long to arrive on the 745/945.

Is Garmin the best sleep tracker? Find out here

RPE monitoring – This feature has been on Garmin Connect for quite some time. Without checking I’m assuming ANYONE can add this to any workout. So what’s new is that you can now rank your workout’s RPE on the watch. It’s kinda like what Suunto did years ago and, if I’m honest, it gets VERY annoying VERY quickly when it keeps popping up after workouts. The great thing with Garmin is that they always want to complicate their menus a little bit more by adding options to disable these kinds of features 😉 Theoretically, RPE can be used as an input to some Training Load calculations and Polar did that on the Vantage. I’m reasonably sure Garmin doesn’t do this and probably won’t do this. So the usefulness of RPE tracking is limited.

All the 3 Forerunners get the improved body battery calcs which were historically underweighted toward sleep quality. However as I touched on in this article, the mysteries of Garmin’s Body Battery may well not reflect any HRV science. There are better ways… That said, if we can get resting/sleep HRV then someone can put Garmin to the test.

Buy: Garmin Forerunner 945 (here)
Buy: Garmin Forerunner 745 (here)
Buy: Garmin Forerunner 245 (here) – £219 on Wiggle for Platinum members, $249 for Amazon.com