We’ve had some good trailers for today’s announcements of new LIVE Garmin firmware on Forerunner/Fenix devices…ie the beta releases a couple of weeks back. Well, now many (most?) of those features are live and there are slightly more details on what some of the features precisely involve in some cases
Here are all the important new features and a link to the full detail of individual watch models which also covers minor improvements and bug fixes.
Let me pre-empt the question on many people’s lips – “WHERE IS THE SLEEP WIDGET ON MY XYZ?” A: IDK, it’s not here. I want it too. (BTW: first in v9 on Fenix 6 from June 2020)
Garmin Forerunner 245 (M) (Review) – firmware details link
- Added support for the Track Run activity, which allows you to record outdoor track data, including lap splits and distance in meters, on a standard shape 400m track.
- Added support for Improved Recovery Time, which takes your stress, sleep, relaxation, and physical activity into consideration.
- Improved optical heart rate performance.
- Added a Save Location option to the Navigation menu.
Garmin Forerunner 745 (Review) – firmware details link
- Add Grit and Flow Metrics
- Add Indoor Climb and Bouldering Profiles
Garmin Forerunner 945 (Review) added a while back – firmware details link
- Added support for Daily Suggested Workouts, which are recommended based on previous activities. You can disable this from activity settings. (Run/Bike > Menu > Training > Workouts > Today’s Suggestion.)
- Added support for the Track Run activity, which allows you to record outdoor track data, including lap splits and distance in meters, on a standard shape 400m track.
- Added support for Improved Recovery Time, which takes your stress, sleep, relaxation, and physical activity into consideration.
- Added support for Bouldering and Indoor Climb activity profiles.
- Added support for Grit and Flow features for mountain biking activities. Grit measures the overall difficulty of a ride, and Flow measures how well you maintain your speed throughout the ride.
- Improved optical heart rate performance.
Garmin Fenix 6X/6S/6 (Pro) (Solar) (Review) – (6s Pro, 6s Pro Solar)) firmware details link, (6s 6s solar) , (6x 6x solar), (6, 6 Solar)
- Added support for Daily Suggested Workouts, which are recommended based on previous activities. One can disable this from activity settings. (Run/Bike > Menu > Training > Workouts > Today’s Suggestion.)
- Added support for the Track Run activity, which allows one to record outdoor track data including distance in meters and lap splits on a standard shape 400m track.
- Added support for Improved Recovery Time, which takes users stress, sleep, relaxation and physical activity in consideration.
- Added support for configuring non-zero power averaging for Biking activities. (Activity Settings > Power Averaging)
- Added support for configuring backlight settings during the sleep window. (Settings > System > Backlight > During Sleep.)
- Added support for training and breathwork workout categories to properly handle launching workouts from calendar view and prompting yoga, strength, cardio, breathing, and pilates workouts.
- Added Training Status explanation tip in the Training Status widget.
- Added support for displaying the map scale when panning/zooming the map.
BETA Garmin Fenix 5 Plus – firmware details link 5 Plus, 5X Plus, 5S Plus
Changes made from version 13.72 to 13.73:
- Fixed an issue with Livetrack auto start.
- Fixed an issue with CIQ data field editing.
- Brought in several code improvements to support CIQ SDK 3.2.
Changes made from version 13.71 to 13.72:
- Added support for watch face and data field settings with CIQ 3.2.
- Added support for data field alerts with CIQ 3.2.
Garmin MARQ Athlete (all MARQ are same) – firmware details link
- Added support for Daily Suggested Workouts, which are recommended based on previous activities. One can disable this from activity settings. (Run/Bike > Menu > Training > Workouts > Today’s Suggestion.)
- Added support for the Track Run activity, which allows one to record outdoor track data including distance in meters and lap splits on a standard shape 400m track.
- Added support for Improved Recovery Time, which takes users stress, sleep, relaxation and physical activity in consideration.
- Added support for configuring non-zero power averaging for Biking activities. (Activity Settings > Power Averaging)
- Added support for configuring backlight settings during the sleep window. (Settings > System > Backlight > During Sleep.)
- Added support for training and breathwork workout categories to properly handle launching workouts from calendar view and prompting yoga, strength, cardio, breathing, and pilates workouts.
- Added Training Status explanation tip in the Training Status widget.
- Added support for displaying the map scale when panning/zooming the map.
All via: gpsinformation.net
Garmin Firmware – lots of updates to Fenix, Forerunner, Edge
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Any thoughts why the 645 was omitted. Feels like more marketing than technical?
yeah, we’re due a 655/955 … I smell something big(ish) coming on the features front. And I’m talking aromas not odours.
So, FR655 is still cooking? Any time soon, like before Christmas/New Year?
there’s no intel on the 655.
There IS other intel that I’m pulling together with the help of friends at MI5/CIA, naturally the rampant speculation at the end of it may well churn out the numbers 6…5…5. or not.
It’s good to have friends in high places. 🙂 Let’s see what comes out of it, garmin army is getting bigger and bigger.
DCR had this comment on the 645 back in Aug – “Note – I did confirm this week that for the FR645 feature firmware updates, that “that ship has sailed””
From forums.garmin.com:
“In regards to the sleep widget to get the latest information out there and available. While preparing to release our new on-device sleep algorithm on the Forerunner devices we found that some beta testers had more accurate results on the previous versions. As a result, we have removed the feature to further review results so our customers can ultimately have the best sleep algorithm experience. We are actively testing and verifying the algorithm on a wider audience and hope to release a public beta in the coming months. Thank you all for your patience as we continue to make improvements and listen to your feedback”
+1
thank you Chris
Seems like the VA line will be left out:
Garmin-AmberD 5 days ago
Hello! If you are experiencing any issues with the sleep tracking, I am happy to troubleshoot for you. Or if you have any feedback regarding the sleep track, I can send this to my team. As for Firstbeat sleep, this is not a feature for the vivo devices.
wow.
vivoactive/venu? jeez. that’s a mistake.
Have you ever try to tried or heard about wearing watch upside down?
https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-945/243888/i-wore-the-watch-upside-down-on-my-wrist-and-got-smooth-gps-track-results
It seems that it really produces better results
I like to keep an open mind and sit on the fence
but that’s (probably) absolute nonesense !
for a start the aerial would be pointing the wrong way and the body would obscure the signal more worn on the inside of the wrist
I *DO* wear watches on the inside of the wrist and that is DEFINITELY not better (exceptions always exist from time-to-time, from metre-to-metre)
however i think this guy is talking about wearing them literally upside down. (No sane person will have tried that…including me!!). I suppose there is a random vague unlikely almost inconceivable possibility that there will be a more consistent signal that’s bounced off the ground that could give better results in some circumstances
Summary: life is too short to try this.
This would indicate that the antenna is located at the “top” of the watch, so it normally points towards the ground (thus giving worse signal input conditions).
The images in that forum post indicates that the user ran on one side of the street going out, and the other going back. To make a true 1:1 comparison, you should run on the same side of the street (to ensure you have similar coverage from trees and buildings). Testing with two watches on the same arm would of course be even better 🙂
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
(scream of pain, it’s a waste of electronic ink)
Pitty that teardowns of Garmin watches are not common.
Going to give those suggested workout a go on the 945 for a while just to see what happens. Has anyone been following them since them appeared a few weeks back?