Garmin – Forerunner 245 GPS Smartwatch 30mm Fiber-Reinforced Polymer – Slate

I had the Vivoactive line of watches and loved them, but couldn’t get the 4 because of my work and the including of Spotify, etc. So, I went for this model and have to say that I really enjoy it! At first I thought it was touch operated like the Vivoactive, but that was my fault for not realizing. However, I enjoy the button operation better as the touch operation can be pretty finicky. My only complaint is that the battery, if you use the GPS tracking on it, does not last but more than maybe 3 days. So, I’ve gotten used to charging it more regularly. Overall, I’d recommend this watch.

This is my first Garmin watch, which replaced my 5+ year old TomTom running watch and my 2 year old Samsung Galaxy Watch. As a regular runner, my primary intent with this was for running. And as far as that aspect goes, it’s been fantastic. It fixes all of the major gripes I had with my old watches. The GPS acquires faster than my previous watches and is accurate throughout the run. The built-in run/walk alert timer is a vast improvement over my old watch’s interval feature, the physical buttons are easier to use with sweaty hands than a touchscreen or capacitive touch display is, and having a designated backlight button is fantastic. The display is clear and easy to see, even in low light. The button layout and user interface aren’t too tricky to get used to and are fairly intuitive after a couple of days of use. The heart rate monitoring is on par with what I’ve come to expect for wrist-based monitoring, the watch syncs fast and autonomously with the Garmin Connect smartphone app, and the battery life is phenomenal by comparison to other watches I’ve owned. I ran about 24 miles in the first week that I owned this watch, using GPS, heartrate monitoring, and a run/walk interval alert timer. With those 24 miles of running along with 7 full days and nights of consistent use, I still had about 25% battery left. I don’t think that it’s a stretch at all to say that I could get 9 or even 10 days out of this battery, and maybe even closer to 2 weeks if I wasn’t using it for running 3-4 times a week.
As a smartwatch, it’s actually been pretty darn good, although I am going to have to get used to being tethered to my phone via Bluetooth once more (my previous Samsung was a standalone 4G device). I haven’t installed any additional apps or widgets so far, but those which came installed on the watch have worked well. The Bluetooth range is fairly impressive, and I can get notifications on my watch with my phone multiple rooms away. I can get anything from call, text and email notifications, to calendar reminders and various social media notifications if I so wish, although I’ve turned most of that off due to the constant buzzing.
As for some of the other gimmicky features, they are a bit more hit and miss. One feature that is kind of neat but I don’t really put a lot of faith in is the body battery/stress feature. It supposedly tells you how your rest and activity charge/discharge your energy status, but as it doesn’t take into account what you eat, one has to wonder how accurate it is. Also, I got the thing to bottom out at 5% after a 15 mile run one day, even though I felt fine, and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere below that. The stress feature I think uses heart rate to estimate, but I’ve seen some suspicious looking values at unusual times on that particular chart. Sleep tracking seems a bit more reliable, as the time I’m asleep is pretty accurate, although I question how it claims to know what stage of sleep I’m in, when and for how long.
One of the features I was very much looking forward to was the pulse ox sensor. As a runner who has a tendency to turn blue in the lips after extremely long runs, I have been known to clip a dedicated pulse oximeter onto my finger post-run just to monitor myself for a bit afterwards. So I was more than willing to pay the $100 upcharge for the Forerunner 245 over the less expense Forerunner 45 (which offers mostly the same features otherwise) for the pulse ox sensor feature. Unfortunately, that particular feature seems to be mostly garbage, as every single reading I’ve ever gotten with this device was 95%. Laying in bed, 95%. Just ran 13 miles, 95%. I have absolutely no faith in this being an accurate sensor.
One other feature I was eager to try out was the pace alerts, as I figured this would give me a sort of virtual pacer during workouts and races when I didn’t have a pace group to run with. I set a maximum and a minimum pace, and the watch did a good job of notifying me every 30 seconds that I was ahead of or behind my specified pace range. However, I was hoping that it would use an average pace rather than an instantaneous pace, because as I am a run/walk interval runner, I naturally run faster than my target pace, and I walk slower, so I’m apparently NEVER within my target range. As a result, that thing beeped at me EVERY 30 seconds throughout my entire run. Needless to say, I won’t be using that feature very much!
I haven’t tried out any other workout features so far, nor have I had any reason to test out the incident detection safety monitoring system (I guess I just haven’t fallen on my face yet since I got the watch). There’s a lot more that the watch says it will do, either on its own or by use of the Garmin Connect app, but I either haven’t gotten around to trying them out yet, or won’t be able to due to lack of interest or biological hardware (here’s looking at you, menstrual cycle tracking!)
All in all, I am extremely happy with this watch, and it was definitely a good purchase. Other than being a bit disappointed in the pulse ox feature, I am very pleased overall. If you don’t run with your phone and you like to listen to music on your workouts, spring for the music version of this watch. If you don’t need music or if you carry your phone already, save yourself the $50 and get this one. Or… maybe just get the $200 Forerunner 45. I can’t speak to the specifics of that one, but I can’t imagine it’s all that much different than this.

For the past 5 years I have been a Fitbit user. I had the Alta HR for the last 3 years. When its battery began to die, I looked for something a little smarter and in a more traditional watch format.
After looking at Fitbit, Samsung, and Apple’s offerings, I settled on Garmin and the Forerunner 245 GPS, specifically. It had just enough smart features without things like a microphone, which I didn’t need.
For the first couple of days I wore it in parallel with the Fitbit. I averaged around 12,000 steps each day and the Garmin was about 500 steps behind the Fitbit. I used the default strides on both devices, so that could account for the differences.
The sleep tracking on the Garmin is way off. The Fitbit was not always accurate, but it did seem to align with how I felt when waking up each morning. The Garmin rarely shows the times I’m awake in the middle of the night even when I specifically recall being awake for a few minutes. Even in the mornings, if I lay in bed for 15 or 20 minutes after waking up, the Garmin shows that extra time as sleep.
I don’t find the watch interface or app intuitive. Trying to do something as simple as setting an alarm requires going through multiple menus. It also took multiple attempts to get a display I liked with all of the pertinent info I wanted on the main watch screen to show up and in a large enough font for me to see.
Those are all of the knocks. Here’s the good news…
The band feels like it is of a much higher quality than the Fitbit bands. In the 3 years I had the Alta HR, I went through three Fitbit bands and then 3 or 4 knock-off bands.
The watch face is very easy to see in daylight. The notification screens are easy to scroll through and I like that it has canned responses you can select for replies from the watch.
The GPS works well and is one of the simpler apps to use on the watch.
I used the GPS for walking twice at an hour for each walk. I charged the watch after 5 days, but I still had more than 25% battery, which probably would have lasted me at least 2 more days.
Having the weather app on there is also convenient. I haven’t tried to tweak it, but it appears to update just once each morning. Having more up to date weather information would be nice, but it works for me as is.
The big question is if this is worth it for the price of $299. There are certainly other watches that are easier to use and have more functions at that price range. The sturdiness of this watch leads me to believe it will probably last longer than those other watches. It’s also possible one of the lower priced Garmins watches would have sufficed. For me, though, I’m happy enough with this watch.

Works great for everything you would expect from a fitness watch. Not so smart that I would distract you from exercising. Screen could be a little brighter but can be seen well enough in the sunlight. Overall I’m happy with it