Garmin Forerunner 945, 245 – New Swim Features Added

5 December 2019

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Some of the new swimming features in Garmin’s Swim 2 watch are continuing to be rolled down to other devices and are now out on the 945 and FR245, albeit in beta. But you can get them now if you like

945 – link here
FR245 – link here

These are the new features in detail and the one that I think is most useful is AUTO REST. Pool swimming seems to have become a little comedyesque these days where it seems now that everyone in my lane HAS to press that unpause button before heading off. That’s one reason why I’ve enjoyed using FORM’s SWIMMING GOGGLES as they have a similar auto-pause feature built-in as well as now beaming HR live into your goggles.

Add Garmin Swim 2 Features: advanced swim workouts, auto rest, Critical Swim Speed (945 only), Swim Pacing Alerts (945 only)
Added all-day respiration, respiration widget, and breathwork activity
Improved treadmill calibration
Added Pilates

I actually did a pilates session this Monday and was disappointed to see there was no pilates sports profile. Well, there is now.

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inSyt

11 months ago

Forerunner 645 once again missing out. Firstbeat license excuse does not stick for these features. They should just stop selling it at this point.

tfk, the5krunner

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Reply to inSyt

11 months ago

yeah that’s an interesting omission.
there’s obviously the 655 coming soon but even with that in mind, it doesn’t seem right that the 245 gets the features and the 645 does not.

inSyt

Reply to tfk, the5krunner

11 months ago

Very weird indeed, the 645 never got the PacePro (not a Firstbeat feature) update as well.

All-day respiration, respiration widget, and breathwork activity? Is this the Firstbeat Respiration Rate Metric? If yes, this update is very very interesting indeed.
https://www.firstbeat.com/en/consumer-feature/respiration-rate/

tfk, the5krunner

Author

Reply to inSyt

11 months ago

FB’s resp rate is a relatively basic feature based on hrv. it’s on Marq/f6/945/530 and 830 and more recently being rolled out to other watches.

645 is from spring 2018 and you would have though should still get the features you’re talking about as it is still the top pure running watch from garmin (until the 655 next spring).

ChrisTexan

Reply to tfk, the5krunner

11 months ago

The key thing I’m seeing in all these updates, the optical HR sensor pack on the 645 is “previous gen” compared to all the rest. Likely the actual coding for that sensor is different, and no real incentive for them to back-code for a dead-end, 2yo product. Sucks for owners of that, sometimes you don’t know you are buying the “last of a line” until it’s too late.

Ciro

Reply to tfk, the5krunner

11 months ago

Spring :/ :/ ??!! Well was hoping to get a 655 after hearing that the 245 had a lot of problems with the buttons…. nothing to expect for the ces 2020 ??!!

tfk, the5krunner

Author

Reply to Ciro

11 months ago

i don’t know the answer.
A big CES announcement could of course be possible. IDK when retial availability would happen…it’s often later.

Rob F

11 months ago

I’ve found a few of the “various other […] improvements” in the 945 3.77 beta:
– Estimated sweat loss in an activity (this wasn’t on Garmin Connect on my run Thursday morning but is on today’s run – I installed beta on Thursday afternoon). Hydration tracking widget is not yet supported, but maybe this shows it’s on the way?
– under the controls menu (wheel of shortcuts on long hold power) you can add an Airplane Mode. I’ve found this will cut power consumption in watch mode by about 1/2 (uses about 0.2% bat/hr vs 0.4% in not-airplane mode)

There’s probably more I haven’t stumbled across yet.

tfk, the5krunner

Author

11 months ago

that’s interesting.
i’ve never tried out that feature and my watches invariably always say that the temp is 30 degrees celcius…give or take ie influenced by body temp. maybe this would work with a phone present and hence weather info?
it would also need a ‘sweat like a donkey yes/no’ option adding in there somewhere for me

Benedikt

11 months ago

I think it works with only weather, like in the Edge series.

The in watch temp shouldn’t be visible to users, its only for the barometer sensor. I don’t understand why Garmin made it visible, its confussing.

The emoji support like in the latest Fenix beta was added as well, but not mentioned because Garmin can’t do proper change logs. Neither on their devices, nor on their apps.