Garmin Insider News

Garmin CIQ 5 comes to ‘old’ watches, what does this mean for you?

Garmin Vector 910XT Calibrate Pair
Garmin 910XT Calibrate/Pair

Beta Rollouts for older Garmin Watches as they get CIQ System 5

 

OK I fess up, your old FR305 or FR 910XT are definitely not going to get CIQ5 but the 745, 245(M) and 945 received CIQ System 5 in this week’s round of beta updates. This means CIQ5 (API 4) support will get formally rolled out to those watches within weeks.

So what?

Well, back in October 2021 Garmin quietly announced the new capabilities for 2022 which we have recently seen appearing as new features on the Fenix 7, Instinct 2 and Venu 2 Plus. These new features include new watch metrics, new analytics and the ability to have the CIQ store on the watch and to make watch settings on the Connect smartphone app. There are also AMOLED features that will obviously only come to AMOLED watches but, as we saw yesterday with the D2 Air X10, AMOLED is likely to start appearing more widely across Garmin’s range.

Watches as far back as the Fenix 5 Plus can theoretically support CIQ System 5 (API level 3.2) but that doesn’t mean to say that Garmin will invest to deliver that.

It will be interesting to see if any of the CIQ5 features have come to the watches with today’s firmware rather than just the ambiguous ‘support for things to come‘.

What other devices can support Connect IQ System 5, API Level 4?

The support we know for CIQ 5 covers these watches Descent Mk2, Edge 530 to 1030 Plus, Enduro, Fenix 5 Plus onwards, FR 55, FR245/745/945/LTE, MARQ, Vivoactive 4, Venu/SQ and Venu 2. I reckon all those will eventually get CIQ5 with the one least likely to receive it being Fenix 5 Plus.

This link is updated by Garmin (and has been updated today (10Feb): garmin.com

API Level 4 is only listed for Fenix 7, Epix Gen 2, Venu 2 Plus, although the Venu 2 is also listed with the highest API Level of 4.1 (for CIQ System 5). Fenix 6 Pro (only Pro) is listed with the highest 3.X API level of 3.3.0 as a preview for CIQ System 5.

 

Summary: Watches that will receive CIQ 5 will either have that compatibility specifically stated by Garmin in firmware releases or deduced from having API level support of either 4.1 or 3.3. (Or something like that, it’s confusing)

Again: This link might show what could still come as new features for CIQ5 watches like the 945/745.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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12 thoughts on “Garmin CIQ 5 comes to ‘old’ watches, what does this mean for you?”

  2. Would be nice if the GC app could deal with the settings on the watch for the 945. Is that part of all this?

  3. 🙁 Oh well, the 955 won’t be for me, 965/975 perhaps which should have one of those nice AMOLED screens like the new Epix.

  4. It’s not like they had much of a choice: with Marq in their portfolio they can’t really afford to to burn bridges for older generation hardware at every turn. And when you already go through the pains of maintaining compatibility, it’s a very small step to keep lesser lines in the loop as well.

    1. If I remember correctly Garmin told DCR back in Aug ’20 that the ship had sailed on anything new for the 645. I should know as I had one & it’s still being used by the person I sold it onto.

    2. I have FR645 and it’s the most disappointing piece of sports hardware that I ever had. Not because it’s a bad watch. In fact, it has a really nice design with the metal bezel, barometric altimeter and Garmin Pay. The disappointing part of its story though, is how quickly Garmin has forgotten that they’ve released FR645. I have been hoping that it will get some of the nice features from cheaper 245, e.g. track mode, virtual run mode and PacePro. Even if it was supposed to be the highest range of running watches by Garmin (745 and 945 are triathlon focused), it has received zero new features in the firmware updates.

      This Garmin’s approach led me to abandoning it as a brand. I have switched to Wahoo Bolt v2 from Edge 520, I’m using AW SE as my daily smartwatch and for sports usage I’m waiting for a new model of Rival (or whatever it’ll be called) by Wahoo.

  6. Not sure if this is relevant with all new watches and firmware levels, but Garmin also increased number of badge point levels. I was long overdue with the final 5th level (easy with monthly badges), but this morning opened my badge summary and found I need some more points to a brand new green level 6!

    Yeah, it kinda motivates me. A bit.

  7. The update (9.0) arrived on the 945 today, it’s changed my life 🙂

    Change Log

    Added Pickleball and Padel activities.
    Added support for Connect IQ system 5.
    Updated incident detection to better distinguish between supported and unsupported activities.
    Modified the software update process to allow the user to defer the installation. This replaces the automatic install during the user’s sleep window.
    Other minor bug fixes and improvements.

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