Garmin Fenix 7 – gets fairly major upgrade

Garmin Fenix 7 climbproGarmin Fenix 7 – some significant new goodies (beta)

The latest beta version for Garmin’s Fenix 7 is available today. There are some nice additions which owners, especially runners, will be glad to receive. Less so owners of the Fenix 6…who don’t get them.

Full Source Info & Instructions: here

Commentary

The major ones here have already been announced and released for the Forerunner 965.

The major feature area is running dynamics calculated solely from sensors within the watch, no longer requiring a Garmin chest strap or similar. The Load Ratio is also totally new to the F7 and places the context of your short-term training load against your longer-term training load. The theory is that an increased long-term load makes you resilient to a higher-than-normal short-term load.

I had missed or forgotten about the HRV Status being added to watch faces, and that pretty much does what it says. Similarly, obvious are the two longer-duration charts added for Sleep Stages and HRV Status.

Perhaps initially of less interest are Garmin’s changes to the data field layouts and app categories. To me, these changes indicate that Garmin is still tinkering with the whole interface to make a more usable watch. I think they are finally succeeding in that endeavour but with still some way to go. What do you think?

  • Added 7-day sleep stage graph. – check how those inaccurate sleep stages vary inaccurately over time
  • Added Apps category to activity/app list add flow.
  • Added calorie burn rate chart to post-activity summary. – why not?
  • Added flashlight strobe option to power controls. (Fenix 7X/Tactix 7/Enduro 2 only) – handy
  • Added HRV Status 4-week historical graph. – not sure this is needed, Garmin will use something similar behind the scenes to provide the more useful insights
  • Added HRV status data field to watch faces. – minorly useful
  • Added Load Ratio to Training Status. – minor but useful
  • Added more data field options to the hierarchical data page layout.
  • Added new activity stage landing page. ?
  • Added Obstacle Course Racing activity. – it’s a fairly popular sport.
  • Added Workout Execution Score to post-activity summary. – minor but nice
  • Added Wrist Based Running Dynamics. – fairly major but not widely useful
  • Add more apps/glances to power controls and hotkeys.
  • Improved battery estimates when flashlight is used in activity.
  • Improved compass smoothness on the compass page.
  • Improved Ski activity to now distinguish when you are on lifts versus skiing downhill. (err? what? handy now the ski seasons all but finished)
  • Improvements to Altitude Acclimation.

 

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14 thoughts on “Garmin Fenix 7 – gets fairly major upgrade

  1. Nice list of new features, but (referring to Garmin’s website) I hardly see them addressing previously reported bugs. There are a lot of (minor-ish) issues that they still need to sort out since the 10.X release.

      1. I’m waiting for it to properly register naps.
        Currently if I take a nap during the day, it overwrites my last night’s sleep.

    1. I see GPS changed to 2.46. I really hope they have fixed the tracking inaccuracy for water sports.

  2. One obs; ski season is finished in the northern hemisphere, but about to start in the southern hemisphere.
    There are many spots in Chile and Argentina.

  3. I was hoping for 8 data fields on F7????. The smoothed compass looks awesome!

  4. I really wanted them to add in a ski erg activity, instead you have to line a row and rename

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