Garmin Timing Gates – another new feature for June 2025

Garmin Timing Gates

Context: Garmin has already released a feature for the Forerunner 970 called “Auto Lap by Timing Gates”, which is used to align your recorded lap times from a running race with official course mile or kilometre markers. Eagle-eyed readers will have noted that this feature has an unusual name for its intended use. I believe, because it is designed for other uses…like MTB racing…ie a feature that has Timing Gates 😉 😉 😉

When: Enhanced Timing Gates functionality will be added in either June or July 2025, and I suspect it will be introduced on the new Edge 550/850. My guess for a release date would be around Eurobike towards the end of June. However, I heard there were delays, so maybe retail availability will be in July.

Before I speculate on other potentially exciting triathlon uses for these new features, I’ll share what I know for sure first.

Source: @Johnw, thank you

MTB Timing Gates – how it works

You can manually create up to 10 timing gates. The GPS position on the watch or Edge identifies the gates. You stand at the gate position and face the downhill direction of the course, then press a button to create the gate as part of the series. You then add up to 9 more.

This is highly similar to Garmin’s longstanding feature ‘Autolap by position’, except that it only allowed one lapping position by GPS location. The MTB Timing Gate feature effectively adds up to 10 GPS locations per run.

The timing gates are geared toward a single continuous route from A to B, whereas the autolap by position is more suitable for looped or lapped activities.

I’m unclear how the Edge/watch will use the Gate Series. It appears that you choose the Gate Series in the same way you would a course, rather than adding the Gate Series selection as an option to your MTB profile (in the same way you might add a route). (?)

A lap or segment is created for each section when you ride the course and the timing points will likely be available as you save your ride and on connect. Previously, you would have had to manually tap Autolap several times at each gate, which would be both dangerous and inaccurate at speed. The new method is perfect, except for one drawback: when travelling at over 30mph, you cover a significant distance in a few seconds, which can cause difficulties for Garmin in locking onto the exact position.

Except!

Also added will be a 5Hz downhill recording. This records 5 GPS points per second, and these should be pretty accurate, given Garmin’s latest Synaptics GNSS chipsets, which, when tested on watches, have market-leading accuracy.

So, that all WILL happen soon. Here’s my speculation

Timing Gates for Snow Sports

This feature seems perfect to crossover directly to similar sports where multiple timing gates are involved. Snow sports and watersports are the most obvious examples.

Some caveats would be that gates on water can move with tides and currents, and it would be time-consuming to mark the gate points as it would be for skiing, where you would have to recce and mark the piste before taking it at speed. Also, some water gates would be reused multiple times during a race.

Timing Gates for Running & Cycling

I’m unsure if this feature translates well to running and cycling, where slower speeds are typically involved, and manually pressing the lap button might suffice.

It strikes me as well that doing a recce of a 100-mile ride to insert a few timing points might be a tad inconvenient. Thus, this feature might be adapted to allow gates to be created manually on Connect (a subscription feature?).

Triathlon

This is where I get very excited.

I reviewed an Apple Watch triathlon app a few years ago (2020), and the developer cleverly allowed the transition location to be marked manually before the race started. I remarked to him and on this site, at the time, that this was a feature waiting to be copied by Garmin and that he should patent it (if that’s even possible).

Triathlon Transition Automation | Location-Based | Apple Watch…Garmin next?

Garmin’s timing Gate feature seems almost perfectly destined to be adaptable for triathlon and multisport in general. It would be easy to use the Timing Gate feature to mark Swim-In, Bike-Out, Bike-In, and Run-Out manually. Combine that with Garmin’s existing auto-multisport feature (which is quite good but flawed in terms of positional accuracy and precise timing), and Garmin will be the first multisport watch company to have a properly automated multisport sports profile.

That one is so good that it cries out for a subscription paywall, even though it’d be a core feature and one that I’d be upset to have to pay extra for (in which case I wouldn’t use it).

Take Out

I love the innovation that Garmin shows here. They’ve conducted their market research and are adding a feature that will be used at a competitive level.

Of course, it’s one thing to collect more data points, and another to collect them accurately. When travelling downhill through trees on bumpy terrain, GNSS accuracy is likely to be more challenging to obtain, so it remains to be seen how accurate the timings will be. Thus, I question how precise the timing will be under trees, but apart from that, it should be pretty good.

Applying this feature to other sports, such as triathlon, must be a no-brainer, Garmin probably already has plans to roll it out. However, faster sports like the snow and water sports might require the accuracy of a timing system, but instead only get a better approximation of what was already available.