Garmin Forerunner 255 Music review: A runner’s watch fit for the masses

Garmin Forerunner 255 Music

professionals and cons

Execs

• Light-weight and comfy for twenty-four/7 put on
• Aggressive worth for the options
• Helpful new widgets and glances
• Operating energy with appropriate accent
• Highly effective Garmin ecosystem and functionality

Cons

• No cellphone name or voice assistant help

Specs

• Show: 1.1-inch diameter 260×260-pixel decision, sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel
• Supplies: Fiber-reinforced polymer case materials. Silicone 22mm watch band
• Storage: 4GB inner storage for as much as 500 songs
• Water resistance: 5 ATM
• Connectivity and sensors: WiFi, Bluetooth, ANT+, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS, optical HR, barometer, compass, altimeter, Pulse Ox
• Battery: As much as 14 days in smartwatch mode, as much as 30 hours with GPS, and as much as 6.5 hours in GPS mode (all GNSS mode) with music taking part in
• Dimensions: 45.6 x 45.6 x 12.9mm and 49 grams
• Colours: Black and White

It has been three years since I examined out the Garmin Forerunner 245 Music and since then, I’ve had pals proceed to sing the praises of this reasonably priced operating watch that has served them effectively. For athletes centered on core sports activities and now triathletes, the Forerunner 255 Music will be the excellent choice to help your way of life.

Coinciding with International Operating Day, Garmin introduced the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, the successor to the 245 Music. For the previous few weeks, I have been operating, mountain climbing, strolling, sleeping, working, and dwelling with the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music. If I did not take part in another sports activities, notably golf, pickleball, and fishing, then the 255 Music is actually a succesful possibility to contemplate.

The Garmin Forerunner 255 Music can also be accessible with out offline music help because the 255. It’s 46mm in diameter and constructed for bigger wrists, with each of those fashions priced at $399.99. Slight smaller, 41mm diameter choices have been additionally introduced because the 255S Music and 255S, accessible for $349.99. It is nice to see Garmin launching with watches designed for all wrist sizes and together with fashions with out offline music help for a barely lower cost level.

{Hardware}

The Forerunner 255 Music launches in black and white colours, whereas the 255 is obtainable in slate grey and tidal blue, the 255S in powder grey and light-weight pink. I examined out a black 255 Music that has a cool spotlight yellow line between the bezel and watch physique with a coloured ring across the begin/cease higher proper button. The matte black end is in all places else on the watch.

The show on the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music watch is 1.3 inches in diameter with 260 x 260 pixels in a sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel panel. The 255S fashions have a barely smaller 1.1-inch diameter show with 218 x 218 pixels decision.

Garmin states that the watch will present as much as 25 hours of battery life in all techniques GNSS monitoring mode with the center fee monitor enabled. Music streaming from the watch will scale back battery life to an estimated 6.5 hours. GPS solely mode may even see the watch offering energy for as much as 30 hours. In typical smartwatch mode, the watch ought to last as long as two weeks.

Additionally: Finest sports activities watch: Garmin, Coros, Polar, and extra

A single press of the top-left button toggles the backlight on and off, whereas a press and maintain open up the round controls characteristic. Controls could be totally personalized on the watch or within the Garmin Join smartphone software program as a way to rapidly entry greater than 10 choices with this button and a faucet. The middle-left button strikes up the show, and the underside left button strikes down. Press and maintain the center-left button to entry the huge menu of settings and choices on the watch.

The highest proper button, labeled begin/cease, opens up your favourite exercise record after which is used as a range button. The underside proper is the lap/again button as a way to return to at least one display in your navigation. You’ll be able to customise press/maintain and a number of button presses to function hotkeys for different features. Discover these choices within the settings of the watch. All the buttons are silver, besides the beginning/cease button is matte black with a spotlight yellow ring.

A really snug silicone 22mm quick-release watchband is hooked up to the watch. You’ll be able to rapidly slide the pin knob in to launch the pin and exchange the band. The retail package deal can even embrace an ordinary Garmin USB charging cable.

As we noticed first with the latest Garmin Fenix 7 collection and Epix, the Garmin Forerunner 255 watches help multi-band frequency and multi-GNSS settings, so you possibly can have a number of positioning techniques enabled for improved location monitoring in sure circumstances as you exercise all over the world.

Watch software program

The core software program on the watch is similar we have now seen on latest Garmin watches, with the watch face exhibiting always and glances readily viewable by urgent the up and down buttons on the left aspect. Urgent the beginning button will open up extra particulars of that specific widget, after which you possibly can scroll by much more info. You’ll be able to press the again, decrease proper button to return one step from the place you might be within the software program. Glances are very useful and helpful for viewing and accessing the data that’s most necessary to you, and I spend the vast majority of my time with the watch interacting with the glances.

There are a number of new software program parts within the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music that I hope to see launch with updates on different watches. My favourite new software program characteristic is named Morning Report. With this component enabled, whenever you get up and take a look at your look ahead to the primary time, you possibly can view various playing cards, together with coaching readiness, exercises, sleep, HRV standing, climate, physique battery, girls’s well being, depth minutes, steps, and calendar. These are additionally accessible as glances, however having a short consolidated view very first thing within the morning is useful for planning out the day forward. You choose the playing cards that seem on this report within the settings, and you may also toggle the Morning Report off if you don’t discover worth in it.

It will be attention-grabbing to see Garmin proceed to make use of the information captured by the watch to create an Night Report that exhibits you ways a lot sleep is really useful to be ready in your exercise the subsequent day and an estimate of how a lot time is required to plan in your steered exercise or subsequent step in your coaching plan.

A race widget can also be accessible, which is ideal for me now as I simply began a Garmin coaching plan for my half marathon in September. The race widget offers a race day efficiency prediction, race day climate and a countdown clock. Additionally, as soon as a race is put onto your calendar, day by day steered exercises will adapt primarily based in your race plans. Presently, the widget has a prediction 20 minutes slower than my objective, however now that I began my coaching plan, I count on that race prediction to drop rapidly.

Urgent the beginning button higher proper takes you to your favourite exercises/actions, after which you possibly can press it once more to begin the exercise. Customization of the precise exercise, together with knowledge screens and lots of extra features, seems as soon as you choose that exercise after which press the up button. It’s also possible to customise exercise settings within the Garmin Join smartphone app and have them synced over to the watch. This functionality is pretty new, and I desire it as it’s simpler to customise every part on a big smartphone show after which sync it over to your watch.

Press and maintain on the center-left button to leap into the entire watch settings that embrace watch face choice and customization, clocks, historical past, notifications and alerts, look, sensors, map, music, connectivity, well being & wellness, system, and far more. There’s an exhaustive quantity of customization accessible on the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music when you soar into these settings.

There are a lot of sports activities and actions that may be put in and used on the Forerunner 255 Music with a give attention to triathlon sports activities, together with out of doors run, observe run, open water swim, bike, triathlon, and extra. Different sports activities you possibly can take part in with the 255 Music embrace ski, snowboard, cross nation basic ski, stand-up paddleboard, row, yoga, pilates, cardio, indoor rowing, mountain biking, and extra.

One new knowledge subject possibility you possibly can choose whenever you exercise is named energy fields. With different Garmin units, you possibly can set up an app from Garmin Join to make use of the HRM-Professional or Operating Dynamics Pod for viewing your energy output. On the Forerunner 255 Music, operating energy help is constructed into the watch so {that a} separate app shouldn’t be required. This won’t present you operating energy straight out of your wrist, as we see with COROS and Polar, however it’s seamless whenever you put on a chest strap or pod. Obtainable energy fields embrace energy, energy gauge, common energy, lap energy, final lap energy, most energy, and energy zone. I subsequent need to see extra help for operating energy within the coaching plans.

Additionally: Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE evaluation: Related options for security and reside monitoring

Smartphone software program and web site

It’s thrilling to see enhancements in Garmin Join, the place there’s now virtually common synchronization of the watch settings within the Garmin Join app. Actual-time syncing takes place whenever you change a setting in your cellphone to have it synced to the watch. Up to now, you’ll make a number of settings modifications within the Garmin Join smartwatch app after which provoke a syncing session to have them synced over.

There are additionally many extra watch settings mirrored within the Garmin Join smartphone app as Garmin works to streamline the Garmin software program expertise and create a richer expertise for individuals. I discover it simpler to arrange particular train particulars on my cellphone’s massive show relatively than on the watch so I actually respect this performance and marvel if firms like COROS have been serving to encourage Garmin to take steps like this. Sensors and equipment stay a watch-only operate, however that is smart because it requires a direct Bluetooth or ANT+ connection from the watch to the accent.

Amassing the information is necessary, however utilizing that knowledge for monitoring traits, enhancing efficiency, difficult pals, and figuring out downside areas can also be essential. Garmin presents the Garmin Join app for iOS and Android, and it’s a highly effective and succesful utility that carefully matches the Join web site expertise.

If you first launch the smartphone app, you will notice a display referred to as My Day. This can be a dashboard and utterly customizable to your preferences. Merely scroll to the underside and select to Edit My Day. Right here you possibly can select from the next playing cards: coronary heart fee, steps, Physique Battery, depth minutes, flooring, sleep, stress rating, weight, energy, Pulse OX, and several other extra. There are additionally toggles to see yesterday’s stats and the final 7 days of stats. As well as, whenever you file an exercise (run, bike experience, and many others.) on that day, a field seems up prime with that card. Tapping any card takes you into far more in depth element for that measurement.

Different tabs within the smartphone software program embrace challenges, calendar, information feed, and notifications. One in all these could be substituted for Garmin Coach as soon as you choose and arrange a coaching plan. I’ve Garmin Coach in my app with information feed hidden from view. Faucet on the tab icon to see extra particulars for every of those. In challenges, you possibly can earn badges for varied challenges, arrange a problem along with your connection, and extra. It is an effective way to get motivated to get out and train. The calendar views present you bars in your varied standing ranges and is attention-grabbing to view over a protracted time frame. The information feed presents abstract info out of your connections, whereas the notifications web page exhibits notifications, equivalent to likes, out of your Garmin connections.

The Garmin Coach display exhibits you the standing of your coaching plan, together with which week you might be in, upcoming exercise, full exercise schedule, and up to date classes. You’ll be able to modify the date of your scheduled exercise if a battle arises and likewise see your race objective time on the Coach show.

Tapping the upper-left three-bar icon (Android) or decrease extra possibility (iPhone) presents a listing of different areas to go to within the app, together with insights, exercise stats, efficiency stats, well being stats, coaching, gear, connections, teams, security & monitoring, Join IQ retailer, Garmin units, settings, and assist. This menu and person interface match what you see on the web site as effectively. You’ll be able to view knowledge over totally different time frames, see your data, view the badges you earned, see totals and averages, and far more.

There are alternatives to regulate cellphone notifications throughout your exercise and in any respect different instances when you’re not recording knowledge as a part of exercise. If you’re linked to an Android smartphone, you possibly can go to Settings>Notifications within the Garmin cellphone app to customise precisely which apps present notifications to the watch. You wouldn’t have this per app management when linked to an iPhone.

With a paired Android cellphone, you may also choose to answer to messages with the textual content you will have already arrange upfront in your cellphone. This contains personalized textual content responses.

Additionally: Epix (2nd Gen) evaluation: Garmin’s finest trendy GPS sports activities watch

Whereas there are a plethora of exercise choices on the watch, you may also obtain preset exercises from Garmin Join. Even higher, you possibly can create your individual customizable exercises with over 1,400 workouts to select from. 75 preset animated exercises are offered for cardio, yoga, power, HIIT, and pilates so you actually haven’t any excuse not to have the ability to develop exercises that attraction to you and meet your well being and wellness wants. I nonetheless need to see Garmin have a Exercise sport since it’s nonetheless a bit clunky to determine if it’s essential choose cardio, power, HIIT, or one thing else to get to your exercise. That is one space that could be complicated to new customers, and I hope to see it addressed in a future Garmin Join replace.

The Garmin Join web site expertise is similar to what you see within the smartphone utility, with much more functionality to generate experiences, import or export knowledge, and arrange connections to different functions (equivalent to Strava, RunKeeper, and MyFitnessPal), and extra. Just like the snapshots interface on the cellphone, you will have a dashboard on Garmin Join you could customise.

Each day utilization experiences and conclusions

Out of the entire wearables I’ve examined over time, I imagine I’ve acquired essentially the most variety of optimistic feedback from my suggestion of the Garmin Forerunner 245 Music that I reviewed three years in the past. That watch was reasonably priced and offered correct help for the most typical sports activities that my readers tended to take part in. I feel the Forerunner 255 Music can even be fairly fashionable with its strong help for the lots.

I loved testing it for the previous a number of weeks, and whereas I may personally be largely happy with it, there are a number of different actions I take part in that aren’t supported, and I like a few of the extra superior options within the high-end Garmin watches. These different watches are additionally almost twice the worth of the Garmin Forerunner 255 Music.

The Garmin Forerunner 255 Music could be very snug for carrying to sleep and all through the day, whereas its battery life means you possibly can go every week or extra whereas utilizing it for a number of exercises and day by day put on through the week. The show could be very seen in all lighting circumstances however a bit small for my ageing eyes. The GPS was correct, music performed effectively by way of Spotify to my headphones, and I loved the most recent software program put in on the watch.

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