corey gaskin
If you’re even a little familiar with Garmin wearables, you know that GPS-equipped running watches have always been the company’s strength. Garmin’s fitness watches have become staples among athletes due to features not found in Fitbits or Apple Watch. The Forerunner series is also where the company introduces some of its most innovative tracking and training features.
The Forerunner 955 continues that tradition. It’s the most feature-packed watch at the top of the Forerunner line, and this year it’s added the latest features like a touchscreen and a daily exercise readiness rating (similar to Fitbit’s daily readiness feature, but free for users). , introduces new features. A feature not found in other Garmin watches. This includes his Fenix series watches which are high end. The Forerunner 955 has started stealing some clues, including solar charging options and multi-band GPS.
We spent a few weeks training with the Forerunner 955 to see how the latest features improve on the platform we already love, and to decide how much we should fear Garmin catching up to Apple and Fitbit. bottom.
New touchscreen, solar option, multi-band GPS
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Left to right: Forerunner 945, 955, and Garmin Fenix 7. The 955 is right in between in terms of size.
corey gaskin
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Solar sensitivity gives outdoor adventurers an edge by slightly increasing battery life.
corey gaskin
The Forerunner 955 has a similar design to its predecessor, the 945, but is the first Forerunner to incorporate a touchscreen display that can be manually or automatically disabled during an activity. It’s also the first Forerunner with a solar charging option at a $100 premium, and the first model with multi-band GPS support. provide. This feature was previously reserved for his Garmin top-of-the-line tracker.
The 955’s face is a tenth of an inch larger, the display widens to 1.3 mm, and a new digitized seconds hand now wraps around the edge of the screen. The solar-charged version adds a neat reflective rim around the sun-drenched watch face to extend battery life. It doesn’t protrude from your wrist like the Epix and Epix watches.
Under the hood are still sensors for heart rate, blood oxygen monitoring, GPS, and 32 GB of storage for music. The Forerunner has a 5ATM water resistance rating and operates from -4º F to 140º F.
Same OS, new touch-based interaction
Garmin hasn’t tweaked the aesthetics or mechanics of the OS too much, instead focusing on refining and creating new tracking features. I have no complaints about the UI, but it was nice to see the interactive watch faces introduced to the platform. There aren’t many, but the default face has a carousel of tappable quick view stats like VO₂ max, heart rate variability (HRV), training load, active time, and more.
Garmin’s inexperience with the touchscreen interface is evident in the Forerunner 955. It’s not immediately intuitive what each icon conveys. Apple Watch job. Hopefully, this kind of touch-optimized interface extension will come soon.
New training readiness scores and ratings
Garmin’s strength continues to be in providing free, detailed health metrics and workout analytics. The company outperforms its competitors by offering training improvement features and sport-specific assessments (particularly for running, but also cycling and swimming to a slightly lesser extent).
With the 955, Garmin has further refined these metrics to be precise, adding two more mainstream features: training prep and morning report. Training Readiness uses your sleep score history, heart rate variability, stress history (based on HRV), recovery time from last activity, and Garmin’s Acute Training Load feature to help you determine if you’re ready for daily exercise. Evaluate.
