Garmin has added five new smartwatches to its Forerunner series, a wearable lineup designed specifically for runners. These five smartwatches are the Forerunner 45, 45S, 245, 245 Music, and 945.
Garmin claims that it made all five new wearables from the same lightweight materials, and these devices all feature a 5-button design. These products also sport an always-on display and heart rate monitor, while the built-in GPS allows them to track where the users are running and provide accurate information regarding the distance and pace traveled by the runner.
These devices also feature smart notifications for incoming calls and texts, and when the wearables are connected to compatible smartphones, users may upload their fitness data to the tech firm’s Garmin Connect fitness community. Owners of the new Forerunner devices may also take advantage of the Garmin Coach, a service that provides free training plans to runners of different levels.
These devices also come with improved safety and tracking features, which include the ability to detect accidents and sending their real-time location to emergency contacts automatically. However, these features only work with Android smartphones that run Android 4.4 KitKat or newer and feature Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
While there are many features shared by the five new Forerunner devices, there are also considerable differences between the five smartwatches. The Forerunner 45 and the Forerunner 45S are designed primarily for everyday use, and include a dozen profiles for different activities like running, cycling, and yoga.
Moreover, the smartwatches can also monitor the all-day stress levels of the user, the daily number of steps, number of calories burned, and the total length of sleep, on top of keeping track of sleep quality.
Even though the two devices share similar features, the Forerunner 45S is designed for users with smaller wrists with its 39mm case, compared to the Forerunner 45, which sports a 42mm case.
Meanwhile, the Forerunner 245 and the Forerunner 245 Music includes more advanced hardware like the Pulse Ox sensor, which allows the device to measure the amount of oxygen present in the blood.
With the addition of more sensors, the two wearables can provide more information about the health and fitness of the user. For example, the smartwatches may inform people about the amount of oxygen used by the body during exercise as well as the recovery time of the runner. The wearables are also compatible with Garmin’s Running Dynamics Pod, which provides even more information about how the person ran.
However, Garmin differentiates the Forerunner 245 Music through its ability to store up to 500 song titles and sync playlists from streaming services like Spotify and Deezer.
The most expensive among the five smartwatches that Garmin recently launched, the Forerunner 945, includes even more features in addition to what is already present in the cheaper Forerunner wearables.
For example, the wearables can store up to 1,000 songs, and it also supports Garmin Pay, the tech firm’s contactless payment solution. The Forerunner 945 also features full-color maps stored on the smartwatch, and it also includes training load focus, a functionality that automatically sorts the activities made by the user based on its intensity and structure. Moreover, the Forerunner 945 offers up to 2 weeks of battery life in smartwatch mode, compared to other wearables that provide up to 7 days of use.
The Forerunner 45 and the 45S will be available within this month, and these devices will ship with a price tag of $199.99. Meanwhile, the Forerunner 245 costs $299.99, and the Forerunner 245 Music comes at the cost of $349.99. The most expensive of the devices, the Forerunner 945, will cost interested consumers $599.99. These three wearables are already available for purchase.
