Garmin Forerunner 55 GPS Running Smartwatch

I have owned about 10 Forerunner 35 for workouts particularly tennis. But the heart rate monitor on the wrist was really inaccurate and they recommended I use the chest strap which I do. Such a pain! finally, I wore out another watch and noted that the 35 is just as expensive newer watches. I’m not great with change and my needs are simple.

I couldn’t tell you how pleased I am with wrist heart monitor. It’s perfect. no fluctuations, constant reading. Clearly a great update from the older version I’ve been using. Ok, it’s more complicated and I actually had to read the manual to load some different features. But overall I couldn’t be more pleased with this new watch and particularly the wrist heart monitor which actually does work now.

I was excited to use this watch, but unfortunately, one of the buttons popped out while I was synchronizing it with my phone on the same day the package arrived. I had to return it.

Good fitness tracker that measures VO2 max and fitness age. If you do hiking the activity in the watch for this is “walking”

I am beyond pleased with my Garmin Forerunner 55! This is my first Garmin. After having three Fitbits, the last one didn’t even last a year before having problems I was more than ready to change products. I am extremely pleased witj the Garmin app! It has a ton of features. My only complaint is on me – I should have studied the products a little more. I didn’t realize that the Forerunner isn’t a touchscreen. It really isn’t that big of an issue though, I will eventually adjust. It is still a very amazing product. At some point down the road I will probably go with a Vivoactive just to have the touchscreen and stay in my price range. I mowed my lawn with my Garmin on for the first time this week and it is by far more accurate than a fitbit. It doesn’t pick up the vibrations from the mower and weedeater and count it as false steps. So far I plan on sticking with a Garmin!

I’ve used this watch for about 2 weeks so far, and logged about 34 miles on it over several runs. Below are some initial impressions.

THE GOOD:
–light, easy to use, controls and menus are relatively intuitive to navigate once you get the hang of them
–great battery life – have taken it on several runs so far, had it 2 weeks (wearing most of the day) and only used 70% battery, with GPS tracking on my runs – to be specific, using both GPS and GLONASS.
–waterproof, and I actually prefer having physical buttons to push – makes navigating the various menus much easier when running in cold weather and wearing gloves.
–heart rate monitoring is helpful and seems accurate. Have not used it for sleep tracking.

THE BAD:
–I wish it had a USB-C connector to charge and transfer data, rather than a proprietary connector. It’s one more cable to manage, and more electronic waste. That said, if the only way to achieve its waterproof rating is with this proprietary port, I can live with that.
–The auto-pause feature takes a few seconds, and tends to only trigger on quick starts/stops. If you slowly ramp up or down your pace, it won’t trigger auto-pause. This tends to be a little annoying when I first start off from a stop – it will start, immediately pause half a second in, then resume a few seconds later when it realizes I’ve kept running.
–GPS tracking is slightly off at best, and very inaccurate at worst. I’ve been trying to troubleshoot the issue with Garmin support (who have been responsive and helpful), but if my expectations are too high, that’s disappointing. I have tried all the troubleshooting steps listed in Garmin’s online support options. GPS tech has come a long way, and though I’m not a pro athlete by any stretch of the imagination, I expect reasonable accuracy, especially with the fact that I’m running on roads and marked trails in a suburban area near Chicago without tall buildings and without much dense foliage. Details are below; I measured my runs using onthegomap.com. All runs were taken early in the morning under cloud cover (the cloud cover may affect the measurements – we just can’t get any sun here near Chicago lately).
—–Run 1: Distance just over 5k (3.1 miles), error -0.08 miles, ~2.5%, not terrible but not great.
—–Run 2: Distance just under 3 miles, error -0.50 miles, ~17.5%, not acceptable.
—–Run 3: Distance about 7.2 miles, error -0.07 miles, ~1%, pretty good.
—–Run 4: Distance about 3.5 miles, error -0.02 miles, ~0.5%, very good.
—–Run 5: Distance about 4.4 miles, error -0.15 miles, ~3.4%, not terrible but not great.
—–Run 6: Distance about 9.4 – 9.6 miles (indefinite trail markers), error -0.1 to -0.3 miles, ~1% – 3%, not terrible but not great. Tree coverage, while the branches were bare, were relatively dense on this run, so that’s understandable.
—–Run 7: Distance about 4 miles, error -0.01 miles, ~0.2%, very good.

If my expectations are too high, I can live with it, but I do expect a lot from a multi-hundred-dollar product, especially from one with the Garmin name on it.

Edit 1/23/23: After talking with Garmin support, who were polite and responsive, they didn’t really have any other advice than the advice already listed in their support articles (which, I should add, were helpful). They did suggest considering a higher-tier option with a dual-band GPS transceiver for better accuracy, such as the one found on the Forerunner 255. The Forerunner 55 has a single-band transceiver. I’ve also gotten better results by standing completely still (not walking around or anything) for 1 – 2 minutes before beginning a run, after acquiring a GPS signal.

I plan to keep the watch and may upgrade later, but half the reason I got it was so that I could just go run and not have to worry about figuring out distance after the fact, which is somewhat annoying.

I just got this a few days ago, so I haven’t figured out all the things this watch can do I’m not a runner. This watch was designed for runners and it has lots of things on it that look like they would be great for running. I’m a medium distance horseback trail rider. I need to know my current speed, distance traveled, and time on the trail. It does those things well. It has a good phone interface and I can control audiobooks and music from it which to me it an added bonus. The battery life isn’t that great in GOS mode, but it charges fast. I go through about 50% of the battery in a 2-3 hour ride. Despite that, I highly recommend!