Listening on the phone they told me each time a message came in, and it was almost instant. Again, this will vary on LTE signal, but the place I stopped in only had bars. This is to give any and all avenues of connectivity a better shot.
I could watch this happen in real-time and then watch as I disabled it again. Kinda clever. When the emergency center person responds with their next volley, the pre-canned answers also change too, becoming somewhat adaptive. Again, you can also type your own message. Essentially the IERCC will funnel things down starting at the country level, with liaisons for each country to figure out which emergency services need dispatching. For example whether they need to dispatch Coast Guard support, or helicopters to a mountain, or police into a city.
When I connected, the woman on the other end knew exactly where I was, and that I was on the edge of a tree-line against the sand dunes near the ocean by looking at maps. Eventually, you can end the assistance session through a series of steps.
Now, this probably gets to some key questions, notably, around crash detection. Though, typically far less on your wrist than on a bike computer. Still, it seems to happen once or twice a year for me. And that assumes you even heard it to begin with.
Either way, the load and effort from that is on them to solve. For example, both the UCI and Ironman prohibit two-way communication devices while making forward progress. Thus, in theory, this is prohibited in a race scenario.
Frankly, this is probably the best time ever to have those conversations. This would seem like a win-win for the sport. But then again, most things seem like that when the UCI or Ironman is involved, only to have it fizzle. Now, rollout per countries will be the longer pole in the tent, and the nuances that go along with it. A watch could fall apart and give you dire electrical shocks while doing so, but if it shows you on the wrong side of the road?
Oh hell no, bring on the fury of the internet! GPS accuracy can be looked at in a number of different ways, but I prefer to look at it using a number of devices in real-world scenarios across a vast number of activities. I use other devices at once, trying to get a clear picture of how a given set of devices handles conditions on a certain day. Plus, wearing multiple watches on the same wrist is well known to impact optical HR accuracy. Note all this data is analyzed using the DCR Analyzer, details here.
Like, nothing of real concern here. Of course, this could also just be quirks of left vs right hand too. That said, even the FR55 was a bit latent on some of these, though did get the gist of it. Again though, keep in mind these were second all-out sprints, versus more measured intervals.
If we switch to look at the GPS tracks, all of the Garmin watches were in track mode, which means they snapped perfectly to the track after a quick one-time calibration set 3 loops around the track :. Mind you, I stayed in Lane 1 virtually the entire time. Everyone is roughly in line :. Now despite all four of the watches using the Sony GPS chipset, you can still see nuanced differences.
You can see that for most of it, all four watches are within a few meters, though there were a few times towards the bottom section that we saw more separation from some of them, including the FR55 a bit. The point being, none of them are perfect though, the FR comes darn close , but for most people the data will be similar enough, even in the woods.
Meanwhile, looking at the heart rate on this run, I made this forest run an interval run too. Overall, things were pretty good:. The Polar Verity Sense was solid as always. And if you want to move around the graphs , go here. Meanwhile, the FR55 seems to have lucked out more on this ride. And it does that perfectly. On the battery front, things look solid per spec.
Versus if we take off the music and just go with pure LTE, I was seeing battery burn rates that projected about a hour time. Overall though, for GPS accuracy things seem largely pretty good. Nothing sticking out as problematic, beyond the usual minor GPS quirks most devices have. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.
Had Garmin continued down the path they did for the Vivoactive 3 LTE, this would have been a dumpster fire. They instead focused on an athlete-first solution, and overall it works pretty darn well.
This morning I literally woke up with the watch controls menu open somehow and it hovering above the emergency response button seen above. Still, these are minor things that for a first iteration will be sorted out in time.
And once I got the LTE up and working in my country, things have been smooth sailing since. Connectivity appears to be quite good both in the city and out in the middle of nowhere, and if there are dropouts of coverage, it properly resumes without any issues. Of course, many will ask whether or not this is a middle-child watch.
The company has a long history of middle-child watches being promptly ignored months later when the proper sibling comes along. With that, thanks for reading! Found This Post Useful? Support The Site! Hopefully you found this review useful. If you're shopping for the Garmin Forerunner LTE or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Even more, if you use Backcountry.
Seriously, this will change your life. One for the office, one for your bedside, another for your bag, and one for your dog's house. Just in case. This speed sensor is unique in that it can record offline sans-watch , making it perfect for a commuter bike quietly recording your rides. It's become my go-to speed sensor. And of course — you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter!
Thanks for reading! And lastly, if you felt this review was useful — I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked. If you would like a profile picture, simply register at Gravatar , which works here on DCR and across the web. Subscribe me to the newsletter. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can click here to Subscribe without commenting. At this moment there will not be any upgrade from my side.
Great review as always, Ray! At into the review, that screen shot appears to be the 7 day load. However, I still have the red-headed stepchild M. I would assume so..
Yes, there is an every 5-minute option. I think I talk about it up there somewhere. Or, maybe I got distracted. Any idea how much that expands the battery life? Somewhat interesting but not compelling enough to buy and have to pay a monthly fee. Still waiting for a new watch from Garmin or Coros for ultra running to replace my Garmin Forerunner I used to do triathlons. They have hula hooping with fire and knives?!?!? But not disc golf. I use one called DiscGolf Pro. One of the very few CIQ apps installed.
Works well and provides a GPS of the course. Thanks for pointing out those. Probably why the author left out the space for DiscGolf Pro. That is the biggest disappointment for me : , that is the one thing that might keep me away from the watch. I hope they introduce an update for it in the future but not sure. I suspect they are buying a package of data and want to limit what goes over the LTE. Opening to CIQ would be less predictable data use.
Would have loved it for things like WindField, weather updates, and garage door openers. Does the battery life significantly improve with LTE disabled? Is this the exact same form factor as the ? Are any of the new non-LTE features coming to other watches? Not identical to I would bet they go to F6 series, Enduro, maybe I am in a similar boat. My FR kicked the can a month or so ago. I knew the new forerunners were coming up, and since Garmin released the FR last year, I figured the FR was on the docket for this year.
I was excited and ready to buy one on launch day. Now they release this… not that it is bad. The body seems to be slightly smaller. The screen is the same, but the smaller body, means more of the watch is screen. The is a stripped-down Then at that rate do I want to spend that kind of money on a watch that is already 2 years old?
It just really is a weird position to be in. I was ready to buy the new Venu 2 because it looks really nice. So that puts me back into the Forerunner line.
If I was a betting man, I would guess that this watch is replaced with the next year. I bet they wanted a more noteworthy feature on the FR to make it stand out and hold up to its 2 year lifecycle. The fact that this is internally similar to the Venu makes me suspect they are moving to the AMOLED screen, which will really make the stand out. Of course they could easily run into battery life problems with that. But any company would say that. Did you contact Garmin about the that died?
Im in a bit same situation as you, been waiting for this new iteration. I think the is still excellent though and would be an upgrade already for me with my fenix 5. I think the addition of LTE looks nice enough, so Im considering the upgrade. When you look at the releases years back you can see it varies. Since the which was excellent came out in fall , it was 3 full years till the came, and then another 2,5 years till the Maybe the will come before christmas, maybe next year or even later.
I thnk the incentives for Garmin to push the envelope are relatively small as they no matter what seems to be ahead of the competition. Thanks Ray. Would this be a downgrade or do you see this as an upgrade with the Elevate v4 sensor and the venu like internals?
Completely depends on what activities you want to do. The music skips as soon as you start an activity. This used to be fine when such connectivity was rare, but as more and more headphones adopt this, fewer and fewer are working with Garmin watches properly.
That was my take too Dave. Especially given all the Firstbeat features Garmin dropped this morning on the Forerunner That watch is almost at running feature parity with Fenix 6 at this point. I contacted support about the headphone problem and they came back with instructions to wear the watch on the right wrist.
I kind of mentally gave up at that point. Put your iPhone down, walk well away from it and any other Apple device, take the AirPods out and try pairing them then. They paired fine until The bigger problem is that I have to switch the watch to the right wrist or it drops after 10 to 20 minutes of use. The latter is, I imagine, the same problem everyone else is having with the headphones.
Thanks for the extra photo. Or is there something to improve this? Maybe best to wait for your UI walkthrough video? All in all no upgrade needed from the FR… Only wondering, is there anything changed regarding cpu?
Significantly better responsiveness could be worthwhile wrt maps and general usage. I own a and am not sure to upgrade yet or not. Any recommendations? Same boat as me. Might be worthwhile waiting another months and seeing if they bring out a Ray noting he asked Garmin about it is good and makes me hopeful, but I wonder what else they could really say? Secondarily I want the improved UI i. I am in the same boat. The has music and HR while swimming. But I have plenty of other, easier-to-maintain music sources and the HR readings are not too accurate.
The new Sony GPS chipset is not as good as the one in the although it uses less power. The with LTE can notify during an emergency but it will most likely cause more false alarms. Running and biking and even swimming with a phone is a way of life for some. It makes it easier to look for places when lost, call people, send messages, pay for things, browse the web, play music, take pictures, check the weather, etc.
The is ideal and good enough to track swim workouts, transitions during triathlons, provide simple course navigation, cadence, and optical HR. If my were to die I would definitely go for the with or without LTE. If my phone is in my buoy I always see the shared live track e-mail but have never checked that it works.
I am also using a at this time. Wondering just how many DCR Easter eggs are in this review. Do we get a prize if we find them all? Frozen slushy Blue flavor only.
Do the spectator messages show on your Edge cycling unit more likely looking at that during the bike leg…. Good point, I totally forgot about the feature as I tend to dual-record I think extended display does not record an activity on the Edge? Any hope of watch to watch live tracking? Ie to know my buddy is m from me in which direction?
LTE connectivity monthly service plan required enables phone-free safety and tracking features, spectator messaging and live event sharing. I have been waiting on an LTE version of a Garmin triathlon watch for a long time now but currently I use an Apple Watch plus a cheap Polar watch for triathlons — and I think that may continue to be the best solution for me. Without the ability to at least send a regular text message to someone, this just seems like it would be a big step backward. This is my question too in a way.
Garmin site does only say: When an incident is detected or you request assistance from your device, Garmin Connect will send your name and location to your emergency contacts. No problem! So I currently have the Garmin inReach Mini and it does exactly what you are asking for.
Because they are already doing this on the inReach devices. Then they can reply to the message and you will get the message.
On the InReach you can write 5 different messages that are saved into the device so they are just one-click away. You can make them anything you want, but you set them up ahead of time and load them on the device. These messages are good to send to partners so they know you are ok without sending an emergency message. Plus since they are on-click messages they are easy to send from the inReach.. Then they have to reply back within an hour I think it is, to keep the thread open. I just send it every hour or so because it not only sends my current location to her, but it also keeps the thread active so she can reply to me.
It is just a simple update. Garmin is doing all of this already. It looks like there is a lot of similarity between the LTE abilities of this watch the inReach. So I hope to see these features move over to the watch. Because I think it would make the LTE features a lot more attractive for more people if they send normal messages to loved ones. I just tested this with my wife. Please get help. Follow my location to find me.
I would not regularly use this for two-way text, but if you are just sending one text that you will be out an extra hour, it would work fine.
Did you hear anything about ebike profile for FR? In addition i think it is impacting my biking training load stats in bad way. Somewhere up above in this giant wall of comments text someone asked for it, and I showed a screen screenshot of what it looks like in Strava using the profile. Was the decision not allowing music streaming a technical implementation issue, battery issue, or cost of LTE issue?
It seems like aside from the safety concerns addressed by LTE, live streaming of music would be the most wanted addition to a watch that LTE could solve. Almost assuredly battery and LTE service issue. Probably equal parts both. Can you explain the Apple blocking messaging thing again? What am I missing? Could it not simply send and receive via SMS? I get SMS messages all the time from my unfortunate Android friends. Not having to take a phone with me would be a game changer. It uses LTE for live tracking and to receive messages from Garmin servers using some proprietary protocol.
Anyone who has ever switched from iOS to Android without remembering to turn off iMessage can tell you how much it sucks to all the sudden just stop being able to receive message from your iPhone contacts. Access to the SMS network is enabled by the various carrier networks and their infrastructure. They charge for outside access to these networks, a cost that is included in your normal monthly cell bill.
This is all setup when you activate your phone, tying it to your phone number on their service. So why is this different? It also requires if allowing multiple carriers the ability to change SIM cards for registration on the various networks….
Hi and thanks, as always for those pretty damn cool insights, I am impressed too by the way connectivity value was thought by garmin. Since Garmin is handling the provisioning of the connectivity per country, do you get worldwide connectivity when you travel or do you have to pay something else if you happen to travel abroad.
Also from a technical standpoint, you mention LTE-M connectivity. Do you have more technical stuff to put here. Sadly, I do. Really debating this, or the F6Pro — so rest assured if I order something the F6 will come out the next week. They dropped the ball here.
They added enough functionality to spark interest but not enough for anyone to upgrade. A couple cool first beat features probably would have tipped the balance.
The personal safety features are impressive, but for the everyday athlete with a wife and baby at home, I was more interested in how LTE can be utilized to contact me in an emergency at home. Can I take this for a run and leave my phone behind?
Unfortunately no. Ray- Do you prefer your forerunner over polar vantage v? Do you find the overall accuracy of metrics comparable? I wish we could get a device with the precision of Apple optical sensors but it seems like every device keeps getting less accurate with HR. It would be nice to just strap on a watch and go without a chest or arm band, phone etc.
Garmin is fairly accurate but can get locked in from time to time. Any speculation of polar or garmin releasing something more groundbreaking this year? Well, to be fair if you simply enable Auto-LiveTrack like I do, your wife can use the Spectator Messaging to one-way message you that way.
Works just fine. Erm, Frozen Slushy sensor?? Hula-hooping with fire and knives? Great article as always! But… if I buy an annual sub and upgrade watches can the subscription be transferred to a new device? Thanks for the review Give me a enduro! I want the enduro battery life in a package, no need for LTE and get rid of that bezel!
I get the race athletes wanting the LTE, but I just think the average user either wants a full LTE package so they can ditch the phone or are going to carry their phone regardless and have no need for LTE.
Just my thoughts. I think the tracking and safety features are awesome but I think but being able to send texts would make me buy this today. Allow it in the app at least?
Or in the live track link? They could do this via the web very easily. From within the application, users can decide when new map updates are to take place. For example, you can let it download the apps during the middle of the night or any other time of the day or week.
Garmin Lifetime Updater is available to all software users as a free download for Windows. We tested the file GarminLifetimeUpdaterInstaller. It's good practice to test any downloads from the Internet with trustworthy antivirus software. Older versions of Windows often have trouble running modern software and thus Garmin Lifetime Updater may run into errors if you're running something like Windows XP.
Indeed, sadly no mapping support there. But I agree DWMap is a good option for unsupported watches. Just found one though to link to. This: link to medium. I have also purchased the Garmin versions and the GMapTool ones are as good or better and are updated more frequently.
They have much higher resolution maps available for Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg which they call Benelux and to a lesser extent Germany. This all works great on macOS with my 5X but seems flaky with the 5 plus series. MapInstall kept failing with a useless error message with the 5 plus.
It sometimes worked with a 5 plus I was setting up for a friend but mostly failed with a useless error. We ended up copying the img files between watches. I would like to add that if yo want to use these OpenStreet maps for something like a holiday, you should download them a few weeks prior.
The OpenStreetMaps site is sometimes down, or very delayed like waiting before you , for a week at a time. Yeah, as noted sometimes it does go down — I suspect due to funding. I linked to an alternative that people have used in the past when it goes down.
But ultimately, totally agree with you and also been bit before as well when travelling and forgot. To be clear, garmin. Not to point out the obvious here: But perhaps those folks you could actually offer a service that numerous other people have had to implement so people consumers can actually use those maps offline direct from the source, rather than through 3rd parties.
Which seems like a pretty clear indication that a gap exists to actually get that data to end users. Said differently: Instead of complaining about the complaints, actually address what people are complaining about. Openstreetmap is all about data, it has much more data that you can see on any single rendition of the map. Visual representations of OSM data for hiking or cycling, off-road or urban use would be completely different, and OSM foundation deliberately stops there — they give world data and tools, not single product.
Ability to endlessly customise and layer maps mixing official, OSM, and specialised stuff like Trailforks layer is not offered anywhere else apart from Android phones.
It allows for small sites to access it, as well as even big corporations including Garmin , and medium size companies like Wahoo or Sigma — all leveraging it. My point was simply that Simon comes on here complaining about another site offering a solution that is perhaps confusing to end users and that he has to handle confusing e-mails.
Thus, my response is more direct: Fix the issue. If the issue is confusing branding from 3rd party sites — then fix the issue within the license agreement. Ok, fair enough. And yes, it is whining, but that kind of whining is sort of cultural thing within opensource communities. Have you ever tried to maintain even a tiny project on github? You tell them off, you whine how people are stupid, you carry on.
Needed to leave for the airport and the download link only came in in the last 5 minutes. I had tried this last week using a Mac, but noted that although Garmin Express could sync with my , it did not show as a mounted directory. I ended up calling Garmin support and was told that music enabled devices did not show as a directory mount on the Mac. The said if you need to interact at the directory level you must use windows.
See above my note on using a Mac. The app: link to android. Ray, thanks for this site and this tutorial. I am heading to do the Sydney marathon and wanted to have the map loaded on my 5X. I ran into problems on my Mac getting the Android File Transfer to work. Despite all combinations of closing, opening, restarting, updating, etc. Any tricks to get it to recognize my 5X? I gave up, opened finder and was able to drag and drop the openfiets img map into my Garmin folder and it seems to have transferred.
Hope it works. Do you know of any hacks to get the map to open short of me finding a way to spoof my position to downtown Sydney to see if the map is in fact there and able to be used?
If you ever get a Garmin watch that does support music, the trick is to quit Garmin Express completely when it asks you if you want it to continue running in the background, you say no. When you start Garmin Express again, it will tell you that it needs to kill off Android File Transfer which apparently also runs something in the background. Does that mean in GC I can actually just install the maps directly from garmin? I figured I would change it up if I were travelling.
Let it finish that first. I had the same happen iwth my Upon initially plugging into garmin connect desktop it just attempted to download all the world maps. I just selected the regions I happen to be traveling to and voila — all the maps I need. Which is funny because I had it correct the first time, and then while double-checking things screwed it up. I think it has been mentioned before, but when living in the BeNeLux Belgium, Netherlands Luxemburg link to openfietsmap.
Special, stripped down versions of OSM or they would just be too large for the very limited amount of storage about 20 Mb , but you could do it and they were useful. Garmin made sure that none of the successor Fenixes Fenii? Up untill today I have used maps on my fenix 1.
I just ordered the new fenix 6 pro sapphire, but not because the fenis 1 is not functioning — I just wanted something morde fancy and about 3 times as expensive! And I like the colored maps…But the fenix 1 stays for now, just to make comparisons with the fenix 6…. Herbert i support your question. I like to add that i use the same Maps as you plus link to openmtbmap. It will be down to how the map is rendered. Some are more optimised for a certain activity by tweaking routing rules for a certain mode of transport — velomap is optimised for road cycling for example.
Thank you Meredith to explain this. You can download the. Aside from the map style the contents also differs. You can use a map from Openfietsmap in Basecamp and create a profile that forbids use of tollroads.
Basecamp then produces a bit longer bike routes, however with nicer scenery. If you use the Garmin map that is supplied with a Garmin edge device Basecamp gives you the shortest route from A to B. These are definetly superior to the Garmin maps, a big upgrade.
This one looks great. It can show something like just a dot. No icon or name on the app called POI. Looks like, several maps can be active at the same time. Will they be overlayed? If I leave that enabled and then put on the free maps, then actually neither will display. In my case about the only thing that shows is a big ring highway around Amsterdam. But, as soon as I disable one of the two conflicting layers in the sport settings , then all is well.
So this allows you to leave non-conflicting layers — such as Germany and the UK both enabled. The DCR Analyzer! Looks like it is a device specific undetermined? I have to disable it to see my custom maps. Even though I see in my current supports profiles several preinstalled Garmin maps enabled contemporaryly.
Therefore probably only an issue with this party maps. What does routable means with a Fenix 5 plus? Would it behave differently with another primary map let say another osm variant or the Garmin topo? So the OpenTopo map will depend on exactly what you downloaded. Some times will just give you topo data, and perhaps imagery of the trails — but not the underlying data itself of the actual trails.
And another question. Does Garmin filter private road? Track computed with Komoot and opentopo maps are showing them, which is a bit cumbersome for some workout where there are no other options ;. Tx for answering: Opentopo map are said to be routable.
And given my experience, a track was computed. Given your answer, all visible items on track, paved, road bitume , single trails, if they are visible, shall be used when computing a track way point or way back. Not sure on private roads. As for testing map trail data sets, yeah — I hear ya on that. Tx, I will do some tries with basecamp and my last trail example…. Great post! Would definitely, as already mentioned, recommend Frikart.
The also offer a winter edition of some maps, showing the most popular skiing tracks. Thanks for the instructions. How good are these maps off road, say for mountain biking or fell running? How good they are depends on where you are. OSM is usually updated quickly, Garmin not as fast because they add stuff.
I would recommend trying out different map providers. Added value for me are the better routing options for bikes within Openfietsmap. Great post and good timing for my new and heeling calf! Good catch in the comments about conflicting maps too — def worth adding to the main text. I was just wondering if anyone had managed to get any 3rd party satellite maps for use in Basecamp or the Fenix watches? Should be an interesting review! Indeed, ordered it late July though only got around to saving my order image a few days later.
At the time it said weeks for delivery. As of today, it still shows pending shipment sometime this week, and then another days for delivery. Thank you ray for updating this very helpful topic! I have linked your original how-to post countless times to friends and teammates.
Hmm link to hikingguy. Never seen your site before. As noted, I first published a variant of this post 6 years ago: link to dcrainmaker. The point of this post is simply refreshing what I did 6 years ago with wearable-specific information that people can find easily within search — as I noted in the intro paragraph.
Though, as a general rule I ask that when other sites post here, they at least actually contribute to the conversation — and not just use it as a place to drop links. Most Russian handbag sites leave more information in their spam comments than the above. The more that is out their to help users the better. I have a guide and in fact I have seen an increase in traffic since the 7th, might be coincidental though. It also shows long haul Truck route north america. Like most other maps, they are based on OSM data.
When you download a certain country or region, the zip file will contain a map. Just copy both to your device and they will show up as two different maps you can enable or disable. Both enabled gives you the topo map with contour lines as an overlay. Hi all! Perfect Topic, thank you! So I tried different free Maps on my watch. However the actual. TYP-files on all of those maps are bad, as they provide too little contrast. TYP file. I followed the instructions, and tried to change the.
Could someone please make a short instruction explaining what to do to make it work? Ray, thank you so much for this VERY useful post!!! Conversely, much older software that hasn't been updated in years may run into errors while running on newer operating systems like Windows You can always try running older programs in compatibility mode.
Officially supported operating systems include bit and bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7. The current version of Garmin Express is 7. This is the full offline installer setup file for PC.
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