Garmin Forerunner 55 Watch - Black

I'm a marathon pacer -- one of the people who runs at a set pace holding a sign for a specific goal time. Pacers don't rely solely on their watches, but we do like lots of accurate data to help us do our work. I've been using Garmins for a long time and I used to have to buy their 4-series watches -- the 405 and the 410. But features make their way down and I'd been using a couple 230s for several years. After my daughter got a 45 a few years back I was impressed that now the "0 series" was getting almost feature-rich enough to meet my pacing needs.With the 55, the "0 series" finally has enough features for a pacer. Since I got this a month ago I've paced three half marathons and a marathon, wearing my old 230 on my right arm and the 55 on my left. I haven't ... MoreI'm a marathon pacer -- one of the people who runs at a set pace holding a sign for a specific goal time. Pacers don't rely solely on their watches, but we do like lots of accurate data to help us do our work. I've been using Garmins for a long time and I used to have to buy their 4-series watches -- the 405 and the 410. But features make their way down and I'd been using a couple 230s for several years. After my daughter got a 45 a few years back I was impressed that now the "0 series" was getting almost feature-rich enough to meet my pacing needs.With the 55, the "0 series" finally has enough features for a pacer. Since I got this a month ago I've paced three half marathons and a marathon, wearing my old 230 on my right arm and the 55 on my left. I haven't noticed any issues with the watch, other than its GPS getting confused in a deep woods section of a half marathon and thinking I'd run 1.1 miles when both my 230 and the course indicated I'd run a mile, but that kind of GPS error happens occasionally on any watch and it was abundantly obvious it had happened. Wrist-based HR monitoring seems to have come a long way in the last couple generations - while it's still not as responsive as a chest strap, so far it's always reported accurately after just a short lag as compared to my chest strap with the 230. Of course, pacing doesn't involve a lot of rapidly-changing HR, or very-high readings, so I'll need to see how it does on an intense track workout before I can say it's good enough for HR training, but it seems to be fine for pacing a marathon.The most amazing thing about this watch is its battery life. Back in the days of the 405 and 410, a fully charged watch could barely make it through a 4 hour marathon; my 230, when fully charged, is at about 60% by the end of a 4 hour marathon. But this 55 was still reading 100% at the end of a 4:05 pacing job, and evidence indicates that it really didn't drop much -- four days and four runs later, wearing 24 hours a day and without charging, it's still at 60%.So far I'm also impressed with the "lifestyle health" software on the watch, as it seems to have adapted pretty quickly to my specific HR, sleep, and activity patterns to give me reasonable estimates of my training state. Obviously this is all algorithmically driven so I wouldn't trust it to really know what's going on, but it's a useful indicator.I have yet to try its "track mode". I had seriously considered a Coros because Garmins have always been mediocre on the track and my friends with Coros watches have been really impressed with their track mode. Supposedly Garmin has acted quickly to get their "track mode" into the same range of accuracy as Coros, so I'm excited to try it out once I'm back to that part of my training cycle again.This watch obviously isn't appropriate for a triathlete, and some of the more expensive Fenix type watches may be better for trail runners and hikers who intend their watch to be their primary device. But for runners who train and race primarily on the roads I think the 55 represents a turning point where the "0 series" watches are finally good enough for anything.

Having had a couple of good Garmin watches in the past I decided to stick with the brand when my Forerunner 30 died. The 55 had good reviews so ordered one but was immediately annoyed to see a completely new power lead, this means throwing out two old Garmin charging cables, more plastic waste in the environment, thanks for that Garmin. Next annoyance is the display. Call me old fashioned but I just like a 24 hour clock with four digits the same size. It is impossible to get this. The choice is between unpleasant looking digital displays or utterly hideous attempts to make it look like an old fashioned watch. Ok, so does it at least work for running? Yeah, I guess but again why mess with the display? Just give me time, distance and pace please, but oh no, instead I ... MoreHaving had a couple of good Garmin watches in the past I decided to stick with the brand when my Forerunner 30 died. The 55 had good reviews so ordered one but was immediately annoyed to see a completely new power lead, this means throwing out two old Garmin charging cables, more plastic waste in the environment, thanks for that Garmin. Next annoyance is the display. Call me old fashioned but I just like a 24 hour clock with four digits the same size. It is impossible to get this. The choice is between unpleasant looking digital displays or utterly hideous attempts to make it look like an old fashioned watch. Ok, so does it at least work for running? Yeah, I guess but again why mess with the display? Just give me time, distance and pace please, but oh no, instead I have an arbitrary meaningless time counting down filling most of the screen. Didn't work this out until the second run when I realised it was suggesting I run 9.2 miles in 38 minutes. I'm an intermediate runner but even in my prime I couldn't run that distance in an hour! Maybe once I have downloaded the full manual I will be able to iron out some of these features but it's a pain that I have to. Just cannot work out why Garmin would mess about with all these standard features in such an irritating way. Might just do away with their watches in the future and just use my phone.

The Garmin Forerunner 55 is my first experience with a Garmin smartwatch, and I consider myself a relatively new runner (started running about 8 months ago). The amount of features this watch has was sufficient for me, and the main selling points for me were: GPS, better accuracy in step counts than my GPS phone application, ability to manage Bluetooth earbud music from watch-to-phone connection, and the smartwatch came out recently so the software should be up to date/get consistent updates. I'll address my experiences with each of those selling points respectively. GPS- The default GPS settings on the smartwatch were very precise, marking times when I crossed the road and ran on the sidewalk correctly for the most part. Sometimes the GPS data would be a little off ... MoreThe Garmin Forerunner 55 is my first experience with a Garmin smartwatch, and I consider myself a relatively new runner (started running about 8 months ago). The amount of features this watch has was sufficient for me, and the main selling points for me were: GPS, better accuracy in step counts than my GPS phone application, ability to manage Bluetooth earbud music from watch-to-phone connection, and the smartwatch came out recently so the software should be up to date/get consistent updates. I'll address my experiences with each of those selling points respectively. GPS- The default GPS settings on the smartwatch were very precise, marking times when I crossed the road and ran on the sidewalk correctly for the most part. Sometimes the GPS data would be a little off but for the most part it was very accurate. After starting an activity you need to wait for the GPS signal, which takes ~5-15 seconds before you can start tracking your GPS location. Music- I like listening to music when I run and having the watch paired to my phone, I can pause, skip back/forward, and adjust volume all on the smartwatch without having to take my phone out of my pocket which is a plus for me. Newer product- There seems to be a lot of support for the smartwatch, and there are plenty of apps and widgets that are available for free and for money in the Connect IQ store. I really enjoy the notifications widget that comes default with the smartwatch that shows you notification pop-ups from your phone on your watch. This is handy for my work where I get frequent messages and can check them on my wrist. There is one infrequent software bug that happens though, where if you delete the last notification in the list it will still say that there is one notification, but hopefully this will be fixed in the next software update.