Garmin’s line-up of fitness trackers and sports watches is vast and seriously impressive, with several of our favourite running watches found within its ranks. As a result, they make popular Christmas presents, and if you’ve unwrapped a new Garmin this year then lucky you – you’re going to love it.
However, if you’re going to get the most from your Garmin it’s worth taking the time to get to know it better, because they’re not always the most intuitive devices to use out of the box. We’ve tested and reviewed pretty much every Garmin tracker and running watch out there, so thought we’d help with a few tips on finding and setting up the key features on your new watch.
1. Set Up Your Sports Tracking
While today’s Garmins have all manner of fancy extra features, they’re all still sports trackers at their core. This is one feature that’s easy to work right out of the box: just hit start, choose your sport, wait for GPS and off you go. But one thing you can do to improve your experience is set up your data screens to show the stats you want.
Runners in particular have a wealth of options to pick from including time, distance, pace, heart rate and cadence. You can do this in the running menu, where you should also turn auto lap on or off according to your preferences.
2. Choose A Training Plan
Did you get a running watch for Christmas to help you train for your first big event? Then head to the Garmin Coach section of the Connect app and you’ll be able to set up an entire training plan based on your target and current ability, which you can then sync to your watch. At the moment there are plans for 5K, 10K and half marathon races, with all the workouts already set up so your watch will remind you when to run and what kind of run to do.
If you need a marathon plan, head to our complete guide to marathon training. We have plans for all abilities.
3. Load It Up With Music
Many of Garmin’s watches now offer music playback, from cheaper smartwatches like the Garmin Venu Sq 2 up to the top-of-the-range Forerunner 955, Fenix 7 and Epix 2 watches.
If your watch has music then you can plug it in to your computer to sync your tracks and playlists to the watch, or link it to a premium streaming account to sync music to the device wirelessly. Garmin’s music watches support Spotify, iHeartRadio, Deezer and Amazon Music.
See related
- How To Buy The Best Garmin Fitness Tracker For You
- How To Use A Running Watch To Improve Your Training
- The Best Running Watches Of 2021
4. Create A Workout
Garmin has an excellent workout creator that’s easy to use, so you can sync your planned session to your watch to follow from your wrist. Unfortunately that creator is inexplicably tucked away at the back of Garmin Connect and accessed by hitting More, then Training.
You can create workouts for all kind of sports, with running sessions based on time, distance, pace or even cadence, and on certain watches you can also sync across pre-made Pilates, yoga and strength workouts, with on-screen animations showing you how to perform each move.
If you’re planning on a simple interval session, you can set that up directly on the watch in the options menu when you start a sport. Many Garmin watches now also suggest workouts for you each day based on your fitness and recent training.
5. Map A Route
Also hidden away in the Training section of the Garmin Connect app is Courses, where you can map out routes to sync to your watch so it guides you through them when running, cycling or hiking. You can also create the routes online on the Garmin Connect website, which is slightly easier to do if planning a long activity.
Mid-range Garmin watches will show a simple breadcrumb trail of the route, with just a line and a pointer to keep you on track, and you can also fire up a “back to start” pointer during an outdoor activity if you’ve started without a route and got yourself lost.
Top-end Garmins like the Forerunner 955, Fenix 7 and Epix 2 range offer full colour maps on the wrist, which not only makes it easy to follow pre-planned routes but also allows you to create new routes on the fly. If you’re in a new place and need a route to run, you can set a rough direction and distance and the watch will create three options for you based on paths that are popular with other Garmin users. This last option is perfect if you’re away for the holidays and want your new watch to find you the perfect running route to burn some calories ahead of Christmas dinner.
6. Make The Call On Your GPS Accuracy
Garmin introduced new GPS chipsets on many of the watches it launched in 2022, and these offer several different GPS settings to pick between. The most accurate setting is multi-band, available on watches like the Garmin Forerunner 255, Forerunner 955, Fenix 7 and Epix 2, but this is also the most battery-intensive mode and is only really needed for accuracy obsessives or in tricky GPS conditions such as under tree cover or when among tall buildings.
Most of the time the all-systems-on setting will be enough for accurate tracking during your outdoor activities, and you can even opt for GPS-only if you’d rather have better battery life than spot-on GPS tracking. Some Garmins also have a SatIQ mode that will determine for itself when you need multi-band enabled and switch it on automatically.
7. Choose A Watch Face
While Garmins don’t offer much in the way of watch face customisation compared with, say, the Apple Watch, you do have some options to play with. Head to the main menu to adjust your watch face, which can be set up to show all manner of fitness stats, as well as things like the temperature and sunrise/sunset time. You can also find more watch face options in the ConnectIQ app store if Garmin’s presets aren’t doing it for you.
See related
- How To Buy The Best Garmin Fitness Tracker For You
- How To Use A Running Watch To Improve Your Training
- The Best Running Watches Of 2021
8. Select Some Widgets
Scroll up or down from your watch to access your widgets, which show key info on things like the weather, your calendar, your activity that day and your overall training load. Use the main menu to add or remove widgets so you’re getting only the info you want.
9. Set Up Emergency Assistance Just In Case
This is one feature you should set up on Christmas morning then hope never to have to think about again. With Garmin’s Incident Detection feature, your watch can detect if you fall during an outdoor activity and then message a preset contact to alert them. You can also send these alerts manually by holding down the backlight button.
10. Link Garmin Connect To Your Strava Account
Activities tracked by your Garmin watch will sync automatically to the Garmin Connect app, where you can pore over your stats in great detail. However, many keen runners and cyclists will also have a Strava account where their activities can be posted for friends and followers to see and comment on (and give that all-important kudos, of course).
You can link the Garmin Connect app to your Strava account so that any activities you sync for your Garmin device are automatically uploaded. To do this, hit More in the app, then Connected Apps, and follow the simple guidance on linking the two accounts.
