Forerunner 245 Music, GPS Running Smartwatch with Music and Advanced Dynamics, Aqua

UPDATE: Alright, so when I initially wrote this review the music component of this watch was meh for me. I had a love/hate relationship with it but now I can honestly say I love it and have upped my review to 5 stars (from 4 before). I do think Garmin listened and made changes with the updates or maybe it was just user error all along???? I honestly don't know lol. I've had this watch for 8 months now and I freaking love it. I now know how to update the music via wifi and I do think the connectivity on my runs has improved. How well it connects to Garmin connect has also improved. Do I think it's worth the $345 price its being sold at right now? Maybe. It's amazing not being able to take my phone on my run and still having music, GPS, and some sort of security to reach my loved ones should I need it. I do wish the battery life was a little longer but for the size of this thing, I'm not complaining and it also charges pretty quickly. I have not yet run long enough (w/music) to test it with an external battery but will update as I do that.For those looking for instructions on how to update music via wifi (this was one of the things I wanted the watch to do and either I didn't know how to or it didn't work that well at first), I will include instructions below:Hold down second/middle button on left side of watch.Click musicClick music providersClick Spotify (should walk you thru how to set if up if you don't)For me it takes me to the last song played. From here, I hit the three dots on the left.Click libraryThen scroll down to where you can hit update downloads.This will not work if you do not have your watch connected to wifi. To do that do this:Click and hold the middle button on the left side.Scroll down to WiFi and select.Should walk you thru it. I think you have to make sure your phone is connected to the same wifi.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I received this as a surprise gift from my husband about a month and a half ago. Both my husband and I are avid Garmin users and have been for several years. For context, these are the Garmin watches I have owned in the past: Forerunner 15, Vivosmart 3, and Vivomove HR. I do like this watch. In fact, you can say I love it. Based on our purchase history, I can see my husband purchased this for ~$50 less than what it is being listed as now ($345). Personally, if I was buying this for myself I would get a refurbished one or do without the music. I run about 3-4x a week and do HIIT workouts 3x a week. For what I do, this watch may be overkill but that’s what you want right? You want a watch that will do what you want AND more. At least I do!So, what are my gripes with this watch?1- Bluetooth. Boy, oh boy, oh boy! My watch LOVES to disconnect from my headphones. If my hands aren’t at the right angle while I am running, it is game over and I have to reconnect or deal with a patchy connection. At this point, I just don’t bother to use the music on my watch. I am hopeful an update will fix this but I’m not holding my breath. I find mine struggles with auto-sync on the Garmin app occasionally as well.2-Music-In relation to the bluetooth is the music concept of this watch. I really wanted to love this aspect of the watch. I really really did. I was so pumped about it! But alas, you can’t always get what you want. Syncing Music the first time took an eternity and half. You also have to manually update it if you update your playlist on Spotify, I think (at least that’s what I have to do). I wish Garmin would do something where it would automatically have your watch update the playlist if it is connected to Wi-Fi with my laptop open to Spotify but maybe my standards are too high (my iPad does this with playlists I’ve downloaded). Overall, I do like the music component of this watch-I just wish the bluetooth worked better. Many of the reviews I read on here are people complaining about how difficult it is to sync music and I agree. I consider myself pretty tech savvy but they could have made this simpler. I also would like to be able to change the songs that I am listening to on my phone from my watch. I used to be able to do this on my Vivomove HR and that was lovely while I was running. Also, please note I *think* you have to have a premium subscription to whatever music streaming service you choose to use in order to connect to the watch. I already had Spotify premium so this was no big deal to me but wanted to note that on here. I think you can also upload your own mp3 files if you have them but don’t take my word for it as I haven’t tried it.3-Sleep tracking- I don’t find the sleep tracking to be very accurate as a whole but I think that is an issue with Garmin in general so I’m not really holding it against this watch.4-Garmin Connect IQ- Changing my watch face is a lot harder than it should be and takes forever.What do I LOVE about this watch?1- GPS- my last watch did not have GPS (but it was pretty!) and that’s also a big factor in why I wanted this watch. I have not found any issues with the GPS and I have found this to be fairly accurate. Connects seamlessly with Strava which I appreciate.2-The size- for the size of this watch and all it can do-WOW. Just wow! I was afraid it would be too bulky but it is not! I am a woman with very small wrists and the size is pretty good for me. I do wish they sold smaller bands but its not a big deal.3- Livetracking & security features- LOVE this! You can set live tracking to start automatically or start it manually from the app ( I do wish this was an option on my phone). This sends an email to whoever you’ve listed, or all of your connections, with a link to a tracker. I love this as a woman who often goes on runs alone early in the morning or at night. There is also a feature on this watch where if you press a button 3x it sends a text to your emergency contacts and it will also do this if it notices anything unusual (you stop suddenly, etc). Probably my favorite features.4- Training status, body battery, pulse ox, & respiration-I find all of this very cool & helpful. I don’t find the training status to be totally accurate for me though. None of this makes or breaks the watch for me though, it’s just nice to have. The Garmin Coach seems really cool but I haven’t had an opportunity to use it. I plan to use it to train for a half marathon.5-Heart rate- I like this and find it to be accurate.6-Buttons-my last watch was touchscreen and I do love that this has buttons instead.7- Battery-battery life is OK but I wish it lasted a little longer. How quickly it charges makes up for that though!Overall, this is a really great watch. I was lusting after the Fenix 6s but that would have been overkill for me. This does what I need it to do and some more. If you’re a runner, I do think you will love this. I would personally save some money and skip the music but when it does work it is nice to have. Thanks Garmin!

This watch is feature rich with solid battery life and 'just works' reliability, and a good value for what you get. It's a great new addition to Garmin's line of Forerunner watches.Before buying this, I used a Garmin Forerunner 35 for several years. That was a very good watch for tracking runs, and I also used it for other workouts like cycling and rowing. I loved its long battery life of about 1.5 weeks to 2 weeks the way I used it, plus physical buttons which I find much better for controlling the watch during runs than a touch screen. It also has a good quality heart rate monitor and some sleep-tracking capabilities.The Garmin 245 Music can do all this, plus adds additional workout tracking capability, and ability to wirelessly communicate with a Garmin running dynamics pod which gives additional data about runs. It also adds a pulse ox sensor, and ability to store up to 500 digital music tracks on the watch and broadcast to earbuds/headsets/speakers via bluetooth. It is more waterproof than the 35. It can track several measures of indoor lap swimming in a pool, but not open water swims or scuba. Finally its watchbands have quick release connections to the watch body, making it easier to replace them if needed or desired.I'm not sure I must have any of these things but was curious to try all of them. I am pleased with their implementation. The music feature is especially well done. It pairs without problems with my bluetooth headphones and speakers. I have good audio quality throughout my runs, arm motions while running do not cause any problems. I've copied .mp3 tracks to the watch from a Windows PC that uses Itunes to store my music library, using the watch's USB cable to transfer the files. I've installed the Garmin Express software on the PC (a free download from garmin.com), and methods to copy individual music tracks or playlists are straightforward and work fine. Garmin supports music services like Spotify and Deezer as well, but I haven't tried that and can't comment on how well it works. There are decent controls on the watch for playing tracks or playlists, and adjusting volume. There are a separate set of controls for that within my bluetooth headset (Plantronics BackBeat Fit 3150), and those play nice with the watch.The battery definitely drains faster while using its GPS and streaming music via bluetooth. Garmin claims 6 hours battery life for these conditions, which sounds roughly consistent with my own experience. That brings me to one of my few quibbles with the watch, which is that I wish its battery life was somewhat better. There's no escaping increased power consumption when using GPS and bluetooth, but it would have been nice if they'd fit a battery with more capacity into the watch. It's not terrible as-is: still much better battery life than Apple watches, and lasts a week to a week and a half if I 'only' track runs with it, use the pulse ox sensor, and don't stream any music. It seems slightly worse than the Forerunner 35 when using the same features, but I was hoping for the same or better. If you want more battery you can buy a Fenix or more expensive Forerunner. It's still good for what it does and the price, though.This watch seems generally well regarded but I've seen a few negative reviews that say its GPS accuracy is not good, or not as good as older Garmin watches. That has not been my experience. GPS accuracy seems just as good as my Forerunner 35, which is excellent. In fact, the 245 can also do GPS and Glonass together, which I tried while visiting Iceland. I've heard that Glonass can be helpful at hi latitudes. It worked well for me, though I didn't do careful experiments using GPS only versus GPS + Glonass to quantify differences.The watch has a lot of capability and it's a challenge to design an interface to easily access it all using the watch buttons. Garmin uses several of the watch buttons to descend or ascend within menus, or select options. There is also a circularly scrolling 'wheel' in one menu to enable or disable different kinds of connections, or power the watch off. It all works and is reasonably easy to find, but some items are buried a bit in menus, at times the clicking around can feel inefficient. Not sure there's an easy solution to support so many features, though. There is a lot of flexibility to customize and specify on or off for different sensors and connections, kudos to Garmin for giving this much control. The Garmin Connect smartphone software is a good companion for uploading workout data and displaying. It works reliably through a bluetooth connection between the watch and phone, and is well organized. It requires you to upload the watch data to Garmin's cloud, then communicates with the cloud to display different aspects. I don't love the cloud aspect, it would be better if they provided an option to store the data 100% locally (on the watch and phone only, with no internet involvement). But if you can live with the data being on the cloud, the software works well and has good visuals for displaying all the data.To summarize, this watch is a great product. It adds some nice extra features to the more basic Forerunner 35/45 while not being overly expensive, and continuing to include everything I liked about the 35/45. It seems meant to be a 'mid-level' watch, and I think what you get for the price is a good value. If you want much longer battery life or more sensors, like a barometric altimeter, get another watch like the higher end Garmins. If the capabilities of the Forerunner 45 or predecessor 35 fully meet your needs, save a bit of money and get those. This watch is a sweet spot of Garmin goodness + bluetooth music streaming and some extra workout tracking ability for lowest price.

I have been wearing trackers for years. I have worn other brands, and this Garmin Forerunner 245 Music is my second 245 Music. The previous 245 Music defected out after approx. 4 years when the case broke where the band's pin enters the case. Because I do not run, I don't need a tracker with sophisticated GPS features. This model does not have an altimeter, so it does not track stairs climbed. I really enjoy the comfort of the strap; it has something of a silicone feel. It is also nice that it is not necessary to wear the tracker tightly to track personal stats. If you don't like the face, you have many choices to download a face you prefer better. I downloaded a free face and am very pleased. The battery life will decrease as it ages. Presently, I am charging the tracker about once per week. When the doctor asks how I'm doing, I can open the Garmin app on my cell phone and show him my daily steps, weekly intensity minutes, heart rates, sleep stats, body battery levels, stress levels, respiration rates, and VO2 stats.