If you’re a fitness fanatic or a lover of the outdoors, you’ve probably heard of or even used GPS Garmin watches. These nifty little devices help track health and fitness goals by monitoring your blood pressure, heart rate, distance covered, and calories burned.
They also have excellent GPS tracking and navigation features. Garmin is an industry leader in wearable smart devices with GPS capabilities.
They’ve made watches since 2003, and their track record speaks for itself. As you may expect, Garmin has a wide range of devices to choose from, each with unique features. Before you buy one, you’ll want to compare Garmin GPS watches.
Table of Contents
- How Does GPS Work on Garmin Watch
- Garmin GPS Watches Comparison
- Garmin GPS Watches: Which One Is the Best?
- FAQs
- Conclusion
How Does GPS Work on Garmin Watch
For watches that don’t have an inbuilt GPS receiver, you can pair it with your smartphone so that it records the GPS data for walking and running. All you need to do before recording the activity is select a model and view the detailed instructions.
Fitness tracker with running icon
Garmin GPS Watches Comparison
Garmin Forerunner 205
The first of Garmin’s watches, the Forerunner, launched in 2003 with the 101, 201, and 301 series. Created for roadrunners and other athletes, the Forerunner 205 promises to bring you the training and recovery insights you’ll need to get stronger, faster, and fitter. Therefore, the navigation features are excellent and compatible with the American GPS, the Russian GLONASS, and the European GALILEO systems.
The Forerunner 205 also has multi-frequency positioning and Garmin’s unique SatIQ™ system, which determines the optimal GPS mode to use based on your environment.
Furthermore, the watch can determine when you need Multiband GNSS, such as in a dense forest or near tall buildings, or when to switch to low-power GPS mode to achieve the same accuracy in more open spaces.
SatIQ™ can switch GPS modes to prolong battery life without compromising GPS accuracy.
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar
Garmin bills the Forerunner 955 as their premium running and triathlon GPS smartwatch. It’s equipped with full color, built-in maps, and a multiband GPS. The watch has extensive health monitoring features like abnormal heart rate alerts, blood oxygen saturation, hydration, and respiration rate.
Like the Forerunner 205, the 955 Solar also works with GPS, GLONASS, and GALILEO systems and has SatIQ™ enabled. It’s also got a compass, gyroscope, and barometric altimeter.
Runner checks his heart rate and pulse.
The Forerunner 955 Solar has a range of security features, including live tracks, which gives you a real-time view of your location and activity so others, like friends and family, can follow along.
Moreover, it has incident detection features during select activities. You can also activate alerts on your mobile phone. Equally important, the Forerunner 955 has GPS-based time, distance, and pace data available.
Garmin Fenix 7 Solar Edition
The Garmin fēnix 7 Solar Edition is a customizable watch for multisport purposes. It uses solar power to extend its battery life, powering sports apps, advanced training features, and high-grade health and environment sensors. It’s popular with runners, cyclists, hikers, skiers, and snowboarders.
The fēnix 7 lets you connect to various navigation satellite systems like the GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. This tracks location data in inaccessible places where GPS alone cannot hack.
With the NEXTFORK™ map guide, you can navigate with ease, whether on the trail or a hilly mountainside. All it takes is a glance at the 1.3’’ display to see how far the next trail intersection is and the name of the next trail on your route.
The SKIVIEW™ maps enable skiers and snowboarders to take on the slopes. Its preloaded SkiView maps let you view run names and difficulty scores for over 2,000 ski resorts worldwide.
Skier in high mountain
Garmin Instinct Series
The Garmin Instinct Series is popular for triathletes, especially the Instinct 2 Solar. It’s a customizable watch with a rugged design and solar charging.
This GPS smartwatch will withstand rough conditions while still looking stylish and comfortable.
Aside from the standard multiband GPS support of GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo, it’s got TRACBACK® routing that eliminates the need for guesswork or memory when you’re on a return trip.
With Tracback, you can retrace your steps while navigating the same route and returning to the original starting point.
The reference point feature keeps track of key locations, like your car, or a waypoint like a trailhead. This way, if you lose your bearings in a known place relative to your location, you can find your way back.
Massive parking of cars
Garmin GPS Watches: Which One Is the Best?
With Garmin products, each one is of such high quality that it’s hard to say which is the best. All the watches featured in this article are top-of-the-line, durable, and easy to use, with highly accurate GPS features.
They’re built to withstand rough conditions and keep going, providing accurate, up-to-the-minute information to help you during workouts, on hikes, and your travels. Therefore, you can’t go wrong with Garmin GPS watches; whichever you get is sure to serve you.
Hiker on mountain trail looking at GPS stopwatch
FAQs
Do All Garmin Watches Have GPS?
Most Garmin watches have a built-in GPS receiver and do not require your phone to record GPS activities. Other Garmin watches like the Forerunner 10 don’t have in-built GPS systems and require a phone connection to record activities when you’re outdoors.
How Do I Know if My Garmin Watch Connected to GPS?
If you’re outdoors, the status ring should turn green to signal connection to GPS. If it’s a flashing icon, your watch searches for a signal, and a solid icon indicates that the GPS sensor is now connected.
Do All Garmins Use the Same Charger?
Most modern series of Garmin GPS watches use the same chargers. However, if yours is an older model, there’s a good chance you may need a different kind of charger.
Conclusion
Garmins are so popular among athletes, hikers, and people who spend lots of time exploring less traveled roads. A watch is more than a fashion statement nowadays.
It’s also a personal electronic device with various applications. So if you want something to help track your fitness goals while providing highly accurate GPS information, look no further than Garmin.
Hopefully, this Garmin GPS watches comparison helps you decide on the right one.
