Garmin’s Forerunner line of GPS-enabled health trackers is bewilderingly complicated. Also, the corporate updates Forerunner fashions so typically even these of us who take a look at them for a dwelling generally have hassle maintaining. That’s a superb factor—new options are virtually all the time a plus—however it does make picking the right model a problem.

To additional complicate your determination, in 2022 Garmin added the Forerunner 255. The newest mannequin brings multiband GPS help, a barometric altimeter, and much-improved sleep monitoring, amongst a number of dozen different welcome additions. The result’s a multisport, runner-friendly watch. At $350, this is likely one of the finest value-to-features watches within the Garmin lineup.

New and Noteworthy

For years now I’ve used the Garmin 245, which falls in the course of Garmin’s Forerunner line and is aimed primarily at runners. With the discharge of the Forerunner 255, Garmin has retired the 245.

As with any health tracker, how a lot any of it will profit you is dependent upon what you are doing. For reference, my exercise routine is body-weight-based, with alternating strolling and sprinting periods thrown in all through the week. I additionally used the 255 on hikes, paddleboarding, and for sleep monitoring.

Like almost all non-touch Garmin watches, the Forerunner 255 has 5 buttons, three on the left aspect and two on the appropriate. I discover the buttons extra dependable to navigate with than the touchscreen fashions, however the primary factor to notice is there is not any touchscreen right here. The watch face is totally customizable, with a wide variety of default faces you should utilize to customise to your liking.

There are fairly a couple of new options price mentioning, however the one I used to be most enthusiastic about is the sleep monitoring. The Forerunner 255 tracks heart-rate variability (HRV) and sleep phases and offers you an general Sleep Score, with a brand new Morning Report, which incorporates the corporate’s Body Battery characteristic in addition to a every day greeting, the climate, and different tidbits. It’s just like what Apple presents.

To take a look at the accuracy of the Forerunner 255, I had my spouse, who makes use of an Oura ring to trace sleep, use it for a couple of weeks. (The Forerunner requires 19 days of use earlier than it’s going to begin making suggestions primarily based on the sleep knowledge it has collected.) To preserve this assessment to an affordable size, the outcome was that she is now not apprehensive about changing her Oura, on condition that firm’s disappointing trajectory. The Forerunner’s knowledge principally matched that of the Oura and could be very almost as complete. But it does not monitor physique temperature whereas sleeping and is lacking another options the Oura presents.

I significantly appreciated my Morning Report, a great way to get a fast overview of the place you are at and what you need to do this day, training-wise. The different factor that jumped out at me within the first week was the brand new auto-detection options.