FR255 is missing features related to cycling FTP

Well, folks, bad news. This is the response I got from Garmin today ...

Thank you for the information. Looking into this more I have found that the FTP testing feature is not actually part of the unit's software. I apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that this may cause. We will be updating the manual to be correct in this. 

I replied that the PROPER solution was to add it in, explaining that multiple people bought the watch expecting it to do this. I'll let you know if I get a response.

In the meantime, I've been using xertonline.com. You give it permission to access your Garmin connect account. Then it grabs all your biking activities and does analysis on them, including their own estimation of your FTP from each ride (their website says "never do an FTP test again.") So far I'm using the free version but will see if I need to pay eventually.

I also did a test recommended by trainerroad.com - after a warmup, start at a reasonable power x 1 min, then go up by 13W every minute until you croak. Then look at your 1-minute maximum power for that ride (which you can see on the web version of Connect under power curve). It will be the last minute you did before fatigue, which may span two different power levels (if you croaked partway through the last minute). Then take 75% of that.

When I did this test, xertonline gave me 228 and the trainerroad estimates was 235 (3% different), which is close enough to give me some confidence in them. And interestingly, the next two rides (one a VO2max and one nice and easy) both gave me 235 on xertonline! So, they are exactly the same. This really makes me think I won't do any more FTP tests and just let xertonline figure it out each ride.

Garmin being Garmin... a thousand different models and no way to know all the differences between them. Although in this case we could say this is false advertising. At least you got an anwser, I'm not that lucky!

Thanks for your feedback and also for mentioning Xert, I tried it and indeed it does what I'm looking for (I'm more interested in FTP autodetect than doing an explicit FTP test) but I'm not willing to pay 10€/month just for that (after the 30 days trial). Actually they have a free Connect IQ datafield for estimating FTP ( https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/a947db9d-abb6-4aea-818a-ee57fc369dbb ) but FR255 is not in the compatible devices list. I sent them a message a few weeks ago asking them to add it but did not get a response.

Apparently https://intervals.icu/ does a similar thing for free but I have not tried it yet.

But in the end we should not have to use a third party service to do something that our watch is supposed to do by itself.

Oh wow, that data field would be cool! I'll also message them and see if they can add the 255.