Is it worth buying FR265 now?

For the vast majority of users the watch works fine (me included). People come to the forum with a problem, so you're getting a very one-sided (negative) view of reality here.

If you are attracted by all those training/health assessment stats and training suggestions then it is not worth buying. Having suffered through many disappointing firmware updates myself I have reached the conclusion all these numbers are semi random.

The watch automatically sets unrealistically high Max HR even though the first thing I did after buying it was to disable auto MHR detection. Then it uses this skewed number to guess your lactate threshold which will be all over the shop between various firmware versions.This obviously impacts daily suggested workout pace ranges which may be not what you expect, and again, will differ between firmware. And when I say 'guess your lactate threshold' I literally mean 'guess' - I could see it sometimes update it after my easy runs where I was nowhere near a threshold kind of exertion.

I do not use Daily Suggested Workout feature and plan my training calendar myself. But even then it is highly annoying to see a watch worth a few hundred euros to show you so called training effect summary which does not make sense at all (but sometimes does - remember, these things vary between firmware versions). Yesterday I did a easy run with 5:40min/km pace. The watch told me it was Tempo run. The day before I did 800m intervals with 4:15min/km (+400m jogs in between) - also Tempo. A week before - marathon pace run at 4:59min/km assessed as VO2Max.

I am now waiting for Suunto to enhance their workout mode so that it vibrates before each step (sadly, it doesn't atm) and once it's released I am jumping onto Race S wagon.

I've tried the Forerunner 265, Instinct 2 Solar, Vivoactive 5, and Edge 840 Solar. The 265 is the most stable of them all and brought me the least regrets about buying it.

I'm a triple decade Garmin user, Auto, Cycling, Running. The only other running watch I tried was one that was put out by a company name Bryton and it wasn't great. There is a lot I like about the 265, the display is great, GPS seems solid, connectivity with my Iphone 13 has been good. If Garmin can get their act together on processing the HR sensor data, it would be a great product. Unfortunately, so far it does not seem to be as reliable as the firmware that was on my FR245. But you have to take into account that I turned off automatic updates on the 245, and it does not have the last released version of the software (for that watch).

And that seems to be the rub with the watches, getting to the point of having an installed version of the software that works well for the functions you need. If Gramin gets the HR data sorted without breaking something else, I'll be golden again.

Long ago Oregon had a company named Central Point Software with the mantra in the user community of "Built by Central Point, Debugged by Users. I'd be happier if I saw less of a parallel with the Gramin watch software. 

imho the FR165 is a better choice. my GF has a 165, i use a 265

Overall in my opinion the main issue with the FR x65 is the optical wrist HR sensor.
its not accurate and displays (in cold environment/ skin ) often (completely) wrong values.
this falsifies all the training advices / analysis !

in the meantime i only use the following features of the FR265 (for running, cycling, swimming):
- as a gps tracker for the activities (training log)
- sleep analysis
- as a watch / weather / baro.
- all notifications/alarms: off (except before sunset - but there is currelty a bug)
- i removed all training pages like readiness, recovery stats, training load etc.
- a simple gps mode is sufficient (gps only) to save battery
- pulse Ox only on demand to save battery

unfortunately its not possible to switch off optical wrist HR for an activity without losing the training effort stats completely (like aerobic / anaerobic effort). for running it would be possible to derive ist quite good from the running power, mor accurate as the HR itself
therefore i said goodbye to all the training advice / stat pages of the FR

My FR265 is great when paired with an external HRM; performance stats are accurate. 

The health side stats --- sleep, stress, body battery -- are useless because they rely on the optical heart rate monitor in the watch and are completely inaccurate. I'm not sure if it's the sensor or the software, but switching to a different Garmin shouldn't decrease change the stress level by 20-25 and the BPM by 12-15.

Garmin Support has not been helpful. 

It depends on what your expectations are for "that accurate". I did a side by side comparison back a number of years ago for the same exercise of an Optical Sensor on the FR245 vs a chest strap paired to a Garmin 800 Edge cycling computer. Post exercise analysis, I was quite happy with the FR245's optical sensor. It matched the chest strap better than I thought it would. I'm not saying a perfect match but it was quite good. I didn't during the exercise, try to generate an instantaneous peak lasting only a few seconds, like a weightlifter under the stain of a lift. But for my use, it was dandy and that is all I want or expect from the 265.  I know it can be done for my intended use, it's was done 2 generations back.

Now I don't know if it is feasible for the newer generation sensor. Not everyone is built the same (wrist vein configuration), The FR245 was mucked up at one point with a software update. The update issues don't seem to affect everyone which has always made me wonder if Garmin sources the watch components from a single supplier, or do hardware variations factor in.

At Garmin.com under the FR265 and specifically under the Optical HR Sensor is this link

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/health-science/heart-rate-monitoring/

It's hard to realize the benefits touted if the Optical HR sensor isn't reasonably trustworthy

If you (not you Carmin_F) are a user that is fully satisfied with the FR265's Optical HR sensor, I'd love to hear about it and a few specifics like software version and general use.

@4348400, you seem to be happy with yours but I can say with certainty, Garmin is well aware there are issues with the sensor in practical application. For myself, if I do two endurance events at the Gym, I generally don't see the unexplained low HR that suddenly jumps when doing the 2nd event. Software filtering is my guess, but another possibility is my1st event is usually a treadmill run and Normally I don't do any warm up. I may increase the pace during the run by 30 or 40 sec/mi but there is no walk, trot, prelude. Much the same if I do an outdoor run, the pace tends to be more static but no warm up and those runs generally show a sudden dramatic increase in HR about 8-10 minutes in.

Conversely, the 2nd gym event is usually a stair climber and I do tend to ramp that one, start slower. Does that make a difference or is the filter just expecting a higher than resting HR (as a leftover from the treadmill run) so no sudden jump. I have no clue.