Bug fixes, new features, and what will the 955 bring?

I agree, the battery specs are misleading and that’s true that the dual band would be beneficial in urban environments with a lot of noise. Still, I think it makes more sense to take advantage of a phone’s dual band hardware in a city-scape than to expend the extra battery life and hardware space incorporating a shortwave receiver. You’re right about the GPS navigation UI being unfriendly. It’s not great and certainly could use further development. The nav software needs work.

I do really like my 945, but it still feels a bit like a concept product. I’d love to see it further refined.

If the 955 will not bring support for native running power I will definitely change the brand. 

The way Garmin is supporting the 945 LTE is a shame and a clap in the face of all owners of the watch. I sold my 945 and thought to make an upgrade by buying the 945 LTE. The opposite happened...

given the Fenix 7/Epix2 feature sets, i wouldn't hold out hope for native running power.

is the native running power in the recent Corox watches accurate?

but i agree: they haven't treated owners of their current (for 11 months now) flagship Forerunner very well in terms of timely bug fixes. i really don't care much about them giving me new features, give the functionality and battery specs stated in the manual and i would be happy.

If we see native running power, I hope calculations take foot pod data into account, whether they make wearing one mandatory or not. If the power calculation is based entirely on the watch’s pace, heart rate and elevation data, the metric becomes more of a combined presentation of data already present rather than a new data point worth analysing.

That’s the thing I find most intriguing about the STRYD V3: it attempts to account for wind. If Garmin were able to account for weather conditions that drain energy from runners (wind, slippery wet/icey surfaces, loose gravel, sand or snow), I'd actually find it worth paying attention to. With native integration, metrics such as performance condition, training load and VO2 estimation would benefit too.

I realise that's a daydream.

If swim workouts, in particular IF repeats worked on the 955, I'm ditching the 945lte that second.  Tough to train when the device you use doesn't work 3x a week for a specific and important leg of triathlon.   

I bought in September after DCR said it wouldn't be the 645 Music all over again.  What a fool I was.

i hear you. what has Garmin Support said in their ticket comments with you? (not that we can trust anything they necessarily say) have they acknowledged this problem exists and that they have replicated it?

i too feel fooled base on DCR's comments in his review. yet, i'm holding out hope that there really will be a significant upgrade in the coming month that will address some of these bugs. but not holding my breath...

They have not responded since 4/29, nor have they said they actually have replicated the problem. 

As I swim 3x a week I was providing 3 Activity.FIT and the corresponding Workout.FIT along with Visio diagrams detailing what my watch face showed during the workout and where endless loops would occur and URLs to each activity/workout in GC weekly.  I also included the garbage HEX strings on certain screens and detailing that both Garmin Connect created workouts which were just as broke as my 3rd party workouts (humango.com) and which .FITs were which.

In the end they had at least 15 workouts to look at since I opened the case with the above details, the several forum posts with others having the same issues, and all of my workouts since Firmware 4.16 as they asked for a ZIP of my entire watch (minus .ISO files) when the case was moved from a Ref Ticket to a Case Ticket.  
<< Ref: 21777194K1 >> <Q#:1002452>

i'm sorry. that stinks. this is a major bug IMHO (that i have encountered because i haven't been in the pool since the pandemic) ... for me, thankfully, none of the bugs i've encountered are show stoppers. hoping for the best...wonder if this problem has come up with the Fenix7/Epix2/Venu since hardware and code bases are theoretically similar. maybe you can inquire over on those forums to see if you can get a generous soul to try this out on their watches.

So I reached out and my contact reached the dev team.

Hello eric,

The engineers are currently working on a software update to fix this. I do not have an ETA of when this will be out. I will update you as soon as there is a fix available. 

Assuming this is true, they must be able to replicate the issue as it should be pretty easy to do.

Regarding reassurances from Ray Maker that the LTE wouldn't be another 645 Music, what he actually wrote was:

"Of course, many will ask whether or not this is a middle-child watch. Something that fits a temporary gap until a Forerunner 955 comes along, whereby they’ll ditch updates for it. And that’s definitely a super valid question. As noted earlier, Garmin says no, it’s not – and they plan plenty of updates going forward. Again, we’ll have to see whether that holds true. The company has a long history of middle-child watches being promptly ignored 6-8 months later when the proper sibling comes along."

As in, he's passing on Garmin's statement while acknowledging that caution is warranted.

@erockem: That's really frustrating, but I'm glad you put the effort into a proper report. Everyone will benefit from that in the long run. Posts here in the forums rarely get noticed it seems, and that's probably why Garmin is setting up beta forums along with their new Beta Software Program, where we no longer need to transfer update files manually. I hope our LTE becomes eligble for said program starting with the delayed June update.