Forerunner 945 Beta SW 3.08 is now available!

same here, no backlight, now winter time is here, i don't see anything on my watch when evening starts, i am wearing eye glasses too, double bad!

Garmin is focused at Vivo and Fenix series and totally forget the Forerunners on this... really disappointing

I think in fr945 there are too many things to solve. Treadmill calibration, backlight, altimeter, gps in multisport, connection with ios13, slow Gconnect uploading, automatic turning off, issue of saving workout... 

Garmin knows all,  and want to make us Happy with a perfect software version!

By Xmas?? I'd rather see small steps, regularly, than wait forever waiting for something that may never become real... 

By Xmas? If that’s the case my FR945 will be sold and I will never buy a Garmin again. So much to fix and so little development. Fenix6 has had 3 updates in the last three weeks, the 945 none.

To all the people who won't quit complaining about their pet problem not being solved in an disrespectful way: get a grip!

Have you had a look at other brands forums?

Let's have a look for fun (first result on google):

https://forum.suunto.com/topic/3435/staged-software-release-2-9-42-starting-29-oct-2019-10am-est/6

People cry a river about the same things as here. Why does my model not have priority, why isn't my problem the most important, etc...

Polar doesn't event have a forum anymore, I guess they took too much bashing, but reddit is replete with complaints about other brands, have a read, it's fun!

Software is, and will for the forseeable future, be imperfect.

As a software developer for more than 10 years, I have to tell you that while you are right and software is imperfect what Garmin is doing is just s-h-i-t-t-y development with more or less zero testing. Lots of people are not complaining because the don't have the latest features they are upset because the software is buggy an it should have never reached production in the first place.

Also what you mention about Polar, Suunto might be true but just because they deliver something supbar is not an excuse or reason to do the same. No one here payed 600 euros to be a beta tester.

Let me give a couple of examples non challenging problems which I experienced with it:

• It's unable to save any activity when I'm over 2500m, so it's completely useless for hiking
• The GPS is inaccurate it said Mont Blanc is 4750m high (my phone had no problem getting the correct altitude)
• In the last version the HR it shows is about 20 lower then before (you might say it might have been wrong before, it's not I tested at the doctor with special equipment)
• I'm not able to create a workout on the mobile app(Yoga or Cardio)  because my watch suddenly became incompatible  

There are other problems which I have and I understand because they are hard to solve:

• Incorrect distance shown when running on the treadmill (you try doing that with just a watch)
• Incorrect number of laps when swimming inside of a pool
• Getting the correct HR while swimming

My problems are the first ones, which should have never been there in the first place. And at least from my point of view their focus seems to be on new watches and new features instead of quality and stability. 

Garmin positions their brand as premium and let’s us pay a premium price. In return I expect my watch to function as advertised. In reality the watch I bought had better firmware than today, that’s just ridiculous. Most metrics are useless now and have been for months.

It’s true Polar doesn’t deliver on their software side at release, but they outline what to expect and keep their promises mostly. Also both Polar and Suunto have expanded their metrics with useful features (more detailed recovery stats and much better sleep metrics). Garmin lags behind on a software front and I find that just disappointing. But you are right, I should quit whining. I’ll see if there is some development in the coming weeks and if not I will jump ship.

Regarding GPS accuracy, unless you do a calibration, the FR945 does not use GPS for altitude, it uses the barometer. By default it does GPS calibration during activities but it corrects slowly to avoid big jumps. Also GPS alone is very bad for altitude and AFAIK this watch doesn't have WAAS/EGNOS, and it's very likely that your phone has it and that's a big help.