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Upgraded from the FR45 - a few weird things I noticed

Biqua
over 2 years ago

Hi,

I’ve had my watch just over a week now, and have noticed a few things which I didn’t see mentioned elsewhere.

Training readiness:

Now it has enough data to show training readiness I got excited to see how it worked, and after a run on Monday, the score dropped as you might expect, but after strength training on Tuesday, where I specified a mix of leg exercises and upper body, the score didn’t drop at all. Is this normal for strength training?
Additionally, the score seems to sync to the phone only once a day at 6am, so on Monday I had very different figures after the run.

Recommended workouts:

I’m just coming back from injury, and my VO2max is appalling, with a limited workout history - given it knows the latter two points, I was surprised it recommended a workout the day after my run, and I’ve also been recommended a long run almost three times longer than anything I’ve done in the last six months.

GPS:

Despite having it set to auto-select, it is showing some quite wobbly tracking in the city, being only slightly better in some cases than the old FR45 - not as good as some of the city based tracking I saw in some reviews. Also in a park with trees it wasn’t so great (possibly worse than the FR45 in the same park). Is that maybe poorer coverage in Australia vs other parts of the world? I never expected perfection amongst tall buildings, but thought the difference would be more noticeable.


Fitness age:

On the FR45 it said my fitness age was more than 20 years older than I am, which I always found amusing given the training I was capable of pre-injury. On the FR965 it is just under my real age after six months off, which is nice to see, but a huge disparity.

Calendar:

Over a week after it passed, Easter Tuesday (Tasmania) shows up as a calendar event in the morning report, seemingly with no way to dismiss it.


Battery Drain:

Lastly, as mentioned in a reply in another thread, after I charged it two days ago, the battery has dropped 20% with minimal GPS or workout usage … mostly dropping battery in smartwatch mode, with raise to wake enabled. Quite surprising compared to the advertised 23 days.


It’s a nice device overall, but on some of the above points am I maybe expecting too much?

Cheers,

biqua

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  • 0 over 2 years ago
    Biqua said:

    Fitness age:

    On the FR45 it said my fitness age was more than 20 years older than I am, which I always found amusing given the training I was capable of pre-injury. On the FR965 it is just under my real age after six months off, which is nice to see, but a huge disparity.

    As far as I know, fitness age on older devices was based solely on your estimated VO2 Max (so it could be your real age +/- 20 years), but on newer devices, the algorithm has been changed so your fitness age can never be more than 5 years greater or less than your real age. Similarly, the race predictor used to be a simple table lookup based on your estimated VO2 Max, but now it takes training volume into account (at least for the marathon estimate.)

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Training readiness,.I also discovered this data synched only one time per day. But it is ok, because in the help section of the garmin connect apk there is something about it - the score is the same for all the day starting from the wake up in the morning when the morning report is created. Of course directly on your watch the score increase/ decrease...

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Training readiness:

    Biqua said:

    Training readiness:

    Now it has enough data to show training readiness I got excited to see how it worked, and after a run on Monday, the score dropped as you might expect, but after strength training on Tuesday, where I specified a mix of leg exercises and upper body, the score didn’t drop at all. Is this normal for strength training?
    Additionally, the score seems to sync to the phone only once a day at 6am, so on Monday I had very different figures after the run.

    See the attached link regarding the info displaying on GC app in this regard

    forums.garmin.com/.../training-readiness

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to S.M.R.

    Thanks both Marek and S.M.R.

    It seems a weird choice from them given they sync basically everything else regularly, but it is what it is I guess.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    to be honest, I have the same. My new forerunner 965 is a fine watch, but so was my old 935. I'm not that impressed with the progress in 6 years time.

    GPS in my situation is about the same. Trails in garmin connect/strava look about the same. Not the most important for me. Instant pace is just as unreliable as on my old watch. (Did a 800 meter interval in a straight line, in an open area. Instant pace reported as 4:25/k, after the interval it said it was 4:14/k (It's a known distance, and with the time it took, the 4:14 was about right)

    The bigger screen is nice. So far amoled is readable enough. But the gesture/screen ware is terrible slow to react. This is mostly annoying doing track work. You cannot peek to the screen without loosing proper running form.

    Navigation on my old 935 with breadcrumb works fine. So far, maps didn't have any benefits. The screen is to small to clearly see small paths. I have to try the auto zoom mode.Maybe that helps.

    Yeh, it produces a lot more data. For me not that interesting or useful or even accurate. (for instance, sleep is just as bad as on my old watch, but sleepscore is used in a lot of other markers.)

    OHR doesn't work for me.

    The battery of my 935 was on his last legs after 6 years, and the 965 is a good replacement. And this confirms my ideas most new 'features' are just marketing blah blah. Over 6 years I will need a new watch. Until then my 965 is fine.