My Top 5 Favourite Garmin Features
After years of daily Garmin use, these are the 5 features I genuinely couldn't go back to living without — ranked from good to irreplaceable.
Day 29: My Top 5 Garmin Features
5. Flashlight
Sounds basic. Isn't. A flashlight on your wrist that you can activate while both hands are full — in the middle of a night run, in a dark car park, on a trail — is genuinely useful. You feel the loss the moment you use a watch without it.
4. Battery life
7+ days without charging, as a smartwatch. 20+ hours in GPS mode for most mid-range models. This fundamentally changes how you relate to your watch — you just wear it, instead of managing it.
3. The screen
Modern Garmin AMOLED screens are gorgeous. Rich, vibrant, crisp at any brightness. And MiP screens are still the best option for outdoor visibility and battery. Two great options depending on your priority.
2. The design
Clean, round, not bulky. Garmin has been shipping legitimately good-looking watches in recent years. The Venu 4 looks as good as anything in this category.
1. Hackability via Connect IQ
The ability to customise your watchface and install any app from the Connect IQ Store — or build your own — is what separates Garmin from every other wearable. It's a platform, not just a watch.
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Watchfaces worth installing
Watchface
Cadence
A classic analog watchface with a wide choice of stats, fields and colours, long-press shortcuts into the app, and always-on modes for OLED screens.
Watchface
Cockpit
Everything you need to track your day on one clean, cleverly laid-out watchface, with colours you change right on the watch and a second time zone.
Watchface
Goals Pro
The most popular Garmin watchface, upgraded: the same goal rings with full control over colours, fonts, analog or digital time, and long-press shortcuts.