Garmin Forerunner 245 Music
Features
The Garmin Forerunner 245 Music is the feature-packed GPS running watch that does everything most runners need—and then some.
Garmin's newest watch tracks your daily miles using GPS, GLONASS or Galileo satellite systems; it has a built-in heart rate monitor to keep tabs on how hard you're pushing; and it has a waterproof rating of 5 ATM, which means it's good down to 50 meters.
The new Foreunner 245 Music refreshes the outgoing Forerunner 235 by adding new features and improving on some old ones. One of the biggest additions to the 245 is Garmin's Running Awareness features that let you share your location with a list of contacts so you can stay safe (or just let them track you during a race). You can also sync the watch with your smartphone to get text, email and other notifications right on your wrist.
Designers also improved the Bluetooth capabilities, tacked on a Wi-Fi connection, gave it space to hold up to 500 songs and added more training metrics to help you run and recover smarter. (The base Garmin Forerunner 245 does everything the Music version does, but without Wi-Fi or storage for tunes.)
In a review of the Garmin Forerunner 245, our tester loved how comfortable the watch is and how easy it is to keep track of daily and weekly mileage. She used it during training for a 100-mile race, and the ample battery life kept her running through 80-mile training weeks.
The upgrades make the lightweight, low-profile running watch an ideal partner for your training.
Quick details
- Built-in GPS. Accurate distance, pace and interval data thanks to the built-in GPS tracking.
- Wrist-based heart rate. Garmin's wrist-based heart rate monitor lets you keep tabs on how hard you're working during your run, and it keeps you informed at rest, too.
- Long battery life. Up to 7 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 6 hours in GPS mode with music.
Popular GPS Watches + Heart Rate Monitors
Reviews
Love it!
This watch has far surpassed my expectations. I love the fit the size and its many functions. Best of all I can listen to all my music without having to lug around my phone. It's great!
Ecstatic making the move from Fitbit!
I had been a long time Fitbit user (a little over 10 years) and my latest Versa 2 was dying. I had been looking at Garmin’s for a few years done some research on them as well as talked to a few friends that have one. Fleet Feet just so happened to have the Forerunner 245 Music on sale so I decided to get one. From the moment I put it on I was hooked. So easy to use accurate and now I don’t run with my phone anymore very liberating! I’m hooked and can guarantee I’m a Garmin customer!
garmin 245 m
superb!
Great watch!
This watch checks all of the boxes for me and more! Easy to set up comfortable to wear and love the added feature of wi-fi which allows for auto updates to Connect IQ to easily review my data. Love it!
Exceeds expectations
Watch was a gift for wife. She is not the most tech savvy but she was able to easily download her music and navigate through the widgets while going for a run. She likes the watch as a replacement for her iPod that finally gave up on her. She especially likes the ease of advancing the songs and pausing while taking a call.
Good upgrade from 220
I had a Forerunner 220 for years and absolutely loved it. I was sad to let go of it but it was on its last leg. The 245 seems like it will serve me well for years and the added features are really nice
So Far So Great!
The watch is easy to set up and the accuracy beats out any of my previous sports watches.
Good with specific flaws.
The amount of data this watch can provide is amazing. It performs as expected does everything advertised and isn't terribly heavy on your wrist. There's dozens of watchfaces to download showing various levels of info and can create your own with pics on your phone though they usually end up blurry and mediocre but in terms of watch performance it's great. Note that unlike Fitbit which would auto detect exercise if you don't start a run on the watch it won't count it as an activity That being said there are just a couple draw backs. The menus can be Byzantine especially if you prefer podcasts. Obviously most of us are going Spotify but adding podcasts to your watch is a nightmare and even if you have multiple episodes it won't play the next. The best thing to do is to create a playlist of podcast episodes and download that and get rid of that when you get back. Keep in mind that you have to do the downloading from the watch interface it's not auto syncing from Spotify. I didn't try runcasts as I'd heard it wasn't ideal and didn't want to spend 5 bucks a month. On the listening note it couldn't be easier to pair with Bluetooth head phones maintains connection the entire time with no problems.The app is pretty good. It does a good job of displaying your data and you can customize what you want to see. The help button is usually helpful in explaining. It's not quite as user friendly as something like Fitbit or as visually clean but it's more detailed with a lot of the data so it's a trade off. That being said one of the worst things is with the app rather than the watch itself if you track calories you'll have to get my fitness pal and link it. It won't do it in app by itself. It's still excellent for its price point there's just a significant learning curve and a few annoyances. But not having to carry a phone is excellent and worth most of the gripes.
Love my new Garmin!
Thank you Fleet Feet for hooking me up with the running watch of my dreams :heart:ï¸