GPS running smartwatch with advanced training features

You do the running. Forerunner 245 Music does the thinking. It even gets to know you, mile after mile and song after song. This GPS smartwatch has storage for your favourite tunes, so you can keep moving to the music without having to lug your phone along. It also tracks your stats, crunches the numbers and gets to know all about your performance, your running form, your training history and even your goals. All you need to focus on is putting one foot in front of the other.

Features:

• Sync with music streaming services, such as Spotify^??and Deezer, to easily store and play your favourite songs right from your watch
• Evaluates your training status to indicate whether you would benefit from another session this week or have been overdoing it and need a rest day; offers additional performance monitoring features
• Get free adaptive training plans from Garmin Coach, or create your own custom workouts on our Garmin Connect^™?online fitness community
• Provides advanced running dynamics², including ground contact time balance, stride length, vertical ratio and more
• Safety and tracking features³, such as built-in incident detection, make it easy to share your location
• Customise with free watch faces, apps and more from our Connect IQ^™?Store
• Battery life: up to 7 days in smartwatch mode; up to 6 hours in GPS mode with music

In The Box:

• Forerunner 245 Music
• Charging/data cable
• Documentation

Let the music play

If you can't run without the perfect playlist, you won't be able to run without Forerunner 245 Music. Sync your carefully crafted playlists from select music streaming services1 — such as Deezer and Spotify — to your watch for ad-free listening. You can even store up to 500 songs right on your watch. It's easy to transfer music from your computer and then queue up your favourite playlist for easy listening through headphones enabled with BLUETOOTH? technology.

Advanced performance analytics

What amount of training is right for you? Forerunner 245 offers personalised training and recovery insight for smarter training decisions, helping you prepare for your next race. It keeps tabs on your VO2 max and understands how heat and altitude impact your performance. The higher your VO2 max, the higher you can expect to perform, which is exactly what is shown by the performance condition metric. Training status evaluates your recent exercise history and performance indicators to let you know if you're training productively, peaking or overreaching. See how your workouts influence the development of endurance, speed and power with aerobic and anaerobic training effect feedback. Recovery time helps you maximise the benefit of your efforts by predicting when you will be ready for your next tough challenge. You can even view your overall training load, which measures your exercise volume from the last 7 days and compares it to the optimal range for your fitness and recent training history.

More ways to work out

Running is what you do, so train smarter with the tools available from our Garmin Connect online fitness community. Create your own custom workouts, or download free ones that sync right to your watch. Or, if you've got a specific goal in mind for your next 5K, check out Garmin Coach. Featuring guidance from expert coaches and free training plans that adapt to you and your goals, it's a foolproof way to get to the finish line. As part of your training plan, it can even help you predict your race time. What about when you want to switch it up? Forerunner 245 also has activity profiles for cycling, pool swimming, indoor rowing and even for using the elliptical or stair-stepper.

Analyse your running form

The Forerunner 245 GPS smartwatch also has the tools you need to improve your running form. The watch measures crucial running metrics such as cadence, stride length, ground contact time and balance, vertical oscillation and vertical ratio. These measurements are the key to understanding your form, so you can bring your best on every run and at every race. Your Forerunner 245 can start tracking these metrics with the addition of a compatible heart rate strap or the compact Running Dynamics Pod, which clips right onto your waistband.

More ways to customise
Check out our Connect IQ Store, where you can add personality to Forerunner 245 by downloading apps, widgets, watch faces and more. It's easy and — even better — it's free. New apps are added every day, so you can keep tabs on when your Uber will arrive, challenge yourself with the Strava Relative Effort app, and even use the AccuWeather MinuteCast app to find out when the rain will start.

Stay connected on the run

Forerunner 245 makes it easy to run without leaving important smart features behind. Once paired with your compatible smartphone, you'll be able to receive text messages and see social media updates, emails and more right on your wrist. New safety and tracking features make it easy to share your location with chosen contacts in case you need assistance — manually, or automatically with built-in incident detection, if needed. So, lace up your shoes and head out with a little extra peace of mind.

Share and compete

Syncing your activities to Garmin Connect is for more than just storing your data. Garmin Connect is a thriving online community where people on the go can connect and compete by joining challenges, encourage each other's successes and even share their triumphs via social media. Garmin Connect is free and available on the web or on your smartphone.

Wellness and advanced sleep monitoring

The Forerunner 245 smartwatch has tools to help keep tabs on your overall well-being and the sleep3 you're getting at night. These tools provide crucial insight you can use to maximise your training. For example, it's our first running watch to include a Pulse Ox sensor4. This wrist-based sensor estimates your body's blood oxygen saturation, which can help gauge how your body is absorbing oxygen — especially while you sleep. And to help you optimise your body's energy, Body Battery™ energy monitoring uses collected data to gauge your energy reserves at any moment, so you can plan your day to optimise times for activity and rest.

Menstrual cycle tracking

Get a better understanding of your body using the Garmin Connect™ menstrual cycle tracking feature. Use it to track your cycle, log physical and emotional symptoms and record personal notes. You’ll get education about training and nutrition during each phase of your current cycle, too. With the Connect IQ™ app, you’ll get cycle updates delivered to your wrist — including period reminders, cycle details and symptoms logged for the day.

Specifications:

General

• Lens material Corning? Gorilla? glass 3
• Bezel material Fiber-reinforced polymer
• Quick Release Bands Yes (20 mm, Industry standard)
• Strap material Silicone
• Physical size 42.3 x 42.3 x 12.2 (mm); Fits wrists with a circumference of 127-204 mm
• Display size 1.2" (30.4 mm) diameter
• Display resolution 240 x 240 pixels
• Display type Sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP)
• Weight 38.5 g
• Battery life Smartwatch Mode: Up to 7 days; GPS mode with music:
• Up to 6 hours; GPS mode without music: Up to 24 hours
• Water rating Swim, 5 ATM
• Colour display
• Memory/history 200 hours of activity data

Clock features

• Time/date
• GPS time sync
• Automatic daylight saving time
• Alarm clock
• Timer
• Stopwatch
• Sunrise/sunset times

Sensors

• GPS
• GLONASS
• Galileo
• Garmin Elevate™ wrist heart rate monitor
• Compass
• Accelerometer
• Pulse Ox

Daily smart features

• Connectivity Bluetooth?, ANT ?, Wi-Fi?
• Connect IQ™ (downloadable watch faces, data fields, widgets and apps)
• Smart notifications
• Text response/reject phone call with text (Android™ only)
• Calendar
• Weather
• Controls smartphone music
• Plays and controls watch music
• Music storage Up to 500 songs
• Find my phone
• Find my watch
• VIRB? camera remote
• Smartphone compatibility iPhone? and Android™
• Compatible with Garmin Connect™ Mobile

Safety and tracking features

• Incident Detection during select activities Yes (Smartphone required)
• Assistance Yes (Smartphone required)
• LiveTrack
• Live Event Sharing Android™ Only

Activity tracking features

• Step counter
• Move bar (displays on device after a period of inactivity; walk for a couple of minutes to reset it)
• Auto goal (learns your activity level and assigns a daily step goal)
• Sleep monitoring (monitors total sleep and periods of movement or restful sleep)
• Calories burned
• Distance travelled
• Intensity minutes
• TrueUp™
• Move IQ™
• Fitness age Yes (in app)
• Body Battery™ Energy Monitor
• All-day stress tracking

Fitness equipment/gym

• Available gym activity profiles
  • Strength training,
  • Cardio training,
  • Elliptical training,
  • Stair stepping,
  • Indoor rowing
  • Yoga
• Cardio workouts
• Strength workouts
• Automatic rep counting

Training, planning and analysis features

• GPS speed and distance
• Customisable screen(s)
• Customisable activity profiles
• Auto Pause?
• Interval training
• Advanced workouts
• Downloadable training plans
• Auto Lap?
• Manual lap
• Configurable lap alerts
• VO2 max
• Training status (lets you see if you’re training effectively by tracking your training history and fitness level trend)
• Training load (your total training load for the last 7 days calculated from estimated EPOC)
• Training effect (aerobic)
• Training effect (anaerobic)
• Customisable alerts
• Audio prompts
• Finish time
• Virtual partner
• Race an activity
• Course guidance
• Touch and/or button lock
• Auto scroll
• Activity history on watch
• Physio TrueUp

Heart rate features

• HR zones
• HR alerts
• HR calories
• % HR max
• % HRR
• Recovery time
• Auto max HR
• HR broadcast (broadcasts HR data over ANT ™ to paired devices)

Running features

• Available run profiles
  • Running,
  • Treadmill running,
  • Indoor track running,
  • Trail running
• GPS-based distance, time and pace
• Running dynamics Yes (with compatible accessory)
• Vertical oscillation and ratio (the degree of 'bounce' in your running motion and the cost-benefit ratio with stride length) Yes (with compatible accessory)
• Ground contact time and balance (shows how much time, in the running motion, your foot is on the ground rather than in flight and lets you check your running symmetry) Yes (with compatible accessory)
• Stride length (real time) Yes (with compatible accessory)
• Cadence (provides real-time number of steps per minute)
• Performance condition (after running 6–20 minutes, compares your real-time condition to your average fitness level)
• Run workouts
• Race predictor
• Foot pod capable

Outdoor recreation features

• Point-to-point navigation
• Bread crumbtrail in real time
• Back to start
• TracBack?
• UltraTrac mode
• Distance to destination
• GPS coordinates

Cycling features

• Available cycling profiles
  • Biking,
  • Indoor biking
• Courses
• Race an activity
• Time/distance alerts (triggers alarm when you reach goal)
• Compatible with Varia Vision™ (head-mounted display)
• Compatible with Varia™ radar (rear-facing radar)
• Compatible with Varia™ lights
• Speed and cadence sensor support (with sensor)

Swimming features

• Available swim profiles
  • Pool swimming
• Pool swim metrics (lengths, distance, pace, stroke count/rate, calories)
• Stroke type detection (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly)
• Swim efficiency (SWOLF)
• Drill logging
• Pool swim workouts

Connectivity

• Smartphone compatibility iPhone? and Android™

Press Reviews

"I suspect the Forerunner 245 (and Forerunner 245 Music) will make a lot of folks pretty happy, and for good reason: It basically reduces the price of a higher end Garmin running watch by $100. As has been the strategy for each successive Garmin fitness/outdoors release, they simply add new features at the higher end, and then roll the previously higher end features into the next mid-range watch. Rinse…repeat." Read Full Review