Does Garmin Forerunner 245 Music waterproof? Who need this? Fits wrists with a circumference of 127-204 millimeter. Display size – 1.2 inch (30.4 millimeter) diameter. Battery life is long – up to 7 days in smartwatch mode and up to 6 hours in GPS mode with music. What more your getting at Garmin Forerunner 245 Music best price? Sync with music streaming services, such as Spotify, to easily store and play your favorite songs right from your watch. From Garmin coach, get free adaptive training plans and many more workout features. What is the Garmin Forerunner 245 Music best price?
Pros & Cons – Garmin Forerunner 245 Music
Things We Liked
- The 245 Music has everything a runner needs and more. Along with accurate GPS and heart rate tracking, you get the ability to set workouts to follow, training plans synced to the watch and analysis of the effect of your workouts.
- Breadcrumb navigation and a back-to-start feature have been added to the watch, which means you need never get lost on a run again.
- The music features on the 245 Music are great, with the watch able to wirelessly link up with a Spotify Premium account so you can sync your playlists across automatically.
- The design of the 245 is smart, lightweight and very comfortable, so you need never take it off.
- The battery life is impressive for such a slight watch at 24 hours of GPS, though using music and GPS cuts this down to six hours.
Things We Didn’t Like
- There is no triathlon or open-water swimming mode on the 245, with Garmin presumably trying to push multisport athletes towards the pricier Forerunner 945, Fenix 5 Plus and Fenix 6 series.
- Garmin has not put a barometric altimeter in the watch. Most people won’t miss this, but it feels like an attempt to ensure the Forerunner 645, which does have the altimeter, still has a reason to exist when the 245 offers almost all of its other features for less.
Specs you are getting at Garmin Forerunner 245 Music best price
- Features: Black (band)
- Weight: 38.5 Grams
- Placement: Wrist
- Water Resistance: Water-Resistant
- Product Model: Garmin Forerunner 235
- Includes: Charging Cable, User Manual
- Battery Charge Life: Up to 24 Hours, Up to 6 Hours, Up to 7 Days
- Electronics Features: Text Notifications, Customizable Watch Faces, Alarm Notifications, Changeable Bands, Music Capabilities, stopwatch, Target Zone Alarms, Accelerometer, Calendar Notifications, Call Notifications, Reminders to Move, Built-In GPS, App Notifications, Always-On Display, Smartphone Compatible
- Material: Watch Band: Silicone
- Operating System Compatibility: Android, Apple iOS, Windows Mobile
- Connection Types: USB
- Wireless Technology: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
- Screen Size: 1.2 Inches
- Activities tracked: Walking, Daily Workout Memory, Swimming, Running
- Metrics Measured: Sleep Interruptions, Total Steps, Sleep Quality, Speed, Sleep Duration, Daily Distance, VO2 Max, Calories Burned, Average Speed, Floors Climbed, Heart Rate, Active Minutes
- Material: Plastic
- Battery: 1 Non-Universal Lithium Ion, Required, Included
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music best price
The Garmin Forerunner 245 Music costs $349, and is available with a black, white, or aqua band and case. For those who don’t want the music feature, the Garmin Forerunner 245 is $299, and comes in black or berry red.
Garmin had set itself a high bar to clear with the 245, which has been released in two versions – one that can store and stream music to wireless headphones (which costs £299.99) and one that can’t (£249.99). For the most part, the bar’s been cleared. The Forerunner 245 Music in particular offers the best combination of sports tracking plus smart features you’ll find on a sub-£300 watch.
Is it worth buying – Garmin Forerunner 245 Music at best price?
245’s form factor
– Lightweight and barely noticeable on my wrist
– Very crisp, high resolution (240×240) display (easier to see than the Fenix 5X despite its smaller size)
– Screen is Gorilla Glass 3 (less likely to scratch than some older Forerunner models)
245 for running
– Uses the same basic interface as all Garmin running watches, so it’s intuitive for me to use by now (takes some getting used to for newbies, though)
– Running metrics that were in the Fenix 5X are all available (e.g. pace, heart rate, cadence, training effect, VO2 max estimate, etc.)
– You can load pre-designed courses (for directions during a run), workouts (for interval training and such) and training plans (5k/10k/Half Marathon plans)
245’s music features
– Can hold 500 songs (~3.6GB available)
– Music options include Spotify, Deezer and manual loading of MP3 or AAC files from your computer
– Wi-Fi syncing of music
Reasons not to buy
The batteries could last a little longer, I think on the music version they do. The strap seems to ‘chafe’ my wrist more than my fitbit alta hr did… This watch will stop counting paces/distance if you rest your arms/stop moving them, unlike the fitbit which seemed to be a lot more lenient. Little more expensive than I would like. Some of the apps don’t really work like they should, especially some of the ones you might want to pay a few dollars for.
Compare Garmin Forerunner 245 Music vs Garmin Forerunner 235
| Garmin Forerunner 245 Music (Best price) | Garmin Forerunner 235, GPS Running Watch, Black/Gray | |
|---|---|---|
| Are batteries included? | Yes | Yes |
| Are batteries required? | Yes | Yes |
| Display Type | LCD | 180 x 180 pixels – LCD, Color Display |
| Item Dimensions | 1.7 x 1.7 x 0.5 inches | 0.5 x 1.8 x 1.8 inches |
| Item Weight | 1.34 ounces | 1.60 ounces |
| Sport Type | Running, Cardio, Cycling, Exercise & Fitness, Training | — |
| Style | Music | Watch Only |
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music review
Design
its largely plastic build it doesn’t look or feel overly expensive either. It’s a mere 38.5g with a 30.4mm diameter face, which is pretty small in comparison to the company’s Fenix series, for instance. The Forerunner 245 has a softer, more refined design than its predecessor, the Forerunner 235. Notably, the edges are rounder, giving it a less boxy shape.
Case
While the Garmin Forerunner 245 is slightly thicker than its predecessor on paper, you’re probably not going to notice – perhaps because it is smaller and lighter overall. The body has dropped down from a 45mm case to 42.3mm, something you’re only likely to recognize if you’re a Forerunner 235 user.
Buttons
The 245 retains the five-button design common to many of Garmin’s running watches, with a small tweak here and there. The Start/Stop button in the upper right now has a red ring around it, as well as a red hash mark on the watch bezel, making it stand out just a bit more.
The backlight can be turned on and off manually or automatically, depending on your preference. I changed it to manual because the backlight was going on and off quite a bit. Turning the manual setting on helped keep the battery life strong and wasn’t distracting with the backlight constantly flashing.
Display
As for the display, Garmin has upgraded the Forerunner 245’s screen from a 215 x 180 resolution on the Forerunner 235 to a 240 x 240 resolution, adding a welcome touch of sharpness and better detail that wasn’t present in the 235. The 1.2-inch screen is a good size too – being big enough to feed you the data you need without overloading you with information.
More options
Cycling through the Forerunner 245’s various screens, you can view the weather, your calendar, notifications, workout history, heart rate, steps, health stats and more. Each of these screens is referred to as a widget, and you can add, remove and rearrange them as you see fit.
Running feature
the Forerunner 245 incorporates a few more metrics catering to runners. In fact, it’s one of the best fitness trackers for running. Training Status analyzes your activities to see if you’re progressing as you should; Training Load, which looks at your previous seven days of workouts; and anaerobic and aerobic Training Effect, to see the effectiveness of your individual workouts.
Music feature
You can download music to the watch from your computer, or from Spotify or Deezer if you have premium subscriptions from those service. After signing into your account through Garmin’s app, you can then view and sync your playlists to the Forerunner 245 music. Downloading my running playlist, which has 11 songs, took about 3 minutes. You can also sync podcasts via Spotify, too.
The Spotify app also recommended a number of workout-related playlists, such as “160 BPM Runner’s Club,” “Power Workout,” and “Beast Mode,” but you can’t preview the songs on the lists on the watch without downloading them first.
Garmin Connect
You can connect with your friends on Garmin Connect. Garmin Connect gives you the tools to track, analyze, share, and encourage each other. Record the events of your active lifestyle including runs, walks, rides, swims, hikes, triathlons, and more.
To sign up for a free account, go to www.garminconnect.com. Store your activities: After you complete and save an activity with your device, you can upload that activity to your Garmin Connect account and keep it as long as you want.
Analyze your data: You can view more detailed information about your activity, including time, distance, elevation, heart rate, calories burned, cadence, running dynamics, an overhead map view, pace and speed charts, and customizable reports.
Sleep Tracking With The Garmin Forerunner 245 Music
If sleep tracking is important for you then Garmin’s offering will be a disappointment compared with the depth of detail you get from Fitbit and Polar devices in particular. The 245 will track sleep and break it down by time spent in deep, light and REM sleep, along with any time awake, but it’s pretty basic and often inaccurate (recording periods when I’m awake but still as light sleep) so overall sleep total is skewed to be too high.
You can also enable the PulseOx sensor to record your blood oxygen levels during sleep, which might be of use to those at altitude, and could help identify conditions like sleep apnoea in the future if Garmin updates the software on the watch. Right now, however, it’s pretty much useless for most people, so turn it off and save the battery life.
Charging
The Forerunner 245 fully charges in two hours via a short snap-in USB cable that plugs into the back of the watch and can connect to Garmin’s desktop Express software on Windows or Mac.
Battery life
One of the benefits of using a fitness-first watch, rather than a smartwatch, to track your runs is battery life. Garmin’s watches will last for days longer than any Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. Without GPS, the Forerunner 245 should be good for up to seven days. With the GPS turned on, Garmin says that the Forerunner 245 Music will last up to 24 hours.
Waterproof
To top it all off, the 245 is waterproof. Garmin rates the watch to 5 ATM, which means it can withstand water pressures equivalent to 50 meters deep. That’s not enough to make it a diving watch, but it’s plenty of resistance to make it through showers, swimming pools and unexpected downpours.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music Performance review
In our tests, locking on to GPS at the start of a run was always speedy – you can opt for GPS only, GPS plus GLONASS (the Russian satellite system) or GPS plus Galileo (the European one), with the latter providing the most accurate tracking in the UK in my experience. Measured against a calibrated footpod, the 245’s distance tracking was always close to bang on, even under tree cover or on a running track, and I was similarly impressed by how accurate its heart rate tracking was. The 245 is small and light, so it sits tight against the wrist, and I found it matched up well with a chest strap heart rate monitor even during interval runs.
As for other activities, cycling tracking and yoga worked well and seemed accurate, undoubtedly thanks to the sensors, which have also been given an upgrade on the Forerunner 245. This includes the Garmin Elevate optical heart rate sensor, which judges heart rate using LED lights to illuminate blood flow through veins and capillaries.
You can create your own workouts and beam them over to the watch from the Garmin Connect app, setting yourself targets based on time, distance, heart rate, cadence, pace or calories. You can also generate a full training plan using the Garmin Coach feature in the app. These are currently available for 5K, 10K and half marathon races and once you select one, all your training runs will be sent to the watch and you will be guided through each workout.
Along with workouts, you can also create routes in the app to follow on the 245. The watch doesn’t have full colour maps like the Forerunner 945 or Fenix 5 Plus Series, but the simple breadcrumb trail you get on the 245 is usually enough to keep you on track, and even if you do go wrong you’ll be able to get yourself back on the route quickly.
Garmin Forerunner 245 Music customer review
Great for tracking my entire day.
After finding out that the forerunner 235 only had music controls and not full music features, I had to bite the $150 bullet and purchase the 245 music. Best upgrade ever. Loading my amazon music was literally effortless because it automatically did it for me. The garmin connect is wonderful. I can view my entire day, sleep to steps, energy levels to stress and much more. The workout details are the best. I can view all my running stats and see them on the map.
The watch is lightweight and good looking. It is comfortable on my wrist and I sleep with my watch on for the first time ever. It pairs with satellites almost immediately and no waiting. It took a few days to get used to the buttons and how to access the stuff I need, but now it is second nature.
The music feature is great, using my amazon prime music that downloads my workout playlists and pairs right away with my wireless headphones. The best watch I have owned so far. If it can last as long as my previous Tom Tom, that would be a bonus.
BySlowRunner at Best Buy
How to connect Spotify with Garmin Forerunner 245 Music?
Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs.
TIP: Spotify integration requires the Spotify application be installed on your mobile phone. A compatible mobile digital device and premium subscription is required, where available.
Go to www.garmin.com/.
This product incorporates Spotify software which is subject to third party licenses found here: https://developer.spotify.com/legal/third-party-licenses.
Soundtrack every journey with Spotify. Play songs and artists you love, or let Spotify entertain you.
Downloading Audio Content from Spotify
Before you can download audio content from Spotify, you must connect to a Wi‑Fi network
1 Hold DOWN from any screen to open the music controls.
2 Hold UP.
3 Select Music Providers > Spotify.
4 Select Add music & podcasts.
5 Select a playlist or other item to download to the device.
Downloading Personal Audio Content
Before you can send your personal music to your device, you must install the Garmin Express application on your computer (www.garmin.com/express).
You can load your personal audio files, such as .mp3 and .aac files, to a Forerunner 245 Music device from your computer.
1 Connect the device to your computer using the included USB cable.
2 On your computer, open the Garmin Express application, select your device, and select Music.
TIP: For Windows® computers, you can select and browse to the folder with your audio files. For Apple® computers, the Garmin Express application uses your iTunes® library.
3 In the My Music or iTunes Library list, select an audio file category, such as songs or playlists.
4 Select the checkboxes for the audio files, and select Send to Device.
5 If necessary, in the Forerunner 245 Music list, select a category, select the checkboxes, and select Remove From Device to remove audio files.
Alternate of Garmin Forerunner 245 Music
An alternative to the Forerunner 245 is the former model Forerunner 235, which comes with fewer options but works well from a budget point of view. The same price range of the 245 is the Polar Vantage M.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active comes at a lower price with some of the same options. However, it is more of a smartwatch than a sports watch so it has fewer options for training and analyzing results. The Apple I watch in the 3 and 4 series functions similar to the Samsung Galaxy Active watch. Yet, they are more expensive and don’t function well as a sports watch.
Another watch that should be mentioned is the ForeRunner 645; which comes at a higher price but has more features like the barometric altimeter, contactless payment, data pages, and overall it looks more sophisticated. I just wish Garmin had made the 245 looks a little nicer.
