gps-details

Garmin Review

Introduction

During 2024, I have been reviewing the performance of Garmin watches and their suitability for wind sports.

These pages have been created to share a variety of observations and pertinent technical details.

Since there are so many topics to cover, multiple pages have been created to avoid one giant summary!

Background

Early in 2022, I had a look at the data coming out of several Garmin watches; Forerunner 255, fenix 7 and fenix 7S. All of these watches had issues with the speed data, despite using the windsurfing mode (fenix) or other (Forerunner 255). A somewhat brief summary of the issue can be found on Seabreeze in the topic “Garmin Fenix 7” on 25 Apr 2022 6:13 AM.

Fast forward to 2024 and TBWonder (Andrew Haigh) posted some impressive test results from his Forerunner 255. I decided to buy myself one and I have been testing it ever since. Not only have the original issues been resolved but coincidentally, COROS have subsequently introduced the Garmin issue of 2022 to their Airoha-based watches in 2024!

General Overview

Before diving into any technical details, I will quickly summarise the Forerunner 255 as follows:

Important Observations

Various observations have been made whilst testing Garmin devices.

Detailed Topics

The following pages cover a variety of topics in more detail.

Summary

I have seen some pretty solid results from the Airoha-based watches during my testing throughout 2024. They aren’t so consistent and dependable as the Motion or ESP, but they are nevertheless extremely good. When testing 2 Garmin watches at the same time you see a lot more variability than you do with 2 Motions (or ESPs). However, they are probably “good enough” for recreational use and semi-serious competition.

There are some little quirks and niggles which I have documented on these pages. There are also future opportunities such as accuracy estimates in FIT files. Hopefully the content of these pages will prove useful to anyone who takes a deeper interested in the use of GNSS technology for speed sailing.