I think there's too many variables for someone else to make a decent recommendation, Garmin makes a lot of watches. I got a 745 because it has a smaller profile, all the features I wanted and was reasonably priced. I've had it for several years now and it's been great.

DC Rainmaker is a good place to get lost in the weeds.

 

I use a 530 for a majority of my rides and have a 245. It does everything I want it to for the most part, but doesn't parse ride data to the extent of the 530. It does keep ongoing data as you wear it though, like sleep, recovery, etc... and I can use it on it's own whenever. I also like being able to broadcast my HR to the Edge unit instead of wearing my chest strap when I like.

 

I have an Edge 530 and a Fenix 7X, I only really use the Fenix for uplift type riding, Edge for everything else.

 

I use an Instinct 2. It's a basic G Shock looking watch. It has all the necessary health metrics. You can see all of it in the Garmin Connect app.

 

The current Instinct series is closer than ever to the Fenix in features. I've been very pleased with the original one, and a 2S for running, hiking, and using for MTB rides where I just want to record without a screen in front of me. As a G-Shock fan I have always loved the aesthetics and relative simplicity too.

If you just want the health tracking of a Garmin device though, another option is the Vivosmart 4 or 5 that have HRV stress, resting heart rate, sleep, and can still record activities using your phone's GPS (linked through connect) in a pinch. I've had a 4 for years so I can wear an actual watch on my other wrist.

 

I used an Edge 820 on every ride until I got the Epix2. The watch does everything the computer did and more. Don’t use the computer anymore.

 

I wear a fenix 8. With the release of the f8, Garmin consolidated a couple models. I use an Edge 840 for riding (MTB, road, indoor) and the f8 for everything else.

 

I love my Fenix 7, I would get a Fenix 8 without hesitation.

 

Based on the sense I'm getting for how you'd like to use it and the fact that you have an Edge for use as your primary cycling data recording device, I'd suggest taking a close look at the Venu 3.

 

I wouldn’t bother with the Garmin (or really any fitness) watch. The optical HR isn’t accurate at all, so those stats it gives are just a shot in the dark. A lot of people don’t train with a HR strap, so they don’t realize how far off the optical HR is. It was downright useless on the Fenix 7 that I had, it was off by 30-40 beats during higher intensity exercise.

I was pretty disappointed by it but thankfully I bought at REI so I was able to return it after a few weeks.

 

I wouldn’t bother with the Garmin (or really any fitness) watch. The optical HR isn’t accurate at all, so those stats it gives are just a shot in the dark. A lot of people don’t train with a HR strap, so they don’t realize how far off the optical HR is. It was downright useless on the Fenix 7 that I had, it was off by 30-40 beats during higher intensity exercise.

I've had a different experience with my Garmin watch. I've done lots of rides using both a chest strap and the watch and the heart rate data overlays are nearly identical. I can use either device confidently.

 

Whichever garmin watch you get I would highly recommend getting one with the flashlight feature!! It’s frickin awesome, I use it pretty much every night.

 

I run a fenix 8 with a polar chest strap. Part of the rationale was that the fenix looks the sharpest for everyday wear and has great water resistance. I also snagged it 50% off through an employee discount. A previous gen fenix, epix, or the current enduro 3 seems like the best bang for the buck though.

I got the mount to use it as a bike computer and that’s been pretty good compared to my clapped wahoo roam.

 

I use an Instinct 2. It's a basic G Shock looking watch. It has all the necessary health metrics. You can see all of it in the Garmin Connect app.

Another vote for Instinct 2, does everything I want it to (and a lot more I don't care about) and works well with my phone and Edge.

I wouldn’t bother with the Garmin (or really any fitness) watch. The optical HR isn’t accurate at all, so those stats it gives are just a shot in the dark. A lot of people don’t train with a HR strap, so they don’t realize how far off the optical HR is. It was downright useless on the Fenix 7 that I had, it was off by 30-40 beats during higher intensity exercise.

I used to use a strap, but the Instinct is pretty much spot on so I stopped bothering. Maybe doesn't respond quite as fast to short, high intensity efforts, but I'm not tracking HR for those anyway. I have found that if the wrist band isn't tight enough I can get unrealistic HR numbers from the Instinct.

Instinct as well, the 2 Solar. I like this watch. When I am riding in summer as well as kayaking, I have seen battery life of 42 hrs, where as 24-26 is normal. It's a good reliable watch, can broadcast your HR to a data field on the Edge, can also do a GPS track than allows a Live Track which is useful if solo kayaking, Can do the same GPS activity tracking an Edge can do. Has weather and wind info., Has a music control function that I've never used. Plus all sorts of other do-dads.

to clarify the battery life statement above, that 24+ hrs is while actively tracking/recording an activity. More like 24-30 DAYS in normal watch mode (which still collects basic health data in the background)!

 

Another vote for Instinct 2, does everything I want it to (and a lot more I don't care about) and works well with my phone and Edge.



I used to use a strap, but the Instinct is pretty much spot on so I stopped bothering. Maybe doesn't respond quite as fast to short, high intensity efforts, but I'm not tracking HR for those anyway. I have found that if the wrist band isn't tight enough I can get unrealistic HR numbers from the Instinct.



to clarify the battery life statement above, that 24+ hrs is while actively tracking/recording an activity. More like 24-30 DAYS in normal watch mode (which still collects basic health data in the background)!

Yes, that’s a typo. I meant to say 24-26 days normal use.

 

If you've already got an Edge, then I'd go for something along the 255/265/Venu 2/Instinct 2 style for a watch.
I use an Edge 130/540/Stages L10/L50/M50 depending on mood, trail, race etc and record everything on the Garmin 955.
HR is a Wahoo OHR arm strap.

 

I had a chance to get a watch as well. I've used a 520 and 530, but I didn't want a watch with overlapping for riding. I'm not interested in a watch for serious mountain biking, as I simply can't read the screen as easily.
I got their golf watch, which I really wasn't that keen on for golf, but mostly the health metrics. I had no interest in GPS for golf as most of us use lasers, but I've been really impressed with it.
If I hadn't gone with the S62 I would have got an Instinct. What I like about Garmin in this regard is that yes, they do watches for specific activities, but they'll let you do other sports with them as well. So if we go for a hike or something, I'll use the watch.
And battery life is brilliant.

 

Yeah, Venu probably sounds right up your alley, especially if cycling is your main sport.

FWIW, I still prefer using a chest strap for interval type activities, but having tried a ton of different sports watches, the iteration of OHR on the Forerunner 945 is fantastic, especially for steady state activity. At this point, I just use the HR relay feature for Z2/long rides.

 

Epix2 and use my 840 for broadcasting my watch data to the 840, easier to read.

Big problem is that extended display only works ½ the time. the watch and 840 won't remember each other and I have to find it in sensors each time. Really east to read the big screen but I get so mad when it stops working. The devices are about 18" apart the whole time.

 

Just out of interest, what is your use case for the 840? Essentially a screen extension? I guess the obvious question, is there something the 840 doesn't do which means you rely on the watch?

 

Ah makes sense. Didn't know they did them. I think the 840 should have one inbuilt? I thought my 520 does? Well it's telling me the temperature!

the inbuilt thermometer is really for calibrating the barometric altimeter, because temp matters for that. Garmins didn't always include temp as a selectable data field because the thermometer wasn't terribly accurate and they didn't think people cared. but people figured out how to see the temp that sensor was reporting, and garmin eventually made a selectable data field for it. but it's reporting temp of the device (which, to get a good barometric pressure reading with a digital sensor, you need to know the temp of the sensor). which has a rough correlation to the ambient temp, but not exactly. external thermometer lets you get better ambient temp measurements if that's important to you.

 

the inbuilt thermometer is really for calibrating the barometric altimeter, because temp matters for that. Garmins didn't always include temp as a selectable data field because the thermometer wasn't terribly accurate and they didn't think people cared. but people figured out how to see the temp that sensor was reporting, and garmin eventually made a selectable data field for it. but it's reporting temp of the device (which, to get a good barometric pressure reading with a digital sensor, you need to know the temp of the sensor). which has a rough correlation to the ambient temp, but not exactly. external thermometer lets you get better ambient temp measurements if that's important to you.

FWIW, when I used both, there was no observable difference between the tempe sensor linked to my watch and the edge 530 UNLESS the sun is out.

Because you can hide the tempe sensor in the shade of your saddle or something, the difference gets pretty huge.

 

I've had a different experience with my Garmin watch. I've done lots of rides using both a chest strap and the watch and the heart rate data overlays are nearly identical. I can use either device confidently.

Agree with this 100%. HR data from my Forerunner 955 and Edge Explor 2 w/chest strap are typically spot on with each other.

However, back when I used a Whoop, not so much...

Dang, I’m a little jealous that you guys have had such good luck with yours, I’d love to ditch the strap. I was initially wondering if mine was defective because I hadn’t heard anyone complaining about it, so I emailed Garmin and their response was basically, “Yeah it’s not accurate, you should wear a chest strap if you really want to know what your heart rate is” which really pissed me off.

It was funny though, when I returned it to REI, the guy asked why and I said it was because the HRM didn’t work. He was like, “Ah, yeah. Totally didn’t work for me either, completely understand”. So it is a thing.

And fwiw, it was pretty spot on with the strap if I was still and had a low HR, like under 100 or so. It just started to get less and less accurate as the HR went up. I actually don’t think I ever saw it record >145 bpm, even when I was all out on a climb that usually gets my heart rate up to the mid 180s. So maybe if your HR is naturally slow you’ll encounter less problems? My dad is 72 and runs 30-40 miles a week still and has a resting HR in the 30s, he never sees over 140 or so, I wonder if the Fenix OHRM would work for him.

 

I agree. When I was running both early on, I was getting different distances on each. I also run a wheel speed sensor. Maybe I'm betting different readings at different times on each one which is resulting in different distance readings? in these areas. Or the wheel speed is the right distance. I'm ready to give up on this and just run the watch, for ease of operation. I just don't understand why the connection between watch and 840 is glitchy once the two connect.

depends on how much difference you were seeing between the two. if you look at dc rainmaker's reviews, he often puts multiple computers on his bike to run at the same time and there's always a discrepancy between them. which one is most accurate? you've gotta dig into the details to get an idea of that. in some cases, you can get a computer that will record the GPS position of your ride the most accurately, yet its total distance will be less accurate (on the short side) because of the whole shortcutting of corners thing. And sometimes you'll get a computer without a wheel sensor that will report a distance just as "accurately" as a computer with a wheel sensor, but if you look at the GPS track, it'll be off because of GPS wander. In those north-facing valleys, I tend to see a good bit of GPS wander in a track no matter what computer I use. And some dropouts if it's especially deep, narrow, and steep-walled (limiting the view of the sky and the number of satellites it can receive good signals from).

I don't know if ANT+ sensors have the capability to connect to two head units at the same time (I've never tried), but even if they can, each computer is going to be holding its own calibrations. Unless you manually enter the same calibration numbers on each computer (to ensure they are identical), the computers will be using Garmin's auto calibration, and each one is likely to be just a bit different. If the sensor cannot connect to two computers at once, then the difference will be especially notable, and the one with the wheel sensor is going to be reporting the best total distance, for sure.

I was reading a bit about the screen mirroring mode. I still use a plain 520 and it's not available to me. I read about it on dc rainmaker since he's pretty thorough about things.

How to: Garmin’s Semi-Secret Triathlon Display Mode (aka ‘Extended Display mode’) | DC Rainmaker

I was wondering if Garmin used BT for this connection, since I always have trouble with BT connections for extended data-hungry uses. It usually works fine for single, short-term use. But if I try to keep a connection running longer, it'll flake out at some point. Since this function seems to use ANT+, it made me wonder how data-hungry that particular function is compared to the other sensors. BITD, I used a Forerunner 310XT triathlon watch. In order to upload data from that particular device, my ONLY option was to send files over ANT+ to a computer (using an ANT+ usb dongle) and it was a nightmarish process. So I wonder if the screen mirroring thing is hard for ANT+ connections to maintain. Seems it's intended for triathlon uses, anyway, so I imagine the use case described above is how Garmin intended it to be used.

I have to wonder why y'all are using screen mirroring for regular rides? If you have the Edge head unit, why not just set up the Edge with all the sensors? If you're using the optical HRM on the watch, I do believe you can use the watch as your HRM sensor to send the data to the Edge (would be interesting to see if this connection had a different stability than a connection for screen mirroring). And then use the watch for watch things and for recording non-bike activities. Seems unnecessarily expensive to buy and use an Edge only for screen mirroring when you're not doing triathlons.

FWIW, when I used both, there was no observable difference between the tempe sensor linked to my watch and the edge 530 UNLESS the sun is out.

Because you can hide the tempe sensor in the shade of your saddle or something, the difference gets pretty huge.

Yes, that's exactly when the temp inaccuracies show up - when the Edge is getting sun exposure. I see those temp spikes on mine when the sun is on it. Usually I don't get super extended sun exposure on my computer given that I'm riding in thick forest much of the time. But occasionally I ride in places that are more exposed. But yeah, keeping a thermometer in the shade is absolutely standard protocol for getting the most accurate readings. That's why quality weather stations tend to put that sensor inside a vented enclosure.

But again, when the device heats up because it's in the sun, the barometric altimeter needs to be able to account for that.

 

depends on how much difference you were seeing between the two. if you look at dc rainmaker's reviews, he often puts multiple computers on his bike to run at the same time and there's always a discrepancy between them. which one is most accurate? you've gotta dig into the details to get an idea of that. in some cases, you can get a computer that will record the GPS position of your ride the most accurately, yet its total distance will be less accurate (on the short side) because of the whole shortcutting of corners thing. And sometimes you'll get a computer without a wheel sensor that will report a distance just as "accurately" as a computer with a wheel sensor, but if you look at the GPS track, it'll be off because of GPS wander. In those north-facing valleys, I tend to see a good bit of GPS wander in a track no matter what computer I use. And some dropouts if it's especially deep, narrow, and steep-walled (limiting the view of the sky and the number of satellites it can receive good signals from).

I don't know if ANT+ sensors have the capability to connect to two head units at the same time (I've never tried), but even if they can, each computer is going to be holding its own calibrations. Unless you manually enter the same calibration numbers on each computer (to ensure they are identical), the computers will be using Garmin's auto calibration, and each one is likely to be just a bit different. If the sensor cannot connect to two computers at once, then the difference will be especially notable, and the one with the wheel sensor is going to be reporting the best total distance, for sure.

I was reading a bit about the screen mirroring mode. I still use a plain 520 and it's not available to me. I read about it on dc rainmaker since he's pretty thorough about things.

How to: Garmin’s Semi-Secret Triathlon Display Mode (aka ‘Extended Display mode’) | DC Rainmaker

I was wondering if Garmin used BT for this connection, since I always have trouble with BT connections for extended data-hungry uses. It usually works fine for single, short-term use. But if I try to keep a connection running longer, it'll flake out at some point. Since this function seems to use ANT+, it made me wonder how data-hungry that particular function is compared to the other sensors. BITD, I used a Forerunner 310XT triathlon watch. In order to upload data from that particular device, my ONLY option was to send files over ANT+ to a computer (using an ANT+ usb dongle) and it was a nightmarish process. So I wonder if the screen mirroring thing is hard for ANT+ connections to maintain. Seems it's intended for triathlon uses, anyway, so I imagine the use case described above is how Garmin intended it to be used.

I have to wonder why y'all are using screen mirroring for regular rides? If you have the Edge head unit, why not just set up the Edge with all the sensors? If you're using the optical HRM on the watch, I do believe you can use the watch as your HRM sensor to send the data to the Edge (would be interesting to see if this connection had a different stability than a connection for screen mirroring). And then use the watch for watch things and for recording non-bike activities. Seems unnecessarily expensive to buy and use an Edge only for screen mirroring when you're not doing triathlons.



Yes, that's exactly when the temp inaccuracies show up - when the Edge is getting sun exposure. I see those temp spikes on mine when the sun is on it. Usually I don't get super extended sun exposure on my computer given that I'm riding in thick forest much of the time. But occasionally I ride in places that are more exposed. But yeah, keeping a thermometer in the shade is absolutely standard protocol for getting the most accurate readings. That's why quality weather stations tend to put that sensor inside a vented enclosure.

But again, when the device heats up because it's in the sun, the barometric altimeter needs to be able to account for that.

This discussion got me interested again in trying to sort out my issue of the extended display. It was mentioned why I had my InReach sync'ed to it; well because I could. Well that was a dumb reason. It really served no purpose since I can work it through my phone, so I eliminated it as a sensor for my epic 2 to capture. Well first ride out it is pretty clear it was the InReach causing my issues. While racked, I turn my 840 on to spin it up while I get ready, same for my watch, I select the mtb activity but I don't start the activity. Well I took my bike off the rack and everything was already connected to it. Usually I spin the wheel, turn the cranks to wake everything up. The screen display worked perfectly, on a ride where I would have trouble. So I'll keep an eye on this development to make sure I truly solved my issue, it appears I have. Hope this may help someone else.

 

I've never actually tried the screen mirroring despite having owned the required devices for about 4 years now. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out some kind of use case.

 

Triathlon.
Whenever you want the same data on both, but can't start the head unit at the same time.

 

I just saw that Garmin has discontinued the tempe sensor and online prices for available stock have jumped to about $50CAD.

I think I paid $25. Reminding myself not to lose it now.

 

OP here. I got a forerunner 165 for Christmas. It makes a better watch than the Samsung it replaces, but doesn't work as a flashlight.

It won't track heart rate recovery unless I record my rides using it instead of of the Edge 840.

It constantly nags me about going for a run and suggests 5k pacing based on recovery status etc, even though I turned off all activity types except bike.

It seems incredibly running oriented.

 

OP here. I got a forerunner 165 for Christmas. It makes a better watch than the Samsung it replaces, but doesn't work as a flashlight.

It won't track heart rate recovery unless I record my rides using it instead of of the Edge 840.

It constantly nags me about going for a run and suggests 5k pacing based on recovery status etc, even though I turned off all activity types except bike.

It seems incredibly running oriented.

I record everything via the watch.
Turn off move alerts etc under Health & Wellness.

 

I leave my Epix2 in my duffel and take an Edge 840 with a Polar optical hr sensor. The Polar is tiny and uses an arm strap, I put it just above my elbow pad. It's close enough in accuracy to a chest strap. The watch sensor is very accurate too, I use the watch for runs, workouts and other non-bike activities. Watch is not all that useful for mtb, it's much easier to see and navigate using the 840.

 

I don't think I'd buy my Forerunner 245 music again. I bought it primarily for heart rate syncing to both my Apple TV for Zwift and to my 530 for riding. Heart rate can be way off. Also the virtual run mode which you use to pair it to either only goes for 30 minutes, so you lose your heart rate after 30 minutes of riding, you can turn it back on again for another 30 min, but it's annoying.

 

I have the sample size of 1 so take it with a grain of salt, my Garmin vivoactive 4 has been a good watch, the heart rate seems right, a friend and I swapped watches to check and I have a lezyne strap(which I don't recommend). the GPS is as accurate as a couple of phones and a Lezyne GPS device so I just use the watch for all my rides.

 

Record rides on 840, use the Epix as a HR sensor. That's the only useful integration of the two devices anyway. The extended display sucks.