Español We're going today with a quick one. The Garmin Forerunner 45 Plus has been on the Garmin website since last week. The strange thing is that there has been no official presentation (at least for the moment). They have also posted video on Youtube, and in fact there are some stores in which it is already available (at least in UK).
I have doubts as to whether it is a deliberate move (putting it on the market without making any noise), or it has simply been a mistake in publishing it and it has not been corrected. Perhaps, after all the fuss of the Garmin hacking days ago, they have not seen fit to present a new model
Either way, it would make sense because it hardly brings anything new about the Garmin Forerunner 45 we had so far.
Garmin is keen to take out reissues of its models by adding the Plus name. In some cases this has meant extending the capabilities of the previous device quite a bit (for example, Garmin Fenix 5 Plus added maps, music and wireless payments). But in the case of the FR45 Plus the changes are, apparently, limited to adding two Firstbeat metrics that might well have added over the original model by firmware update, given that Garmin bought Firstbeat Analytics a few weeks ago.
The only two features Garmin has added over the FR45 are:
- Recovery advisor
- Race predictor
Recovery advisor is a metric that indicates the number of hours to wait before performing a demanding workout again.
It does not mean that until that this time passes you can't do any other workout, what is indicating is that if you have done an interval workout today and you have a recovery time of 40 hours, you should not do a hard workout again until a while has passed. Meanwhile you can train other sports, run in Z2, gym, etc.
As for the Race predictor, the watch will show you the estimated times you can get for 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon distances. This estimate is based on your estimated VO2max and the type of training you are doing.
That's it, that pair of features are added to what the original Forerunner 45 offered:
- Color screen
- Allows you to change the design of the dial through Connect IQ. But it does not support apps or widgets
- Body Battery to measure the resources available
- GPS, GLONASS and Galileo thanks to Sony GNSS chip
- Different sports profiles, not just running (e.g. cycling)
- Constant heart rate recording at rest, with alerts if a certain range is exceeded
- Alerts: of pace/speed
- Compatible with advanced trainings that can be designed from the application or from the web. Until now, no watch in the lower range has ever offered this possibility
- It allows to synchronize trainings of Garmin Coach and has support for training calendar, so you can follow training plans for 5K, half-marathon, etc.
- Incident detection, It sends a message to the chosen contacts in case of a sudden deceleration or any situation that the watch may assume to be a fall. It is conditional on carrying the phone with you as it will be the one to take care of the communication (the watch itself is not capable of doing this)
- VO2Max estimation
- Support for ANT+ sensors and also for Bluetooth Smart as well
- Battery life up to 13 hours in GPS mode
So that's it, just two new metrics from Firstbeat, everything else is identical to the previous model and which I already discussed at the time (here you can see the Garmin Forerunner 45 full review).
Below you can see the presentation video that Garmin has posted on Youtube.
And with that... thanks for reading!
How do I record several months of training sessions? I have a gramin forerunner 735xt.
All workouts are synchronized with Garmin Connect.