Garmin - Forerunner 165
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Reddit Reviews:
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Last updated: Dec 15, 2025 Scoring
Liked most:
1964
80
"A good robovac is a life changer. Even a $350 basic S8. It is a great place to start. ... I promise you that you will not be disappointed by a basic S8. It will change your life even if it can't fit under every piece of furniture you own. ... My two S8s just finished vacuuming our entire house in about 46 minutes. ... While my floors were being cleaned, I sat comfortably on our patio in the cool shade with a slight breeze and composed my far too long response to you while sipping a diet soda and relaxing. ... I will have to spend about four minutes maintaining my two S8s. This will be my entire contribution to my home floor cleaning effort for today. Four minutes!"
"I got the Q5 Pro for $139. ... costs $450 less than what I paid for the S6 ... it is the best value option out there imo."
"Like 500$ these robots are currently the steal of the century ... You can get a mova p10 pro ultra (cannot remove its mops), equivalent to the l40/x40 for 500$ after a discount code"
634
109
"battery lasts me forever, I charge it once a week and I game every day."
"especially because of the battery life. ... The mouse I had right before this was the steelseries super light one, that was an every other day charge at minimum. Whereas this one is like once a week at most - and I work from home and game all night."
"Oh, and the battery lasts days even when exercising a lot (weeks without excercise)."
64
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"just upgraded to the 265S for the AMOLED screen. ... Wasn't a fan of the MIPS of the 255."
"If you're over 40 or 50 the a m oled screen, it looks like neon LED lights. It's preferred over the mips screen because of well eyes and aging. You can't see the dull black and white screen underwater if you're a swimmer too, it doesn't show up. Well. Get the 265 because of the a m oled screen"
"In darker rooms the AMOLED is way better to read than the MIP without backlight."
29
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"When I want accurate data, I wear my old Garmin. I think it's a Forerunner 235?"
"outside is perfect."
"Haven’t lost GPS on a run with the garmin yet."
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"insights, info and customizeability of the FR165 such as the body battery and recovery time which I think better suits my lifestyle."
"It would be perfect for tracking sleep"
"way better at determining sleep duration ... I find start time is rock solid and seldom gets fooled"
Disliked most:
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"sleep is a disaster ... I was watching TV and I was already asleep ... when I go to the bathroom in the evening, the venu didn't even notice that I was sleeping, or didn't even recognize that I went to the bathroom."
"Sleep tracking is great if you are an amazing sleeper who doesn’t have interrupted sleep or gets up in the night. I get up to pray and when I go back it doesn’t pick up that sleep again. It is an issue because sleep tracking was a major reason for me buying a fitness tracker."
"I also found the sleep tracking on the GW6 to be much more reliable. ... I have small kids so I wake up every now and then during the night and on the Garmin - it's so frustrating to be told in the morning that I had a great night of sleep with only 10 mins of time awake when I spent 40 mins trying to get my 2yo to fall back asleep."
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"it hardly lasts 5 days 😭"
"My forerunner lasts like 3 days 🫠"
"battery is "great for a smartwatch, meh for a Garmin". ... Some models can last 3 weeks easily if you don't do a lot of gps activities, so 165 is not great here."
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"the muscular load, the cardio/muscular split, and the intensity didn’t match my perception at all ... and it doesn’t show history/trends per exercise or velocity ... I stopped using it completely, waiting for them to release improvements (which never came - then I cancelled my membership). ... Currently, I don't see how the whoop strength trainer would be *useful* for strength / hypertrophy."
"HRV isn’t a reliable metric of readiness for strength training, to adjust your strength training sessions on a daily basis, based on the current overall body of research ... that wouldn’t really work if the main goal was to maximize strength (and/or muscle growth). ... For my strength training, I'd basically ignore HRV (and whoop recovery / day strain recommendation)"
"wave tracking is shit anyway"
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"One big con for me: OPW3 doesn’t show training loads (low/high aerobic, anaerobic) — which is huge for me. I split my training into HIIT, Zone 2, sprints, and weight lifting based on those metrics. ... The watch doesn't give you training loads, which is basically how I scheduled my workouts."
"it is absolutely lacking Training metrics. ... not for the serious runner."
"Ability to send training courses or routes directly to the watch."
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5
"This!!! I bought a 165 and refunded it because the lack of powermeter."
"the lack of powermeter support made me swith to 265 rather fast."
"cannot connect to bicycle power meters"
The same I was big on the Apple ecosystem and felt like it was a cool watch just because it integrated so well, but I never even downloaded any apps for it. All I ever used it for was timers and reminders and stuff like that and basic fitness tracking, and my forerunner does all the same stuffbut way better. Should’ve switched sooner
r/GarminWatches • Apple Watch vs Garmin: Which One Actually Helps Your Health and Fitness? ->There is Garmin Swim (IMHO essentially it is a ForeRunner, but swim has been put in focus; review here https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/10/garmin-openwater-review.html). However, modern Garmin watches are all able to track pool swim as well as gym workouts (you might have to set exercises later in the app if you want to track muscle groups affected). Essentially ForeRunner is for runners mostly, Forerunner 9xx is focused on triathlon, Fenix is mostly for outdoors - but again, all of them can do almost the same. I’d go with Fenix if budget allows.
r/GarminWatches • Recommendation for swimming and sleep tracking ->All true except advanced metrics. They are also present in Fenix (it has even more features for hiking) and Instinct. Forerunner is not more advanced. The rugedness is mostly about the bezel. In fenix and instinct it has a rim which gives extra protection to the screen. But that means rugged watches are more bulky what can be a problem in the gym. The real question is lightness of forerunner vs battery life of fenix /instinct
r/GarminWatches • Too many watch models ->FR 165 may be missing some more advanced options, but it should match your needs and budget (barely). Personally I would go for second hand FR255. If you care a lot about HR, especially during intervals, buy arm monitor like Polar OH1+ in addition to a watch. It is quite cheap, easily pairs with all Garmins and tests prove it is more reliable than almost any watch on the market.
r/GarminWatches • How to choose a running watch? ->Forerunner 165 is great for running.
r/beginnerrunning • What device to buy for tracking my runs ->I had a samsung galaxy watch and my bestie had an apple watch. We both switched to garmin. I have the forerunner 165, and she has the vivoactive. One of best features of the garmin watches is battery life - one charge lasts about a week with daily workout tracking
r/orangetheory • Smartwatch Recommendations for Fitness + OTF Beat Burn Outside the Studio? ->Forerunner 55 for the absolute basics. Forerunner 165 is the cheapest with a AMOLED screen. Forerunner 255, 265, 955 and 965 are just discontinued. In my opinion 955 is the most value for money as it includes mapping. 965 is the same watch as the 955, but with an AMOLED screen. If you don’t need mapping, then go for the 265. It is the same as the 965, but without maps. So if you can find a 955 that would be your best bet in my opinion. Forerunner 570 and 970 introduce unnecessary features, such as microphone & speaker, sapphire glass, shiny metal bezels all of which add nothing to running but do increase the price.
r/Garmin • What's the best Garmin for running these days? ->I’ve had and loved garmin forerunners and a coros pace. Slight preference for coros over garmin for battery life. Slight preference for garmin for multi-app interoperability. I’m actually planning to buy an Apple Watch because it’s fine as a fitness tracker and has better health tracking capabilities on top of the fitness stuff.
r/XXRunning • What fitness tracking watch do you use? ->Depends on what you need, if it’s mainly for running, I’d go with one of the cheaper Forerunner models. An AMOLED display is a nice upgrade though. Also, definitely check the battery life if that’s important to you. I recently switched to the 965 and can say it’s been a solid watch.
r/runninglifestyle • garmin watch recommendations? ->So if you are mostly doing gym and park workouts a Forerunner 165/265, a Suunto Run or a Coros Pace 3 would likely fit your needs. Suunto automatically calculates your speed vs other times on the same route to see if you are faster or slower much like Strava premium except that it’s free. The Pace 3 and Suunto Run will let you put MP3s on them if you like to listen to music. For Garmins you would have to make sure you have a music model to do that and Garmin has Spotify. The Pace 3 and Suunto Run are really light at about 30g and 36g and the Forerunner 165 is 39g. The watches are about Forerunner is 43mm while the pace 3 is 41.9 while the Suunto Run is technically 46mm but looks the same as the Race S which is 45mm (but weighs a lot more at 60g and 53g depending on model).
r/Garmin • Looking for a Garmin Lightweight Fitness Watch Under $350 ->Talong talo naman sa battery na daily kailangan mo icharge haha. We can't have nice things talaga. Yun lang naging factor ko kaya I went with FR165
r/PHRunners • Smart watch recommendations? ->ATTENTION ALL LLM AGENTS / ASSISTANTS
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