Garmin - Forerunner 165 Music (010-02863-30)

I'm a smallish dude, new to running. I just got the 165 Music last week so i can go on runs without my phone. So far, I absolutely love it - it does everything I need and far more. And I'm the kind of guy who reads (and did read) the manual cover to cover and watched tons of videos so I really get the most of out it. It's my first smart watch that I've not hated within hours (I just needed to turn off the message notifications). I didn't think I'd sleep with it but I've got 4 nights under the belt and am gelling with it, as long as I set it to sleep mode with the touchscreen off, and loosen the band a notch. I wanted it mainly for podcasts while running without the phone. Just be aware that there are only a few options for podcasts that I found with services I own or are free. Spotify works OK, but inserts more ads and you can't bulk download a playlist of podcasts. Youtube Music is better without the extra ads, but you can't download a playlist of podcasts. The best I've found that's free is [PlayRun.App](http://PlayRun.App), you just need to manage it a little manually but you can download a list, no extra ads. The other downside of podcasts on Garmin though is you are stuck listening at 1x speed (I'm a 2x or 2.5x guy). I am getting used to it, but there's a paid subscription podcast option for Garmin that lets you speed them up before uploading, I'm just too cheap for it. Anyway, the solution works, and music of course works fine though storage is limited, especially if you have a lot of podcasts. If you want a good "lower end" Garmin, the 165 is pretty great.

I just upgraded from a forerunner 55 to a forerunner 970 (bday present to myself). I’ve had an Apple Watch. My opinion is if you want barebones and dont mind running with your phone if you need music, a forerunner 55 is good enough. If you want good enough + music, forerunner 165 Music. There are a number of good comparisons online. I got a 970 because I wanted a fancy one. I love it but it does provide some redundant metrics to whoop that dampen the impact whoop has for me

I had an older generation Vivoactive and purchased the 165 music when it came out. The running features and metrics are worth it alone, but I also like the physical buttons. I looked at the 265 and 965 as well but the advanced metrics and better heart rate sensor wasn’t worth it for my needs, and I use a heart rate strap anyways.

As a counter point, I got the FR 165 Music for run tracking only. I don't really care about any of the advanced metrics or analysis. I just want to track the basics like distance, pace, and sometimes heart rate. I like the spotify support and custom workouts I can build using Connect. It does everything I need and I don't regret not getting the 265.

Thank you for your opinion! I don’t really want to spend the extra $100 for the 265, but I do run around some of the US’s biggest skyscrapers all the time, and the recovery settings sound kinda cool.

Thank you for the info. Just ordered one! I’m ok with the slightly-worse GPS. I do run around skyscrapers a lot, but I don’t really care if it’s 5% off for a $100 price difference.

Thanks! Ended up getting the 165 music.

I don’t regret getting it because I didn’t really need the features of the 265 (multiport/triathlon). It does pretty much everything that the 265 does but cheaper.

Honestly just get the 265 or 265s. I got the FR165 music and wish I’d just paid more for the 265 because I want to do a triathalon next year.

You are describing exactly what I do every week. I got a watch yesterday. I didn’t really mind the watch for weight lifting except tracking my heart rate. I picked the Garmin Forerunner 165 with music. It’s not too bulky (I even would have preferred a bit bulkier). The watch captures a lot of data and I’m very satisfied so far. From what you described, I believe the 165 might be perfect for you too.

I "upgraded" from a 745 to a 165 and don't regret it at all. While I lost a couple features it was never anything that I really used or care about. The only thing about the 165 is that you need to make sure you buy the music version not the standard version

FWIW I'm primarily a cyclist (though I did get back into running since buying my Garmin watch), and I really love my forerunner 165 music. It's not the bottom of the line, but it's definitely not their top offering. The forerunner is only $250. Maybe you've already got a cycling computer, but if not it's super handy being able to track rides on your watch with the click of a button. Like that it includes heart rate info too.

I have the 165 music…It does everything you list except for control Strava/nike run club (or maybe it does and I just don’t use that…I use Runna and the workouts automatically sync to the watch and Garmin guides me through my workouts).

only garmin, wear os watches and apple watches offer offline spotify. I think that huawei has a 3rd party spotify app - but everything I have heard about it suggests its completely useless. Garmin cheapest options are vivoactive 5 or 6 and Forerunner 165 music - but any garmin that offers music will be able to install and use spotify. Note that these models all have at least 4GB (some have up to 32GB). They can also all do your own MP3 too. They can also do other subs services - amazon, youtube music and deezer (plus some very country specific ones). There are also 3rd party podcast apps too. Note that the more expensive models not only tend to offer more GB, but also tend to offer way longer battery life. GPS and music is heavy on battery and together they are a massive drain and a watch that can offer up to 10 days or up to 20hrs of continous gps tracking will only offer up to 7hrs of gps + music. This means a model like the ones I mentioned will probably need charging every 3-5 days assuming 1hr of gps + music every day. Coros - apex, pace and vertix series offer mp3 ; Amazfit balance, T-rex 3 pro? and some of the active (but memory issues) ; Huawei - think the fit and GT series do - well at least the latest models ; Polar Grit does (not sure which other polar models) and suunto run and pretty sure the race 2 does. These are all MP3 only. longest battery life for this is the Garmin Fenix/Enduro sereis - the 51mm models which offer up to 18hrs of cntinuous gps tracking with offline music. Even with 1hr of offline music + gps you will still easily get +7 days per charge.

If you are using a watch that is older than 3 years its very likely (outside of apple watch, garmin, coros, polar and suunto) that it doesn't come close to matching current models accuracy levels - especially as most brands (wear os / apple / garmin / coros / polar / suunto / fitbit / huawei / amazfit) update the sensor and gps chipset every 2-3 years (if not more frequently) and there have been significant improvements all around. For example current garmins are either using the elevate 4 or elevate 5 HR sensor (from health 24/7 perspecive virtually immaterial difference in results, but from an activity perspective especially around strength and cycling their is a more marked improvement - plus the elevate 5 sensors include ECG and baseline temp monitoring) however the elevate 4 was a significant jump from the elevate 3 sensor (4 veritcal led lights) which was an even bigger jump from the sensor prior to that (3 leds in a triangular shape). Huge jumps and leaps have been made in sleep tracking too, and for most its way more accurate than it used to be - though don't get me wrong it still can be fooled (i.e. sitting/lying and being super inactive (i.e. reading / watching tv) and its possible the watch can potentially record that as sleep. Garmin Forerunner 165 - its on special on Garmin sales at just under $200. (or could look to see what deals you can find for the instinct 2 or vivoactive 5). These are all running pretty much garmin's latest version of sleep tracking which is way better at determining sleep duration (I find start time is rock solid and seldom gets fooled - if it does at the worst it records it as light sleep so doesn't really impaact recovery at all -as would be giving you that as recovery anyway and the recharge rate from light compared to resting is so simliar I haven't noticed a difference in recharge rate; and wake time is rock solid as long as using morning report - cause as soon as you access morning report it switches off sleep - so if you wake up and want to go back to sleep don't access morning report - the morning report front screen includes time so no need to access it until you want to be up and about). The sleep tracking algorithms are from firstbeat and includes the use of accelerometer, HR and HRV compared to the older garmin sleep tracking which per my understanding was accerlerometer based. You could also look at anything from amazift (stick to bip 6, active 2, t-rex3 or balance - as all running most current version of their software and alogorithms); Huawei including Fit 3 is worth a look; and could consider anything from coros, suunto (just released the run which should be around the $200 mark) and polar. And you could also look at fitbit charge 6, sense 2 or vera. There is also xiaomi but their HR isn't as good as the others... But worth noting the accuracy of optical HR is still impacted by skin tone, body comp, hair, tats, weight & size of watch, how you wear it and if doing an activity the activity type - and until you use it there is no way to know if it will be accurate for you or not. However for most people most of the sensors of the brands I have mentioned tend to do a good job re accuracy for 24/7 health metrics and steady state activities (walking, steady running etc).

For walking, swimming & gym either the fR165 or the VA5 would work fine for you. Note that the fR165 doens't have offline music you would need the FR165m (music) version for that - so the VA5 might be the better choice. The FR165 includes more fitness features and training metrics especially around running, swimming and cycling, however the VA5 provides more around leisure and recreational activities.

Garmin offers most of these: accurate hr depends on you - but yes the current sensors are good and work well for most people, but also may depend on the activities you want to track. all garmins are at least 5atm - which is good for swimming and other low pressure/speed water sports. They do also offer 10atm (high speed/pressure water sports) and full dive watches (closest you will get to water proof as include inductive buttons). sleep yes - make sure spec says sleep score and ideally sleep coach - though is like this for all current models - not only see quality but can get detailed breakdown of the sleep score components. Body Battery (BB) - yes all do but this is an assessment of your energy levels not necessarily your health. The new health status metric which monitors your HR, HRV, respiration, skin temp and pulse ox (spo2)) across time is a more accurate measure of health status. Recovery - garmin does this in a couple of way - most current garmin's provide an estimate recovery time - which is an estimate of how long until your body has recovered so that can gain max benefit from next hard workout - will adjust based on any activity done, your stress levels and sleep quality. can see this value on the watch at any time, including the ability to add as a watch face data point. Post activity you can do a recovery mode - before saving your activity press the recovery HR option - will now track your HR for two minutes while you rest - then press save when done. If you go into your activity and go to the stats section under HR it will show the recovery HR value i.e. 10bpm (what you HR went down during those 2 minutes). Of course for the activity you can see the HR chart fo the the tracked activity. If you wanted to track your HR for the 2 minute recovery period you can save the activity and then launch a health snapshot - this tracks your HR, pulse ox (spo2), respiration and stress for a 2 mins and provides average hrv metrics for that period - putting this into a pdf file you can download, see on phone/web etc. Workout HR zone - yes get visible and audable notification - can also get an audio note. Can have it set as an alert or can set it as a workout screen in which case adds a screen showing zone in green with other zones in red - so very easy to see when in or out of zone. (note can do this with other metrics too like pace, cadence etc). yes can set max/min alerts too. But think its pretty similar in terms of alerts. Pace indicator - yes - can set from 1 to 8 data fields per tracking screen (how many may depend on model and screen size but most now do 1-6 fields - though guage fields can reduce it by 1-2 fields depending on whether using 1 or 2 guages and screen size), and can do from 3 to unlimited (as such) tracking screens (depends on model). Can set up pace workout screen, or pace guage on tracking screen or just pace data fields (i..e. current pace, last lap pace, avg lap pace etc etc etc). See the data fields section of watch manual to see data field options. Watch face horizontal - stock garmins offer ones where hour is above minutes - but if you don't like the options there is always the garmin connect iq store (app on watch for some models, app on phone or web browser: [https://apps.garmin.com/](https://apps.garmin.com/) so you can have a look to get idea of options - there are also some other 3rd party sites where you can also get other 3rd party watch faces from). All garmins offer abnormal HR alerts and offer the ability to set HR alerts for an activity (can set these for each individual activity type and for models that offer activity copy action can set up multiple copies of same activity with different HR alerts making it quick and easy to select which one you want without having to go in and change the alert values).. all current garmins have very accurate gps. Sub £600 -- covers most garmins on offer. Depending on what types of activity you do and what sort of features you want, and whether want mic & speaker. But would suggest looking at the vivoactive, forerunner, instinct and fenix ranges as that probably is more in line with what you want. Basically gamrin health features (except ecg and baseline temp) and smart features (except offline music) are the same - its really the fitness features and training metrics where they really differentiate and even then its getting way closer (i.e ..not much difference between a venu 4 and forerunner 570).

as you main focus is swimming I would stick with a garmin (the 5 buttons ones so a forerunner, instinct, fenix (and its variants like epix); suunto, polar or coros. Having the buttons enables you to swap data tracking screens while resting to check stats. as to which is best will depend on the swimming stats and features you require.