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.

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.

I love my FR165m but sometimes I think about if the 265 would be better. but with the 165 you get the most out of your money.

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.

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.

I got the Garmin 165 music, I cannot run without music. It’s a game changer, the pace alerts keep me on track, never realized I needed it until I got it. $300 I think I paid for it.