Garmin announced the Forerunner 55 and 945 LTE in early June. I’ve been testing out a review unit of the 945 LTE for the past two months and it’s clearly my favorite Garmin GPS sports watch of 2021 as it serves as a jack-of-all-trades watch where other Garmin watches in my collection specialize in certain activities. With the Forerunner 945 LTE, I have a wearable that does it all and allows me to leave the phone behind.
The Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE is very similar to the Forerunner 945, but it has a smaller diameter body and includes the next generation of Garmin Elevate heart rate sensor and LTE cellular connectivity. It’s also $50 more at launch than the 945, but the LTE is really the focus of the device and it works well for safety and awareness for your friends and family when you go outside to participate in an activity.
Also: Best GPS sports watches in 2021
The major new feature is the integrated LTE cellular connectivity that gives runners who run with a phone for safety reasons the option to leave the phone at home. Over time Garmin watches added onboard music and Garmin Pay, but contacting someone in an emergency still required you to pack a phone when out for a run, hike, bike ride, walk, or other outside activity. The new Forerunner 945 LTE can be used to send key information through the Garmin (IERCC) International Emergency Response Coordination Center to local emergency services or data directly to your family and friends so they can follow your activity or respond to an incident detection event.
I enjoy the freedom of running without a phone in a hip bag, armband, or my hand, and safety was the number one reason I continued to run with the phone. I also found I captured photos when running while traveling and until Garmin adds a camera I will continue to do that when I am exercising on my business trips. We’ll discuss the details of the LTE connectivity below, but it’s great to see Garmin provide this capability for a reasonable monthly fee. This feature makes the Forerunner 945 LTE a GPS sports watch that can serve as your trusted companion without a connected phone.
Specifications
- Display: 1.2 inch (30.4mm) 240×240-pixel resolution, sunlight visible, transflective memory-in-pixel color Corning Gorilla Glass DX
- Materials: Fiber-reinforced polymer case material and silicone QuickFit-capable 22mm watch band
- Storage: 16GB of internal storage for up to 1000 songs and 200 hours of activity data
- Water resistance: 5 ATM
- Connectivity and sensors: WiFi, Bluetooth, ANT+, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, optical HR, barometer, compass, altimeter, Pulse Ox
- Battery: Up to two weeks in smartwatch mode, up to seven hours in GPS mode with music playing and LiveTrack enabled (largest battery load applied)
- Dimensions: 44.4 x 44.4 x 13.9mm and 49 grams
With the Garmin Forerunner 945 on hand, I placed both next to each other to see that the 945 LTE has a smaller overall diameter than the 945. This was an unexpected benefit and I’m sure people will appreciate the slight overall reduction in size, and weight (1 gram), of this premium running and triathlon watch.
See also: Garmin Forerunner 745 review: A smaller, lighter option for runners and triathletes
Hardware
If you enjoyed the design and functionality of the Garmin Forerunner 945, then you will love the 945 LTE that is slightly smaller and provides LTE connectivity for safety and live tracking needs. It is arguably the best running and triathlon GPS sports watch available today.
The typical Garmin five-button design (light, start/stop, back, down, up) is present on the Forerunner 945 LTE and as I have written many times, I am a huge fan of buttons to control a watch that is used in the rain and in other conditions where a touchscreen doesn’t work so well. The display looks great in low light and in bright sunlight so is usable in all conditions. It is very comfortable to wear 24/7.
Garmin advertises the following battery life expectations:
- Smartwatch mode: Up to two weeks
- GPS with music: Up to 12 hours
- GPS with music and LTE LiveTrack: Up to seven hours
- GPS without music or LTE: Up to 35 hours
In my experience, I’ve seen battery life about the same as expected. There are watch faces that can impact battery life too so be careful what you install on the Forerunner 945 LTE. I actually like one of the official Garmin ones that has seconds and heart rate readings updating every second on the face.
The heart rate sensor on the back is similar to what we see on other Garmin watches with the same four-pin charging connector as well. The heart rate sensor is the latest generation, version 4, of Garmin Elevate. The standard 22mm band support is appreciated with QuickFit functionality also provided.
Unlike other 22mm Garmin watches, this one does not have screws on the lug to remove the band pins and it does not have quick release pins. The pins are retractable, but it takes quite a bit of effort to retract them so you shouldn’t see them release during a fall or incident. I’ve been using the watch for two months and haven’t seen any issues with the pins while using QuickFit bands for the past three weeks.
LTE connectivity
The LTE cellular connectivity is designed to provide safety and tracking features. It is not present to have the Forerunner 945 LTE watch serve as a smartphone replacement or smartwatch so phone calls, connected apps, streaming music, and other advanced connectivity features are not supported. I’ve had some people complain of these limitations, but you really need to understand the intent of the LTE connectivity.
The Forerunner 945 LTE is perfect for runners and athletes looking for a watch that will make sure others know they are safe while they train and for alerting emergency services in case of a casualty or other dangerous situation. LTE connected features include:
- Assistance Plus: When activated, your watch will contact the 24/7 Garmin IERCC monitoring and response service to coordinate with local emergency services and your emergency contacts. Two-way messaging will be carried out between you and the IERCC to resolve the situation.
- Assistance: Similar to Assistance Plus, but the IERCC will not be contacted and your location will be sent to your emergency contacts only. You can manually initiate an Assistance Plus/Assistance alert by manually holding down the upper left (light) button for several seconds. A prompt will appear to confirm your desired action.
- Incident detection: An incident detection is triggered automatically when the watch senses that an incident has occurred, such as a fall or crashing into a tree on your bike.
- LiveTrack: Allows friends or family to follow your activity in real-time. Your selected contacts will receive an invite to follow and will then be shown a map of your progress along with the ability to send you messages.
- Live event sharing: Live Event Sharing is available only with a connected Android smartphone.
- Spectator messaging: Friends and family can send you messages via the LiveTrack site and these will appear via LTE or a Bluetooth connection to a local phone.
Unlike the previous Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music that required a Verizon account, Garmin provides subscription plans directly through its own website. Two different plans are available; $6.99 per month for a plan with no annual contract and $5.99/month for a plan with an annual contract. Sign up for the plan is conducted through the Garmin Connect smartphone application after you connect the Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE.
All of the same connected features you expect through a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone are also supported by the Forerunner 945 LTE watch. Assistance, LiveTrack, and incident detection are provided with both a Bluetooth connection to your phone and LTE.
Also: Garmin MARQ Golfer review: Virtual caddie contained in a luxurious and powerful GPS sports watch
Watch software
If you have used Garmin GPS sports watches before then it will be quick and easy for you to pick up and use the Forerunner 945 LTE. Even if you are new to using the five buttons to navigate, it should only take you a short period of pressing the different buttons to figure out how to navigate around and find everything.
The Forerunner 945 LTE is optimized for running and triathlon athletes, but also supports a large number of activities. These include running, biking, outside track running, golf, treadmill, indoor track, indoor biking, walking, hiking, strength, cardio, pool swim, open water swim, skiing, snowboard, trail run, mountain biking, triathlon, yoga, pilates, elliptical, kayak, SUP, and many others. You can get more applications and data fields from the Connect IQ Store, including running power that works with a compatible accessory like the Garmin HRM-Pro.
While the watch face appears all the time, pressing the up or down button moves to the widget glance screen. Selected widgets in a couple of lines each with nearly three widgets appearing on the display at once. By default, you can see your steps, performance, weather, notifications, performance, last activity, heart rate, last sport, music controls, and calendar. There are several other available widgets, such as ABC, stress, Body Battery, and more. You can reorder these and also download more widgets on the Connect IQ store.
Like most recent Garmin devices, the Forerunner 945 LTE has an integrated Wi-Fi radio so you can have your activity data synced to your Garmin Connect account when you return to a Wi-Fi zone previously established. It’s great to enter my house after working out and have my data synced automatically to my Garmin account.
Blood oxygen sensors are the talk of the town now that Apple finally added it to the latest Apple Watch Series 6. Garmin has had this capability for a while and it is present here on the Forerunner 945 LTE too. You can set up the pulse oximeter to take readings during sleep or even take it throughout the day. Setting it up for regular sensing throughout the day burns the battery and offers limited practical value.
Body Battery, stress tracking, offline music streaming support, Garmin Pay, smartphone notifications and smart replies (Android), incident detection and alerts, and much more are present on the Forerunner 945 LTE.
Smartphone software and website
Collecting the data is important, but using that data for tracking trends, improving performance, challenging friends, and identifying problem areas is also very important. Garmin offers the Garmin Connect app for iOS and Android and it is a powerful and capable application that closely matches the Connect website experience.
When you first launch the smartphone app you will see a screen called My Day. This is a dashboard and completely customizable to your preferences. Simply scroll to the bottom and choose to Edit My Day. Here you can choose from the following cards: Heart rate, steps, intensity minutes, floors, sleep, stress score, weight, and calories. There are also toggles to see yesterday’s stats and the last 7 days of stats. In addition, when you record an activity (run, bike ride, etc.) on that day a box appears up top with that card. Tapping any card takes you into much more fine detail for that measurement.
Other tabs in the smartphone software include challenges, calendar, news feed, and notifications. Tap on the tab icon to see more details for each of these.
You can also tap the menu icon to jump to insights, activity stats, health stats, workouts, course, segments, gear, connections, groups, LiveTrack, Connect IQ store, Garmin devices, settings, and help. This menu and user interface matches what you see on the website as well. You can view data over different time frames, see your records, view the badges you earned, see totals and averages, and much more.
There are options to control phone notifications during your activity and at all other times when you are not recording data as part of activity. If you are connected to an Android smartphone, you can go to Settings>Smart Notifications in the Garmin phone app to customize exactly which apps provide notifications to the Forerunner 945 LTE. You do not have this per app control when connected to an iPhone.
With a paired Android phone, you can also select to reply to messages with text you have already setup in advance on your phone. This includes customized text responses.
See also: Garmin Venu Sq review: $200 GPS sportswatch with advanced health metrics
Once you select the Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE in the devices list, you can then access all of the specific settings that will appear on the watch. Through this utility you can organize which apps, widgets, and watch faces appear and in what order. You still need to work directly on the watch to customize data fields and such, but this helps you control the Connect IQ part of the experience.
The Garmin Connect website experience is very similar to what you see in the smartphone application, with even more capability to generate reports, import or export data, setup connections to other applications (such as Strava, RunKeeper, and MyFitnessPal), and more. Similar to the snapshots interface on the phone, you have a dashboard on Garmin Connect that you can customize.
You can purchase the Forerunner 945 in black or whitestone for $649.99. This launch price is $50 more than the Forerunner 945 from 2019. LTE subscription plans are available directly from Garmin for $6.99/month (no annual contract) or $5.99/month (annual contract). While there are other premium GPS sports watches that offer similar features and functions, there is no other option that includes an integrated LTE radio for safety and connected features.
The COROS Apex Pro is a worthy competitor to the Forerunner 945 LTE, but it lacks music support, Garmin Pay, an app store, WiFi, and more. It focuses on extremely long battery life (40 hours in GPS mode) and offers a very similar GPS sports watch experience with the addition of running power on the watch. The Apex Pro is available for $499.99.
Another worthy competitor is the Polar Vantage V2 that also offers running power on the wrist, extensive smart coaching features and a powerful website to help you analyze your data, FitSpark training guide, and advanced sleep tracking. It is available for $499.95. It does not have music, Garmin Pay, or LTE support, but does provide 40 hours of GPS tracking battery life.
Daily usage experiences and conclusion
The Garmin Forerunner 945 has been one of my favorite GPS sports watches for the past couple of years, but the Forerunner 945 LTE provides a function that I have wanted in a GPS sports watch for a long time. I can now run without a phone and know that I can reach someone in an emergency, whether that is through manual initiation or automatic detection. I also like that I can share my run, walk, bike, or hike with family and friends via LiveTrack to add another layer of safety to my exercise regime.
I was excited when Garmin added offline music support a couple of years ago, but since I wanted to stay connected for emergencies I resorted to just playing music from my phone. Now that I no longer need my phone, I moved back to storing music on the Garmin watch. However, I no longer use Spotify, but do have an Amazon Prime account so I’ve been running the past two months with Amazon Music on the Forerunner 945 LTE and it’s been awesome. Playback has been flawless on various Bluetooth headsets too.
The last thing I need is for one of my banks to support Garmin Pay so that I can pick up a drink or snack on a long run without having to carry around a card or cash. A card or cash is much easier to carry around than a phone though so Garmin Pay is not as important to me as the LTE functionality that displaces a phone.
The Forerunner 945 LTE supports all of the activities I engage in and has everything I could ever want in a GPS sports watch. It excels for runners and triathletes, but is also a fantastic watch for golf, hiking, trail running, track running, and dozens of other activities. The monthly LTE subscription is reasonably priced and my wife is a huge fan of knowing where I am when I run in new places while on business trips. It’s definitely worth one latte a month to have the LTE service.
The Forerunner 945 LTE is arguably the best GPS sports watch available today for runners and triathletes while being one of the rare connected GPS sports watches in the market. The Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch lineup has LTE options, but these are smartwatches first so they do not have the advanced customization and data collection capability found in the Forerunner 945 LTE.
It’s been two years since the Forerunner 945 release so I was anticipating a Forerunner 955, but didn’t really know what the company could add to it to make it better and justify an upgrade. I did not consider the addition of LTE since I was not happy with the approach taken on the Vivoactive 3 LTE. It’s always great to test a device and come away surprised and more impressed than ever anticipated. The Forerunner 945 LTE is just about the perfect GPS sports watch for me and the activities I participate in. The slightly smaller size is a major benefit and I couldn’t be happier with the watch. There is a lot available to setup, customize, and optimize in the Forerunner 945 LTE and even after two months of use I have more to discover in the time ahead.
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