- Garmin has announced the Garmin Forerunner 570 and Garmin Forerunner 970, along with a new HRM 600
- The two watches include new-to-the-Forerunner-line hardware such as a speaker, mic and LED light
- The 970 offers new metrics such as Running Economy and Tolerance
Garmin has announced the release of two new watches, the Garmin Forerunner 570 and Garmin Forerunner 970, along with a new Garmin HRM 600 heart rate monitor. The two watches boast Garmin's 'brightest AMOLED screen yet' and other features new to the Forerunner series such as a speaker and microphone, allowing you to take calls during a run without touching your phone, along with an Evening Report to add to Garmin's existing Morning Report functionality.
Read on to see our initial impressions, and whether they'll be worthy of a place in our best Garmin watches list.
Garmin Forerunner 570
The Garmin Forerunner 570 is priced at $549.99 / £459.99 / AU$999 for the 42mm watch, and $549.99 / £459.99 / AU$999 for the larger 47mm version. With 11 days of battery life in smartwatch mode (the shortest of any watch in the last several generations of Forerunners) it sports a selection of jazzy new colorways including Slate Grey Aluminum, Raspberry Aluminum and Cloud Blue Aluminum, all with new translucent silicone bands.
Apart from the brightest screen yet, Evening Report and speaker/microphone combo, the watch seems to share a great deal of DNA with the rest of the Forerunner line. This includes access to Garmin Coach training programs, health metrics such as a skin temperature and pulse oximeter sensor, and Garmin's usual five-button design.
Unlike many of the other best Garmin watches, there is no solar-powered option with a duller memory-in-pixel display to conserve battery life. You're stuck with a maximum of 11 days, which is likely to realistically top out at just over a week with repeated GPS workouts.
Garmin Forerunner 970
The Garmin Forerunner 970 comes in a single size, 47mm, priced at $749.99 / £629.99 / AU$1,399, with a 1.4-inch AMOLED screen that retains that 'brightest ever' distinction. It lasts up to 15 days in smartwatch mode: an improvement over the 570, but it seems that screen technology does suck more battery life than other Forerunners before it.
The 970 packs in all the features of the 570, with additions, including the LED light seen on the Garmin Epix Pro and Garmin Instinct 3 watches. New metrics include Running Economy, Step Speed Loss (both of which require the new Garmin HRM 600 to work) and Running Tolerance, which tells you about your body's limits and recommends a weekly mileage. It sounds like a useful feature worthy of one of the best running watches.
It also sports ECG functionality, more premium materials such as Sapphire Glass on the lens, and comes in different colorways, including Soft Gold Titanium and Carbon Grey DLC Titanium. Clearly Garmin wanted to evoke a little more luxury here.
Garmin HRM 600
The HRM 600 is Garmin's latest and best heart rate monitor, priced at $169.99 / £149.99 / AU$299. It's compatible with the two new Forerunners above to enable their expanded running dynamics measurement, as well as other smartwatches and Garmin cycling computers, or can be worn on its own.
It's capable of sending pace and distance data (indoor workouts only), steps, time and calories burned to Garmin Connect, allowing you to sync your workouts with your smartwatch. This can be done for greater accuracy, or during workouts where it's not appropriate to wear a smartwatch, such as boxing or climbing.
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