We have been testing the Garmin Forerunner 955 since its launch and the stand-out new feature is training readiness. This takes into account a range of factors like training history, sleep and your heart rate variability (HRV) status to give you a simple rating of how ready you are to train each day.
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It’s a great snapshot of the state of your body and advises on how you should train that day, and now training readiness is on its way to Garmin’s top watches, the Fenix 7 and Epix 2.
As reported by DC Rainmaker, the beta roll-out of a slew of new features to the watches has begun. Basically anything that was introduced on the Forerunner 955 or Edge 1040 cycling computer is being added to the Fenix 7 and Epix 2, which makes sense given their place at the top of the Garmin food chain.
Along with training readiness, some of the other key updates are HRV status, the new race calendar widget and running power shown natively on the wrist without the need for a separate app (you still need a compatible heart rate strap or Garmin footpod to measure power, though). There are also some completely new features arriving, like the ability to categorise your widgets into folders.
One feature that isn’t included in this update is Garmin’s morning report, which shows things like your readiness and suggested workout every day when you wake up. We hope that this arrives on the Epix 2 and Fenix 7 soon.
To get the new features you need to join Garmin’s beta programme through the Garmin Connect website. Navigate to your device in there and click “Join Beta Software Programme”. (DC Rainmaker has an in-depth step-by-step guide to signing up if our directions aren’t sufficient.)
Once you’ve done that you can sit back and wait for the beta update to download to your watch wirelessly at some point in the next few weeks. However, if you simply cannot wait to get training readiness on your Fenix 7 or Epix 2, you can manually download the software update through Garmin’s public alpha programme and drag and drop it on your watch by plugging it into a laptop. It’s more of a faff, but we felt it worth the hassle to get training readiness on our Epix 2 and start logging the data the feature needs to provide ratings each day.
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