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Garmin 645 Music
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This thing is turning into a dud. Here are my complaints:
- limited support for BT earbuds. it doesn't support Apple AirPods, and very distance sensitive. I had to wear on my right wrist just so it will work with my Jabra 645t
- inconsistent Bluetooth connection to iPhone. Most of the time it will auto-update to Garmin connect even when I manually connect the watch to the phone
- Optical heart race reading very unreliable. Not sure what the issues are, but I have runs that the HR spikes to 170 bpm for no reason at all - I wasn't doing anything different, no terrain changes or pace increases
- Not sure where the watch gets its temperature from, but it is DEFINITELY NOT correct. I ran in sub freezing temp (25-32 degrees) today for an hour, and the watch said the average temp for my run is 66 (with a high of 72)
- battery life is not great. I have to charge it every 2-3 days. When I had the 325, I charge it once a week, max
- inconsistent HR broadcast to other Garmin devices, e.g. Edge 820. Half of the time the HR won't be picked up by the Edge 820

So what's your experience?
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [dalava] [ In reply to ]
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I don't have the Music version but I have had the non-music version of the 645 since it was first released. It's hands-down the best sports watch I've ever owned. That includes several Timex and Polar watches and just about every Garmin since the Forerunner 301 (never owned a Fenix series though).

BT connection - I'm pretty sure I've never lost connection.

Optical HR - It works great for me and much better than the 235 and probably slightly better than the 935. The 225 was a disaster and the 35 was just so-so. However, for some unlucky people the optical HR just doesn't work.

Temperature - It's not something I've paid attention to so I went and looked at this morning's run. I know the air temp was about 40-42 degrees and sure enough Connect says the avg. temp for the run reads as 65 degrees. Perhaps its measuring the air/skin temp. I don't know. Either way it doesn't effect anything I do or care about.

Battery life - I haven't had any problems and generally get right around a week of battery life without any problems. That includes an average of 2-3 hours of GPS activity per day between walking the dog and running. I do not have the backlight setting turned on so that could be an issue.

HR broadcasting - I've only tried this once but I couldn't get it to broadcast to my Wahoo Element Bolt. I don't know what the cause of it was though. I use the Wahoo strap when I ride. That one time I had forgotten the strap at home.
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [logella] [ In reply to ]
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Release a music watch without support for Apple AirPods - which accounts for over a quarter of the wireless headphone market - is simply inexcusable. I don't care how Apple breaks with the standard Bluetooth audio profile, there are plenty companies making devices work with AirPods just fine. I hope this has been fixed in the newly release Fenix and Vivoactive series, does anyone know for sure if it?
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [dalava] [ In reply to ]
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the temp is reading ambient temp, so when it's on your wrist it's picking up body heat. I assume the only way to get an accurate temp would be to have it hanging on a pack or on a table.

I was looking pretty hard at the 645, but on the garmin forums there's a long thread where the watch bodies are cracking at the pin sites, so I may hold off.
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [dalava] [ In reply to ]
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I have a Fenix 5x Plus and bought for the music and maps features.

And it works perfectly. I love it. Battery life is great. Connection to my BT headphones can be patchy to start with but always comes right. I wear it on my left hand.

HR wise I don’t care. I use a chest strap and I for one have never trusted wrist based HRMs but I didn’t buy it for that so am ok with it.

Lastly, temperature - meh. It seems about right but agin I didn’t buy it for that. For every important - to me - feature it works as advertised and I couldn’t be happier with it.
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [dalava] [ In reply to ]
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This watch was absolute garbage for me. At least for the music, which is, after all, its namesake. I was very excited to try this watch out and minimize all the straps/parts/wires attached to my body while running. Optical HR and music were the main reasons I got it.

Unlike many other, I actually find getting music onto the watch to be very easy--Garmin App accesses Itunes easily and you can choose songs/playlists etc. to add to the watch. From there, it went downhill quickly.

I tried 3 different pairs of earbuds and could never get the music to work properly. For one pair, music was perfect if I stood still or walked. As soon as I started to run, it disappeared completely. Not a sound. For another pair, I could get music in one ear, and if it actually briefly went to both ears--a real annoyance in of itself--the music would speed up. As a test, I then tried the same earbuds to connect vie bluetooth via with Ipod Nano, and then ran. Worked perfectly.

So, it certainly appears that this is a Garmin problem. I read on a garmin or running forum that suggested the GPS would interfere with the BT connection.....If that is true, what is the point of music on a running watch if you cannot run AND listen to music at the same time. And, even if this is somehow an issue with the earbuds I choose--which doubtful based on my test--Garmin has to figure this out as the music feature must be able to function properly with various BT earphones. I even tried moving the watch to a different hand which did not work. Even if that was the solution, that is the most ridiculous solution ever. If the watch cannot properly connect to earbuds 30" away from the earbuds while your hand is moving (ie running), then it is worthless and they need to go back to the drawing board on this technology.

I gave up after a week. So disappointing. To be honest, it is so bad that I don’t know how Garmin can credibly market this as a music/gps running watch.
Last edited by: DFW_Tri: Feb 6, 19 19:45
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Re: Garmin 645 Music [DFW_Tri] [ In reply to ]
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+1

I returned it because whenever I tried to run in the city, it would lose the Bluetooth connection to the headphones for some reason. It worked fine on one single trail run, but I couldn't get it to work consistently elsewhere. Although I have to say, I had a lot of trouble getting music onto it as well - had to restart the process many many times for a ~3hr Spotify playlist (it picks up from where it failed last, apparently - it didn't tell me about it, just figured it out by playing around).
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