Best Widgets and Apps for Garmin Running Watches

February 12, 2021 6:31 PM

Tell me about the Garmin widgets, applications, and activity downloads that have changed your life. Or you like a lot. I am wedded to the Garmin ecosystem for exercise over the last 15 years. Now a proud owner of a Fenix 6X Pro, I have lots of storage and love the new compact widget screen. Hit me with your favourites and why you like them. Watch faces too, if you have found something special
posted by Flashduck to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

I have a 5 plus, so don't know all the latest bells and whistles.

Some apps that I use are Boulder/Climbing Wall for tracking climbs, and Multitimer and Tabata for interval timers. 7-minute workout is good for short workouts while traveling. There's also a pomodoro timer app I've played with but I usually use my phone instead.

DozenWalk and DozenRun are my favorite data fields for hiking and running, respectively. There's also DozenCycle. I like the way they show basically everything I care about on one screen.

I use CleanAnalogPlus as a watch face because it's simple, clean, and customizable. Tick marks for hours and minutes, no numbers, date on the right and battery percentage on the left are all I want to see.

This isn't an app, but I've found that I really like seeing the training effect of my workouts - getting it in the 3-4 range is a pretty good sign of an intense workout. Eventually I realized that I can set up a data field to show the aerobic and anaerobic training effect so I can see it during the workout - I use it to decide how hard to push and to motivate myself. Like oh, I'm at a 2.8, I'll go hard up this hill.

This might be old news for you, but setting up my phone to send notifications to the watch has been great for me. I can see text messages and mark them read quickly on my wrist - even send short replies from a list I customized (yes, no, ok, running late...). I can decline phone calls from the watch. Etc. I can check it during a meeting without having to pull out my phone. One drawback: the watch doesn't get the memo when the phone is on do not disturb, notifications still get passed to the watch.

This might sound weird, but: there's an Android app called Notification of Mindfulness (Nom) that will give you notifications at random times through the day, selected from a list that you write. With the watch I get a quick notification on my wrist with little messages like "Take a few deep breaths" and "How can I be kind to myself now?" This may sound silly - maybe it is genuinely silly - but during the pandemic having a way to basically send myself a little kind postcard a few times a day has been nice.

Have you already set up music for exercise and bluetooth headphones? I love that.
posted by medusa at 1:54 PM on February 13, 2021

It's very simple, but I like the Frinkr Notes app, which just lets you get to a screen of notes you can edit on your phone. I use it for things like locker number, PIN code for the gym, combination number of a bicycle lock, etc.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:41 AM on February 15, 2021