Garmin has established itself as a perennial player in the smartwatch arena, especially when it comes to models that excel in tracking exercises at a higher level. Athletes training for marathons or to raise their game in whatever sport they play look for accuracy and reliability to know where they stand. Garmin has fantastic running watches, watches for endurance athletes, rugged watches, and even options catering to golfers and women to stay on top of any and all activity.
If you are even remotely into health tracking or fitness and are looking for an excellent smartwatch, then Garmin surely has a watch designed just for you. Their watches come in all shapes and sizes, a variety of colors, and ship with a wide variety of features. While they have many more than those listed here, this curated list includes only the best that Garmin offers.
Simply the best Garmin smartwatches in 2024
Garmin Forerunner 265
Best for new runners
The Garmin Forerunner 265 is a running smartwatch with a colorful, bright AMOLED display, weeks of battery life, and plenty of training metrics to help you crush your goals. This smartwatch is available in 42 and 46mm sizes and gives you a wide range of color options.
- AMOLED display is beautiful
- Lightweight design
- Advanced training metrics
- Lacks full maps
- Battery doesn’t last as long as its predecessor
The Forerunner 265 is the perfect smartwatch for newer runners who take their training seriously. If you want a smartwatch to help you up your game and crush your goals, then the Forerunner 265 was built to be your best friend. This watch comes with Race Predictor which will give you an estimate of your best time based on your training and PacePro to help you develop a pacing strategy.
It also gives you a training readiness score which combines your sleep quality, recovery, training load, and heart rate variability (HRV) data to let you know exactly when you are ready to get the most out of your workouts.
The Forerunner 265 has a built-in dual-band GPS that can accurately track all of your runs. If you add CrossFit activities to your regimen, then there are over 30 additional activities you can choose from including triathlons, cycling, and swimming. The watch pairs with both Android and iOS devices, but you may just leave your phone at home with the ability to download music from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer. This watch gives you up to two weeks of battery life or 24 hours of active GPS tracking.
Garmin Epix Pro (2nd Gen)
Beautiful and functional
The Garmin Epix Pro is a beautifully designed smartwatch with a bright AMOLED display that can still tackle just about any activity that you put it through. The Epix Pro is available in 42, 47, and 51mm sizes and a range of color options.
- Beautiful and bright AMOLED display
- Fantastic battery life
- Built-in LED flashlight
- Very expensive
- No solar charging
The Epix Pro (Gen 2) smartwatch features a beautiful and bright 1.4-inch AMOLED display as well as physical buttons for easy navigation. This watch has multi-band GPS and built-in mapping capabilities to help guide you on just about any course. Garmin has even preloaded this watch with over 2,000 ski resort maps worldwide. It offers Garmin’s usual top-of-the-line activity tools for runners, cyclists, swimmers, and a host of other activities.
Garmin built a tough smartwatch with the Garmin Epix Pro thanks to its fiber-reinforced polymer case and steel bezels. This smartwatch meets U.S. military standards for shock, thermal, and water resistance. It may not have solar charging capabilities, but with up to 31 days in smartwatch mode or 58 hours in GPS mode, it probably won’t matter too much. The built-in LED flashlight is both convenient and perfect for those late night training sessions.
Garmin Forerunner 55
Best for beginners
The Garmin Forerunner 55 is the perfect smartwatch for anyone just getting into running. Its combination of price, ease of use, and activity tracking capabilities make this a great choice. This watch can help guide anyone learning to run or getting back into their fitness journey.
- Suggested workouts
- Good battery life
- Easy to read display
- Comes in only one size
- Can’t download music
- Lacks mapping capabilties
Getting into fitness can be a daunting task, even more so if you are winging it. Luckily, the Garmin Forerunner 55 is available to help guide you on your fitness journey. This smartwatch gives you daily suggested workouts, has PacerPro to help you stick to a planned pace, and free training plans from expert coaches with Garmin Coach. The Forerunner 55 has a wrist-based heart rate monitor and built-in GPS to accurately track all of your fitness activities.
To give you a clear picture of your overall health, you also get Fitness Age, Body Battery Energy Monitoring, and Respiration Tracking. Battery life isn’t a concern with up to two weeks of battery life. It may not have the full feature set of many of the watches on this list, but if you are new to fitness, overloading yourself with features can be a bit overwhelming.
Garmin Venu 3
All-day health monitoring
The Garmin Venu 3 has plenty to offer, including comprehensive all-day health monitoring and coaching for the long list of workouts and training available. Not to mention sleep tracking and tighter phone integration to make this one of the best smartwatches around.
- Bright beautiful display
- Comprehensive health tracking
- Superb battery life
- Limited third-party apps
- No built-in maps
If you are looking for more of a health tracker with smartwatch features and less of a running watch, then the Garmin Venu 3 will give you that. It’s a little more on the “flashy” side with its large AMOLED display and tighter phone integration. It doesn’t run Wear OS, so you won’t get the same level of third-party app support and other ancillary features associated with them, but things like Garmin Pay and a speaker/microphone combo make it feel more like a standard smartwatch.
What’s anything but standard is the way the Venu 3 handles health tracking, courtesy of options like Body Battery, Sleep Monitoring, Health Snapshot, Stess Tracking, Women’s Health Tracking, among other health metrics. The built-in heart rate monitor and SpO2 sensor can track your heart rate and blood oxygen saturation levels anytime. Sleep tracking is also more intuitive here, recognizing when slumber was neither restful nor restorative.
It can track over 30 different sports and fitness activities covering cardio, yoga, HIIT, Pilates, and more. Go through the Garmin Connect app and Garmin Coach, and you can expand on those significantly through workouts and training regimens. The downside is the lack of maps, despite the built-in GPS to accurately track outdoor sessions. It’s not an ideal running or cycling watch compared to a Forerunner or Fenix for that reason, though you can download your favorite tunes from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer to listen phone-free during any workout. Battery life is also superb at up to 14 days, cutting down depending on how much you use the always-on display and GPS tracking.
Garmin Fenix 7 Pro
Best for endurance athletes
The Garmin Fenix 7 Pro is the ultimate smartwatch for endurance or elite athletes. The Fenix 7 Pro features a rugged design, ready to take on whatever activity excites you next. It has been tested against U.S. military standards for thermal, shock, and water resistance.
- Solar charging for extended battery life
- Rugged design
- Built-in LED flashlight
- No AMOLED display
- Very expensive
If you need the ultimate smartwatch and don’t ever want to worry about battery life, then the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro may just be the watch to get. Thanks to its solar charging capabilities, three hours in direct sunlight can get you up to 22 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 73 hours in GPS mode. With battery life like this, it should have no trouble tackling days of being off the grid, or even your next ultra marathon.
In addition to the superb battery life, Garmin designed this watch to be rugged, making it perfect for all types of exercise. You can preload map data to keep you on a predetermined route, multi-band GPS, a hill score to see how well you can tackle running uphill, and an endurance score giving you insight into prolonged training efforts. It even has a built-in LED flashlight, letting you see or be seen when training in the dark.
Garmin Forerunner 965
Best smartwatch for serious runners
If you are serious about running and need your smartwatch to keep up with your training, then look no further than the Garmin Forerunner 965. This smartwatch is well-designed, built to last, and has a ton of features to help you get the most out of your training.
- Beautiful AMOLED display
- Multi-band GPS
- Onboard mapping
- No LED flashlight
- No solar charging
The Forerunner 965 has a bright and beautiful 1.4-inch AMOLED display that is surrounded by a titanium bezel. That gorgeous display allows you to easily see the built-in maps to keep you on your route, and you can be confident that it will accurately track that route with its multi-band GPS. You also get up to 23 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 31 hours in GPS mode.
You also get just about every fitness-focused functionality with the Forerunner 965. This watch has training readiness, and daily suggested workouts based on the course that you put into the Garmin Connect app, it will then adjust that plan after every run based on performance and recovery needs.
Triathletes will love the ability to switch between sports with the press of a button and the training status to let you know when you are taking it too easy or pushing yourself too hard. This watch also lets you download your favorite music from Spotify, Amazon Music, and Deezer.
Garmin Approach S70
Ready to tee off
The Garmin Approach S70 is like having a virtual caddie on your wrist, thanks to its insightful and intuitive features that come in handy every round. It can keep track of your score, help you with club selection, and even track other exercises when you’re not golfing.
- Premium build quality and design
- Plenty of useful golf features
- Tracks other exercises as well
- Plenty of useful golf features
- Pricey
For golfers, the Garmin Approach S70 comes filled with a strong feature set that addresses so much of what goes into the game. With 42mm and 47mm sizes appealing to both smaller and larger wrists, the S70 borrows a little from other Garmin watches in that it’s the only Approach model with an AMOLED display and offers some of the health and fitness tracking capabilities seen in other lines. Golf is the primary focus, though, and with 43,000+ courses available to view on the watch from the Garmin Golf app, you can know every challenge each hole may present to you. Virtual caddie features like PlaysLike help figure out wind, elevation, flag distance, and hazards along the way.
The sheer breadth of golf-centric options serve to help you hone your game, giving you an impetus to improve both your form and score. Even some of the exercises available have golf in mind to improve your fitness, though general activity works just fine, too. The Approach S70 has the same Body Battery and sleep tracking metrics other Garmin watches do. That also goes for battery life, which can last up to a week based on how much you’re using the GPS to play rounds of golf.
Garmin Lily 2
When health tracking meets style
Garmin gave the Lily 2 a bit of a makeover, updating its look with new lugs to simplify swapping out straps to accessorize or match the occasion or outfit. Built-in GPS brings more accurate tracking for outdoor activity, making for a nice combination of style and functionality.
- Stylish design
- Built-in GPS helps with activity tracking
- Better lugs to swap out bands
- No color on display
- No music storage options
The Lily 2 is the smallest on this list, as Garmin clearly made the svelte and petite smartwatch with women and smaller wrists in mind. Its 35mm frame will certainly look diminutive next to some of the larger models Garmin makes, but that doesn’t mean the Lily 2 is a slouch. It can track your heart rate, stress levels, blood oxygen, and sleep quality, along with specialized tracking for menstrual cycles or pregnancies. The 5ATM water resistance will keep it going anytime you want to go for a swim, and with built-in GPS, it has the ability to more accurately keep tabs on any activity you do outdoors.
You won’t get color on the vibrant display, nor the chance to store music (you can still control playback while paired with your phone), but the Lily 2 will still show you phone notifications, including who’s calling. The newer lugs are also much better suited to swapping out bands, making it a lot easier to go with a band made of different materials or colors. Battery life offers up to five days per charge, though you will likely have to recharge sooner if you use GPS tracking.
The best Garmin smartwatch for your needs
Garmin offers a wide variety of watches that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but the Forerunner 265 offers the best blend of performance, style, and price. With dual-band GPS, tracking a ton of sports, Race Predictor, and PacePro, this smartwatch can help you achieve personal bests in no time. It can even download music directly to the device to let you ditch your smartphone during your workout.
If you have a bit more cash to spend and want the best money can buy, the Epix Pro (2nd Gen) steps it up a notch with its built-in mapping capabilities, fiber-reinforced case, and steel bezels. Not to mention the amazing battery life.
If you are on more of a budget but still want similar features as the previously mentioned devices, then the Forerunner 55 will check a lot of boxes. It will help anyone getting started on their fitness journey with its built-in health features, and look stylish doing it. Check out our favorite Garmin deals for other options at a lower price.
No matter your preference, Garmin surely has a watch for you. All that matters in the end is that you are getting a great watch, at a great price, with all the features you are looking for.
Garmin Forerunner 265
Best all-around watch for fitness lovers
The Garmin Forerunner 265 offers a beautiful AMOLED display and a lightweight design. It has a ton of advanced training metrics to get the most out of your training sessions and to help guide you to a new personal best.
