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The face of the Fenix 6s Pro isn’t a touch screen. Instead, you use the five side buttons to navigate through every command. Like all past Garmin Fenix series watches, you can customize the watch face. That includes swapping it out for an entirely different watch face as well as customizing every bit of data you see on it (or, don’t want to see on it): Suunto 9 Baro: The Suunto 9 Baro is less expensive than the Fenix 6s Pro. It comes standard with a Sapphire lens, and it includes a touch screen. It’s larger and heavier than the Fenix 6s Pro. It’s a solid choice if you’re looking for a less expensive watch and don’t mind the large size. Before we move on to the test results, note that optical HR sensor accuracy is rather varied from individual to individual. Aspects such as skin color, hair density, and position can impact accuracy. Position and how the band is worn, are *the most important* pieces. A unit with an optical HR sensor should be snug. It doesn’t need to leave marks, but you shouldn’t be able to slide a finger under the band (at least during workouts). You can wear it a tiny bit looser the rest of the day.
Finally – I’m super interested to see where Garmin takes their acquired solar technology. Not just in terms of to other devices, but on how to expand the amount of solar energy it can return to the watch. Undoubtedly with the Fenix 6X Solar they started off pretty cautiously on numerous fronts, so I expect as they gain the experiences of thousands of real-life people, they’ll have learnings and tweaks they can apply going forward to newer devices. The strap is not that great. It’s quite short, and uncomfortable for long periods of time. I got around that by swapping it for my 645 strap until I could get a new one delivered. Went for a velcro and nylon one which is super comfortable. Beyond heart rate sensors the unit supports all the same sensor types as the Fenix 5 Plus series did, including both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart standardized sensor types. They are as follows: If you select the highlighted widget, then you’ll get the full widget that you previously knew and loved, such as this: All of this (steps as well as HR) is accessible on both Garmin Connect (web), and Garmin Connect Mobile (smartphone app). You can graph it and re-graph it a million ways.
Maps for New Regions
Otherwise, you can simply test on demand. I tried this feature a few times, comparing with a finger oximeter, and found that I got similar readings. Sleep No, PacePro is not grade adjusted pace – despite how many times people keep writing it. In fact, it’s both much simpler, and much more powerful than that. It takes the concept of pace bands that any marathoner is undoubtedly familiar with and makes it all electronic. But even more than that, it automatically calculates each split (miles or kilometers) based on the elevation profile of the course you’re doing. In turn, you then get individual split targets for each mile raced. You get running (trail, indoor, outdoor, treadmill), biking (indoor, outdoor, MTB), pool and open swimming, climbing, skiing and snowboarding of all types, triathlon, strength, SUP, rowing, kayaking, golf, hiking, yoga and even more via the Connect IQ platform of apps. It’s certainly the best Garmin Fenix for women and equally ideal for anyone who feels that the larger case size of Fenix watches is too bulky on the wrist.
With that information PacePro creates your race plan with target times for each kilometre based on the gradient and other information you’ve provided. During the run, you then get a simple data screen with your target split time, your actual split time, how much distance is left in the split, plus how far ahead or behind your target pace you are for the whole race. Increased screen size and reduced bezel (varies by model, but up to 36% bigger screen size on the 6X Again, outdoor cycling continues to be one of the hardest things for wrist-based optical HR sensors to get right. And in this case, things aren’t horrific. Yet, there are still some bobbles, like later towards the end of the ride when the Fenix 6X Solar does some odd spikes: Once you’ve selected a sport it’ll show you the status of GPS & heart rate acquisition, as well as any connectivity to sensors. Technically speaking, while you were pondering which sport to choose, it had already started on all those bits. What you’ll notice at the top though is the battery level. By default this will show you how many hours you’ve got left in that mode: A new metric introduced over the last year is Garmin’s Body Battery. Think of this like the old Street Fighter arcade game, whereby if you got a good night’s sleep it’d start at 100%, and then throughout the day would degrade. It’d go down faster for more intense things, and re-gain battery status if you’re sitting on a couch watching TV. I find it a good proxy, though occasionally not perfect. Within the watch you can see the last four hours, as well as four hours overlaid against stress. Further, you can see how much has charged or drained since midnight.
Need a map update?
If I want a more detailed view of my day, I’ll log into the app to view my sleep, activities, body battery, and stress level. Running The Garmin LT detection and and VO2Max detection based on FirstBeat algorithms “work” but are simplistic. They have a lot of assumptions and significant error bars. (I mean their published literature says something around +-10% when using a chest strap if I recall and that comes out to +- a few points of VO2Max — which is a lot.) In any event, that issue aside, the entire functionality of it worked awesomely on the watch itself. It was surprisingly motivating to just focus on a single lap, but more importantly – getting different splits each time. It took my mind off of the larger prize, and had my brain focus on one thing at a time. Well done.
What’s really cool though is going into Power Manager and creating your own configurations. This allows you to tweak the battery burn profile based on which features you want enabled or disabled. And it’ll actually tell you exactly how many hours it’ll save (or cost you) to make that setting change: We’ll start on the Fenix 6X Solar though. So let’s dive into it a bit. On the Fenix 6X Solar you’ll notice a very thin 1mm wide strip just on the inside of the bezel. This is the first of two solar pieces. Adds new widget glances concept: Basically shrinks widgets to 1/3rd the screen size, so you can see three at once There’s an altimeter, barometer, and compass, which will offer elevation and climbing data during a host of activities including skiing, climbing, and hiking.Don’t get me wrong, the battery life is pretty good, I maybe just had higher expectations of what it would be like. I do appreciate as well that the battery on the 6S is not going to be as good as on the 6 or 6X However, you don't get granular detail over the apps on your smartphone that are allowed to buzz your Fenix. ClimbPro isn’t new here, that came last year. But what is new is that it’ll start showing you coloring just like the Edge 530/830/1030 do, with the steeper gradient colored more painfully than the lesser gradients. Like this:
Ok, so in my testing, I simply use the watch throughout my usual workouts. Those workouts include a wide variety of intensities and conditions, making them great for accuracy testing. I’ve got steady runs, interval workouts on both bike and running, as well as tempo runs and rides, and so on. I have pretty small wrists, and prior to the 645 I’d always had something from the Forerunner 2xx series. 645 appealed to me as being very similar, but way more features than the 235 I was coming from. And the 6S is perfectly sized for me – the standard 6 or the 6X would look ridiculous on my wrists. My barber wears the 6X and I think it look a little big on him, even with his larger wrists than mine. The Garmin Fenix 6 comes in multiple flavors and price points, so we'll just break them down here first. Ultimately, the performance I see on both the Fenix 6X Solar and 6 is pretty much the same as what I saw on the MARQ series before it – mostly OK in many scenarios, but still some gaps in certain scenarios. It’s not usually as easy as saying that it’ll fail in intervals or high intensity, as I’ve had plenty of cases where it works just fine there. Sometimes it’s just a case of some unknown quirk that gets things distracted. Product Comparison Tool: Adds solar charging to Fenix 6 Pro Solar: Termed “Power Glass”, this will increase battery life on sunnier days
The Fenix 6 Pro can help you train harder and race smarter, and has useful smart features to back up its sports tracking
Garmin’s new Fenix 6S Pro may be the smallest model in the Fenix series, but don’t let that dissuade you. It is as rugged and almost as full-featured as its big brother, the Fenix 6X Pro. The 6S Pro has a compact design, refined interface, and useful new features that make it attractive to folks looking for a fitness watch with a strong outdoor focus. Is there a better alternative? Note that when doing it from the watch (versus Garmin Connect Mobile), you can’t adjust the various sliders that you see down below. As such, I’d really just recommend doing it from the app and sending it to your watch to execute. Garmin also added battery modes that allow you to switch power settings on the fly when you need more battery life. More than once, I let my battery drain during testing and was able to eke out a 10K run with less than 5 percent battery remaining thanks to these reduced power modes. Price and availability The Fenix 6s Pro comes with a silicone band, which is comfortable for daily wear. If you want, you can buy other bands from Garmin to swap out later. I’ve been testing the Fenix 6 series in a variety of conditions from the city streets of NYC to the high alpine trails of the French Alps. Plus the beautiful windy flats of the Netherlands. I’ve got a pretty good idea on what works well, and what still needs some love. Don’t worry, I cover it all through the course of more than 11,000 words.
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