These Garmin smartwatches are now watching your health more closely

The update isn’t huge, but it does enhance health monitoring. After installing it, your watch will be able to flag when metrics like heart rate, HRV, respiration, skin temperature, and Pulse Ox2 during sleep start trending outside your usual range. You’ll see these insights right on the watch and in the Garmin Connect app.These signals can help you spot added stress on your body, whether it’s from workouts, potential illness, or other factors. If your device supports it, you can also dive deeper into your Health Status directly within Garmin Connect.And speaking of the app, for those on Garmin Connect+, there’s even more to explore. Premium users can now access 3D topographic maps showing routes, courses, and trails. This makes it easier to understand terrain while exercising and can be viewed for logged activities, custom courses, or individual Garmin Trails.And I know subscriptions can pile up, but Garmin Connect+ at $6.99 per month actually adds some useful tools if you’re active. Besides the new 3D maps, you also get AI-driven insights, an enhanced performance dashboard with more charts, and Active Intelligence, which uses your activity data to give personalized insights right on the home page of Garmin Connect.

Updating your watch is simple: you can enable automatic updates and sync with Garmin Connect or use Garmin Express on your computer.

Along with the update to the smartwatches, Garmin is also updating its cycling computers. These improvements include smarter ride insights with hydration and refueling prompts based on your fitness, weather, and route, live weather overlays, power guidance that accounts for stamina, wind, and altitude, gear ratio breakdowns after rides with electronic shifting, and enhanced GroupRide comparisons so you can measure speed, power, heart rate, and cadence against other cyclists.

Garmin catching up in health tracking

Health Status isn’t a completely new idea. Apple Watches already offer similar functionality through the Vitals app, alerting users when metrics like heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, or sleep patterns deviate from the norm.Galaxy Watches and Pixel Watches also include comparable features, so it’s good to see Garmin stepping up and leveling health tracking with the competition.

More value for active users

Garmin watches are built for life on the move and for people who stay active, so updates like these make a lot of sense. After all, a big part of owning a smartwatch is understanding what’s happening with your body while you train, sleep, or go about your day.

And since Garmin devices are usually on the pricier side, I think giving users more features and functionality is crucial if the company wants to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive smartwatch market.