Garmin FR60 Review
Cheapest Retailer – Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Garmin FR60 is an advanced sports watch designed with the runner and triathlete in mind. Incorporating some of the most successful features from the popular Garmin Forerunner watch series, the Garmin FR60 has all of the essential training features that a multi sports watch needs, with non of the extra baggage or high price tag.
The Garmin FR60 Sports Watch
FR60 Review – Track Vital Training Statistics with Wireless Ant+ Connectivity
The FR60 can be used as a normal sports watch that tracks your lap times and splits, but the real functionality of the watch is only realised when you combine it with an optional Garmin Foot Pod. The foot pod is attached to your running shoes and once calibrated, sends the FR60 a continuous stream of live data about your activity such as pace, distance and speed all of which can be displayed as live stats on the watch. As the FR60 takes speed and distance data from a foot pod and not GPS satellites, you will never be standing around for minutes at a time whilst your watch locate and locks on to a signal. This also means that you can run in areas where GPS watches would lose signal such as cities, which makes this particular Garmin sports watch perfectly suited to the urban runner or cyclist.
Not only can the watch be combined with a Foot Pod, but it can also be wirelessly connected up to any Wireless Ant+ compatible heart rate monitor or bike sensor so that you can record and track even more statistics. Combining the FR60 with a heart rate monitor means you can see your current as well as average heart rate over the course of your run or cycle which opens up a whole new world of heart rate zone training and gives you the option to track your fitness by monitoring your heart rate.
FR60 Review – Cycle Sensor Compatibility
Combining the FR60 with a cycle sensor allows you to keep an eye on your cadence and speed even when training indoors on a turbo trainer. Once paired with your cycle sensor, the Garmin FR60 only takes data from that individual sensor until disconnected so there is no chance of it picking up data from another cyclist or wireless ant device that isn’t yours. Pairing the FR60 to all three devices (foot pod, heart rate sensor and cycle sensor) isn’t a problem as this is what the watch had been designed to do, but equally it is possible to use the watch with only one or two of the Wireless Ant+ accessories just as easily.
Track Cycling Cadence and Speed With A Garmin Cycle Sensor
Fr60 Review – Water Resistance
One of the main advantages (if not the main advantage) of the FR60 over other Garmin watches is its amazing water resistant capabilities. All of the more expensive Forerunner watches are not designed for swimming (apart from the 310) but the FR60 is not only water resistant to 50m but is actively promoted as a triathlon friendly watch. Having a watch that is water resistant to 50m means that the watch is more than capable of handling open water swims and more extreme water sports so is perfect for the multi sport athlete.
FR60 Review – Advanced Training Features
The Garmin FR60 also includes a number of advanced features that turn the watch into a great training aid. Along with all the statistics like current pace, average pace, speed, distance, heart rate and time, the FR60 can also be used to train within Heart Rate Zones. When you first turn on the watch, you are asked for things like your age and height which gives the watch all it needs to calculate your 5 personalised heart rate zones. You can select one of these zones to train at and if your heart rate drops either above or below the zone (depending on what setting you set the watch to), the FR60 will alert you with ah chime. It is also possible to set up alerts for pace, speed, distance and time, all of which can be great tools for use with goal specific training and make the FR60 a very powerful training tool.
The FR60 also lets you set up specific interval training sessions based on either time or distance. One you set your session up the watch will alert you when it is time to run, stop running or begin a new rep as well as recording all of the vital training statistics that you need to track your intervals. Laps and splits are started automatically at the end of each rep which means you can concentrate on running instead of fiddling around with a watch.
Another advanced training tool that the Garmin FR60 offers is Virtual Trainer mode. This is when you can set the watch at a specific speed per mile and then race against a virtual figure that is displayed on the watch face. When in Virtual Trainer mode the FR60 tells you how far infront or behind your partner you are so you know exactly how much you have to speed up to catch him. The Virtual trainer is a great training tool for race practice as it sets you up for running at an even pace and lets you know how far off your chosen pace you actually are.
FR60 Review – Garmin Connect
The best feature of the Fr60 is the ability to use Garmin’s powerful online training portal, Garmin Connect, to upload, share, store and analyse your past training sessions in all their glory. The amount of detail you can analyse in the Garmin Connect portal is truly amazing as you can do everything from viewing basic stats like speed and distance for each run, to playing back your runs in real time, to setting and tracking mileage, calorie or time based goals that update automatically when you conenct the FR60 up to your computer using the wireless Ant+ data transfer USB stick. The best way to find out about the Garmin connect portal is to sign up for a free account and start exploring but I have also written a more in-depth article on all the features the Garmin Connect portal has to offer in my Forerunner 210 Review
Garmin Connect Log
FR60 Review – Look and Feel
The FR60 is smaller and lighter than any of Garmin’s other sports watches so it is ideal for use while swimming as well as casual wear. As well as telling the time (no way!) the FR60 also can be used as an alarm clock so there is no excuse to miss those all important early morning training sessions!
The Garmin Fr60 is available in Red, Lilac or Black and can be bought either with or without a foot pod, heart rare monitor or bike sensor. It is also possible to mount the FR60 on a quick release bike mount kit for easy viewing when out on a racing or mountain bike.
The Garmin FR60 In Red
FR60 Review – Summary
The Garmin FR60 is an advanced sports watch that is perfectly suited for both triathletes, runners and cyclists. Having the ability to track you speed, distance and time along with a whole host of other training statistics means that runners will find this watch a valuable training tool, whilst the option to connect the FR60 up to a cycle sensor to track cadence and speed even when on an indoor trainer makes the watch a great addition to any cyclist kit. The FR60 is small, light and most importantly waterproof, which means it truly is the best value for money multi-sport watch on the market to date and it a watch that will take your training to the next level no matter what endurance sport you choose.
The cheapest place to buy the FR60 is online and the cheapest retailer by far is Amazon. Direct links can be found below.
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Garmin FR60 – Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Garmin Fr60 Cycle Sensor – Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
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thanks for this review. learnt a lot from here! great post!
Nice evaluation. I am using a Suunto T6 for my runs. What do you think of that one in relation to triathlons?
Paul Koks recently posted..Feb 4- Training For A Half Marathon – 5 Key Elements To Think About!
Big Garmin fan when it comes to their running tools. I also used Nike+ … it’s a good option if you want to spend less money!
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Like you say, the FR60 does have enough features to satisfy most runners.
Thanks for the review! Been wondering whether the FR60 would do everything I needed. Most of the runners I know have the 305, but I have small wrists, and didn’t want anything that big! Now, I’m sure I want the 60. . . and the foot pod!
Hi!
BE CAREFUL! I have just bough the combination of FR60 + Footpod and I must say that I’m very disappointed to find out only now, that this combination DOES NOT SUPPORT TRACKING MAP DATA. The Garmin connect image you have posted in your article is therefore HIGHLY MISLEADING, because the map data is NOT THERE.
For me the whole point of buying a Garmin watch was to record a route and later see it in the map then compare how I performed on various sections. Really big disappointment. I should have added 20 more Euros for a proper GPS enabled model.
Regards,
Peter
Hi Pete, sorry to hear that you feel mislead. I have edited the image to get rid of the map section so hopefully the same thing wont happen to anyone else. Thanks for pointing this out to me.
Kind Regards
Ross
I have had this watch for over a year, including footpod, HR and bike sensor, all I can say it works flawlessly, one button start, scrolling menu’s so no buttons need pushing and I love the virtual partner! Thouroughly reccomend for any runner or cyclist who knows where they are going and does not need a gps to show them the way. Look at a map!
I have had this watch for 16 months, I really liked it and then this week, it failed completely, nothing on the screen, changed the battery and still it is dead, really disappointed in it after a little over a years worth of use.
Regards
Neil
mine died almost exactly like Neil’s watch did. It was also about the same age.
After replacing the battery, it worked for a few weeks but then kept dieing. I played around with the battery contacts which seemed to help. I’ve lost enough training run data that it’s really a pain in the butt.
When it worked, it worked great.
Since I’ve already got the HRM and the footpod, I’ll likely get a replacement FR60 online. I found watch only for $49. GPS models are overkill (price and features) for my needs.
Thanks for the review, have had my 610 a couple of weeks now, have set it up and am using it for my marathon training runs. Although it doesn’t alert me when I have reached my target distance and it doesn’t end the run like my 305 did. Is there a setting I have missed?
Hi William,
Have you tried using the virtual trainer feature? From memory I think that you can key in your specific distance and the watch should tell you when you have finished your run. I don’t have my Fr60 any longer unfortunately so if someone else could help out here that would be much appreciated…
Ross
Apologies Ross, not sure how but my comment below ended up on FR60 page not FR610 page as intended…
“Thanks for the review, have had my 610 a couple of weeks now, have set it up and am using it for my marathon training runs. Although it doesn’t alert me when I have reached my target distance and it doesn’t end the run like my 305 did. Is there a setting I have missed?”
Is the answer still the same re virtual trainer?
I find that my foot pod calibration is almost always off. If I calibrate it to tempo or interval pace, it is wrong for easy pace. If I calibrate it for a long run, it’s inaccurate if I speed up. Often I find it is off by .1mi/mi. This is extremely frustrating. If I knew my pace accurately enough to program it into my watch, I would not need a distance/pace device. Any advice?
I would NOT recommend getting a Garmin to my worst enemy! I have owned my FR60 for exactly 2 years. After the first year, the strap broke (Garmin support advised me to send it in with a $90 check). Now I have replaced the battery, and it keeps giving me an error message! (the first time was fine, no hitches). It is also incredibly buggy! It has wiped out my running data several times with the successive upgrades in software.
I used a cheapo Casio watch for 10 years (changed the battery 3 or 4 times, and had to get 2 new straps, and I wore it all the time)…that’s the quality I was expecting from Garmin.
I am NEVER going to buy any type of Garmin product ever again!