For athletes, Garmin is it.
In September 2020, amid a world where athletic ambition had been quietly suspended by pandemic, Garmin released the Forerunner 745 — a $500 smartwatch built for the triathlete who measures life in metrics. It is less a new invention than a consolidation: a single device gathering the scattered capabilities of an overcrowded lineup and offering them to the athlete who refuses to stop training, whatever the circumstances. The watch speaks to a particular human impulse — the desire to quantify effort, to find meaning in numbers, to prepare for a race that may or may not come.
- Garmin's product lineup has grown so labyrinthine that even loyal customers need a reference chart to understand what they're buying — the 745 enters a crowded family without a clear identity.
- At $500, the Forerunner 745 consolidates triathlon-specific features into one device, letting athletes switch seamlessly between running, swimming, and cycling with a single button press.
- Advanced metrics — VO2 max, Body Battery recovery scores, sleep-time pulse oximetry, and granular cycling power data — push the watch firmly into the territory of athletes who treat training as a science.
- Offline music storage and smartphone notifications signal Garmin's attempt to soften the watch's intensity and court users who want performance tools without total athletic obsession.
- Released in the depths of the 2020 pandemic, the watch's promise of personal records landed with quiet irony — a high-performance instrument waiting for a world ready to race again.
Garmin has long held an almost uncontested grip on the serious athlete market. Dedicated runners and triathletes reach for a Garmin almost reflexively, even as cheaper, sleeker alternatives have multiplied. The brand's authority endures — but so does its habit of releasing overlapping products that confuse as much as they impress.
The Forerunner 745, priced at $500, is nominally the successor to the 735XT, though parsing what that means requires patience. What Garmin has actually done is consolidate: the 745 gathers features spread across the broader Forerunner family and focuses them on the triathlete. A side button moves the watch between running, swimming, and cycling modes, each tuned for its sport. Workout suggestions appear directly on the wrist, drawn from the athlete's own training history.
The deeper feature set is where the 745 earns its price. VO2 max scoring, Body Battery recovery analysis, and overnight pulse oximetry — which can surface signs of disrupted breathing or flagged blood oxygen levels — give the watch a clinical edge. For cyclists with compatible power meters, the data goes further still: seated versus standing time, leg balance, power phase breakdowns. This is a watch for people who think in numbers.
New to the 700-series are smartwatch comforts: notifications on the wrist and offline storage for up to 500 songs from Spotify, Deezer, or Amazon Music. Small concessions to ordinary life, but meaningful ones.
The watch arrived in September 2020, when pandemic disruptions had hollowed out race calendars and closed gyms worldwide. The pitch — train harder, chase records — carried an unintentional sting. For athletes determined to emerge from lockdown stronger, the 745 was a serious tool. For everyone else, it was a portrait of ambition waiting for the world to catch up.
Garmin has long owned a particular corner of the sports watch market—the one where serious athletes live. Talk to any dedicated runner and you'll hear the same thing: a Garmin on the wrist is non-negotiable, even though cheaper alternatives with GPS and better styling exist now. That wasn't always true. When Garmin first arrived, there was no real competition. Today there is, and yet the brand's grip on the athlete demographic remains firm.
The problem is that Garmin's own lineup has become nearly impossible to navigate. The company makes the Forerunner 645, the 735XT, the 745, the 935, the 945, and the 935 Music—all of them costing hundreds of dollars, all of them looking vaguely similar, all of them occupying slightly different niches that require a spreadsheet to understand. The new Forerunner 745, arriving at $500, is meant to be the successor to the 735XT, but good luck figuring out what that actually means without consulting a chart.
What Garmin has done with the 745 is consolidate. The watch pulls together features scattered across the rest of the Forerunner lineup and packages them into a single device built specifically for triathletes. The appeal is immediate: press the side button and you move from track running to pool swimming to cycling, each mode optimized for that particular sport. The watch will track your workouts with the granular detail Garmin is known for, and it will suggest running and cycling workouts directly on your wrist based on your training history.
Beyond the basics, the 745 layers on features that separate it from casual fitness watches. A VO2 max score measures your cardiovascular fitness. A Body Battery feature analyzes how much recovery time your body needs before the next workout. A pulse oximetry sensor monitors your blood oxygen levels while you sleep—data that could flag respiratory issues like sleep apnea or potentially even viral infections, though Garmin makes clear the watch offers no diagnostic capability. If you own a compatible power meter, the watch will break down cycling metrics to an almost absurd degree: time spent seated versus standing, left-right leg balance, platform center offset, power phase analysis. This is a watch for people who think about their training in numbers.
The 745 also brings smartwatch conveniences that the 735XT lacked. Texts and notifications appear on your wrist. You can store up to 500 songs from Spotify, Deezer, or Amazon Music and listen offline while you train. These features aren't new to the broader Forerunner line, but they're new to the 700-series, and they suggest Garmin is trying to make its triathlon watch slightly less monomaniacal about training.
There's an unspoken tension in the timing. Garmin released this watch in September 2020, deep into a pandemic that had upended training schedules and gyms across the world. The marketing pitch—chase down new personal records—landed with a particular kind of irony. For the subset of athletes determined to emerge from lockdown in peak condition, the 745 offers the tools to do it. For everyone else, the watch is a reminder of a different era, when training for a triathlon felt like a reasonable use of time.
Notable Quotes
The 745 offers a VO2 max score to measure cardio health and a Body Battery feature that analyzes recovery time needed before the next workout.— Garmin's feature set for the Forerunner 745
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Garmin still dominate when there are cheaper smartwatches with GPS now?
Because athletes don't want cheaper. They want accurate. Garmin's entire philosophy is built around the idea that if you're serious about training, you need data that's trustworthy and detailed. The brand earned that reputation over years, and it's sticky.
But the product lineup is confusing. How does a consumer even choose?
That's the real problem. Garmin has optimized for every possible athlete—the runner, the triathlete, the cyclist, the swimmer. But they've done it by creating eight slightly different watches instead of one flexible one. The 745 tries to solve that by being the triathlon watch, but you still have to know that's what you're looking for.
What makes the 745 different from the 735XT it replaces?
Smartwatch features, mainly. Notifications, music storage. The 735XT was pure training. The 745 assumes you might want to live in the real world while you're training.
The pulse oximetry sensor—is that actually useful?
It's useful if you're paying attention. The watch can't diagnose anything, but it can show you patterns. If your blood oxygen is consistently low at night, that's worth asking a doctor about. It's a data point, not a diagnosis.
Who actually buys a $500 watch to train for a triathlon?
People who are serious enough to spend months preparing, who track every variable, who want to know if they're improving. People for whom the sport isn't a hobby—it's a practice. The watch is expensive because it's built for that level of commitment.
Does it feel strange to release a triathlon watch during a pandemic?
Absolutely. But there's a subset of athletes who used the lockdown as an opportunity. No races, no distractions, just training. For them, this watch arrived at exactly the right moment.