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I review the best Garmin watches for a living, and have been wearing them for the past decade, but like most people, I only use 10% of the features jam-packed into my watch.
Ready to get started making better use of all the available Garmin watch features? Here are five of the best features you might not know about on your watch, and how to use them:
1. Find my phone
Let's start with arguably the most useful feature, and one I use every single day — did you know you can use your Garmin to find your phone? Find My Phone allows you to find both Apple and Android smartphones when they are connected to your Garmin via Bluetooth. When you ping your phone from your watch, it will make a sound and vibrate. If you’re using an Android device, you can also turn on the camera flash.
To locate the Find Your Phone setting on your watch, press and hold the menu button on your Garmin watch to open the controls menu. Find the “Find My Phone” icon, which looks like a phone with a question mark.
When your phone is connected to your Garmin via Bluetooth, your phone will start playing an alert sound, even if it’s on silent. To stop the alert, press the back button on your watch once you’ve found your phone.
2. Personalized hot keys
Another handy feature is Garmin’s personalized hotkeys — in other words, Garmin allows you to create ‘shortcuts’ using certain buttons, allowing you to quickly press to start your music or turn the flashlight on.
To do this, open the menu on your Garmin and head to Watch Settings. From here, head to System, then select Shortcuts. You can then choose the buttons you want to assign to the shortcut, and what you want them to do — options include setting an alarm, turning your flashlight on, or activating the do-not-disturb mode.
3. Palm touch hack
This is a super-handy feature for any Garmin watch that has a touchscreen. Garmin’s palm gesture feature allows you to quickly return to the watch face at any point by simply placing your palm over the entire watch face.
The watch should immediately return to the main watch face, dimming or turning off the backlight, depending on your display settings.
It’s worth noting that this feature doesn’t work if you’re recording an activity, but it is a handy one to use if you’re checking a notification at your desk and want to quickly turn your screen off without pressing buttons.
4. Undo lap feature
I don’t know how many times I’ve accidentally recorded a lap mid-workout, throwing all my stats off. Garmin’s Undo Lap feature allows you to immediately discard a lap, if you’ve accidentally pressed the button mid-workout. Genius.
To do this, press the bottom left button (usually the DOWN button) on your Garmin within a few seconds of pressing the lap button (bottom right) mid-workout. The watch will display “Lap Discarded,” and the last lap, or sport change if you’re in multi-sport mode, will be removed.
5. Round-trip Course feature
If you’re traveling, new to an area, or just want a new running route from your office, your Garmin can help you with that using the Round-Trip Course feature.
To do this, select your activity on your Garmin watch, then scroll down and select ‘Navigate,’ followed by ‘Round-Trip Course.’ You’ll then need to input your distance in miles or kilometers, and if you have a preference in which direction you want to travel, your watch will generate up to three different routes, based on other runners' or riders’ data in the area.
Once you’ve selected your route, you can view more information; to begin navigating from your watch, select the ‘Go’ option. If your watch supports the feature, it’ll immediately recalculate the route if you run the wrong way, keeping the total run’s distance the same.
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