The Garmin 225 is the best GPS watch I have ever owned to date. I say this because it is more than a standard GPS watch with its built in optical heart rate sensor. For my day to day needs and races under 10 hours it has served me perfectly. With that said I do wish Garmin would unlock things like UltraTrac Mode that it reserves for other watches in their line like the Fenix. After testing this watch for many months, since July 15′ as you can see on my Garmin Connect profile, I am very satisfied with it.
Garmin 225 Features
Optical Heart Rate Monitor – No longer will you see people wearing chest straps to measure their heart rate; Your heart rate is now measured with light and an optical sensor on the back of the watch(read more here, pdf warning). With this ever improving technology I have had heart rate data on ever run since I started using it. This is a huge advantage, more data is better data for optimizing training and seeing what works. The optical heart rate sensor is also always within 1-2 beats when tested against Garmin’s traditional heart rate chest straps.
GPS – This is a Garmin GPS watch in 2015, it works perfect and fast. The only issues you will have with the GPS are the same issues any GPS will give you because it’s pretty much all the same these days. Fret not, this feature is still perfect.
Accelerometer – The accelerometer is actually surprisingly accurate when used on a treadmill. It even is self calibrating the more you use it when you do have GPS signal, see here for more on how it works.
Battery Life – It must be witchcraft, the battery with optical heart rate sensor on lasts for 10 hours. Think about it – this little watch on your wrist can track your location and heart rate with extreme accuracy can do it for 10 hours straight without a charge. Try using Google Maps on your cell phone for 10 hours straight without being plugged in (I know it’s not the same thing. it’s still impressive).
Garmin 225 Usage
Having used the watch for the past 5 months of obstacle race training and ultra running I have really learned the ins and outs of the watch. At first when using the Garmin 225 I was instantly saddened that I no longer had the touch screen of my Garmin 620. But it turns out I love not having the touch screen when it comes to my running watch. The ability to scroll through the screens with a guaranteed click of a button is something that is becoming long forgotten in our touch screen world. I remember when I had gotten my first iPhone after having a smart phone with a real keyboard how frustrated I was by not having buttons that I could feel but shortly after I just adjusted. This is similar because I forgot how much I love buttons on a watch so that you don’t have to look at it or hope your swipe worked. I am now converted back to the button world for watches, not for iPhones – I love my iPhone.
My love of buttons on this watch falls into an interesting status because during obstacle races the buttons on the watches are actually a little bit of an issue. During crawls I find that I will accidentally pause the watch when my wrist is bent for crawling. Otherwise this watch has held up through water pits, mud pits, and the water at rope climbs. I haven’t done a swim with it and I suggest you don’t either. This watch is not fully waterproof, see the comparison chart later on for water proof levels.
Other than these thoughts most of my usage has been rather simple in that it’s worked perfectly. I turn it on, I run as far as I want while getting all the information I could need like my average pace, current pace, miles run, heart rate, average hear rate and a bunch more, then I get home and plug the watch back in and sync all of my data. And even after syncing my data I have Tapiriik setup to sync my data from Garmin connect over to Strava so I can be cool and compare data with the service that more people use.
Ah, I almost forgot, one of the only down sides to the watch is sometimes the heart rate sensor doesn’t play nice for me. I’ve found that if I have particularly dirty sweat on my previous days workout sometimes the sensor is a little dirty. I can tell this because my heart rate seems capped out and not changing much at the beginning of a new workout. To fix it I either needs to sweat enough to re-moisten is and clean it in that way or I wet my finger tip and rub it over sensors on the back of the watch and it is fixed. The other way it doesn’t play nice is more of a personal issue I think. I have very poor blood flow, and on cold days when I’ve been sitting around in my house without much heat on my skin is very cold (this doesn’t bother me but freaks my wife out). When I start running, while in this condition, it doesn’t respond much to my skin until I get some blood flowing and heat up after a few minutes – I’ve found that I can speed this up by pumping my arms a bit.
Garmin 225 Durability
The Garmin 225 looks pretty much like the day I started using it. The face might have a few gentle scratches but otherwise it is unharmed. But the water rating is only 5ATM which means you probably shouldn’t swim in it. I haven’t run an OCR with it where there was any extended water sections but if I am doing a race that has it I will likely swap this out for the Garmin Fenix 3 that is 10ATM and suitable for swimming.
Garmin 225 Pros and Cons
Pros
- Small and Lightweight
- 10 hour battery life
- Optical Heart Rate Sensor
Cons
- Only 5ATM water resistance
- No Touch Screen
- Only 2 customizable screens
Garmin 225 Competitors
| TomTom Cardio | Garmin 225 | Microsoft Band 2 | Garmin Fenix 3 | |
 |  |  |  | |
| Battery Life | 8 Hours | 4 weeks as watch, 10 hours with GPS | 2 days without GPS, 2-3 Hours with GPS | 5 weeks as watch, 20 hours with GPS |
| GPS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Heart Rate Monitor | Optical | Optical | Optical | Yes, with additional chest strap |
| Waterproof | 5 ATM (50 Meters) | 5 ATM (50 Meters) | Water-resistant IPX7, Up to 1 Meter | 100 Meters |
| Weight | 2.22 oz | 1.91 oz | 2.1 oz. | 2.9 oz. |
| Phone Compatibility | Android, iOS | Android, iOS | Android, iOS, Windows | Android, iOS |
| Price | $99.99 | $239.99 | 249.99 | $499.99 |
| ORM Review | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Buy | Amazon
| Amazon
| Amazon |
Garmin 225 Verdict
As of writing this Garmin has since released 2 more watches with heart rate monitors built in, updating the Garmin 620 to the Garmin 630, and the Garmin 230 to the Garmin 235. With that in mind I can suggest that you either buy this watch, the Garmin 225 or one of those two. There isn’t a ton of difference in my eyes except the battery life – a quick guide for that is the bigger the number the bigger the watch, and the bigger the watch the bigger the battery (life). In the future I will likely upgrade to the 235 or 630 for battery life so that I can do longer ultra races and still have a built in heart rate monitor. But for now this watch is perfect for me. Final verdict – Buy a Garmin 225 without hesitation.
Dario
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I find it difficult to use. The Fitbit hr is very simple. I like the look and feel of the 225
Hey Howard,
Can I ask you what you find difficult to use about it? From my experience I press one button, two times, to unlock it. Then I press the same button again to start and stop working out.