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Garmin unveils major upgrade to its fēnix family and premium epix smartwatches

Garmin has upgraded both its fēnix and epix smartwatch lines with improved performance, additional functionality and more sophisticated activity, sports and wellness features.

Garmin has upgraded both its fēnix and epix smartwatch lines with improved performance, additional functionality and more sophisticated activity, sports and wellness features.

Fēnix, first launched a decade ago, is Garmin’s flagship multisport GPS smartwatch and today’s launch of the 7 series is a new personal best for the brand.

“The fēnix 7 Series brings cutting-edge training and multisport features to the wrist. With its latest design upgrade, Garmin’s best-in-class performance metrics and health/wellness tracking, fēnix 7 provides serious athletes everything they need for peak performance,” says Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales.

While Apple has been making smartwatches since 2015, Garmin has been helping people keep fit and improve athletic performance for decades with its range of timekeepers.

This long standing relationship with its sporty consumers gives Garmin a competitive edge over suppliers of more general purpose smartwatches.

Garmin fēnix 7 Series

The company says its fēnix 7 Series is purpose-built to improve athletic achievement, but is also designed to be worn all the time so it can keep monitor and track health and wellness attributes including heart rate, respiration, stress tracking, “body battery” level, fitness age and sleep.

The watches will also receive messages and other notifications, make contactless payments and shuffle through a music play list on services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Deezer, which come preloaded.

A new Connect IQ Store On Device allows users to discover recommended apps and install over Wi-Fi directly from the watch — no phone required.

For the more athletic, fēnix 7 Series is packed with advanced features including a new real time stamina tool that monitors and tracks exertion levels during a run or bike activity.

A new Visual Race Predictor feature takes into account running history and overall fitness to provide race estimates and insights into how training is progressing.

Post workout, Recovery Time Advisor takes into account training intensity and other factors like stress, daily activity and sleep to estimate the number of hours of rest needed to properly recover before another session of the same exertion.

Daily Workout Suggestions gives a recommended next run or ride workout based on current training load, training status and overall fitness level.

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All fēnix 7 watches are preloaded with the SkiView maps and 42,000 golf courses and higher end models also have TopoActive maps.

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Prices for the fēnix 7 Series start at £600 for a standard 42mm model and go up to £1,050 for the top of the range 51mm Sapphire Solar version with a titanium bezel.

Battery life is up to 37 days with the help of solar charging, but if you use all the features including GPS, it will more likely last for a couple of days.

Garmin epix

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Arriving on the same day as the fēnix 7 Series is the Garmin epix, which has many of the same advanced features but is positioned as a premium lifestyle product thanks to the use of materials like sapphire and titanium and a 1.3-inch always-on AMOLED touch screen display.

“Designed for an active lifestyle, epix is a versatile premium multisport wearable with AMOLED display and exceptional battery life, built to deliver essential wellness, training and recovery features right to your fingertips,” says Mr Bartel

“Aspirations are personal and regardless of what yours are, epix will be there at every step, providing essential insights and motivation along the way.”

Despite the always-on display (the watch can also be controlled using five pushers), Garmin says the new epix will work for up to 16 days between charges.

On the health and wellness front, epix monitors heart rate, respiration, stress, sleep and Body-Battery energy monitoring.

It also comes with an array of sports apps for gym workouts, tennis, climbing, bouldering, golfing, surfing and skiing while Garmin Coach provides personalised training advice.

Like  fēnix 7 watches, all lifestyle apps come as standard, so music, notifications and payments can all be handled from the wrist.

Prices start at £800 for versions in slate steel, black titanium sapphire, white titanium sapphire, and black/carbon gray DLC titanium sapphire.

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