Garmin has released its first round of updates for the Garmin Fenix 8, although at the moment these updates are exclusively for users who have enrolled in Garmin’s Public Beta program. These updates don’t introduce any new features to the best Garmin watch released this year, but they do bring quality-of-life changes and fixes to features such as PacePro, Breathwork and Heart Rate.
First announced on November 1, the Public Beta program updates are unrelated to the update released a few weeks ago which was designed to fix the issue of the watch crashing in cold water that’s been plaguing Fenix 8 users. Whereas that update seemed to be an emergency fix, this is a much more routine round of updates and changes for Garmin’s Beta testers.
While this update won’t be rolling out to Fenix 8 owners who aren’t part of the program (i.e. most users), it is a good indication of the changes coming down the line to your watch.
The changes include tweaks to the Breathwork functionality, to remove the Alerts setting and fix a problem with the Disabled Touch setting during Meditation activities. Other changes include fixing a potential crashing issue with the Heart Rate glance, and fixing an error that caused increased battery consumption if the user was wearing a watch face from Garmin’s Connect IQ store. PacePro plan names were also missing from race calendars, and that’s been addressed too.
It looks like these all are small fixes for issues that few people outside of serious power users would have noticed, but after a slightly rocky launch for the Fenix 8 thanks to the cold water crashing problem, it’s good to see the Beta program rolling out as normal. The full list of updates are available on Garmin’s website here.
How to enrol in Garmin's Public Beta program
To enroll in Garmin’s Public Beta program and test the latest incomplete versions of your device’s software, you can sign in via the Garmin Connect website and agree to the terms under Device Settings > Join Public Beta program.
Normally, Public Beta program participants get these updates on their watches automatically. However, Garmin says that this time, you’ll have to manually choose to download it.
Garmin says: “This update is available via 'Check For Updates' on your watch. Rather than manually loading files to update your watch's software, you can download this update via Wifi/Bluetooth. To download the update, on your watch go to Menu > System > Software Update > Check For Updates.”
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