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{{BuyAmazon|AZID=B00XKRWTUE|AZN=Garmin 225}}
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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin 225 Review}}
I've [[Best Running Watch| tested several optical heart rate monitors]] and found them rather ineffective, so I came to the {{Garmin 225}} with low expectations. I initially found that the 225 worked better than I expected, but when I did more rigorous approach I found the [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring| accuracy was lacking]]. I'm a little disappointed in the way Garmin has crippled the 225 software compared with the 620, and I was hoping the [[Garmin 235]] would be a big improvement. Sadly, while the 235 adds things like [[Connect IQ]], it's optical HRM is nowhere near as good as the 225. '''If you want optical heart rate monitoring, the 225 is the best I've found, or at perhaps I should say, it's the least bad.''' A simple rating of the Garmin 225 can be based on how well they can answer some basic questions:
* '''How far did I run?''' This is the most basic question, and the 225 has rather poor GPS accuracy, so its estimate of how far you've run needs to be treated with a quite a bit of caution.
* '''How fast am I running?''' Knowing how fast you're running can be a nice to know, or it can be vital for your training or race performance. Because of the nature of GPS, watches that rely on GPS signal alone tend to have serious problems with current pace. Without the ability to display current [[Pace From A Footpod]] while getting all other data from GPS, the 225 can't answer this question. The poor GPS accuracy exacerbates this issue, and I've seen the pace estimate wildly wrong on the 225. The 225 would be my top pick for marathon runners, but I firmly believe that this is a killer feature, as accurate pacing is essential for a good marathon performance. (I've some slight hope that Garmin will add this feature in with a firmware update, as they have to a number of their newer watches.)
The 225 is not a good choice for ultrarunners, as its battery life is too short. See [[Best Running Watch#Watches for Ultrarunning| Watches for Ultrarunning]] for more details. (Turning off the optical heart rate monitor only increases the battery life a couple of hours.)
[[File:Garmin 225-top.JPG|thumb|none|200px|The {{Garmin 225}}, showing the display of Heart Rate from its Optical Heart Rate Sensor.]]
{{BuyAmazon|AZID=B00XKRWTUE|AZN=Garmin 225}}
=Optical Heart Rate Monitoring=
No one likes to wear a chest strap, and it can be particularly annoying for ladies as it can interfere with support clothing. This makes the idea of [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring]] that uses the changes in capillary fill under the watch quite attractive, so I focused on this functionality.
* '''Alerts'''. Some watches will alert you when a metric is out of range. The alert for [[Cadence]] is really useful and one of my favorite features.
* '''Web Configuration'''. Some watches allow you to setup the configuration via a web site, and then download your changes. This is vastly easier than fiddling with the watch.
=Visual Comparison=
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