If you’re not looking at it, its basically the same as the 1040 (the 1040 is faster, supports more connect iq data fields, but if you aren’t looking at it, don’t see why that matters) for its ability to record activities
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I have the 955 solar. My thoughts:
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The HRV tracking is better than all other popular options I’ve tried. Also helpful to see your HRV graphed continuously rather than just seeing one specific value taken from an anonymous time.
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Their version of training readiness isn’t as inaccurate as other popular options, but it’s still not reliable in my experience. I wouldn’t feel comfortable trusting this over a well-structured plan.
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The workout recommendations are rarely in line with what is best for my goals (and that’s after putting my goals into GC as events). It seems to lack sufficient “resolution” in what it analyzes in my training, and also seems to want to push me toward heavy polarization with too much focus on anaerobic work. In short, I wouldn’t buy the watch for this feature.
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Battery life was good, but since the latest firmware update I went from only needing to charge once per week to having to charge every 10hrs. It’s really frustrating
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I had this as well on the beta firmware (12.23). I did 2 things and I’m back to 12+ days.
- I had strava segments stuck in some sync limbo. There was always a notification on garmin connect on the web about it waiting to sync. I switched to garmin segments, plugged the watch in, let it sit and sync, then restarted and switched back to strava.
- I also deleted some customizations… removed the music apps, connect IQ apps (only had 1 watch face “data lover”), and turned off overnight pulse ox. Then turned the watch off, waited a minute then turned on, let it charge to 100% and reinstalled stuff. Still not using spO2 overnight but i dont think that was the issue. I was trying to avoid a full reset.
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I don’t have strava segments turned on so this isn’t an issue. Sync works as expected as well.
I have Spotify on the watch and the STRYD CIQ app, but those things were in place before the firmware update and my battery life was fine. I’m not going to remove intended functionality to restore battery life that was affected by a bad firmware update.
Per the Garmin forums they are working on a fix for the battery drain. I want to pull the trigger on one but am waiting to see if they get the issue corrected.
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100%, none of this should be necessary.
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Loving my 955 so far…but I’ve noticed decreased battery life after the first charge. The first charge lasted me a week, now it’s about 4 days. I’m not using the pulse ox feature or music yet. 
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I got one too…and its been great…although it told me on Sunday that i needed 74hr recovery from the week!
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Hello, new to TrainerRoad and indoor cycling but veteran Garmin user.
I followed the daily suggested workouts for running for years and been very happy with them, first with Garmin 945 and then with the 955 solar that I bought the moment it came out. I unfortunately injured myself during the summer (plantar fasciitis, maybe, diagnosis not final yet…) so, for now, running is out. I got myself a Neo 2T a few weeks back and started this new journey, with the goal, hopefully soon, to mix in some runs again.
My intention was to follow the Garmin Daily Suggestions for cycling, but… the quality is just not there, they are not as accurate or logical as the ones for running. Actually some of them make no sense at all, like having power targets for intervals lower than the warmup. On the Garmin forums, there are some threads hinting at the fact that this is a temporary bug, and I did email Garmin support, they asked for examples, which I sent, and I’m waiting to hear from them. Also, the FTP auto-detection doesn’t seem to be working at all.
Long story short, I was forced to look for alternatives, looked at TrainerRoad, discovered TrainNow and I just could not avoid clicking subscribe 
It seems perfect for me, I’m a casual cyclist, for now and I just want to stay fit.
Even if the Garmin Cycling daily suggestion will get fixed, over time, their scope is nowhere as deep as TR and the variety is orders of magnitude less, furthermore they are without instructions.
955 has a lot going for it, even compared to my beloved and excellent 945. Sleep tracking is definitely superior. GPS is way more accurate and the lock is fast (that was the worst issue on the 945 for me). Battery life for me has been good and the “solar help” makes a difference. Morning reports, training readiness and being able to see the daily suggestions for the next 7 days are strong features. But in term of training suggestions for cycling is not even in the same category as TR.
I would just love if activities recorded on TR would generate, in Garmin Connect, all the statistics than the ones recorded directly on Garmin, especially the training effect breakdown. For now I’m dual recording and it seems to work ok, I did not have any duplicates to deal with.
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For those of you using these watches for triathlons: is there a way to undo a transition if you accidentally hit the lap button? I can’t find anything on Google or the manual so I’m guessing the answer is “no”, but I’d love to be wrong about it.
I don’t think so - but you can choose to lock the keys in an activity to prevent against accidental lap button press. I do this for the swim so that I have to long press to unlock before being able to set the watch inton recording T1 (I have a rather tight wetsuit). Sounds like a hassle but actually quite easy to do.
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You can link TR to Garmin through your account settings, thus eliminating dual recording. I am assuming you want TR activities to automatically upload to Garmin Connect.
I tried that, and the activities do appear correctly in Garmin Connect, but a lot of statistics are missing versus recording directly through the Garmin watch.
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Yeah, things like training effect and intensity minutes don’t populate for imported activities, which is a bummer.
Specifically these categories don’t show up if recorded in TrainerRoad and imported in Garmin Connect:
Nutrition & Hydration
Respiration Rate
Stamina
Training Effect
Strokes
The Power Section doesn’t have L/R balance and smoothness
Intensity Minutes do show up for me
Of these, training effect is the one that pushes me toward dual recording.
Temperature - not recorded in TR app so not synced to Garmin
What about Performance Condition?
I’ve been thinking more about this since I want to take full advantage of the training readiness features with my Forerunner 955. I usually do power match with my bike’s PM on my Kickr.
I’ve got a few questions and any help is appreciated!
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Do you record the Kickr to TR, and the bike PM to Garmin?
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Do you need 2 heart rate monitors or can 1 broadcast to both? Have the Garmin watch and a Garmin HR strap.
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Can you disable live track for indoor rides?
Guess Garmin hasn’t done much to expand on this
I record with my watch (Forerunner 955) and my phone to Garmin, I typically delete the phone data in the app and just keep the watch data. As long as you don’t care about indoor “speed and distance” it’s not an issue.
I use power match, with phone paired to my Kickr via BT
- Ant connection to watch gives you more power meter data in the garmin app
- Heart rate strap - Bluetooth to phone, Ant to watch
- Power meter - same as above
- Strava always takes the phone data from Trainerroad, though it seems to sometimes take the watch data too. I haven’t figured out how to correct this.
I hit start on my watch at the same time as the workout and stop shortly after so the time is within seconds.
Can’t answer the live track question, I think I have it disable altogether.
Hopefully this is helpful.
Edit: Just to add to this. If you don’t want to dual record, you can also just open your Garmin app after and turn on your cycling computer (assuming you use a Garmin) and it will calculate the training data and update the app data with that as well. Doing it this way will give you one ride, instead of two in the app.
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Temperature for indoor rides is not recorded by Garmin, at least with my settings.
Correct, performance condition is also not synced. I was just looking at the stats, and forgot to look at the graphs.
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