Garmin releases new Forerunner smartwatch updates amid rumours of impending Forerunner 970 launch

Garmin is expected to deliver new Forerunner smartwatches this season as successors of sorts to the Forerunner 265 and Forerunner 965 (curr. $499.99 on Amazon). As it stands, evidence suggests that the Forerunner 970 could arrive before the Forerunner 975, possibly even with a cheaper Forerunner 270 in tow. While it is unclear when exactly Garmin will release new Forerunner smartwatches, it continues to test software improvements for existing models on its Beta Program.

To recap, the company started v23.xx testing at the end of March after offering Stable Version 22.22 in February. Unfortunately, Garmin has not provided any indications about when a new stable update will arrive. Instead, it has now replaced Beta Version 23.15 with v23.18, which it claims to have pushed to 50% of eligible smartwatches in most cases.

As far as we can tell, Garmin's latest beta update brings five overarching bug fixes to the Forerunner 165, Forerunner 255, Forerunner 265, Forerunner 955 and Forerunner 965. However, its Beta Version 23.18 changelogs contain Forerunner 165, Forerunner 955 and Forerunner 965 specific bug fixes too. The full list of changes between Beta Versions 23.15 and 23.18 are as follows:

All Forerunner smartwatches:

• Fix Running Dynamics data dropping out during activity.
• Fix steps data sometimes not resetting at midnight.
• Fix an issue with reacquiring GPS after Resume Later in GPS Walk activities.
• Fix a possible crash when starting Live Event Sharing.
• Various bug fixes and improvements.

Forerunner 165 specific

• Fix smart notifications turning on the display during Do Not Disturb.

Forerunner 955 and Forerunner 965 specific

• Fix issues with toggling map layers during activity.