Garmin releases new update to high-end smartwatches with improvements aplenty

In the last few days, Garmin has turned its attention to updating its current and previous generation Forerunner smartwatches. On the one hand, the company has issued two updates for the Forerunner 165, Forerunner 255, Forerunner 265, Forerunner 955 and Forerunner 965 this week alone. On the other hand, it finally released the first beta updates for the Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 970, too.

Now, it has returned to Enduro 3, Fenix E, Fenix 8 or Tactix 8 (curr. $1,299.99 on Amazon) beta testing with Beta Version 17.19. For reference, the new update arrives less than a week after Beta Version 17.18, which brought half a dozen changes to eligible smartwatches. Surprisingly, Garmin has bundled the exact same volume within Beta Version 17.19.

Again, most of the improvements are bug fixes, including one that could cause a crash when pressing the back key in the add activities menu. Moreover, Fitness Age should no longer pop up during sleep mode. On top of that, Beta Version 17.19 adds Focus Mode support for watch faces. According to Garmin, the new update should arrive automatically as an over-the-air (OTA) download. Based on the company's forum post, a few more beta builds are planned before v17.xx software transitions to Garmin's stable software branch. The full changelog for Beta Version 17.19 is as follows:

• Added Focus Mode Support To Watch Faces.
• Fixed Crash When Pressing Back Key in Add Activities Menu.
• Fixed Evening Report Recap Page Text Overlapping.
• Fixed Fitness Age Popping Up During Sleep Mode.
• Fixed Saved Timer List.
• Fixed Touch Transitions on the Recovery Heart Rate Page.