{"id":1030701,"date":"2026-08-29T09:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T09:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030701\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T09:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T09:56:15","slug":"cheaper-garmin-smartwatches-receive-new-software-update-with-display-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030701\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheaper Garmin smartwatches receive new software update with display improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garmin has returned with a new update for its Forerunner 70<\/a> and Forerunner 170<\/a> smartwatches. Cheaper alternatives to existing Forerunner smartwatches, the pair arrived in May with $249 and $299 MSRPs, respectively, or $50 more for the Forerunner 170 with Wi-Fi connectivity (curr. $349 on Amazon)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recently, Garmin issued<\/a> Public Beta 18.19 for both smartwatches. Their first beta update, Public Beta 18.19 was said to address various outstanding issues that remain on v9.xx stable firmware. While the company has now released a new stable update, it does not follow on from recent beta development.<\/p>\n

Instead, the new update directly replaces v9.xx software, which started with Software Version 9.17<\/a> and then reached Software Version 9.19 towards the end of July<\/a>. According to Garmin, Software Version 9.21 addresses one outstanding issue. Specifically, the update should improve display gesture responses by eliminating unexpected but unspecified behaviours.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, the new update should have reached around 50% of eligible smartwatches automatically. Typically, Garmin takes a few days to finish a stable software rollout. In the meantime, one can request Software Version 9.21 manually by navigating through the Menu to System and Software Update before selecting \u201cCheck For Updates\u201d. Please see Garmin\u2019s forum post<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/a>Alex Alderson<\/a> – Senior Tech Writer – 15243 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2018<\/p>\n

Prior to writing and translating for Notebookcheck, I worked for various companies including Apple and Neowin. I have a BA in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds, which I have since converted to a Law Degree. Happy to chat on Twitter or Notebookchat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garmin has returned with a new update for its Forerunner 70 and Forerunner 170 smartwatches. Cheaper alternatives to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1030702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[18],"tags":[18106,347661,412223,705,18094,18095,412222,412221,18107,18102,18105,18101,18108,10545,2290,11853,3742,412224,158,18104,18103,67,132,68,3075],"class_list":["post-1030701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-benchmarks","tag-forerunner-170","tag-forerunner-70","tag-gadgets","tag-garmin","tag-garmin-forerunner","tag-garmin-forerunner-170","tag-garmin-forerunner-70","tag-graphics-card","tag-laptop","tag-netbook","tag-notebook","tag-processor","tag-reports","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-smartwatch","tag-software-version-9-21","tag-technology","tag-test","tag-tests","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wearable"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117178204965469174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1030702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}