Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Sports Watch

The Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Sports Watch has been designed around being as simple to use as possible while still offering all the important information for tracking your workouts.

As with many modern mobile phones, the charger plug can be separated from the charging cable so the cable can also plug into a USB slot on your laptop or desktop computer. This means that you can charge it using your computer when you are away from a wall socket.

Charging the watch is simply a case of attaching the clip from the cable with the opposite end to the USB connector. This has four pins that will clip into place on the edge of the watch.

Setting up the Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS

All the items that are supplied in the box for the Garmin Forerunner 110

When you first use the Garmin Forerunner 110 after charging, it will ask for a few basic details such as what language you want the display to be in as well as age and weight.

This is useful for heart rate monitoring and calculating the number of calories you burn at different levels of exercise.

Once the settings are entered and the watch receives a satellite signal and displays the time then it’s ready to use.

If you are using this sports watch outside and not in a gym then you may want to take advantage of the highly accurate GPS technology. You can activate this by pressing the ‘page’ button which connect it to satellites and enable the GPS.

GPS and display metrics

Forerunner 110 features HotFix satellite prediction, which means it locks on to satellites quickly so you can be out the door and on your run in no time. It also has a high-sensitivity GPS receiver to stay locked on to satellites, even near tall buildings or under tree cover.

One of the features with the display that may be worth taking into account is that the pace measurement is recorded as an average rather than being your pace at that current time.

When not in power saving mode, the Forerunner 110 displays a range of information relating to your current workout

If you are a fan of keeping at a relatively steady pace throughout your exercise then this won’t make much of a difference.

But if you like being able to train using High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), and like seeing all the measurements live at that time then this may affect you.

Metrics shown on the display:

Lap pace
Total distance
Heart rate
Current time

Adjustable lap distances and settings

Whereas other Forerunner models such as the Garmin Forerunner 410 allow you to set the start point of a lap as a position using GPS, the Garmin Forerunner 110 only allows you to set laps by distance. This is still a very useful feature as you can increase lap distances by as little as 0.25 miles at a time.

Forerunner 110 is automatically set up to show your current mile pace and will capture and display the split time for every mile you run. Alternatively, you can adjust this to kilometres if you prefer, or even change the distance to get more frequent splits.

The lap history saves up to 1,000 laps of training data within the internal memory. You can also upload that information to your computer for further analysis and storage.

Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Sports Watch – Features Summary

High-sensitivity GPS receiver accurately locates and tracks position even near tall buildings/under tree cover
Stores up to 1000 laps of training data for review as you run
Garmin’s simplest GPS running watch for runners of all abilities – switch on, press start and go
Record, relive and replay your workout sessions on Garmin Connect™, our free online training community
Includes ANT+ heart rate monitor to track your training intensity and collect accurate calorie-burn information.

Garmin Connect

All of this data that you record during running or cycling will be stored in the Forerunner 110 watch so that you can upload it to Garmin Connect when you get home.

By visiting the Garmin Connect website you can sign up for an account and sync all of your data from the watch to your online dashboard. When you first do this you may need to install the Garmin Communicator Plugin to your computer but this is only a small piece of software.

In the future you can then just connect the watch to the computer using the USB cable and upload straight to your Garmin Connect dashboard.

The amount of different data that you can sync across from your watch to the Garmin Connect online suite is really very impressive. As well as a clear summary of all the information that can be seen on the watch display throughout your exercise, the GPS means there is also a map of where you travelled during that workout.

Under the map section you have a few additional sections that can be expanded under a ‘Charts’ heading to display your time, heart rate and elevation directly in line with each other. This helps to pair up times when your heart rate peaks and drops with inclines and declines in the terrain and will provide you with a clearer insight into your fitness levels throughout the training session.

A calendar view can also be displayed to give a more general overview as to when you trained during the past month.

What you get in the box:

Heart rate strap
The Watch
US Power adapter
Wall charger
Operating manual
Charging and syncing cable

Battery life and power saving mode

As with other Forerunner sports watches, the Garmin Forerunner 110 comes with a backlight for if you are running or cycling at night. The maximum this stays on for is 8 seconds which should be fine for most people. If you do want a monitor that keeps the backlight on for the duration of your exercise then the Garmin Forerunner 410 offers this feature.

This does have the benefit of conserving battery life though, which is where this sports watch has a couple of other design features. While you will usually be wearing a sports watch when you are exercising, you may also want to wear it all the time to simply display the time of day.

It’s during this time that you don’t really need display statistics like the pace. Power Saving mode starts after around five minutes of inactivity and will cause the watch to use much less battery.

The battery lasts up to eight hours in training mode and two weeks in power-save mode and is easily rechargeable through a plug-in docking system.

Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS

The Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Sports Watch is a well designed watch that incorporates all the crucial workout statistics into one clear display.

In terms of the design, the fact that it is so compact and slim compared to other heart rate monitors means it looks and feels as comfortable as a normal watch when not being used to monitor your training.

There is virtually no setup required, so it is ideal for runners who simply want to step outside, acquire satellites and start their workout.