Garmin is arguably the premier name in the fitness tracker world, a brand that’s built up a huge following thanks to reliable metrics and sensible devices that put useability over bells and whistles.
Its hardware is rock solid, but part of what makes Garmin so impressive is its software, with great ways to understand what your stats actually mean. Foremost among these is Body Battery, its one-stop score to tell you how much you have in the tank. Here’s how it works.
What is Garmin Body Battery?
Body Battery is pretty similar to your training readiness, in that it effectively estimates how much energy you have before you embark on some exercise or activity.
Garmin works out your Body Battery score using your heart rate variability (HRV), stress and activity levels – all of which it can likely access through your wrist if you have a decent Garmin device on. It breaks this score down into one of four bands: low, medium, high and very high reserve energy.
Those four bands cover an equally-divided range from 0-100 and let you know broadly how well you’re likely to be able to perform, ensuring that you don’t take on too mountainous a task if your body isn’t ready for it.
How does Body Battery work?
While those three data types are the ones that Body Battery uses, it combines them intelligently with a heavy reliance on continuous data – Body Battery won’t work if you’re taking your watch off for long periods of time, or not wearing it overnight.
It needs to be able to see the impact of exercise, stress levels, inactivity and sleep on your body over a long period of time to be able to really tell you what to expect from yourself.
This extends to the point where most Garmin devices that support Body Battery won’t be able to give you any information on it for at least the first week of wearing them, to allow enough data to be built up for it to be meaningful.
What is Garmin Body Battery for?
As we’ve mentioned, Body Battery is basically a useful tool for getting a sense of when you should train, and when you’re not in the best place for it.
Your score will go up and down throughout the day as your wearable predicts your energy levels based on past data, although this doesn’t mean that a low score definitely means you shouldn’t train.
After all, the only way to get fitter is to exercise, so you’re going to have to train sometime. Body Battery should just help you figure out when the best times for that training are.
Garmin Body Battery devices
Of course, if you want to know what devices support Body Battery, to check if yours does or to ensure that one you’re thinking of can access it, we’ve got a handy list for you to peruse.
- Garmin Approach S62
- Garmin D2 Air series
- Garmin Enduro series
- Garmin Epix (2nd Gen)
- Garmin Fenix 7 series
- Garmin Fenix 6 series
- Garmin Forerunner 45 / 45S, 55, 245 / 245 Music, 255, 265, 745, 945, 945 LTE, 955, 965
- Garmin Swim 2
- Garmin Instinct / Instinct 2 / Solar series
- Garmin Legacy Hero / Saga series (Captain Marvel, First Avenger, Darth Vader, Rey)
- Garmin Lily
- Garmin Marq collection
- Garmin Quatix 6
- Garmin Tactix Delta series
- Garmin Venu / Venu Sq / Venu Sq 2
- Garmin Venu 2 series
- Garmin vivoactive 4 / 4S
- Garmin vivosmart 4 / Vivosmart 5
- Garmin vivomove 3 / 3S, Luxe, Style
- Garmin vivomove Trend