8 hidden Garmin watch features that you need to know about

I’ve been wearing and reviewing the best Garmin watches for many years, and I feel like I know the ins and outs of them as well as anyone. However, I also know that there are hundreds of settings and features available on the watches, and there’s always something new to learn about them.

So when I saw a thread on the Garmin subreddit asking for people’s favorite hidden features, I couldn’t wait to dive in. I immediately came across a feature I didn’t know about, along with many others I use myself daily that are not well known.

I’ve picked out the best hidden features from keen Garmin users below, along with a few of my own favorites that I think are worth highlighting to help you get the most from your Garmin watch.

Cover the watch to return to your watch face

This is the feature I didn’t know about myself, and it’s perfect for quickly returning to your watch face when you’re deep inside the many menus on your Garmin. Cover the screen of the watch with the palm of your hand and it will return to the watch face and turn the backlight off.

Use hot keys as shortcuts

One of my favorite features and one I use daily on my Garmin Fenix 8. You can set shortcuts on your watch for four of the buttons on the watch, as well as for combinations of two buttons. For example, when I hold the back button down it brings up timers, which I use when cooking.

You can set shortcuts to a whole load of features, such as bringing up the altimeter and barometer on the watch quickly, or to lock your device, or show the weather. I love the suggestion from Reddit user byond6 who uses a hot key to activate Garmin’s Man Overboard feature to drop a location pin that shows where they parked their car.

To use hot keys on most Garmin watches go to the menu and select System, then Settings and you’ll see hot keys. On some newer watches like the Fenix 8 the hot keys are now under Shortcuts in the System menu.

Install Connect IQ data fields

The Connect IQ app store is small, but contains some useful widgets and data fields, with the latter adding more useful information to your sports modes. There are a couple of great ones I use for running I want to flag up, which you can find in the Connect IQ app to add to your watch.

One is Peter’s (Racer) Pacer, which allows you to manually correct the distance tracked during a race when you go past a mile or kilometer marker. This means if your GPS tracking goes awry — common in city races when running under tall buildings — you can get your distance and pace stats corrected in line with the race markers.

The other is Rolling Average Pace, which brings the stat made popular on the Apple Watch to your Garmin, and shows your pace over a rolling distance that you set — I use the last 500m or 1000m I’ve covered, for example.

Once you’ve installed the fields add them to your sports mode by going to Data Screens and selecting the Connect IQ Data Fields section to find them.

Find my phone

I didn’t think this one was hidden but the many upvotes for this post on the Reddit thread prove otherwise. Hold down your light button to bring up system tools and one of them is a find my phone feature, that will make your phone chime so you can find it.

Hold a widget for more info

You can display a lot of information on the watch face of your Garmin, and if you have a device with a touchscreen and you hold your finger on one of those bits of data it will bring up the full widget with more information. It’s a handy way to get more detail on stuff like the weather or your step count.

Double press the light button for a torch

Press the light button twice quickly to either activate the built-in flashlight on models like the Garmin Instinct 3 or Fenix 8, or turn your screen into a flashlight if you have a watch like the Garmin Forerunner 965 or 265.

It’s a very useful shortcut when you’re up and about after dark.

Follow accent colour for watch face data

This is one I use because I’m often changing the main color on my watch faces, usually at the behest of my five-year-old who likes to mix it up.

On many of the watch faces you can set the color of the accent and the data to be different, but I like them to match up, and on the Fenix 8 I recently noticed I could set the data color to ‘follow accent color’ meaning I didn’t have to change both.

Undo accidental lap presses

This feature was introduced in a software update last year and allows you to cancel a lap if you’ve taken it by mistake during a workout. When you press lap you have a few seconds to cancel that lap by pressing the down button. I find this especially useful during the winter months when I’m wearing gloves and a bit clumsier, so take accidental laps more frequently.

More from Tom's Guide

• Garmin’s beta software program gives you early access to new features — here’s how to sign up
• I ran a 2:27 marathon using the Garmin Epix Pro and Apple Watch Ultra 2 — which is better?
• I raced a half marathon with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 vs. Garmin Forerunner 965 — here’s the winner