Just received my Garmin Forerunner 405CX. Thought I would write an initial review and then update as I progress over the next few weeks. So I bought this and a new Schwin AC Performance Plus bike in an effort to get in shape. Reality is, after a long hard day, yes I come home and like to watch an hour or two of TiVo. Bad thing is, TiVo is in the bedroom. I suppose I could move it to the living room, but then I lose on-demand, sucky Comcast cable. Did I digress. So I am 5'8, 215 pounds, don't consider myself obese, but according to BMI charts, I am. I am average, no gut, but apparently, I am overweight. So I admit it. Anyway, my partner is really getting tired of me coming home late from work and watching TiVo, so in an effort to make some positive changes in my life, I bought the spin bike, mounted a flat panel TV and now I spin while I watch TiVo.



So I am really getting into this. Feeling good about myself. Loving the energy. Starting to see the pounds drop, sadly not the inches, but it is coming.



So I got this watch because of it's ability to sync with my MPower console on my bike.



Let me tell you, first off, set-up of this, especially on a Mac, was brutal. Leave yourself 2-3 hours to first, figure out how to replace the ugly plastic band with the sexy velcro bands they send you. First tip, there are two velcro bands, but you only use one of them once you figure out how to remove the original plastic wrist band. There are actually two lengths of velcro, but frankly the in my opinion, the velcro is sexy. So follow the directions to get the straps replaced, hopefully you don't break or lose the pins.



Once you get that done, then your on to setting up your profile and your software. If you are a Mac user, there are two pieces of software you need, 1) The Garmin Ant Agent, and the Ant plugin for Mac. When you initially login to garmin.com it prompts you to set up the plugin. But then couldn't find my watch. Tried multiple times over an hour and a half. Finally realized that there was additional software to download for my mac, the ANT agent. Once I did that I tried to connect and it asked for my Garmin Connect login. Multiple times trying my garmin.com username and password in vain, no work. Well apparently there is a different login that gets created if you happen to set your login ID for Garmin.com as your email address. That won't work for Garmin connect (which is where you go to review data and dashboards on your training, as well as plan, etc... So, when you go to Garmin connect, now you click the forgot userID link and it will email you your userid for Garmin Connect.



Understand, there are two web sites, garmin.com account manages the account and details about your watch. Garmin Connect or connect.garmin.com, which is where your data goes.



Once I got all that sorted out, I was ready to start my first spin training session. Well that was another project. So I set up my plan through Garmin Connect and transferred it to my watch. Only to find out that target heart rates, etc... don't transfer to the 405. It apparently has limitations so all that transferred was my interval times. Now that is just plain useless. I can't believe Garmin would have that kind of limitation on their high-end watch.



To add insult to injury, when I set everything up, Garmin Connect had a section called "health" that let's you track body fat and a bunch of other health related metrics using a body fat analyzer they recommend. Guess what though, it is compatible with every Garmin watch but the 405, yet they recommend it. So I bought that, then found out it wasn't compatible. Now waiting for it to come in so I can return it.



I signed up for a subscription of TrainingPeaks, saw in another review that is better software. I'll try that and review later.



Not sure if I have a lot to learn so I will update this review as I do learn more about this watch. But many limitations and will take a little while to figure out. Hopefully I'll get there. But at first glance, the 405 has some serious compatibility issues with ANT enabled devices, why bother call it an ANT + compatible watch when it doesn't seem to work with half the ANT enabled devices?



That said, read somewhere it wasn't compatible with my Schwin MPower Console, but found out it was, just takes a little while (up to 3 mins) for my MPower to recognize the watch.



More to come as I embark on my new fitness journey. I'll keep you posted.



UPDATE: Returned the Garmin 405 series watch. Very inferior compared to the 610. Bought a 610 and love it. If you are considering one of these Garmin FR watches, go with the 610. Much better product. Syncs with all my fitness equipment. My fat analyzer, my MPower for my AC Performance plus, and much more. A much better product. Spend the $100 bucks more for a much better product (the Forerunner 610)