I don’t want to waste your time reading this post just to find the answer in the affirmative. Yes, you can shower with a Garmin Watch. Not only that, you can do all sorts of water-based activities like Open water swimming, Pool Swimming, Snorkeling, Surfing and even diving with high-end Garmin watches.
if you want to know more about Garmin water Ratings, the recommended time for which you can submerge the Garmin Watch underwater, and the precautions to avoid water damage to your Watch, stick with me.
Table of Contents
Are Garmin Devices Waterproof?
Technically speaking, no smartwatch these days is waterproof. Instead, they are water-resistant. The same goes for the Garmin Watches.
An ideal Waterproof smartwatch won’t allow even 1 % ingression no matter the circumstances. So there is no such thing as a waterproof smartwatch as there is a limit to which they can handle the water pressure.
It is a no-brainer to conclude that Garmin Watches are not waterproof. However, almost all of its watches offer better water resistance than the competition.
What do Garmin’s water ratings mean?
There is an excellent resource shared by the company to help you understand the water ratings on Garmin Watches. The company has most of its watches approved under two standards IP and ATM.
Ingress Protection or IP was introduced by International Electrotechnical Commission to assess the protection of electrical devices against water and dust ingression.
An IP rating is followed by two numbers, the first stands for dust ingression and the second for water ingression. We have written a dedicated post if you want to know more about the IP rating.
Most of the early Garmin Wearables came labeled with IP as the system works pretty fine for shallow water immersion.
However, as the company made progress in terms of design and build quality of its wearables, it made the switch to ATM water rating which is simply an assessment of pressure a device can handle at a certain depth of static water for a short period in the laboratory.
So if a Garmin watch is 5 ATM rated, theoretically it can withstand the water pressure to a depth of 50m, but we advise you not to push the watch to its extreme.
From the Forerunner, Vivoactive to the Venu Series, all the latest watches are 5 ATM rated which means you can shower, bath, swim, or even go out snorkeling.
On the other hand, Garmin’s top-of-the-line Fenix and Descent Series can handle the pressure of 10 ATMs. This means that you can use the watch for high-velocity water activities like scuba diving, surfing, and water skiing.
We have made a list of these watches below.
Garmin Watches With 5 ATM water Resistance:
- D2 Air
- Venu (2, 2S, Sq, Sq-Music Edition, Venu)
- Vívomove (3, 3S, Style, HR)
- Approach (S10, S12, S20, S40, S42, S60, S62)
- Forerunner (25, 35, 45, 45S, 55, 235, 245, 245 Music, 645, 645 Music, 745, 735XT, 935, 945, 945 LTE)
- Garmin Swim 2
- Vívoactive (4, 4S, 3, 3 Music)
Garmin Watches With 10 ATM Water Resistance:
- Garmin Instinct
- Enduro
- Descent (Mk2, Mk2S, Mk2i, Mk1)
- tactix (Delta, Charlie)
- D2 (Delta , Delta S, Delta PX)
- MARQ (Driver, Aviator, Captain, Commander, Adventurer, Athlete, Golfer)
- Quatix (6 Titanium, 6X Solar, 5, 5 Sapphire, 3)
- Fēnix (6 Pro, 6S Pro, 6X Pro)
- Fēnix Chronos
- Garmin Fēnix (5, 5S, 5X, 5 plus, 5S Plus, 5X Plus)
How to Save Garmin Watch from Water Damage?
Though you can shower with a Garmin Watch, keep in mind that the labeled water resistance (5 ATM/10 ATM) is not permanent, and it might diminish over time.
Exposing your Garmin Watch (or any other smartwatch) to soaps, shampoos, lotions, and perfumes makes it more susceptible to water damage as they can affect the water seal of the watch.
If you swim with your Garmin Watch in the pool or in saltwater, make sure to rinse it off with fresh water afterward to avoid salt accumulation.
Though most of the Garmin Watches are shock-resistant, sudden impacts can break the water seal. So, avoid dropping your Garmin Watch on a hard surface.
We would not recommend you to wear the watch in the sauna or steam room if you care about the durability.
Except for the Garmins with 10 ATM water resistance, you should not expose any of the Garmin Watch to high-velocity water (skiing) or high pressure underwater (deep diving).
If your Garmin Watch does get wet, remove the band as soon as possible and dry it off completely. Gently shaking off excess water and air-drying are typically effective.