We may earn a commission from links on this page.
The Forerunner 165 is an accessible, reliable running watch for Garmin users who want serious metrics without complexity overload. It’s slotted in below the 255/265 line, offering a bright, colorful touchscreen and solid running fundamentals—GPS, heart rate, sleep and stress tracking, and support for structured workouts—without some of the pricier extras like maps or a solar panel. (If you’re confused by Garmin’s numbering system, we’ve got you covered.)
The 165 has been succeeded by the Forerunner 170, but it’s still a fan favorite—even if most owners aren’t using this watch to its full potential. Here are my favorite hacks and hidden features to get more out of your Garmin Forerunner 165.
Add the flashlight to your controls menu—and adjust it to see better at night
The 165 may not have a dedicated LED hardware flashlight like the higher-end models, but it does have a “flashlight feature” where it turns the watch’s bright AMOLED display fully white. By default you won’t have flashlight available, but you can go into Controls (by holding the UP button) and add “Flashlight” as a tile. Once it’s added, you can unlock the red light mode by pressing the DOWN button until it cycles through to it. Red light is easier on the eyes, especially at night, compared to the stark white default.
Adjust the controls menu to create your own “hotkeys”
Unlike the 265 and up, the 165 doesn’t support customizable hardware button shortcuts for things like Garmin Pay or the flashlight I mention above. The workaround is to be intentional about ordering your Controls menu items, putting whatever you use mid-run (flashlight, Do Not Disturb, music controls) at the very top, so it’s always one swipe away, instead of buried in a scroll. (And instead of scrolling through your options one-by-one on your watch, take a gander at this list here and build out your control menu with intention.)
Use a workaround to get your Forerunner 165 to provide “breadcrumb navigation”
The 165 may not have full on-screen mapping like the higher-end Forerunners, but it will still show you a breadcrumb trail if you load a course from Garmin Connect—meaning you can follow a planned route’s shape even on a “map-less” watch. (It just won’t render surrounding streets.)
Create custom activity profiles instead of editing the default one
Rather than constantly changing your data screens between an easy run and a track workout, you can duplicate the Run profile and build multiple ones with different fields, alerts, and auto-lap settings. It sounds obvious, but you may not realize you can stack multiple Run-type profiles in the activity list at once.
Personally, I recommend stripping down your data screens. Pace, heart rate, and cadence are plenty for most workouts. Everything else (elevation, calories, lap count) can live on a secondary screen you can glance at during recovery jogs, not hard efforts. You can customize directly on your watch, or it’s a little easier to explore in the Garmin Connect app:
-
Tap Activities & Apps, then select Run.
-
Select Data Screens and choose the screen you want to edit.
-
Tap Layout to choose how many data fields (1 to 4) you want on that screen.
-
Select Data Fields to change what metric displays (e.g., pace, distance, heart rate zone).
Pause before uploading to Strava after a run for more accurate data
Every runner I know has had to grit their teeth through syncing issues between Garmin and Strava. If you’re the type to hit “sync” the second you stop your watch (like I know I am), here’s my tip: Slow down. Give Garmin Connect two to three minutes to finish processing the activity file before it pushes to Strava. That processing window is when Garmin finalizes GPS smoothing and segment matching. When you upload too early, you can end up with jagged pace spikes or missed segment credit that never seems to correct itself.
