Garmin rolls out a huge health upgrade that helps your watch catch early signs of stress and illness

Garmin has announced a fresh wave of software updates for some of its most popular smartwatches, including the Venu X1, Vivoactive 6, Fenix 8, Forerunner 570 and Forerunner 970.

While the brand also pushed updates to select Edge cycling computers, the change for most people is a new smartwatch feature designed to help you keep tabs on your overall well-being: Health Status.

What's Health Status?

Health Status pulls together several nighttime metrics, including heart rate, HRV, respiration rate, skin temperature and Pulse Ox, and checks how they compare to your personal baseline.

Instead of looking at these metrics separately, your watch now interprets them as a cluster of signals that may show your body is under extra strain.

A dip in HRV, a rise in resting heart rate, an elevated skin temperature or a combination of all three might reflect accumulated training load, poor recovery, environmental stress, or even potential illness.

Other wearables, such as the Whoop MG and the Oura Ring 4, offer similar features, combining multiple health metrics into a single metric.

The idea is to give you a nudge when your physiology is drifting away from what’s normal for you, helping you adjust training, rest more deliberately or simply keep an eye on how you’re feeling.

Once the update rolls out to your device, you’ll see Health Status trends directly on the watch and in the Garmin Connect app.

The feature is still technically in beta inside Connect, but compatible smartwatches will display the insights immediately after updating.

What else is new?

The update also adds smarter fuelling alerts, real-time weather overlays and expanded Power Guide features to select Edge units.

These changes make in-ride decisions more informed, with power recommendations now adapting to heat, wind, and even altitude acclimation.

Garmin has also added 3D topographic maps to Garmin Connect+, giving subscribers a richer way to visualise their rides, runs and custom routes with a detailed terrain perspective.

You can enable automatic updates on your device and sync with Garmin Connect, or you can update via Garmin Express on desktop.