gave Forerunner 165 Garmin is an accessible, reliable running watch for users who want serious metrics without complicated overload. It’s slotted below the 255/265 line, offering a bright, color touchscreen and solid running basics — GPS, heart rate, sleep and stress tracking, and support for structured workouts — without any pricey extras like maps or a solar panel. (If you’re confused by Garmin’s numbering system, We’ve got you covered..)

165 have achieved success. Forerunner 170but it’s still a fan favorite — even if most owners aren’t using the watch to its full potential. Here are my favorite hacks and hidden features to get more out of your Garmin Forerunner 165.

Add a flashlight to your control 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 completely whitens the watch’s bright AMOLED display. By default you won’t have the 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 reaches it. Red light is easier on the eyes, especially at night, compared to the all-white default.

Unlike the 265 and above, the 165 doesn’t support custom hardware button shortcuts for things like Garmin Pay or the flashlight I mentioned above. Be intentional about ordering your controls menu items, putting whatever you use mid-run (flashlight, do not disturb, music controls) at the top, so it’s always a swipe away instead of buried in a scroll. (And instead of scrolling through your options one by one on your watch, take a look at this. This list here and create your own control menu with intent.)

Use a solution to get your predecessor 165 to provide “breadcrumb navigation”.

The 165 may not have full on-screen mapping like its higher-end predecessors, but it will still show you a breadcrumb trail if you load a course from Garmin Connect—meaning you can follow the shape of a planned route even on a “mapless” watch. (It won’t just render surrounding streets.)

Create custom activity profiles instead of editing the default ones

Instead of constantly switching your data screens between simple run and track workouts, you can duplicate a run profile and create multiple ones with different fields, alerts, and auto-lap settings. It sounds obvious, but you may not realize that you can stack multiple run type profiles together in an activity list.

Personally, I recommend taking off your data screens. Speed, heart rate, and cadence are adequate for most workouts. Everything else (elevation, calories, lap count) can live on a secondary screen that you can look at during a recovery jog, not through strenuous efforts. You can customize directly on your watch, or it’s a little easier to explore in the Garmin Connect app:

1. tap Activities and appsthen select run.

2. select Data screens and select the screen you want to edit.

3. tap Layout To select how many data fields (1 to 4) you want on this screen.

4. select Data fields To change the metric that displays (eg speed, distance, heart rate zone).

Pause before uploading to Strava after a run for more accurate data.

Every runner I know has had to grind their teeth through sync issues between Garmin and Strava. If you’re the type to hit “sync” the second you stop your watch (as I know I am), my advice is this: slow down. Give the Garmin Connect two to three minutes to warm up before it pushes to Strava. That processing window is when Garmin finalizes GPS smoothing and segment matching. When you upload too quickly, you can end up with speed spikes or small segment credits that never correct themselves.