Home > Consumer Reviews > Garmin Foot Pod for Forerunner 305, 405, and 50

The foot pod is great. Unfortunately, it arrived with a DEAD battery - really not cool considering how much money it cost. BUT less than $4 later for a new battery (CR2032), the foot pod worked perfectly! It is super accurate and even let me know the degree of inaccuracy of my gym's treadmills.

I live in Rio de Janeiro and when I run in the forest my Garmin Forerunner 405 it doesn't receive the sign of the satelite. Now I use the Garmin foot pod and and I can check my pace, traveled distance and my time during the race in the forest. It is my great partner.

First off, I think Garmin stinks for making you buy a foot pod to use your Forerunner 305 inside on a treadmill. It's not like the Forerunner is cheap. That said, this item works great. I used the FAQ instructions online to auto-calibrate it. With the 305 you have two choices for calibration 800 feet or 1/2 mile. They recommend using a track to do it, but I ran 1/2 mile using the GPS on the unit, then strapped on the foot pod. After I calibrated it, I ran a normal run and the distance turned out exactly as the GPS would calculate it. Once I moved inside to the treadmill, it works good when I'm running, but when I'm warming up by walking, it will autopause on me. It only does it a second and starts again automatically, but it's a bit annoying. Overall, I like having the option for using the 305 inside. Shop around though...when I first looked at Amazon, they wanted $185 for the item, which was crazy because Garmin had it for $119 on their site. I see now that they've reduced the price. I got mine for $61.00, so bargains can be found.

I've had a few troubles with the 405.
The footpod: as reviewed numerous other times, the pod would not connect with the watch, which was frustrating. After reading reviews, I now realize it is the battery - DOA (dead on arrival). Not cool when your spending serious bucks for the 405 and foot pod.
The watch: oh boy. I'm pretty good technically - maybe an 8 out of 10. But after reading the entire 2 pages of manual, and the DVD that was enclosed, which had about the same amount of info as the manual, I cannot get the darn thing to just tell me my HR, pace and distance. Believe me, I've tried.
I'm guessing if you know someone who has one, and you go running with them, and they show you how to get it programmed... then maybe you're go to go.
But I gotta say, it's not easy to figure out. You have to be outside, moving and have the manual with you to go through the programs, training, options, workouts.

I really want to like it. And I'll go to Walgreens tomorrow and get a new battery. And I'll try again.
But really, it shouldn't be this hard.

Wish I had gotten the 305, which has much better functionality (although from what I read, worse GPS reception).

The footpod I received was slightly different than the one pictured, which was actually for once a good thing.
The Garmin footpod I got was a smaller, more compact version of the one pictured.
If you own the Nike+ shoes, and are looking to upgrade to a Garmin, look for Footpod Model Number Garmin 010-11092-00 or also known at SDM4, I believe.
The unit is smaller and will fit into a Nike+ shoe, which is a nice touch.
Getting the unit and clip around shoelaces was just a tad tough, but that's a good thing. It hasn't fallen off yet.
Provided you have a Garmin unit that displays the cadence, you will also see your stride rate on your reports in the Garmin training center. Still not sure how useful that particular information is yet, but the graphs look very colorful now.
I haven't been forced inside on the treadmill to use this yet, but I have to assume it will be as accurate if not more so than the Nike+.
With the addition of the footpod to my Garmin setup, I have officially upgraded from the Nike+ system for tracking my runs.