Help & FAQ

How do I install inDepth Blue on my Garmin watch?

Plug the watch into your computer and run the desktop installer. Here’s how:

1. Plug your Garmin into your computer with its regular charging cable.
2. On some watches, set USB mode to MTP (Settings → System → USB Mode) if the installer doesn’t detect it.
3. Download and run the desktop installer. It copies inDepth Blue onto your watch for you.
4. Unplug the watch and open inDepth Blue from the watch’s app / glance list.

Already installed? The user guides walk you through what to set up before your first session and what each button does, for inDepth Blue, inDepth Pool, inDepth Dry and the phone app.

Which Garmin watches does inDepth support?

inDepth is three Connect IQ apps, and they support slightly different watches. The desktop installer and the manual download bundles pick the right file for your watch. Here’s what each app covers.

Which watches run inDepth Blue, and how deep do they read?

• Fēnix 5 / 5S / 5X and Fēnix 5 Plus / 5S Plus / 5X Plus: supported, with an uncapped depth reading that we’ve checked in open water to 30 m. One catch: the Fēnix 5 and 5S don’t have spot marking (more on that below). The 5X and the whole Fēnix 5 Plus family do.
• Fēnix 7 / 7S / 7X: supported, but depth only to ~3 m. Garmin’s firmware caps the barometer reading that Connect IQ apps can see at roughly 3 m, so on a dive the number stops climbing long before you reach the bottom. That ~3 m is inferred, not measured. It’s based on reports from Garmin and other divers, plus the Descent Mk3 we measured on instruments (below). We haven’t dive-tested a Fēnix 7 ourselves. Because of the cap, inDepth Blue only offers the surface-rest models that work from dive time on these watches: 2× Dive Time, 3× Dive Time and Manual, with 2× the default. Adaptive (AIDA), Taravana and Molchanovs aren’t in the list. Fed a ~3 m reading, all three came out at plain 2× anyway, so the name now matches what you were getting and no rest gets shorter. If you already had one of them selected, it shows as 2× and your setting is left alone. Restore it onto a watch that measures depth and your original choice comes back.
• Fēnix 8 / 8 Solar / 8 Pro (including tactix 8 and quatix 8): supported, depth to ~40 m, and not held back by the ~3 m Connect IQ cap that limits the Fēnix 7. These watches are built as dive computers, with a dedicated depth sensor rated to 40 m.
• Descent Mk3 43mm and Descent Mk3i 51mm: supported, but depth only to ~3 m. This one is measured, not inferred: on an instrumented pool dive, the Connect IQ reading hit a hard cap at ~3.3 m. The deep sensor is reserved for the watch’s own dive mode, and apps can’t see it at all. Surface rest works just like on the Fēnix 7 above (2× / 3× Dive Time and Manual only, default 2×) for the same reason.
• Descent Mk2 / Mk2i and Descent Mk2 S: supported, but depth only to ~3 m. This one is reported by a diver, not instrumented. A tester running inDepth Blue on a Mk2 saw the reading stop at about 3 m, the same place the Mk3 stops. That’s weaker evidence than the Mk3 measurement, because nobody has put a Mk2 on instruments and logged the raw pressure. It’s still a real report of a cap, though, so we no longer treat the Mk2’s depth as an open question. Surface rest works like on the Fēnix 7 and the Mk3: 2× / 3× Dive Time and Manual only, and the default is now 2× instead of Adaptive (AIDA). If you were already using Adaptive, Taravana or Molchanovs on a Mk2, your setting is not overwritten. It shows as 2×, and it comes back if you restore those settings onto a Fēnix 5 or Fēnix 8. Your rests don’t get shorter either: with a ~3 m reading, those three modes were already coming out at plain 2×.
• Descent G2: supported, but its depth reading has never been checked. Not by us, not by a diver, not on instruments, so we have no figure to give you. What we do know is that it’s a Descent, and on every Descent we’ve seen, Garmin keeps the deep sensor for the watch’s own dive mode and gives apps a reading that stops near 3 m. So the app assumes the G2 does the same. That’s inferred from the family, no test of any kind, which is weaker than the Mk2 diver report above. In practice the G2 behaves like a Mk2 here: 2× / 3× Dive Time and Manual only, default 2×, and if you had Adaptive, Taravana or Molchanovs selected it’s left alone and shows as 2×. If you dive a G2 with inDepth Blue, tell us what it reads and we’ll publish it.

Which watches run inDepth Pool and inDepth Dry?

• Fēnix 5 Plus / 5S Plus / 5X Plus, Fēnix 7 / 7S / 7X, Fēnix 8 / 8 Solar / 8 Pro (including tactix 8 and quatix 8), and Descent Mk2 / Mk2i, Mk2 S, Mk3 43mm, Mk3i 51mm, Descent G2: all supported, by both apps. Blue's deep-water reading limits don't affect Pool or Dry. Pool uses shallow pressure changes for automatic starts and ends; Dry doesn't need depth readings.
• inDepth Pool and inDepth Dry also run on the Fēnix 9 family, Forerunner 255, 265, 570 and 955, and epix (Gen 2) and epix Pro (Gen 2). On those watches there’s no inDepth Blue, so the installer only offers Pool and Dry for them.
• The plain Fēnix 5 / 5S / 5X are not supported by inDepth Pool or inDepth Dry. They don’t have enough memory to launch them. You can still use inDepth Blue on them, or use a Fēnix 5 Plus / Fēnix 7 / Fēnix 8 / Descent watch for Pool and Dry.

How do I mark a dive spot on the watch?

Mark Spot saves your position at the surface in two places. One copy goes into inDepth Blue’s own dive log, which syncs to the phone app and shows up on a satellite map. The other goes into the watch’s own saved locations, so Garmin’s Navigate app can guide you back without a phone. Say you surface next to a reef you want to find again, or drop the line over a wreck that’s worth a trip next season. That’s what it’s for.

How do I turn spot marking on?

Spot marking is off by default. On the watch, go to Settings → GPS → Store Location and Mark Spots. The name covers two things on purpose. You can mark spots whenever you like, and the watch also records where you dived by itself: once at the start of the session and once at the start of each dive. Those positions are what put the session-start pin and the numbered dive pins on the phone’s map. The change takes effect right away, even mid-session.

How do I mark a spot during a session?

1. During a session, press START or BACK to open the end-session menu. Don’t worry, opening it doesn’t end anything.
2. Choose Mark Spot, the row just below Cancel. You’ll only see it when the GPS setting is on.
3. Pick a label: Reef, Fish, Wreck, Entry, Boat or Hazard.
4. The watch shows Spot saved and takes you right back to your session.

Where do marked spots end up?

In two places: the phone app’s dive log and the watch’s own saved locations. They work a bit differently, so it’s worth knowing which is which before you’re out on the water relying on one.

• In the phone app. This is the main copy. The session’s detail screen gets a Where card with a satellite map showing where the session started, a numbered pin for each dive and a labeled pin for every spot you marked. Under the map, each spot has its own row with its label, the time you marked it and its coordinates, plus a directions button that sends that spot to your phone’s maps app. That’s the button you’ll use to steer the boat back. The map icon at the top of the Log tab opens Marked spots, with every spot from every session on one map. It’s how you answer “where was that reef?” months later.
• In the watch’s own saved locations. Each one is named after its label and the time you marked it, like Fish 12:47. That’s what lets Navigate → Saved Locations guide you back using Garmin’s own navigation screens while you swim on the surface, with your phone left on the boat. We’ve checked this on real hardware (Descent Mk3i 51 mm and Fēnix 5 Plus).

What are the limits of spot marking?

• It runs GPS for the whole session. The receiver stays on from the moment you start a session until you save or discard it, not just while you’re marking. On a long day on the water that uses battery, and it’s the main reason the setting is off by default. Nothing runs between sessions.
• GPS does not reach through water. Every position, whether you marked it or the watch took it by itself, comes from the surface. A dive’s pin shows where you went down, not where you were at depth. To mark a spot, float on the surface above it. Don’t do it on the way up.
• Thirty marks per session. The 31st is refused with 30 spots max. The watch won’t quietly drop your first one to make room.
• No fix, no mark. If it can’t get a good position, the watch says No GPS fix and saves nothing. No mark beats a mark in the wrong place. Give it a clear view of the sky for a few seconds and try again.
• The Garmin saved location is best-effort. Garmin watches limit how many saved locations you can have (around 100 on Fēnix-class watches), and when the list is full, the save fails silently. The watch doesn’t report back, so inDepth Blue can’t tell or warn you. You’d see Spot saved and then find nothing in Navigate. inDepth Blue’s own copy is fine and still syncs to the phone, so you don’t lose the mark. If you rely on Navigate, clear out old saved locations now and then.
• Not available on Fēnix 5 / 5S. Those two watches have no GPS row in Settings and no Mark Spot item in the end-session menu. Their app code and runtime memory share a single 131,072-byte budget, so we left the whole feature out to give the app room to run. Every other supported watch has it, including the Fēnix 5X.

Troubleshooting

Why can’t the installer find my watch?

It’s usually the cable or the USB mode. Use a cable that carries data (the charging cable that came with the watch does), make sure the watch is unlocked, set USB mode to MTP, and try another USB port. Unplug and plug back in after changing the USB mode.

Where does the app appear after installing?

In the watch’s app list. inDepth Blue installs as a Connect IQ app, so you can open it from there or add it as an activity or glance in the watch’s menus.

What if automatic install didn’t work?

Copy the file over yourself. On some computers the installer saves the file for you instead so you can do just that. Follow the steps on screen: save inDepth-blue.prg, drag it into your watch’s GARMIN → Apps folder, and eject.

Where do I get help with the phone app?

Head to the support page. It covers pairing, syncing, exports and backups. Or email support@in-depth.app.