How to use inDepth Blue

Before your first dive

1. Install it. Use the inDepth desktop installer over USB (install help and troubleshooting). 19 Garmin models are supported: the Fenix 5, Fenix 5 Plus, Fenix 7, Fenix 8 and Descent Mk2 / Mk3 families, plus the Descent G2. The Fēnix E is not supported, because it's the one model in the series with no depth sensor.
2. Hold MENU → Settings and set these up:
   • Water type: Fresh or Salt. Salt water is ~2.5 % denser, so the wrong setting throws off every depth reading by that much. Set it before the session, not after.
   • Units: depth in meters or feet, temperature in °C or °F.
   • Dive Start Depth: how deep you need to go for it to count as a dive (default 1.0 m). You can pick 0.5–3.0 m on the Fenix 5, Fenix 5 Plus and Fenix 8 families, and 0.5–2.0 m on the Fenix 7 and every Descent. Those watches only report depth to about 3 m through Connect IQ, so a deeper setting would never kick in.
3. On a Fenix, turn off altimeter auto-calibration in the watch's own system settings. On these watches, depth comes from the barometer.
4. Optional: try it dry. Settings → Simulate a Dive runs a pretend dive on dry land, so you can try out the screens and hear your alarms before you get wet.

How deep your watch can read

The app gets depth from the watch's pressure sensor, and on some models Garmin limits what a Connect IQ app can read. This is the most important thing to know before you rely on the app:

On the capped watches everything else still works (dive times, surface intervals, rest timers, alarms up to ~3 m), but a 30 m dive gets recorded as ~3 m. That's a Garmin firmware limit, not something the app can get around, and it affects every Connect IQ app the same way. If you want full-depth freediving on those watches, use the watch's own built-in dive or apnea mode.

The Descent G2 is a special case. Nobody has dived one with this app yet, so we don't have a figure for it. It's a Descent, so we expect Garmin caps it the same way, and the app plays it safe by treating it as capped. That means the rest models that need depth are hidden there, and rest defaults to 2×, just like on a Mk2 or Mk3. If you dive a G2, tell us what it reads. The best Garmin watch for freediving guide compares every model on exactly this, and which Garmin watches read depth in a Connect IQ app gives the measured figure for each model and the evidence behind it.

A session, start to finish

1. Press START on the home screen to begin a session. Until the phone app has synced with the watch at least once, the home screen shows UP · get the app instead. Press UP for a card with a QR code and the mobile app's address, and DOWN to go back home. START still starts a session either way, and the hint disappears by itself once you sync. (The Fenix 5 / 5S keep their usual home screen.)
2. Dive. The watch spots dives by itself. Going deeper than your Dive Start Depth starts one, and surfacing ends it. Anything very short or very shallow (under about 4 seconds, or barely past the threshold) is treated as a wave and thrown away.
3. Surface. The watch takes you back to the Surface screen. It shows the time of day, your surface interval counting up, your live heart rate, and your last dive's time and depth. A ring fills up around the edge while you still need to rest, then turns green and buzzes at READY. If Last Dive Summary (in Settings) is set to On for 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 sec, that review pops up over the Surface screen by itself and goes away when the time's up. Press any button to keep it open. (The Fenix 5 / 5S don't have this setting. They always go straight to Surface, but you can still get to Last Dive Summary with DOWN.)
4. Look back between dives if you want. Press DOWN for your last dive, and DOWN again for the full dive log. Your rest countdown keeps running in the background, so looking never interrupts the session.
5. Finish with START (or BACK), then End session. On the Descents, Fenix 7 and Fenix 8 that menu is a small overlay on top of the Surface screen. On the Fenix 5 and Fenix 5 Plus family it fills the screen. The options are the same either way. If the session has a dive or a marked spot in it, Discard checks with you first (“Discard session?” → Yes, discard / Cancel), so one wrong press can't wipe out your day. Cancel keeps everything. An empty session is discarded with a single press, and End session never asks. After that you get a short card with your dives, time, deepest, longest and average surface interval. A line at the top tells you whether the session really saved (Session saved, Nothing to save, or Not saved). The watch reads the session back from storage before it says it saved. BACK closes the card, and it stays up until you do. If there’s a dive to look at, a white arc appears next to START. Press START for a small menu: Done (same as BACK) and Details (this session’s list of dives). No dives means no arc, and START does nothing. The Fenix 5 and Fenix 5S skip this card, because they don't have the memory for it. If you wrote a session note for today’s dive on your phone or in the browser (Me → Settings → Session Notes), the End session menu gets one extra row, Session Note, so you can read it.

The buttons

A little column of dots on the left edge lights up to show which of the four screens you're on.

Settings worth knowing

Depth alarms

Five separate alarms plus a dedicated Target depth, each with its own depth, direction (descent or ascent), sound and vibration. Plan around the buzz, not the beep. You can barely hear a watch beeper underwater, but you'll feel the vibration. Strong vibration plays the pattern twice. It's longer, not harder.

A depth alarm is not a safety backstop. On the capped watches above, an alarm set deeper than ~3 m can never go off, and on any watch there's no guarantee a deep alarm reaches you. Dive as if the alarm might not come.

Surface Rest Alerts

How long to rest between dives. Choose 2× / 3× Dive Time, Adaptive (AIDA), Taravana, Molchanovs or Manual. The three modes that need depth only show up on watches with a depth reading you can trust (Fenix 5, Fenix 5 Plus, Fenix 8). The ~3 m capped watches offer 2×, 3× and Manual, and default to 2×. Rest is only a recommendation. The watch never stops you from diving. For more on how each model works, see freediving surface intervals, explained.

Last Dive Summary

Off (default), or On for 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 sec. After you surface, your last dive's review can pop up for that long and then go away. Press any button to stop the timer and keep the page open. The Fenix 5 / 5S don't have this setting. They always go back to Surface after a dive, but you can still get to Last Dive Summary with DOWN.

Heart rate

On (shown live on the surface screen), Record only (saved but not shown), or Off. With HR On, the heart icon changes color with your recovery: blue means recovered, amber means recovering, and magenta means you're still stressed. It's just for your information and never changes the rest countdown.

GPS and marking a spot

Off by default, and best left off unless you want to mark spots. Always On records where the session started, every dive, and any spot you mark. Entry & Exit only records where you got in and out, and uses far less battery. Both run GPS from the moment you open the app, not just during a session.

Mark Spot (in the end-session menu) saves where you are into inDepth's own log and the watch's saved locations, so Garmin Navigate can guide you back later. Pick a label (Reef, Fish, Wreck, Entry, Boat, Hazard). You get 30 marks per session. GPS can't see through water, so positions are only taken at the surface. Float right above the spot when you mark it, and don't do it on the way up.

If you mark your entry point and then decide not to dive, BACK opens the end-session menu instead of throwing the session away. Choose End session to keep the mark. That session stays on the watch and doesn't sync to the phone. The watch's own saved location is written the moment you mark it and sticks around either way, so that's the one to count on.

Data

• Capture Garmin FIT Files: on by default, so saved sessions show up in Garmin Connect. Turn it off if you do not want Garmin activities. If you already turned it off, updating the app keeps your choice.
• Store Detailed Stats: on by default (off on the Fenix 5, 5S and 5X). With it off, you don't get a depth graph or heart-rate trace, but everything else still records and syncs.
• Reset to Factory Settings: erases all settings and your whole dive history on the watch. Close and reopen the app afterward.

If something looks wrong

My depth reads way too shallow

Check the table above. On a Fenix 7 or any Descent, Garmin caps the reading at about 3 m (on the G2 that's what we expect, not something we've measured). The app can't get around it.

A deep alarm never went off

On a capped watch it can't, and on any watch there's no guarantee a deep alarm reaches you. Never treat a depth alarm as a safety backstop.

An alarm went off but no dive was logged

A wave washing over the watch can look like a couple of meters for a second or two. The watch threw that "dive" away, but the alarm had already gone off.

My depths are all a few percent off

The water type (Fresh / Salt) was probably wrong for that session.

My dive screen kept counting and no button worked

Buttons are ignored during a dive on purpose. If the watch stops getting depth readings, it ends and saves the dive after 15 minutes, and after that BACK gets you out.

Older sessions have disappeared from the watch

The watch keeps your last 10 sessions (5, and about 25 dives, on a Fenix 5 or 5S) and drops the oldest one whether it synced or not. Sync every few sessions and you won't lose anything. On a Fenix 5 or 5S, a single session with more than 38 dives also gets trimmed to its newest 38 the next time the app starts, and the extra dives never make it to the phone. After a day that long, sync before you close the app: end the session, sync while inDepth Blue is still open, and then leave.

My watch restarted after saving a session

We've seen this on the Descent Mk3i and Fenix 7. It's a Connect IQ firmware bug that the app now works around. If it happens again, turn on Diagnostic Logging in the hidden DEBUG menu, make it happen again, and sync so the phone can collect the log and send it to us.

"This build has expired"

Sideloaded Connect IQ apps expire 180 days after they were built. Install a newer build from /install before then.

My Fenix 5 / 5S is missing features I read about here

Those two watches run a smaller build: no spot marking, no sound and vibration settings per alarm, no stress meter, no session notes, no get-app hint on the home screen, five minutes of dive profile per dive, and the smaller session limits above. There just isn't enough memory for the rest.