Best watch faces for Garmin Forerunner 970
The Forerunner 970 is Garmin’s racing flagship — a bright sapphire AMOLED screen, maps, a flashlight and the newest running metrics. It deserves a face that puts real data front and centre. Here are the picks, running live in your browser.
Our picks for the Forerunner 970
№2Modern Watch
A modern digital watch face with oversized rounded numerals, two smooth progress arcs and three data fields you choose. Steps and Body Battery on the arcs by default, weather and date above the time, battery below, seven accent colors. For round AMOLED Garmin watches.
№3Sky Vista
A weather dashboard with a wide alpine panorama that follows Garmin weather — sun, clouds, rain, storm, snow or a clear night — with temperature, daily high and low, big time, five configurable fields including weekly running distance, and seven accents. For round AMOLED Garmin watches.
№4Camo Tactical
A camo military chronograph: tachymeter bezel, two gauge subdials with real needles, LCD data panels and a live weather porthole.
№5JSON Face
Your watch data as a syntax-highlighted watchface.json — eight IDE themes, line numbers, real values.
№6Photo Classic Free
A free analog Garmin watch face with your own photo behind large classic numerals and outlined hands. Scan the QR on the watch, frame the picture on your phone, and it arrives on the watch — no computer, no sideloading.
All of these install from the Connect IQ Store and sync in seconds — the install guide walks you through it.
Where the 970 sits
The Forerunner 970 is the 2025 flagship above the Forerunner 570: sapphire glass over the AMOLED screen, ECG, multiband GPS, full maps and a flashlight. It shares its platform with the rest of the AMOLED Forerunner family, so everything on the Forerunner 965 page fits here too — and every face above lists the 970 in its device table.
What to look for in a Forerunner 970 watch face
- Training data you actually read. Racers glance at heart rate, recovery and load — dashboards like Domestique and 1989 Sport LCD put them first.
- Always-on, but smart. The AMOLED 970 looks superb always-on, but the best faces dim and simplify at rest. More in always-on explained.
- Race-week battery. A face is on screen all day — see do watch faces drain battery? so nothing eats into a long weekend.
- Legibility mid-effort. Big numerals beat decoration at kilometre 35 — that’s why every pick here keeps the time and key fields large.
On another Forerunner? See the whole family guide, or jump straight to the 965 and 570 pages.
Forerunner 970 watch faces — FAQ
Are there free watch faces for the Forerunner 970?
Yes. The 970 runs Connect IQ, so free faces work on it — many faces on this site are free, including Altura and Active Face.
Do Forerunner 965 watch faces work on the 970?
Yes — the 970 continues the AMOLED Forerunner line, and faces built for the 965 list the 970 too. Every face on this page supports both.
Does the Forerunner 970 have an AMOLED screen?
Yes — a bright AMOLED display under sapphire glass, so colourful data-rich faces look their best and a battery-smart always-on barely costs you. More in AMOLED vs MIP.