What you need to know
- The COROS PACE 2, VERTIX 1, and APEX Pro will no longer receive firmware updates after September, though they'll still receive app updates.
- All COROS watches now receive Gear Tracking and Sleep Quality analysis through the app, while the newer watches get all-day sleep tracking, new pool swim and bike modes, plus other updates.
- The COROS DURA, originally due out in July, now has real-time elevation, back-to-start guidance, and a ton of other new features. It launches on September 26.
- All updates roll out to the public beta on September 23 and launch officially in October.
COROS' September update adds a few features to its watches and app that'll look familiar to Garmin fans, including gear tracking for your shoes and bikes, nap detection, and pool swim drills and intervals. Unfortunately, the update won't make it to every COROS watch.
Unlike other fitness brands that restrict the best software to pricier watches, COROS generally updates every watch it can. But the 2019 VERTIX and APEX Pro, plus the 2020 COROS PACE 2, have "reached their hardware's storage limit and will no longer receive future firmware updates."
Four years of active support for a $200 watch is nothing to sneeze at, and the PACE 2 will still receive app-based updates. But some runners will want to turn to the COROS PACE 3 instead, since it will keep receiving new features and offer dual-band GPS.
Meanwhile, the COROS DURA bike computer, announced in July but delayed due to "a small risk of mounting tab failures" and some reviewer complaints about missing software features, is arriving on September 26 with a host of new features that make it more competitive against other bike computers.
If you want to test these features now, you'll need public beta access. Click this link on either Android or iOS — you'll need Testflight on iPhones — and you'll get access. Otherwise, they'll roll out to all users sometime in October.
New COROS watch features
The new COROS gear tracking tool is simple: You input the name of your current pairs of running shoes, track spikes, or hiking boots and assign them to specific activities (Run, Indoor Run, Trail Run, Track Run, Hike, or Walk). Then, every time you finish an activity, COROS will add the mileage to the shoe's total, with a customizable "max distance" for when it's time to replace your shoes. You can also manually pick any pair of shoes before an activity.
You can even track mileage for your bike(s) for Road, Indoor, Gravel, Mountain, or E-Bike activities. For context, Garmin Connect also has Gear tracking, but it doesn't let you split them off to specific sports, only grouping by Running, Cycling, Hiking, Swimming, Walking, and Other. I prefer COROS' specificity, since I often wear different shoes for trail runs versus regular and track runs. My one complaint is that when I tested the beta for myself, it didn't retroactively assign miles from past activities, even when I say it was "First used" months ago. Moving forward, it should be very handy.
COROS improved sleep tracking with this update. In July 2024, it finally started tracking sleep stages like deep and REM; with the September update, it'll judge the quality of your sleep, warning you if you didn't get enough time spent in these stages to recover properly. Plus, it'll track sleep "24/7" to catch naps, though only rests of 3+ hours will get sleep-quality data.
Now that COROS tracks daily stress and sleep quality, I wonder if an equivalent to Garmin Body Battery or Fitbit Daily Readiness is coming next.
As for other COROS September updates, your watch will now support the following:
- Drill and Interval Modes for Pool Swim activities
- Gravel Bike and Mountain Bike (MTB) activities
- Mid-activity data fields for % FTP, % Max HR, % HRR, or % LTHR
- Integrations with new partners: Wikiloc, Ride with GPS, ROUVY, and Final Surge
COROS DURA update
You'll rarely see an "update" for a device that hasn't launched yet, but COROS clearly wanted to spruce up its first bike computer before it reached consumers' hands.
With the September update, the COROS DURA adds a Real-Time Elevation Profile mapping your hill progress thus far and a View Upcoming Climbs screen to see the remaining climb distance, elevation gain, and average grade for this climb, plus how many climbs you have left after that.
During a workout, you can check your heart rate, power, cadence, and time left on the Workout Progress view, and if you're riding on a designated course with multiple laps, the DURA will now auto-count laps every time you return to start. Then you can check the new Lap Summary view to compare your current lap time against past times.
Initial DURA testers complained that it didn't warn you quickly enough if you deviated off course, so COROS says its new Deviate Route Alert "has been improved" to be more accurate and immediate. It also added new Back to start options so you can choose whether to reverse back or take a "newly generated route," which is nice for variety.
Lastly, the COROS DURA now shows a Status Bar when you tap on the screen mid-workout for info on connected devices and battery status — though with 70 hours of dual-band tracking, battery life probably won't be a major concern. What matters more is battery life for connected devices, so COROS will let you set activity fields for battery life for power meters, lights, radars, HRMs, and so on.
You can read more about each feature on the COROS blog.
Built to last
The COROS PACE 3 lasts 15 days with stress tracking, 38 hours with GPS, or 15 hours with dual-band GPS. It's due to receive new software features for years to come, backed by in-depth EvoLab and Training Hub metrics and guidance to help you become a better runner.
