To say that Garmin has upset its users with its new subscription service would be putting it mildly. The company recently announced Garmin Connect+, a new paid premium tier of its Connect app that features some shiny new paywalled features, including AI-powered insights and a performance dashboard for all of the best Garmin watches.
It hasn’t gone down well. Thousands of furious Garmin fans have taken to Reddit over the news, demanding customers take a stand.
The uproar has been so intense that you might have actually missed what the subscription entails, so if you’re at least a little bit curious or you’d happily give the free trial a go, here’s what you get from Garmin Connect Plus for $6.99 / £6.99 / AU$12 per month or $69.99 / £69.99 / AU$120 annually.
1. Active Intelligence
Garmin Connect+ gets you AI-powered training insights. Garmin says you’ll get personalized suggestions based on health and activity data. Previews showcase friendly summaries about your sleep, battery, and more. As you’d expect from AI, the insights will reportedly get better over time. Here’s an example:
You fell 1 hour and 23 minutes short of your sleep need, but you still managed to charge your battery 57 points. You’re ready for exercise today, but balance it with rest to avoid bottoming out.
2. Performance Dashboard
Connect+ features a comprehensive view of training data, available on the website, that lets you compare your fitness and health data over time. Showcased examples include your running duration comparison, time in power zones, average pace, and distance over time.
3. Live Activity
Your smartphone will now give you real-time heart rate, pace, reps and videos for your indoor workouts (such as strength and yoga) when paired with a compatible smartwatch.
4. Exclusive Coaching Guidance
As you use Garmin Run Coach or Garmin Cycling Coach, you’ll get expert guidance from coaches, including educational content and videos.
5. Enhanced Livetrack
Starting an activity on a compatible device will now notify your friends and family via text, and you can create a personalized LiveTrack profile page for people to follow.
This seems to have changed the existing text feature for Garmin users, and we’ve got some concerns that this might have pushed some of the existing LiveTrack features behind a paywall. We’ve reached out to Garmin to confirm.
6. Social features
Finally, social features include exclusive badges, some of them worth an increased amount of points, and badge challenges that you can use to personalize your profile.
Not a lot?
The Garmin Connect+ subscription isn’t enormously expensive, but it’s not cheap either. As you can see, you don’t get an enormous amount for your money, and Garmin hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on the details about these features – this is really all the information we have right now.
As such, it’s possible we’ll get more detailed insight about some of these features over the coming days and weeks.
On paper, Garmin Connect+ looks pretty thin, and while that’s not the main reason people are objecting to its rollout, I have to imagine that it’s a factor.
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stephen.warwick@futurenet.com (Stephen Warwick)
