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TL;DR: They lied to us, plain and simple. The temptation of Make Line Go Up was enough to make Garmin abandon their promise of no subscriptions and no paywalls.
Nobody outside of the idiots in the boardroom wants this, especially the AI garbage. It’s disgusting that $1100 for a Fenix 8 isn’t already enough for these greedy assholes. Original features are “free for now,” but I guarantee you this will change when nobody signs up and MBA dipshits start leaning on everybody to force users to provide recurring revenue by moving previously free functionality into the subscription tier. This is not a prediction or an “if,” it is an inevitability and a “when,” unless we nip this in the bud right now.
I am on my second Garmin watch, a Fenix 6. Previously I had a 5x. My wife has a Lily. These will be our last ever Garmin devices, and I’ll be sure to let them know it. It’s getting to the point where no smartwatch maker can be trusted, unsurprisingly, and honestly the alleged benefits they provide are probably no longer worth it in the long run. Before smartwatches were a thing I amassed quite a selection of normal watches, which I will probably just go back to using when my current watch inevitably cacks it, or the software becomes so borked that it’s useless.
Edit: In fact, just now I did let them know it. I also cancelled my inReach subscription and let them know it there as well, and deleted my Connect account (and pulled my watch faces off of their marketplace) and also let them know it there too. When I do something I mean it. I suggest you all do the same; the only ear these companies have is located in their coin purses.
Moving previously free features of a product you’ve already paid for should be considered theft legally. Hopefully enough people in the EU complain about it for them to do something about it.
Hopefully things like PineTime, Bangle.js, and the return of Pebble can shake up the market. There’s always neat DIY hacks like the SensorWatch too that can still make the space fun even if the major players get enshittified.
If gadget bridge paired with a fully featured local analysis tool, I would love that and probably put them on my FOSS donation list too.
For the android users, just gonna put this here
Also, don’t forget to donate if you can. Their liberapay says they’re getting ~120€/week in donations. I think freeing our wearable devices is worth a whole lot more than that.
I can understand when FOSS software needs a bit longer to cook, and let’s make sure they have some incentive to keep going at it.
Easy fix:
Buy a fitness/smart watch - an older one is fine, why go excessive
Download GadgetBridge from F-Droid/Droidify and then use that instead of a proprietary app which is just harvesting your data and telemetry at every chance:
I wish that was the case, but it absolutely doesn’t even come close.
For all those clammering to sell and throw away, stick on the shelf, I will keep, buy, or what have you all your Garmin watches so long as they aren’t trashed and are relatively newer models.
Yes I am serious. PM me so we can discuss further if your done with Garmin.
Garmin is being eaten alive by Apple and Samsung, it’s their last grasp for some air. They refused to change their business model for a decade and it’s a payback time.
Which is odd because their stuff is really good for sensors, and has weeks of battery life vs other smartwatches that struggle to last a day.
They’re stuck with 1990-s mentality and refuse to change, sadly.
What would you like them to add?
I don’t want them to add anything, I want them to switch from making a thousand models and selling software features as hardware revisions to making one model which can go do everything and to have a proper app store instead of a joke they have right now.
Gotcha, one model for everything would be quite expensive though given all the extra sensors, better displays, solar charging and stuff the higher end ones have yeah?
What kind of apps do you want to use?
These probably seem like dumb questions but the only other smart watch I’ve used was an android wear model, and that was an absolutely miserable experience compare to my garmin. I never found any apps worth using on it aside from normal built in smartwatch stuff.
one model for everything would be quite expensive though given all the extra sensors, better displays, solar charging and stuff the higher end ones have yeah?
That’s the problem with Garmin - it won’t be more expensive. If we ignore optional gimmicks like solar charging, then there are no real hardware differences between VivoActive 5 and Fenix 8 apart from the barometer, which was present in even cheaper VivoActive 3. Depth sensor, for example, is just a software feature of a barometer (you need to calculate depth and altitude differently from the same data).
Garmin is selling software features packaged as different hardware SKUs and charging up to 4x more depending on a feature set. Their product range is extremely large with multiple product families divided into multiple physical products, which all are essentially the same piece of hardware. And today their range is actually more streamlined than it was before.
This is a stark contrast to Apple, for example, where you have one bloody watch and that’s it. Yes, you have different physical sizes to fit different people, you have different materials and finishes to choose from, but when you’re buying an iWatch you’re getting all the features no matter which screen size and arm band you choose.
Garmin should realistically only have two lines of watches - base model which has everything Fenix 8 has for £250-300 to compete with iWatch and advanced model with solar and other gimmicks no one cares about for £650-800 to compete with iWatch Ultra. That’s all.
