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- cross-posted to:
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For the android users, just gonna put this here
Thank you. Installed for when I finally find my charger.
JFC, is nothing safe?
I was just talking about dumping Fitbit as Google destroys it and jumping to Garmin…
Me too. What now?
What now?
Some options:
- Gadget Bridge allows connecting most devices fully locally
- PineTime simple, but cheap and free of corporate nonsense
- RePebble (coming later this year) - I just learned and it in this thread, but it looks promising.
Maybe the problem is you
For fuckkkksss sake. Ill keep my garmin watch until it works but never buying another one. I was so happy to find a watch that had everything i needed. Actually huge shame…
Garmin makes toilet paper, right?
Don’t know about tp, but they are certainly making shit now.
I have a Fenix 5x and was looking to get a 7 or 8 but now I will just stick to my 5X. I am so tired of all the enshitifacation of every fucking thing.
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.
As for apps, Garmin store has some useful apps, which show additional data, and additional sport types, etc, but Garmin shop itself is a bloody cancer. If you want to buy something, most developers opt for a separate PayPal payment or bank transfer, then you need to wait for them to mail you a licence, etc. It’s just a cumbersome piece of shit, which leaves you open to scams, etc.
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.
You wouldn’t want to wear a dive watch if you never dive, so why put that feature set on everything? Probably similar thoughts for a lot of these models.
That said, you are correct that they should streamline a little. It’s a ton of nonsense and very frustrating to hide features that are clearly being calculated (HRV) but hidden because you didn’t buy the right model.
One glaring omission for me is the lack of database options in the app store. They have a TINY bit of hard drive dedicated for a third party app. I used to own a Samsung and wrote an app for my gym workouts. It was great, but I like Garmin watches better. But even if I use the available key value pair database on Garmin, it only gives me space for maybe 100 sets before I am out of memory. Useless if you want to track any kind of history for multiple workouts. Same for the disc golf app I made for Samsung. I could technically save enough to play, but my old app has room to let me know all my previous scores per hole at each place I was, etc.
This isn’t a huge amount of space needed for these things. A few MB. But it’s walled away for some random reason. Really limits developers from making good stuff.
Solar charging isn’t an optional gimmick. Everything else is opinionated mixed with some facts.
Garmin and Apple watches are very different for the core purposes. The best apple watch costs as much as one of the best Garmin models.
The Apple watch lasts roughly 18 hours give or take before charging. Where as the best Garmins last 1 to 2 months with Solar charging. But again different uses and feature sets too.
I’d argue Apple is the bigger cancer here due to battery and hardware cycles, models, skus, as a whole companies footprint goes. Eco friendliness to Garmin no question. This could go deeper but I’ll leave it this brief. Apple’s to Oranges.
Months of battery on their new models and last gen models.
I would not put them in same category. Apple and Samsung make smartwatches. Garmin is offering sportwatches. If Garmin is really trying to compete with smartwatches, they are dumb.
Garmin is not trying to compete, but Apple and Samsung came and took the market by storm.
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.
The problem with that is this is software. We’ve seen this before. If the EU complains they’ll stop doing it… only in the EU. They’ll continue the fuckery in the US because it’s legal here.
I don’t care if americans still lose, as long as I see the corporations lose somewhere else.
If you read the announcement from them you will see that they are not moving previously free features to paid, all of the previously free features are still free, they are adding some new paid features.
I have no faith in what companies say until they are legally bound to it.
Not moving any of the previously free features yet. Don’t worry, it’ll happen.
The compute power behind their dumbass “AI” push that nobody wants will not be cheap, and when it inevitably fails to turn a profit (because we all know damn well it never will), they’ll be looking for new ways to squeeze users for revenue.
I love my 5X but I will be fucked if I buy another watch if this happpens.
Not true and none of their features or use has changed. Simply don’t get the paid feature. Everything works as it should. This is massively overblown. Everyone’s pushing AI this and that because it’s the hot thing right now.
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.
HealthyPi will be a too option too. Much more fitness focused than pinetime or banglejs
I’d be fine with my OG Pebble, honestly. The only functions I really need and genuinely use are custom watch faces to change things up now and again, and notifications going to my phone.
I got my first Garmin after Pebble evaporated because it was quite rugged, had a similar color screen, and most importantly a long battery life. It has built in mapping functionality which I thought I’d use, but I really don’t. I have zero interest in the tracking features, health and otherwise, and leave all of that turned off. I personally can’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with that all the time, nor anyone in their right mind would trust sending any of that kind of data to a third party for any reason.
I also just deleted my Connect account. I have had it with these greedy American corporations. To anyone looking for an alternative, I highly recommend checking out Gadgetbridge, it still lets you use your watch with almost all the same features, only the data never leaves your phone.
Any advice for getting it to actually work with a Garmin watch? I just tried it with my Fenix 6 (solar) and it doesn’t detect the watch at all. In fact, even selecting “show unsupported devices” reveals that my watch’s bluetooth MAC address isn’t even seen by my phone. (Yes, I unpaired it and removed Connect from my phone. I also resorted to factory resetting my watch. No dice.)
At the moment I’m using it unconnected because it still shows the time and so forth with the watch face I want. But without any kind of connectivity there’s really no point to not just putting this thing back in its box for good and grabbing one of my numerous dumb watches.
Did you put your watch into pairing mode? On my Forerunner, I have to go “Settings/Connectivity/Phone/Pair Phone” on my watch.
Yes indeed, I absolutely did. Still no joy, alas.
Gadgetbridge
Is this in the google app store? I can’t find it.
I think it is only on F-droid
I saw that but I don’t know what that is.
It’s an alternative “app store” but for only free and open source software, highly recommend checking it out!
Thank you! I’m in a similar boat having picked up a replacement Venu a few months ago and this will absolutely be my last Garmin device. My Strava account was nuked some time ago when I couldn’t fire up the app without “Subscribe!” popups. My body is ready for open health tracking.
I’m not putting down my fenix 6 anytime soon. If they’re half as smart and don’t want to kill their business, they’ll take that AI shit out or keep the free tier worth it.
Capitulation leads to these corporations refusing to change and believing they can weather out the complaints and still come out the other side profitably without changing their behavior.
I can live with a dumb watch until they announce they’re walking this back.
They haven’t paywalled anything that I have seen. This is a paid tier.
Ugh, and so the enshittification begins…
It really sucks, they’ve been spared from noticeable enshitification so far but I guess the line didn’t go up enough anymore…
The green mile. A great movie for those wondering.
I’ve bought Garmin devices explicitly because they didn’t do these things, and promised not to do these things. Since I know they’re not going to retract this decision, I am going to look into trying to get my purchases refunded.
This is taking it to heart for sure. Nothing wrong with your POV but it’s opinion and their tech has no comparison currently. Literally zero has changed. They added a paid tier and done what every company on the planet is doing. Trying to land grab AI because it’s the latest and greatest.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. We just bought our first Garmin watches two months ago. I felt uneasy about our new relationship with yet another american corporation, but we loved the watches and the app… And now what?
Don’t worry nothing has changed at all, this is a paid tier same as any other land grabbing company on the planet for new tech.
Nothing compares to their battery life and feature set for health data as a whole. Garmin seems to have tbe most comprehensive health data coverage of all smart watches.
They are a stand up company anytime I ever needed support which has been many times for family as well.
Don’t worry nothing has changed at all…
Yet
In time we will see, hopefully we keep a solid company around and chop this up to the whole land grab for AI thing.
Well, that truly sucks and could lead to me swapping to another brand if it adds ads to upgrade in my connect app.
I paid a lot of freaking money for my watch and included services.
INFACT I am going to email them my opinion on this and warn them I will absolutely leave in one Garmin recorded heartbeat
Edit: I submitted the below response here: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/. Not sure that’s the best place but that’s where I did it.
*This is what I just sent them from their contact page
I switched to Garmin fitness watches in 2013
910xt followed by 920xt, Fenix 3HR, Fenix 5X, Fenix 6X, and now own possibly my last Garmin the Fenix 8X amoled.
I just saw a story about a subscription tier for connect.
- total crap that nobody is asking for
- If I have to see or dismiss an ad for connect plus in my app that will be the beginning of the end of our relationship
- I’m about 90% sure, regardless of ads it will be anyway because it will be hard to convince me that the next set of new watches won’t be directly impacted by a subscription tier. At least one feature the watch(s) would have gotten will be pushed into the pay tier.*
This is EXTREMELY disappointing
I also submitted feedback there. Probably amounts to nothing but you never know.
If 100k people do it could, but ya low expectations for sure
My suggestion is post what you did everywhere people with Garmin watches will see it, encourage others to submit feedback
Garmin feedback is taken seriously. You likely will get a response if you added contact info.
Their customer service are top notch. I’ve gotten new watches, bands and free shipping to and from for different issues.
This change is no different than any other company on the planet. Land grabbing for AI. It’s a paid tier. None of their free or core feature sets have changed at all.
I am really hoping you are right on this. Honestly id rather they don’t give me AI features “for free” seeing as how I don’t want them anyway
Yay more shit that nobody asked for.
Oh no, good thing gadgetbridge exists
AFAIK gadgetbridge is not even close to a replacement WRT functionality? Last I checked it only supported basic data import, has that changed?
It depends of how well supported a specific model is
My Forerunner 165 is well supported, nearly the same as the official app.
What features are you missing?
You cant use it to create or manage workout plans. It is feature complete for the health data as far as I can tell (HRV, sleep, etc).
You cant use it to create or manage workout plans
Bummer, that’s a pretty significant reason for owning a sports watch I would say, probably one of the most important features actually.
Is workout tracking feature complete?
Yes workout tracking works fine, not quite as polished as Connect but it is functional.
I just tried it with my Fenix 6 and it does not appear to work at all despite being listed as partially supported. My watch can’t even be discovered by the app, even after factory resetting it and removing all of the Garmin apps from my phone.
That’s a shame. I’ll go back to wearing my mechanical watch for a while, I think.
I’m using a Garmin watch with Gadget Bridge from f-droid. Works well even though I don’t like the app’s look that much.
Sorry, what does that achieve please?
Enables use of watch features without using the garmin connect app
Do you still get the historic health data overtime? Similar to the connect app. So your not losing any usability?
Ah thanks, and apologies as I could have just ecosia’ed that ;)
Thanks a million for this!
