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Garmin adds AI and a subscription tier to its app
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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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.
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.
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.
HealthyPi will be a too option too. Much more fitness focused than pinetime or banglejs
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.
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.
They haven't paywalled anything that I have seen. This is a paid tier.
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.