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.

Ugh, and so the enshittification begins...

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.

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?

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.

1. total crap that nobody is asking for
2. 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
3. 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

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...

Yay more shit that nobody asked for.

Oh no, good thing gadgetbridge exists

For the android users, just gonna put this here

https://gadgetbridge.org/

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.

Uch, was already willing to get rid of my garmin but this just gives me more motivation

Just as I was saying to myself "I'm pretty happy with the Garmin I have, I don't need a new Pebble," here come Pebble's marketing department with a reason!

... What do you mean this is an announcement from Garmin?

A parallel comment to my rant yesterday, I see the pushback has already begun in Garmin's reviews against this nonsense. All of the recent reviews of their Android app are now overwhelmingly complaints about the subscription addition, and I suspect iOS is the same. If you haven't done so already, please be sure to blow Garmin up over this on any platform you can get your grubby hands on.

I know posting this here is probably more like spitting on a forest fire; I'm sure the seven or eight nerds here on Lemmy dedicated enough to care have already put Garmin on blast for this (myself included), but it never hurts to make sure.

Will those features be as useless as strava summeries?

Garmin makes toilet paper, right?

JFC, is nothing safe?

I was just talking about dumping Fitbit as Google destroys it and jumping to Garmin...

There it is.

So glad I skipped out on buying one of these.

I got a used dumb tracker for $8 (looks like it's gone up since). No internet, no synching. Perfect for workouts.

For anyone else wondering, you can export all your Garmin data .Use the "Export All Garmin Data Using Account Management Center" option here https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=W1TvTPW8JZ6LfJSfK512Q8 The output is json files so you can use any json editor or anything that can import json. I use a little tool called JQ https://jqlang.org/ to extract just things I need. Then I can analyze in whatever tool I want such as a spreadsheet

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:

Yikes.. Once my current Garmin watch dies I'll just switch back to a regular non-smart watch

I recall an app called endomondo doing similar. I'd bought the Pro version for lifetime only to find them move to a Premium option.

That was fine as I still had what I had paid for.... until take up wasn't good enough and slowly key features moved behind the paywall.

Im fairly certain this is the direction this is going. I wonder if there'll be a class action if so to force buy back of the hardware

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.

Don’t worry, the c-suite will pull a j/k and then do it anyway later.

Fuck ‘em, eventually they will learn.

Not even Garmin can resist the temptation?
Oof, better hold out hope for Repebble I guess

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.

Time to search for a new brand for my next watch 😓 (when I need it)

I just saw DC Rainmaker's video on this, and I'm not impressed. In any case, I've bern using my Garmin watch mainly for running, and I've been more interested in spot data than history on Connect. Still, I'm on my last Garmin watch. The hardware itself seems to last for only 18-24 months before problems start piling up, so I decided that my next watch will be Coros. I'm under no illusions that the hardware would be more reliable, but it costs half of what I've paid for my Garmin.