At the end of March, Garmin released a new subscription service – Garmin Connect+.
Here’s what Garmin has to say about the plan:
Garmin Connect+ will elevate a customer’s health and fitness knowledge with personalized Active Intelligence insights powered by AI, expert training guidance, exclusive badge challenges, expanded LiveTrack features and more.
To say this new plan was not well received … Is an understatement. At least on the Internet.
For the first few days post-release, r/Garmin was aflame with angry reactions to the announcement.
So what’s the big deal? What is Garmin Connect+ – and why are people upset about it? And should you be interested in it?
Personally, I think it sounds pretty stupid. But I was curious … and I signed up for the free trial so I could demo the features and tell people about it. But I will (almost certainly) be cancelling at the end of the free trial.
What Is Garmin Connect+
As Garmin stated in their announcement, Garmin Connect+ is “a premium plan that provides new features and even more personalized insights.”
The announcement lists six features:
- Active Intelligence, powered by AI
- Performance Dashboard
- Live Activity
- Training guidance
- Expanded LiveTrack features
- Social Features
The flashiest new feature is Active Intelligence. It looks to be similar to Athlete Intelligence from Strava – an AI powered summary (“analysis”) of your runs. Just about every tech company these days is trying to incorporate AI into their offerings, and this is Garmin’s attempt.
The performance dashboard is one promising feature. Garmin Connect already offered some basic reporting, but this allows you to build a dashboard with some more impressive visuals and a more comprehensive view of your data.
Live activity looks interesting. If you start an indoor activity – like a strength workout or a yoga session – you can view real time stats and animations in the Garmin Connect App. One reason I always thought the live animations on the watch were stupid is because … how am I supposed to look at yoga poses on my watch when I’m posing? Having it display on my phone is at least a little bit better.
LiveTrack offers some improvements to live tracking. I’ve never used this feature, in part because Garmin hasn’t released an LTE capable watch (other than the Forerunner 945) and I don’t like carrying my phone. But I’ve been carrying my phone in more races recently (in my Flipbelt), so maybe I’ll test this out next weekend.
Training guidance sounds pretty vague. You can “receive additional exclusive expert guidance from Garmin coaches – including educational content and videos.” I don’t know what that means, other than maybe some personalized links to existing content? We’ll see.
And the social features just sound straight dumb to me. Extra badges and challenges. Purely cosmetic things. Maybe that appeals to someone, but it certainly doesn’t appeal to me.
Why Are People Upset About Garmin Connect+?
When I first got back into running, Strava still had a pretty robust free feature set. There was a pro version, but you could use a free Strava account to see some useful training data.
I never used it much, because Garmin Connect did everything I needed. But at about that same time, Strava put all of the useful training features behind a paywall. Afterwards, the free version of Strava was pretty much just a basic social networking app.
I think some of the backlash about Garmin Connect+ is rooted in that experience. Runners remember the carpet being pulled out from underneath them with Strava. And Garmin has always been somewhat unique in that you pay for the hardware and the software is free.
It’s an old fashioned idea – in the current environment where everything comes with a subscription – but it’s one that Garmin users are used to. And I’ll admit, I’m fully onboard with that idea. I paid for a watch, and I had a robust feature set on Garmin Connect when I bought it. I don’t think that should change.
Even though Garmin claims that all of the existing features will remain free, I think some people just don’t believe them. The fact that they’re jumping on the AI bandwagon indicates that they’re at least dipping their toes in the pool of premium subscriptions.
Maybe they can exploit some whales and make some extra income without negatively impacting other users. If someone wants to pay for special badges, I don’t really care. But there’s also the chance that this doesn’t pan out and they start to gate more and more features to encourage people to actually sign up.
Does This Even Seem Useful or Valuable?
The subscription costs $6.99/month or $69.99/year. On a monthly basis, that’s not crazy. People pay more things they don’t use. But when you look at the annual cost, you realize just how much money that is.
Personally, I don’t shell out that kind of cash unless I’m going to use something.
So is there any chance this is worth $70 per year?
Here’s the first “Active Intelligence” analysis that I got this morning. This was an easy six mile run. Nothing special about it. I’m tapering down in preparation for my marathon next week.
This … doesn’t tell me anything useful. If anything, average heart rate would be more useful because it would tell me that this was indeed an easy run. It was also hilly, so something about how well I handled the hills – something Garmin does analyze – would have been useful. But instead … I get a statement about cadence.
I can imagine a future in which AI is a useful part of the Garmin ecosystem – having prompting conversations (and reflections) after runs and combining those with your training plan and your training history. But … this isn’t it.
Frankly, this is the laziest, simplest implementation of AI you could think of. Take all the data, pick some stats you think are important, and write a three sentence summary. More is possible, even with current technology, if implemented better.
As for the rest of the offerings, the performance dashboard is probably the only thing I’d be even remotely interested in. But at first glance, it still looks somewhat limited. As a data professional, I’d want a lot more freedom over how to actually build the visuals to make the analysis more useful. But I have a feeling the canned reports – although more flexible than the current offerings – are going to be limiting.
The only other feature that I think might be useful-ish is the LiveTrack features. If you carry your phone with you, then this might be worth it. I’ll have to test it out. But for $6.99/mo, I wish I could also have basic LTE connectivity to transmit that information without also carrying my phone. That would probably be worth it.
What Are Your Thoughts and Questions About Garmin Connect+?
Like I said upfront, I don’t have high hopes for this and I don’t plan on maintaining my subscription. But I know a lot of readers are interested in Garmins, so I figure I should play around with this and offer an informed opinion about what it can and can’t do.
Ultimately, it’ll be up to you to decide if that’s worth the price or not.
In the meantime, if you have any specific questions about Garmin Connect+, leave a comment. I’ll be playing around with this for a few weeks, and I’ll write up a more thorough review at the end of the month.