Meant to post this yesterday…not as funny today, I guess. 
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Garmin has made some pretty great hardware over the years and I’ve invested in numerous head units and watches along the way. I’m currently using 840 and 1040 Solar head units and a Fenix 8. I’ve justified the hardware costs in part by the software features the devices have. While there is always room for improvement, the software has come a long way from some pretty dark days years back. My thinking is that I bought into the ecosystem with the hardware products and generally have been willing to upgrade to the latest gen when they launch (1050 excluded…).
Adding a subscription model, which is always going to be the boardroom suggestion to try and increase revenue, would make me reconsider everything. While the corporate strategy will be to ease people in, the long term goal will be to keep driving up the percentages of hardware purchases that get linked to a subscription. While new added features will be the initial selling point, it’s a matter of time before prior free features become paid features.
Ultimately it’s up to the end user to decide on the value. I cancelled Strava premium after their nonsense and haven’t missed it a bit. I’m not interested in Garmin’s Connect+ at the moment and will sit back and see how things unfold. The next time that it’s time for an upgrade we’ll see where things have settled. By then maybe Hammerhead with their excellent mapping features, or even Coros with their computer than never needs charging, are options.
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I honestly don’t understand why everyone keeps saying this. I absolutely understand the concern that all new features will be in the subscription. I don’t understand at all why everyone assumes it’s inevitable that currently free features will be moved under the paid model and is dragging Garmin over the coals over something they THINK MIGHT happen, when Garmin has said that it won’t.
There are countless examples with other companies where it has happened in some form or another, so consumers have the right to be extremely wary. Netflix, Xbox Game Pass, Best Buy subscription services, too numerous to mention software apps that went subscription, etc. have all offered some sort of initial value proposition but gradually shifted to more expensive, less consumer friendly versions over time in attempts to drive more revenue.
Every year CEO’s are going to be asked to show year over growth in revenue. So this year it is going to be new revenue from the subscription model as one of those key metrics. But next year it’s going to be how did they grow that model and what % of purchasers went on the subscription. It’s incredibly predictable. As long as the graphs show the numbers going up, everyone is happy. However if consumers make enough noise to the point where it hurts revenue and sales, and the numbers aren’t aligning with what was budgeted, then it could force the company to make a change.
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Again though, you’re making an assumption that they will do what they said they will not do.
Let me share what I THINK MIGHT happen, as an example of why I think it doesn’t make sense.
Everyone decides that Garmin lied and is going to move free things behind the paywall, so they go buy some other brand, even though Garmin took nothing away. Garmin starts to lose money because all the customers left based on their feeling that something bad might happen. Revenue goes down as a result, and guess what happens? To increase revenue to offset the fall, Garmin moves things behind the paywall. Then, all the people who left declare victory because they were correct, even though the reason it happened was because they preemptively left, making themselves the root cause.
Btw - I’m not trying to point the finger at you specifically. You have every right to be worried. It absolutely COULD happen. It just drives me nuts that Garmin’s Reddit space is overflowing with people declaring doomsday based on what they think might happen, as if it already has happened.
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My hope is just that they leave training load, load focus, and intensity minutes alone.
My life isn’t really set up right now to follow a structured training plan. But I can use Load Focus to identify which energy system to train, training load to identify when I’m going overboard, and intensity minutes to stay with a minimum amount of activity. It works really well for me right now.
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My initial reaction was also negative and I will consider jumping ship in the future, once my devices stop working or Garmin stops supporting them trough software updates and features. I have no desire for another subscription and now I have 0 reason to believe that the „free“ part of the software I use with my very much not free hardware isn’t going to be updated or improved in any meaningful way, which sucks since there is so much potential for Garmin Connect imho. To me Garmin is a hardware company and their app always sucked. Now it feels like it’s getting even more left behind compared to other ecosystems.
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I don’t think this is too likely…mostly because there is no reason to drop $400+…yet. Going out and buying a new bike computer based on what you think may happen is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. It makes no sense right now.
Now, if Garmin does start to move existing features behind a paywall, you will certainly see people dump their Garmins and buy something else.
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I agree 100%, and I’ll be one of the ones who leaves…but I’m telling you, there are many many posts every day full of people saying they’re going to leave Garmin because the writing is on the wall…they THINK
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Lots of decisions are being made on the presumption that someone thinks something will happen - even if it’s not smart. Look at the stock market or even better: crypto.
The 1040s is a great device right now. It could be improved with better software but it’s working as is and as long as it does - perfect, no need for another device. If mine dies, Garmin is less likely to see more of my money since I won’t get the “full experience” buying their product compared to before. That stings a bit when you drop 700$+ for a slow, los res, quirky box with a mediocre app to sync the data.
I agree with your statement that it’s dumb to purchase something on the presumption it will be improved in the future - but it’s not unheard of for companies to do this. You subscribe to TR because you want them to have the cashflow to build future app-enhancements. With Garmin you buy the hardware and kind of expect that some money of the sales gets allocated to the software team (lol), not that I have to pay a recurring cost to enhance the experience of the device I already paid for. But it’s optional so I can’t really complain… yet I do, because I’m now “left out”. I think that’s one of the reasons why some people are a bit burned.
I have four Garmin devices and every iteration has seen improvements. The software is part of that deal for me, since you can’t use a third party app to sync your data. The goodwill they created with improving their software and firmware of the devices gets a bit overshadowed by this new subscription model for me. Like some car manufacturers trying to hide paid features behind a recurring cost - didn’t bode well with customers. I’m curious how this will play out for Garmin in the long run.
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If you look at it from a product perspective, there’s one basic thing you need to do: create a meaningful distinction between the free and paid tiers that makes people think the paid tier is worth the money over the free tier
There are two ways to do it:
- You can create new features by taking things through the product cycle and delivering them. This will include all the internal costs of product design, development, testing, and deployment. Depending on the size of the feature, this could take a minimum of a few months for a minor feature, or a few years for a major enhancement.
- You can take popular, existing features and move them to the paid tier. This requires minimal coding and testing, and can be deployed very quickly.
Given this choice and the new subscription option, the totally standard behavior of any corporation in a similar situation would be to take features that were already in the queue for the product and announce them as part of this new paid tier. This is an easy thing to do, and it shows you’re trying to create some kind of value for the new subscription tier. This is likely what happened with their half-baked AI integration; it’s probably been in the pipeline for a year or more, so they just flipped it over as the main draw of Connect+.
But at some point, there’s going to be a drought of new features to add to Connect+, and the board and shareholders are going to start screaming that the subscription numbers aren’t increasing quickly enough, and if you can’t pull the first lever (new features), the only other lever you have is the second one. Then formerly free features start migrating to the paid tier.
It’s conjecture only because it hasn’t happened yet, but this is a very common, and honestly perfectly logical, pattern for multiple tier subscription models.
For my part, I have a 1040 that I’m generally pretty happy with, but I’m considering an upgrade to the new generation of head units mostly for the improvements in screen brightness. My eyes are terrible, so I find that very appealing. But if I’m looking at 1050 vs. a Karoo, we’re talking about $225 difference. Historically, Garmins have come at a premium (and they’re always significantly more expensive than their competitors) because they didn’t have a subscription model. With this new price change, it seems inevitable that they’ll be getting us coming and going; more expensive at initial purchase but also requiring an additional subscription for the full feature set. And keep in mind that Garmin posting something like a 20% increase in revenue year over year, so they’re quite profitable already.
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The third option is “don’t create a subscription service where there is no reasonable model to support it.”
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Absolutely the best solution, but for Garmin that ship has already sailed. I’m just fleshing out the most likely outcomes as I see them.
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Yup….it just always boggles my mind when the management of companies come up with ideas that are so completely out of touch with the marketplace.
And if the whole idea wasn’t DOA in the first place, the announcement of the tariffs will likely be the final nail in the coffin. Consumers are extremely apprehensive about the economy right now and spending money on a frivolous service that offers no tangible benefit is not going to have many takers.
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I noticed that the “recovery time” changed substantially lately. Can’t remember how lately though. 2, 3 months…
It’d be all in the range of hours. After a very tough 3 hours ride, maybe it’d give me 26 hours, something like that. Now, 150tss and it gives me 2 days of rest needed.
Strava comes to mind. They first introduced the paid tiers, which you could mix and match how you wanted. Then they merged them together and ‘took away’ the segments from non-paying users. Since then I only use Strava as my data hub and all my rides are private. I even deleted the app from my phone and I feel like a similar path with Garmin will follow. Yes I know I’m spiteful…
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That’s not a bad idea.
I’m very much in this mode of thinking. I’m device agnostic. I choose other platforms for my data analytics, training like Intervals.icu, TP, and TR. I also train with a coach.
According to Strava’s CEO, “ In terms of usage and user feedback, Athlete Intelligence is one of the most successful features in Strava’s history.
We created it because extensive user research told us that there was a significant number of users who didn’t understand the activity data and charts and wanted an easier way to understand their effort and progress, which is why we created the Athlete Intelligence summaries.
The usage metrics have been overwhelmingly positive: users tell us that more than 80% of analyses are “very helpful,” and engagement is off the charts. Is it right 100% of the time? No, that’s not the nature of LLMs right now, but it still is demonstrably helpful to the vast majority of users.
In terms of usage and user feedback, Athlete Intelligence is one of the most successful features in Strava’s history. But we also knew that it wouldn’t be for everyone, so we made it easy to disable with three taps if you don’t want it: Say More>Give Feedback>Leave Athlete Intelligence.”
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April 1st was last week.
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