Coros – what FEATURES and PRODUCTS to expect in 2025
Coros has been the challenger brand to watch for the last three years. The company has grown tremendously with clever strategies and is now at a turning point where a strategy change is perhaps needed.
Its success has come from
High market share and awareness in climbing and ultra-distance sports
Market-leading battery life and GNSS/GPS accuracy
Offering runners a seemingly excellent list of features at a notable discount to the list prices of competitors
Good usability
Generally good quality case materials or super light ones.
An obvious investment in software development and churning out new features and fixes.
It’s ‘failures’ were
The Dura bike computer – On paper, a laudable first attempt to enter the new ultra-distance bike computer market, let down by too early a launch.
Apex – A good product but somewhat adrift in a competitive field.
You might have your favourites to share with either list; please comment below.
Explore Perfection?
Predicted Product Releases – New Coros Products for 2025
We will see two or three new products from Coros this year.
Apex 3 AMOLED, June 2025
Vertix 3 – MIP and/or AMOLED versions, 2025
Maybe even a revamped Dura could reset the bike initiative.
Apex 3 AMOLED will likely be the same as Pace 3 Pro but in a quality case.
Vertix 3 AMOLED is also a highly likely addition following market trends. Will Coros fully jump ship to AMOLED or, like Garmin, keep the MIP model – I suspect the latter.
Anticipated Feature Upgrades – New coros Features for 2025
Streaming Music
Based on intel, I’m sure Coros will start supporting streaming music services as soon as this year. It would likely be commercially sensible to support Spotify. I speculate that the Coros smartphone app would sync playlists by Bluetooth between Spotify and watch services. The watches will store music offlineand may update periodically over WiFi.
Payments
Coros does not have the clout to implement on-watch NFC payments. However, NFC payment bands will circumvent the problems. Polar has already done this with its payments strap, and I have covered it here. I suggested the same solution to Coros and gave them contacts some time ago, but I’m sure they were aware of the developments and possibilities. It’s a simple solution to fill an obvious gap, albeit it partly lacks biometric authentication.
Market & Pricing Analysis – Where will the new products fit?
Coros is almost certainly a growing company. If you look at its sales, you will likely find that most unit sales come from the cheaper Pace 3/3 Pro, but there will be more significant margins (profit) from Vertix 2/2S. I suspect Apex struggles. Dura targets a small market badly and can’t be doing well.
Coros seems to be evolving its approach to pricing. As I said at the top, keen prices are one of the reasons for the company’s success. Competing on price is a great strategy, but only if you have the volume.
Pace 3 Pro and Vertix sit at a modest discount to their target Garmin competitors… However, Coros rarely discounts, and Garmin frequently deeply discounts previous-gen models. Thus, a savvy buyer can easily find a superior Garmin for a price similar to Coros’s key watches if they get the timing right. The same savvy buyer would realise that Garmin’s features are deeper and its ecosystem more extensive – for a similar price; buying a high-end prior-gen Garmin is almost a no-brainer.
Coros’ journey into 2025 and beyond is critically poised. The brand’s historic strengths—its focus on ultra-distance sports, superior battery performance, and strategic pricing—have served it well. Yet, as the market evolves, so must its approach. It feels to me that the strategy behind the Pace 3 Pro’s price rise was simple: maximise the price and justify it with a selective bump in some hardware components.
New product lines such as the anticipated Apex 3 AMOLED and Vertix 3 AMOLED will no doubt continue to blend quality materials with advanced technologies while adding core catch-up features like streaming music support and a payment solution.
However, several open questions remain:
Product Strategy Balance: Can Coros sustain growth with a streamlined focus on two key sub-brands – Pace and Vertix? Is that a risky or focussed strategy?
Competitive Pricing: Will Coros price rises succeed in the harsh reality of nimble, retaliatory discounts by the market leaders with a large, feature-full product portfolio?
Feature Integration: How effectively will integrating catch-up features such as offline music storage differentiate Coros from the crowd? Is catch-up enough?
As Coros ventures into subtly new territories, the answers to these questions will be key to understanding its market position and long-term viability in a competitive landscape.
What do you think Coros needs to change to continue the upward trajectory in 2025 and beyond?
7 thoughts on “Coros – what FEATURES and PRODUCTS to expect in 2025 – what this means for the company”
Interesting speculation. Any word on labeled maps? I remember seeing confirmation of this on reddit a few months back but nothing since. It seemed like the bottleneck was processing speed followed by display clarity, which got mitigated with the amoled pace.
Meanwhile, what I’d prefer to see, aside from labeled and even routable maps, is an improved hr sensor and training load that doesn’t reset to zero every Monday. I work a 4-on-2-off schedule and thus follow a 6-day training week, so the 7-day TL reset wouldn’t work for me.
Coros hat auf Reddit schon bekanntgegeben das es die Apex Serie nur mit Mip Display gibt. Ich glaube das der Großteil der Coros Käufer auch MIP bevorzugt. Bei Ultraläufen sieht man kaum Amoled Uhren.
it’s a whole different level of complexity.
regular maps effectively just mean overlaying a gps breadcrum onto a series of images (maps)
routable maps require knowledge of the nodes, distances between them and more. It’s massively harder to do and I suspect only offers a big advantage to a very small number of people. I suspect the majoirty of buyers don’t apprecaite teh difference (until they get lost following a route 😉 )
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Interesting speculation. Any word on labeled maps? I remember seeing confirmation of this on reddit a few months back but nothing since. It seemed like the bottleneck was processing speed followed by display clarity, which got mitigated with the amoled pace.
it rings a bell.
with this artcile I was more thinking of more significnat ‘strategic’ type moves rather than filling in a few feature gaps.
Meanwhile, what I’d prefer to see, aside from labeled and even routable maps, is an improved hr sensor and training load that doesn’t reset to zero every Monday. I work a 4-on-2-off schedule and thus follow a 6-day training week, so the 7-day TL reset wouldn’t work for me.
Coros hat auf Reddit schon bekanntgegeben das es die Apex Serie nur mit Mip Display gibt. Ich glaube das der Großteil der Coros Käufer auch MIP bevorzugt. Bei Ultraläufen sieht man kaum Amoled Uhren.
I’d like to see routable maps, Garmin seem to be the only ones doing this
it’s a whole different level of complexity.
regular maps effectively just mean overlaying a gps breadcrum onto a series of images (maps)
routable maps require knowledge of the nodes, distances between them and more. It’s massively harder to do and I suspect only offers a big advantage to a very small number of people. I suspect the majoirty of buyers don’t apprecaite teh difference (until they get lost following a route 😉 )
A readiness score and a triathlete touchless transition mode. Similar to the Wahoo Rival.