Vote to show how you feel about Garmin Connect+ – the subscription paywall
The clamour to shout down Garmin’s new, poor-value, paywalled subscription features is dying. How do you feel about being forced to pay a subscription to get every new Garmin feature?
How angry are you about Garmin Connect+ – the subscription service for its app? #garminconnect #garmin #running #run #strava #garminforerunner #garminfenix #runner
— the5krunner (@the5krunner) April 6, 2025
If you don’t care: Here are some ways that Garmin connect+ might expand with new features
If you care, Here’s what you need to do about it.
Last Updated on 29 January 2026 by the5krunner
My favourite kit and nutrition
- Maurten — the race nutrition trusted by elite athletes. Gels and drink mix engineered to be easy on the stomach.
- Garmin 90-degree charging adapter — the small adapter that keeps your charging cable tidy at the stem. Essential for race day.
- Garmin charging puck — the fastest and most reliable way to top up your Garmin before a session.
- Ravemen FR300 — front light that mounts directly under your Garmin or Wahoo head unit. Keeps your bars clean and your beam pointed where it matters.
- Garmin Varia RTL515 — radar rear light that alerts you to vehicles approaching from behind. Pairs with your Edge or Garmin watch.
- Stryd — the footpod that brings running power to your Garmin. The single most useful running upgrade I have made.
- Favero Assioma Pro RS2 — the power meter pedals most serious cyclists end up choosing. Accurate, easy to move between bikes.
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
The active Intelligent “feature” is the most useless feature I’ve experienced. I wasn’t expecting much, but I’m still disappointed. The other features aren’t THAT worthy either and far from covering that price. WTF is this shit?
…yeah I agree
“Set the bar low and fail to achieve it”
it will improve, for sure
I am fully prepared for Garmin to shift more and more features over to Connect+ in the next 5 – 8 years, without changing the prices for their devices. You will get a free subscription for 3-12 month, depending on the watch you buy, and after that you either pay the subscription or lose some of your data. Basic stuff will probably still be free, but the fancy features will cost extra.
After paying over a 1000 bucks, they want me to pay a fortune each year on top just to use the software. After having bought 3 watches, this is the last Garmin I’ll ever buy, a stab in the back.
Seriously, you are asking me to use Twitter? I have never been a member of any far-right organisation.
Give us a sensible option to vote.
iused to use crowdsignal/polldaddy but used up all my free allowances (I think)
i’m happy to incorporate any free voting mechanism for wordpress that anyone suggests
Surveymonkey?
i dont think its free and there isn’t a dedicated wordpress plugin , iirc
I fear the next generation! 😂 They might have to pay subscription to breathe…
check out Gary’s Economics on youTube. Interesting chap.
Your fear might not be too far from the truth for many currently comfortable middle class people
Deleted my Twitter account a while back so no voting for me.
As always John, I’m happy to get a comment from you!
At the moment it’s a firm no as I don’t see any real value there. My worry is what does it mean for future products. Must admit I like my shiny new toys as much as anyone else but will it now have the funky new features (whatever they might be) locked behind a paywall in which case why would I get it?
Don’t forget BMW’s climbdown on trying to charge people a monthly subscription for stuff that was already present in their car, heated seats I think.
it’s even worse for bmw where the service costs is effectively another subscription
In the case of BMW, the backlash was so enormous that even people who don’t own and aren’t buying BMW’s heard about it and were making fun of it. The news was so absurd that it ended up in EVERYONE’S news feeds, whether they were BMW people or not. Fortunately for Garmin, and unfortunately for us, this new Connect subscription news is limited to a pretty small audience of Garmin users. The backlash has been vocal, but small. Most of the world continues to not know or care about it.
And I think in a month or so even the most vocal opponents among us are going to get bored complaining to deaf ears, and move on. The initial outrage will subside, and Garmin will carry on with their dumb plan.
I agree.
Perhaps also it is the vocal minority that complain and are heard.
Most people interested in sports tech probably aren’t bothered, as this shows: https://x.com/the5krunner/status/1908910681941811320
Don’t have twitter account, but Garmin don’t get any more money from me. Very dislike move to pay-walled badges. I read your article they don’t care about that, but its true 🙂 No more money from me to garmin, I thinking about next apple ultra or suunto race+ titanium+mp3 player. I even write song how I feel to easy the pain 🙂
I am a Garmin customer since FR320xt.
Every second year a new Garmin watch.
This ends now, no subscription.
If dashboards are your thing, there’s always this project – https://github.com/arpanghosh8453/garmin-grafana
Took me a little while to get it going mind you. Helps if you’re familiar with Linux & Docker.
C’est inadmissible de faire payer un abonnement lorsque l’on achète une montre à 1000€. La prochaine ne sera surtout pas une Garmin dans ce cas là