10.5 Garmin C*ck Ups - What's going on at Garmin HQ? Garmin seems to be making some odd decisions. Here are 10.5 of them...do they matter? Let's see. The apparent craziness is not as clear-cut as you might think or as others claim. Garmin Rumours has other views - here. 1. Old sensors on new watches Garmin seems intent on releasing new watches with old sensors onboard. We've seen Instinct 3, Descent G2 and MARQ Damascus; both come with the previous-gen Elevate 4 optical heart rate sensor rather than the passive-ECG-capable Elevate Gen 5 (2023). Good move - It uses up old stock and saves money with cheaper component costs. It gives a reason to upgrade to a more expensive Garmin alternative than you might have considered. Bad Move - leaves a bad taste in the mouth when the buyer realises that Garmin deliberately under-specified their new, prized possession. Bad for the brand. I think this was probably a sensible strategy for Instinct 3, nicely stating why Fenix 8 is better in one more respect. However, if I'd bought MARQ Damascus, I would undoubtedly feel cheated but probably still happy I had a beautiful watch. [caption id="attachment_98190" align="aligncenter" width="300"] #SaveFreeGarmin - No Paywall[/caption] 2. Subscription furore with Connect+ Those of you who want the best Garmin feature set know you will have to pay $100/year to get behind the new subscription paywall in Connect+. Good Move - Subscriptions are widely used in today's tech ecosystems. The new paywall doesn't phase a significant number of Garmin owners (poll). Bad Move - only a tiny percentage of Garmin Connect users seem willing to pay. The features announced so far are not worth the subscription. It feels insulting to pay $1000 for a watch and then pay more. Within 2 years, we will see a compelling subscription tier of Connect+ features offered by sporting tech's behemoth. It doesn't look good now, but there is hope for those who want to play with features we never needed in the first place. 3. "Abandoned", Recent Premium Watch Models like Fenix 7 Pro Sports watchmakers must build their products with some type of obsolescence; otherwise, we will never upgrade, and they won't make money. The alternative to such a strategy is a subscription-only model like Whoop. When the hardware allows it, Apple appears to be a comparable company to Garmin and adds new features to very old models - that seems more than fair. Garmin gives a distinct impression that it deliberately restricts the availability of the best new features to slightly older models. When you've paid getting on for $1,000 for a new watch two years ago, that doesn't sit well. Good Move - Garmin's strategy is profitable. Bad Move - Damages the brand. More: The subtleties of feature obsolescence and how batteries silently create obsolescence for Apple Watches. While what I said above is true, Garmin is internally re-organising and simplifying how its software is written and updated. To cut a long and tedious technical story short, some old watches are caught on obsolete software branches. They've been largely abandoned, but this situation shouldn't arise again, and garmin is taking the reputational hit now. [caption id="attachment_96875" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Instinct Maps with dwMAP vs Forerunner Maps[/caption] 4. No Maps On An Outdoor Navigational Watch - Instinct 3 Garmin's two main outdoor adventure watch series are Instinct and Fenix. It has to differentiate between the two in several ways to justify the much higher price of the latter. Fair enough. Using the latest components, incorporating superior materials, and having every feature are obvious ways to do that. Omitting a key feature like maps seems crazy. Good Move - Provides a clear point of difference to Fenix. There are workarounds with dwMAP and Garmin Explore. Many people don't need a map to follow a simple and popular trail in the middle of summer. Bad Move - damages the brand and gives the impression that Garmin doesn't understand its customers. It encourages potential buyers to look elsewhere, where they will easily find maps with similarly priced competitive offerings. I'm torn on whether this is as bad a move as it seems. Garmin's launch marketing for Instinct was not aimed at outdoor adventurers following complex routes. Instead, the company identified a lifestyle market for youngsters who like the rugged Casio aesthetic. I'm pretty sure Garmin has made a profitable move here, at least in the short term. Nevertheless, it feels like another ill-thought-through attempt to damage its brand. 5. Instinct E Loses Features Garmin's confusing product line has models that overlap with others in numerous ways. The latest incarnation was the release of the budget Instinct 3 series - called Instinct E; this just happened to have several worse features than the older Instinct 2 (and some better). Good Move - Garmin has to differentiate the models within each generation. Sure, there is overlap from the bottom of a new series to the top of an old series, but that overlap will vanish as old stock runs out. Bad Move - Garmin has too much stock of older models in the retail supply chain. Apple does the same thing as Garmin, but you will struggle to find watches for sale by the older generation, much after the new series launch. Apple better manages and predicts sales, stock and production levels. So this is a good move by Garmin, but it was poorly executed. 6. Forcibly Disabled dual Frequency GNSS and SatIQ Garmin's multiple constellation GNSS (GPS) chips from Airoha with dual frequency reception are amongst the most accurate on the market and used by its competitors. Compared to every previous generation, whose accuracy I repeatedly lambasted as 'not accurate!', these Airoha (MediaTek) chips now have acceptable (good) accuracy. Dual frequency gives us the accuracy we never had - it's the accuracy we need, but it comes at a price - both in dollar terms and battery consumption terms. However, something odd is going on. Some recent watches, like Vivoactive 6, lack dual frequency/SatIQ yet seem accurate enough. Garmin appears to be deliberately disabling dual frequency to differentiate mid-range products from more premium alternatives further. Good Move - it's another point of difference, and the accuracy is OK, so does it matter? Bad Move - Artificially disabling a hardware feature seems petty and damages the brand. This appears to reinforce similar deliberate actions by Garmin to hamstring its products. My take follows a different line and was partially revealed by recent Garmin Running Power algorithm changes. What I think is going on here is that Garmin is using the latest generation chipset from Airoha, but there are two versions - a dual-frequency one and one that lacks that feature. So Garmin is using a cheaper component that is probably also more power efficient. It's accurate enough, so...good move. 7. Instinct 3 Solar is under-specified and firmware can't always be updated Garmin appears to be scraping the barrel of minimum specified products when delving into the details of Instinct 3. There is so little free space on Instinct 3 that it can't update its firmware on Garmin Express. Good Move - help me, I'm struggling here. Bad move - Yet another product that hasn't been adequately tested, revealing a serious hardware flaw that is impossible to rectify. Awful hit on the brand, showing incompetence. 128Mb of space is ludicrous on a modern-day smartwatch. It's tiny. I believe the workaround is to update firmware over Bluetooth through Garmin Connect, but even so... Garmin has also mysteriously added insult to injury by giving Instinct 3 AMOLED way more space than it seems to need. However, this is likely because music will be added in the next few months. This is a terrible oversight by Garmin. 8. Failure to act on spam, 3rd Party Watchfaces in Garmin Connect Garmin seemed to find the resources to introduce childish $5 Darth Vadar watch faces, yet could not stop errant developers adding spam-levels of content by flooding Connect with multiple faces with only minor differences. Good Move - Seemingly, No Bad Move - Yes This petty move was likely part of the broader strategy to introduce paid-for features, testing our willingness to pay for watch faces and having the payment mechanism to handle the transaction. It's hard to criticise Garmin for not testing things on one hand and then blame the company for testing them here, so I guess this is a good move. Expect more of this and some premium watch faces behind the Connect+ paywall. 9. Aesthetic Nonsense Instinct 3 was another example of a Garmin launch where a preponderance of odd colour options were available to the exclusion of colours most people want. Maybe I'm naive, but I would have thought a vanilla black option would sell the most. We all like customizability. Sure, Garmin lets us change straps more easily these days, but the Instinct 3 Solar has an orange metal ring that is part of the case structure. It so cannot be changed (some owners on Reddit were painting over the orange !). Several Instinct 3 Series 'colourful' case/strap options were available at launch. As you saw from my review imagery, the multiple-blue coloured one I bought undoubtedly only appeals to a small subset of people, i.e. virtually no one. Good Move - No, at least not at launch. Release the dodgy colours later. Brands DO like to give unusually coloured watches to reviewers as they think they give more striking imagery in reviews. Bad Move - Yes, it seems that a black-only model isn't going to happen. You must get the Instinct 3 Tactical version if you want all black - but it's not yet released/ [gallery columns="4" ids="97159,97158,97157,97156"] I guess that's the problem with letting 17-year-olds design the colours of watches grown-ups buy. On the positive side, Garmin's Instagram people loved one of my Instinct 3 images so much that they asked if they could use it on their reels (or for whatever other purpose; I don't mind, as they asked nicely). 10 A Budget $800 watch Fenix E is the budget Fenix 8, coming in at $799. Can you have a budget or 'essential' model at this price point? I don't think so. Maybe if branded as 'core'/'core features', that would sound better? Similar issues are raised here, such as with the Instinct E, most notably overlapping with older Garmin watches that are still actively sold. In this case, that means Epix 2 Pro. It will be interesting to see if Garmin's upcoming Edge x50 series also includes an Edge E model, replacing what would otherwise be called the Edge 150. Garmin certainly should do that if it values consistency, but I suspect they won't. That decision will again highlight how Garmin's two internal divisions work at loggerheads with each other. Decisions like that (if they happen) are detrimental to the overall Garmin brand, perception, and positioning. My takeout here is the same as what I gave to Instinct E. Garmin made a good move but poorly executed it. 11 Feature Delays - ECG ECG is a key selling point for watches with the 5th generation Elevate optical sensor. Garmin took many months to get ECG working outside of the USA, finally making everyone happy in the EU and Australia in January 2025. Good Move - These things take time Bad Move - Perhaps Garmin could have allocated more resources and moved the regulatory applications faster in parallel for all countries. I'm not overly concerned about this. The ECG feature is passive in any case, requiring manual initiation and is of little use (but some). 12. A More strategic take on things Garmin does wrong This article has been about specific failures and annoyances, which are probably all fixable to some degree if Garmin is motivated in that direction. Some of Garmin's bigger problems at a strategic level are covered in this article. https://the5krunner.com/2025/02/05/what-garmin-does-wrong-%c2%a6-why-its-strategy-is-broken/ Take Out Present company excepted, we all mess up from time to time. Large organisations can compound mistakes made by multiple people or have the checks and balances to stop them from happening and align product launches with strategic vision. Garmin has made a few c*ck ups of late - the issues above are all genuine ones. I suspect we will look back in a few years and understand that Garmin is transitioning. It's changing its product naming and differentiation strategies, boosting its potential income streams, improving how its products work at every level, and more. In many of our minds, Garmin is far from perfect, but its balance sheet and cash balance suggest otherwise. Geopolitical storms are coming thick and fast and will continue to do so - Might the President's tariff action against China fatally wound Chinese-based competition like Coros? Garmin will survive to see the end of those problems; others might not. Might China invade Taiwan where Garmin's wearables are assembled? the US government has a working assumption this will happen before 2027 - has Garmin? We live in interesting times.
