new Garmins 2025 – best possible scenario
You’ve heard of Fantasy Football. Let’s play fantasy Garmin for the fall season.
Many of you will have already read the solid rumours and speculation in this post. However, this post assumes that Garmin’s R&D and production teams have gone into overdrive and, for some reason, have decided to focus on a massive fall schedule with a maximal number of new products released in September and October.
We combine some of the solid 3rd party Garmin rumors that I’ve not had other corroboration for.
In the best possible case, we could get this.
- Forerunner 270 – a cheaper cut-down version of Forerunner 570
- Forerunner 170 – a cheaper cut-down version of Forerunner 270
- Forerunner 975 or FR970 Pro. This would be a Forerunner 970 with LTE/RedCap
- Fenix 8 Pro this is a Fenix 8 adding
- MicroLED display tech AND
- LTE+Emergency Satellite comms (possibly 5G)
- D2 Mach 2 (Fenix 8 derivative)
- Edge 850 – touchscreen version of Edge 1050 w/solar option
- Edge 550 – button-only version of Edge 1050 w/solar option
- Edge 150 – button-only budget version of Edge 1050, like Edge MTB but without the MTB ;-).
- Rally x10 Pedals – Updated versions of the existing Garmin Rally Range
- Varia Vision next gen – MicroLED enabled Heads-Up-display/Goggles/Glasses
- Venu 4
- TAC Neo bike Pro – updated Tacx Neo Bike
- Tacx NEO 4 (bike-on trainer) – updated TACX Neo 3M
- Other Accessories
- Varia RTL525 updated base-level Varia RTL515 for compliance and modest refresh.
The main thrust for September/October across the industry is for smart watches. This is driven to some degree by the fitness and sports seasons for running/cycling/triathlon winding down in the Northern Hemisphere and the broader appeal of smart devices suitable for the Christmas market coming to the forefront of shoppers’ minds.
Thus, the Venu 4 is a likely shoe-in for September/October (and it’s been leaked!).
Fall/Autumn also sees the indoor cycling season kicking off, and this has historically been the time we all started to buy smart trainers to go with Zwift. So a new Tacx or accessory (like Alpine) also have a good chance of appearing in some form.
Perhaps another driver this year will be watch-based SOS-satellite technology. A new wave of this tech has just started, as surprisingly shown on the latest Google Pixel Watch. This inevitably means that the tech is ready for market, so Google’s component supplier and their competition will have lined up deals to get their tech on our wrists – most notably via Apple and Garmin, who both have a strategic focus of providing the right kinds of services to the outdoor adventure watch market. SOS-satellite is a key feature for the future to remain credible in that market.
Garmin Fenix SATELLITE Technology is feasible – proven today by Google
Another wave of technology is also swelling. That is microLED. The tech has been plausible for about two years, but has not hit the mainstream because the factories cannot make enough components due to high failure rates; thus, the component cost rises and is too high to incorporate in watches at anything other than premium price points. microLED display failure rates and costs will definitely change sometime soon, and we’ve already seen a leak from Garmin earlier this year confirming they are using the tech on a prototype Fenix 8 derivative. Whether it comes to market this year or next remains to be seen as the practicalities get ironed out.
Take Out
I think that’s about it. Have I missed any?
Those that I think are more likely are in GREEN, those I believe unlikely for 2025 are in red.
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any chance we’d see an update to Varia RTL515 with the Vision release? A USB-C update is LONG overdue!
yes
i did have that in en earlier draft
instinct crossover 2
is it worth waiting for this year?
Good to know that I am not the only one interested.
An instinct crossover 2 50mm would strongly raise my interest
Same here! Crossover series is “quietly there” but it would be very interesting surpirse to see it in its second generation (i.w. with GI 3 sw/hw).
If the 1050 gets half the runtime of the 1040 from a battery twice the size (numbers slightly exaggerated for simplicity, but it’s close enough), a 1050 solar would get 15 minutes of extra runtime for every extra hour the 1040 solar gets. And they don’t get many. With the gains of the 1040s already being hardly worth a premium, a 1050 solar would be a total joke.
Unless of course if it’s a MIP, like in the Fenix 8 range, but that would hardly be more than a 1040 with a bell. (unless they don’t right-size the battery)
Garminrumors had a link to the official US Garmin website where both the Fenix 8 Pro LTE and MicoLed were posted….I saw it with my own eyes….if you follow the link now you only see the X1. So I guess the F8 Pro is approaching fast!
tomorrow
There’s a lot of talk on reddit today that the Fenix 8 Pro and MicroLED are being released tomorrow. People have even posted screenshots on the Garmin website showing them. Speculation is that LTE will be $10/mo, might include satellite SOS (but probably not non-emergency messaging), and microled probably will only be in one size, either 47 or 51mm.
check my other posts…all the info is there
InReach and microLED. Just gonna set you back $2k.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1723221/pn/010-03380-00/
I was hoping after seeing DC Rainmakers post about the new Journal features on GC and his hint at the chess pieces that you would have some intel of a screenless whoop like band. It only makes sense at this point that they release one like Polar and Amazfit.
We have waited long enough!!!!
after the garmin sleep band was released i would guess that a whoop-like garmin will be at least another year. but the sleep band is a sign that garmin is considering such a 247 whoop-like product.
with the offerings fro polar LOOP and amazfit Helios it would make sense for garmin to wait to see how it can best handle those cheaper offerings (garmin would be more expensive!)