Garmin Connect+ WAVERS: Is Personalised LiveTrack Profile Now FREE?
An article today on GarminRumors suggests that Garmin is being forced to RETHINK its controversial Connect+ strategy. The materials seen by the site suggest that the key Connect+ feature—the personalised LiveTrack profile page—may be dropping its Connect+ membership requirement.
If true, this represents a significant watering down of the Connect+ service, signalling that Garmin may be rethinking the future of its subscription offerings.
Background: The Connect+ Value Proposition
Connect+ is Garmin’s subscription service, introduced on 27th March 2025. For $6.99/mo or $69.99/year, you get access to several exclusive features, shown below:
| Features | Free Garmin Connect |
Premium Garmin Connect+ |
|---|---|---|
| Details of every tracked activity | Yes | Yes |
| Health stats & Performance metrics | Yes | Yes |
| Garmin Coach training plans | Yes | Yes |
| Exclusive coaching guidance for Garmin Coach plans | No | Yes |
| Exclusive badge challenges | No | Yes |
| Animated exercises and workout database | Yes | Yes |
| Build and download courses for rides and runs | Yes | Yes |
| LiveTrack (Basic Sharing) | Yes | Yes |
| Enhanced LiveTrack (Personalised Profile, SMS) | No | Yes |
| Active Intelligence | No | Yes |
| Performance dashboard | No | Yes |
| Live activity feed | No | Yes |
Garmin LiveTrack for Connect+ is an enhanced version of the feature that automatically sends text messages to selected contacts when a LiveTrack session begins. It requires a subscription, and, unlike the free version, the paid service streamlines the process by automatically notifying contacts and providing them with a unique URL to track your live location and statistics, such as pace and elevation.
The Connect+ Paywall Crumbles: Who Gets Free Access?
Typically, the enhanced LiveTrack profile page is created with a dedicated URL for friends, fans or family, and this currently requires a paid-for Connect+ account. The site implies it has seen marketing materials from Garmin that suggest the feature could now be available to “everyone with a connectivity subscription”.
This is a slight change in wording, but it appears to be Garmin’s first official backtracking on a core Connect+ offering.
Edit: 7 Nov 2025 – Several readers have confirmed my hypothesis that enhanced live track is now included with inReach subscription (and Maps+)
Final Thoughts On Connect+ – Is the end in sight?
No.
I don’t see Garmin watering down Connect+ entirely just yet, but this is a wavering signal.
I’ll have to see the precise wording and any announcement from the company, but a simple explanation could be that LiveTrack2 (Enhanced LiveTrack) will become open to anyone with any subscription—I’m specifically thinking of inReach (and Maps+) subscribers. Regardless, the shift in language confirms the challenge Garmin faces in justifying the $69.99/year exclusivity and the take-up of Connect+.
Last Updated on 29 January 2026 by the5krunner
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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.
The only feature in Connect+ that I want is the SMS for LiveTrack as my wife uses Livetrack whenever she runs on her own but I only get an email and not an SMS. I think this is a feature of Strava Beacon but equally she does not have a Strava Premium.
The paid badges I find offensive. It violates the entire concept of earned points for your Garmin “level”. It was already possible to game things with challenges but paid badges is bullshit.
I agree. I have been a Garmin user (running, cycling , swimming and gym) for quite sometime, but think next time I need a new watch I will look elsewhere. The better watches from all of the good brands do more than enough even for intense users like me. In my opinion, Garmin+ is a huge own goal.
I don’t have a problem with Connect+ in principle. Garmin needs to make a profit and it’s unreasonable to expect unlimited free upgrades for life. As the hardware matures, it’s natural that future enhancements migrate to software and it’s only fair to pay for that.
The problem I have with Connect+ is the meagre content of the offering. It seems to show that Garmin is more focussed on profit that looking after its customers. A company that respected its customers would never have priced that so high or would have waited until they had something genuinely useful to customers *before* launching it. They appear to be chasing arbitrary and short-term metrics to please Wall St, like gross margin, which is the road to ruin. They need to go back to thinking more like a startup. Build first, monetise second.
I am not sure that this really constitutes a “crumbling” of the C+ paywall. Enhanced LiveTrack always struck me as the “odd one out” of the C+ features. Also, conceptually Enhanced LiveTrack aligns more with the suite of connectivity features.
So (re)moving it from C+ to InReach looks more like some cleaning up/housekeeping as the offerings evolve.