Garmin Rotating Crown Leak: The Innovation That NOBODY Wants?
Garmin is sports tech’s great innovator, but is this an innovation too far?
A recent patent filing (US20250341869A1) suggests Garmin is poised to introduce a rotating crown to its smartwatches. But why is the sentiment generally anti?
Why A Rotating Crown? The Pros and Cons
Rotating crowns on watches date back decades.
Tech has moved on, and a crown to control a smartwatch opens up new interaction methods. It is more easily used with gloves in harsh environments, replicating scroll and zoom actions. It also keeps smudges off the screen and adds precision.
However, the downsides are several: accidental spins, increased complexity/cost, and the potential for debris build-up and damage. The sentiment of Reddit is generally anti:
The Rotating Options: Hall-Effect vs. Mechanical
The report suggests a Hall-effect design is planned (unverified). The Hall effect uses magnetism to determine the rate of movement. Other potential options include:
- Mechanical: Satisfying clicks, but prone to wearing out quickly.
- Optical: Highly sensitive, but impacted by dust. (Apple has a patent for this: 2020/0033815 A1)
- Capacitive: Robust and vibration-tolerant, similar to the Hall effect.
- Inductive: Uses electromagnetic fields; durable in harsh environments.
…makes it sound like it was something people wanted. Personally, it sounds like something that would compromise durability, waterproofness, while providing no additional functionality that you’d really care about. u/nawksnai.
From my extensive testing (Apple Watch, Coros Pace Pro), the tech works well, though I find the aesthetics questionable. Perhaps a rotating bezel could offer the advantages without compromising Garmin’s trademark aesthetic?
When Might We See This?
I speculate the leak comes from an early render or Hobbyist’s concept art. If real, it would not appear on a Fenix Series watch but might first appear on a generalist Garmin watch—such as the Venu 5 or Vivoactive 7—plausibly in 2026.
With 20 years of testing Garmin wearables and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, I provide expert insights into fitness tech, helping athletes and casual users make informed choices.
Reader-Powered Content
This content is not sponsored. It’s mostly me behind the labour of love, which is this site, and I appreciate everyone who follows, subscribes or Buys Me A Coffee ❤️ Alternatively, please buy the reviewed product from my partners. Thank you! All articles are human-written, fact-checked, and verified for originality using Grammarly’s AI and plagiarism tools. See the Editorial Policy for details. FTC: Affiliate Disclosure: Links pay commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 
Rotating crown makes sense for maps, zooming in and out on garmin watch is pure pain. But with the garbage processor that they use that takes multiple seconds to even load the map after zooming, I guess the watch is more likely to explode when using a crown.
On all their watches having less than 5 buttons crown makes sense.
E.g. if the new Venu 4 had a crown we could use it more smoothly during running
to change bwteen different datafields.
I’d love to have a rotating bezel as much as I’d hate to have a crown. Those five buttons are as much Garmin’s watch identity as rounded rectangle is Apple’s.
And no amount of “also available” lines like Vivoactive has changed that. Garmin switching to a crown would be a huge risk of alienating long time users, inspiring them to try other brands.
What they could is offering a watch with a crown as yet another series. That would be perfectly in character…
i got too excited at first thinking it was oging to be a rotating bezel. then reality hit home.
i’m not so sure the rotating bezel is quite as good in sport, might be good for general use.
I was thinking of it not for initiating any interaction (like from a cold start), only for scrolling through menus in lieu of those lower left buttons when the interaction has been started in a different way. Something half way between buttons and touchscreen in terms of ease, but more shower friendly. Yeah, I’m actually not using my Fenix in glacial waterfalls, heh.
Then I checked what the up/down buttons do from idle (glances) and it’s the same as the touchscreen. Perhaps it would not be all that bad even from idle? Just have the same activation logic as the touchscreen. With a convenient copy settings feature.
I have a MARQ with a touchscreen… that I almost never use. I turn it off for two reasons. Firstly I find that the touchscreen gets activated a lot by accident. Then when I want to tell the time, it’s showing some other random screen or, worse, draining battery waiting to start a run or I’ve changed some setting I can’t remember how to change back. Secondly, the five buttons are just so good. They’re quick and intuitive (once you’re over the initial learning curve) and more reliable than touch. They also work in the wet, the cold, when I’m dripping with sweat and when I’m wearing thick gloves. For me, a rotating bezel will probably be as useful as the touchscreen: solely for the rare occasions I’ve taken an wrong turn on a trail and need to pan around the map but not so badly lost that I need to get my phone out.
yes on my fr970 i rarely use the touchscreen…say 5-10% of interaction times.
on the apple watch i usethe touchscreen much more and maybe the bezel less than i should.
as all readers know by now I’m probably a contrarian.
no i’m not.
Does the Marq allow starting an activity from touch? My F7p only has glances. While it is possible to enter some energy draining stuff from digging deeper in glances, this has never been an issue for me.
The Viviactive 4 I had before (two buttons + touch) also allowed setting arbitrary shortcuts to swipe left/right which the Fenix lags. Took me months to stop being completely annoyed that I have to do some multi-key hold for quick access to pay. Perhaps for Marq they were generous enough to include both, five buttons and sideways swipe shortcuts? Chances are you can also set the shortcuts to nothing.
These small differences, like Vivoactive has side swipe shortcuts and Fenix has not are actually a detail I really miss in the Garmin blog world. Far more interesting than adding yet another sport.
You can only get to the activity page with the top right button, you are right, but this is also easy to press unintentionally (for me at least) even with the Gen 2 raised protection on that button. Once there, however, you select the activity type by touch, which then enters GPS mode. So touch being on makes getting to this mode by accident more frequent.
No there are no swipe sideways shortcuts I’ve found so it’s probably identical to the F7p in that sense. I’ve setup the top-left and bottom left buttons to access pay which (again once it’s memorised) is easier for me that a side swipe would be.
I agree usability details should be Garmin’s focus rather than adding sports or other marketing BS. The fact that their project managers are chasing the latter is probably why their sales have softened IMHO. E.g. on the latest micro LED watch, I would have chosen to shave 1 mm of the thickness if it had been a choice between that or touch.
Actually I think that Garmin does a pretty good job with these things. Like adding horizontal swipe shortcut on watches that are a little short on buttons. And a pretty well equipped toolkit for setting up selective touch deactivation, backlight (for the MIP holdouts) and so on. I was lamenting that we rarely get to read about these differences from the influencer crowd.
And as for the horizontal swipe to pay: you have no idea how much I miss being able to fire up the virtual credit card with a quick swipe on the nose while my other hand is busy balancing the goods 😂
@George: Not correct. The current software absolutely allows getting to the Activities (and Apps) menu via touch, by simply swiping left from the watchface – and, as you noted, from there selecting the Activity/App can also be done by touch.
The only thing that requires use of the button is starting (and stopping) an Activity.
At least this Fenix 9 looks pretty dope with the crown and the crown guards, but I guess the loudspeaker is going to be moved to the other side of the case. I could imagine the X2 would be a good guinea pig, unless it is too skinny. But IOT accommodate left handers, you would have to be able turn the watch and with it the view on the display…..but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
What makes me suspect hobby artist render (eager for the attention generated by fake product leaks) is the super thin bezel. That crowd just loves the screen to body metric (*). But then on the other hand, there’s this subtle step around the topmost bezel ring, as of the designer tried hard to the non-screen area appear smaller than the hardware allows. The hobbyist might have just picked better fantasy hardware.
The little Garmin triangle on the band is an interesting touch