Garmin Connect+: Expanding the grimey tentacles of worthless subscription.
You’ve had a great year in sport, albeit an expensive one, as you forked out $1,000 on a new Garmin watch. A little expensive, but you’re happy with it.
Let’s say you’re a half-decent athlete or, at least, an aspiring one. You’ve tracked your VO2max hourly over the year. It’s changed a bit, positively, and you wish it were a tad higher. But now the year is over (almost), it’s time for a bit of fun, and you want to half-jokingly share some of your lesser achievements with friends and family.
Handily, you may have read a leak on this site in November about Garmin’s upcoming “Connect Rundown” feature. It’s designed just for you and people like you. Those who want to share the hilarity of metrics like “I burned the equivalent of 847 slices of chocolate cake” in sports this year. Things like that. Well, things like these, in fact:
- Running: Fastest 5K, 10K, half-marathon, marathon; longest run.
- Cycling: Quickest 40K, most elevation gain, longest ride, max avg power.
- Swimming: Speediest 100m/yd, 400m, 1000m/yd, up to 1650 yd.
- Strength: PRs in deadlift, bench press, squat, row, and overhead press.
- Parasports: Fastest pushes for 1K, 5K, 10K, mile, half/full marathon; longest streak. Longest step or push streaks.
- Distance: Monthly totals; longest activity mapped. Fun: “391 trips down an airport runway” or “crossing the English Channel 6 times.”
- Elevation: Peak climbs equated to the Eiffel Tower (24 times) or Mount Everest twice.
- Calories: Burned “847 slices of chocolate cake.”
- Time: “16 entire days of moving.”
- Steps: “Over 7 miles—more than 18 marathons.”
- Sleep: Avg duration/score; highest Garmin Sleep Score night; “89 nights with 8+ hours” or “80 score.”
- Body Battery: Avg daily charge/drain/high; your body charged to 100%+ on 43 days.
- Top activity highlighted (“running was your top”);
- total activities;
- monthly counts.
- Pushes: Most in a day (12 on October 14).
Garmin Connect Rundown Leaked: 2025 Annual Fitness Summary in Beta
Great.
Imagine your delight as you head on over to the reports section of the Garmin Connect app, only to discover that you have to pay to share this nonsense. I mean, you only spent $1,00 on a watch. You’re a bit tight, so you deserve to pay more…regularly. Or at least that’s what Garmin seems to think, as this ‘feature’ is only available to subscribers behind the Garmin Connect+ paywall.
That will be $70, please. Thank you [Garmin]
What Can I do about this?
My advice is to write a strongly worded Reddit post claiming that you’re about to buy an Apple Watch SE 3. The people in Garmin’s Fenix (outdoor) team will be quaking in their boots, believing you and hundreds of thousands of Fenix owners like you are poised to jump ship.
Except the reality is that none of us will do anything about it. Some of us will pay.
https://the5krunner.com/2025/03/27/garmin-connect-the-future-a-more-thoughtful-take/
Last Updated on 14 March 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.
It makes Garmin look petty, as it’s not exactly a valued-added feature more a bit annual amusement.
I forget, is Strava’s equivalent also only for subscribers?
Maybe if they said “donate $1 to charity to unlock these reports” it would be a win-win situation.
That’s not a feature of connect+, it’s an ad for connect+. An attempt to make the few c+ subscribers they have volunteer for advertising to their friends that they do have a subscription. It’s really the same as every other “shareable year in review” feature: not a gift to subscribers but an attempt to get a free testimonial right in the holiday runup.
well if watch was ” only spent $1,00 on a watch. ” then i guess would make sense :p
I pay, but for Veloviewer. This and Runalyze both do serve me pretty well.
And they make nice annual shareable Year in Review pages.
A monthly subscription for features that used to be free is a tough pill to swallow, even if they are adding new stuff. I get that companies need to make money, but it feels like we’re being nickel-and-dimed on everything these days. Thanks for breaking down what you actually get for the fee.