Garmin adds AI and a subscription tier to its app

AI insights were inevitable. | Image: Garmin

It was lone a substance of time. Garmin announced contiguous it’s launching Garmin Connect Plus, a premium tier to its app that adds AI-powered insights and a fewer different expanded features. Existing and caller Garmin users volition beryllium capable to opt successful to a escaped 30-day proceedings and past take betwixt a $6.99 monthly oregon $69.99 yearly subscription. All existing wellness information and features, however, volition stay free.

“Developing a premium tier enables america to widen our concern successful the Garmin Connect platform, some successful presumption of features that transportation further outgo to supply and besides successful scaling retired our engineering teams to build and support these features,” says Garmin spokesperson Natalie Miller.

AI is the large summation to Connect Plus. The feature, dubbed Active Intelligence, volition rotation retired arsenic a beta and purportedly delivers “personalized insights and suggestions” based connected your wellness and enactment data. Over time, the insights and goals are expected to go much personalized to the idiosyncratic user.

That’s astir each the accusation Garmin has provided frankincense acold astir the AI-powered broadside of things, but it’s connected inclination for fittingness apps and wearable makers lately. Whoop was archetypal to add an AI grooming coach successful precocious 2023, portion Strava besides rolled retired AI summaries for activities past year. Among bigger tech companies, Samsung added AI-powered insights portion Google added AI-generated moving workouts to its smartwatches past year. Oura besides has added an AI wellness chatbot to its fashionable astute ring, arsenic person respective smaller wearable makers successful the past 2 years. Garmin and Apple person frankincense acold been the 2 large holdouts for wearable AI features, and with today’s announcement, that leaves conscionable Apple.

Connect Plus besides adds a caller show dashboard that lets users comparison customized charts and graphs implicit a play of clip to visualize progress. Subscribers volition besides beryllium capable to presumption unrecorded enactment metrics connected a smartphone for workouts that were started connected a watch. LiveTrack volition besides beryllium expanded truthful you tin notify selected contacts erstwhile an enactment starts and a personalized illustration leafage for followers. People utilizing Garmin Coach plans for moving and cycling volition besides person further guidance from Garmin coaches. Lastly, determination volition beryllium exclusive badges and frames for user’s app profiles.

Whether this is capable worth to tempt loyal Garmin users is different question — particularly since Garmin has been vocal successful the past astir not paywalling features. Back successful 2022, I asked Phil McClendon, Garmin’s task pb for the Venu 2 Plus, astir the company’s doctrine regarding subscriptions. At the time, McClendon told The Verge, “We’re not charging you the quality to entree your data, and that’s thing we volition proceed to bash and that we consciousness precise powerfully about.” McClendon is nary longer astatine Garmin, and technically this is inactive existent since each existing features and information volition stay free. However, successful the years since that conversation, Garmin has occasionally softened its messaging regarding paywalls. At a 2023 property briefing for the Venu 3, Garmin enactment noted that the institution had robust subscriptions extracurricular its fittingness tracker concern but declined to accidental that determination would never beryllium a subscription.

Among fans, the deficiency of a subscription (outside of mapping features oregon LTE connectivity) has ever been touted arsenic a plus. Especially since Garmin watches are, connected average, much costly than the competition. It’s hard to accidental however fans volition respond fixed that truthful overmuch volition stay free, but mostly speaking, introducing subscriptions is simply a dicey proposition. Oura, for instance, experienced monolithic backlash erstwhile it introduced a subscription with its Gen 3 ring.

Either way, Garmin has faced accrued contention these past years. Both Apple and Samsung launched rugged outdoors smartwatches of their own, portion Coros has emerged arsenic different fashionable marque among athletes with agelong artillery beingness and precocious GPS. At the aforesaid time, Garmin’s wearables part isn’t precisely suffering. It precocious surpassed expectations for its Q4 earnings, reporting a ample 31 percent summation successful fittingness tracker income and its banal hitting grounds highs.