Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't) but overall it didn't make sense to me as a product (or, evidently, to my partner, who now leaves it gathering dust).
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
The Apple Watch is also a terribly designed device for running. Too much of its functions rely on interacting with the touchscreen, something you are either unable to do with sweaty hands when running or don't want to do as it draws your attention away for a prolonged amount of time and hurts your form.
Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
I've been using a Garmin Forerunner GPS watch for years, and what I've found I like the most about it is actually the Garmin Connect app on my phone. I don't think Garmin gets enough credit as a software shop. Connect is a great application for tracking your workouts over time. A fair number of runners even use Garmin's workout plans from the app. Even compared to running apps exclusively for iOS and Android I think the Garmin app is one of the better ones around, and is free to use with no monthly fees. Combine that with the fact that I don't even have to take my phone with me, I just wear my watch and it syncs with my phone when I get home. Running with a phone sucks, I have yet to find a way to carry one that isn't annoying.
People value things differently but the battery life is always interesting to me. Certainly if I was backwoods hiking I get it but for my day to day I only take it off post workout in the morning as I shower and get ready for the day. It’s charged so quickly that I throw it back on as soon as I am done.
Apple Watches are great for people who want their watch to be an extension of their phone. Full stop.
Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note, though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
> I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad.
The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering, getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked for me for years.
From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for.
They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same ball park.
With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.
I have a Garmin Instinct 2 solar. I had g-shock watches before, because I liked how tough they were, and the instinct2 is pretty close. I wear it swimming, running, sleeping, showering, etc. I take it off about once a month when I charge it up. This summer, I went 6 weeks between charges.
The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my physical activity, and sleep).
I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing for a low level garmin.
Apple to me has clearly a goal of providing a tiny version of smart phone on your wrist. Garmin aims at as-smart-as-possible watch. Everything else comes from this philosophy, be it battery, design of not only display and it shape etc.
Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
Premium price, premium look, massively better battery, durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top, saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-device syndrome.
The first thing I do when I buy a Garmin watch (I have several) is turn off phone notifications. I simply cannot imagine why anyone would want them on. I tried for a decent amount of time but I just don't see the value in it, it's just aggravation I don't need. Not because of the implementation from Garmin, which is fine, but the whole concept.
Garmin's hardware, including the hardware of their smartwatches, are very tempting. They are designed to be easy to use even with gloves, have good battery life, and on some high end they have solar and/or 40-meter scuba diving rated.
If there's a way to use Garmin's smartwatches without using their cloud I probably would consider that. But since their ransomware attack from 2020, I really can no longer trust their cloud any more, especially that the data collected from a smartwatch is on the more sensitive side. The only Garmin hardware I'm still using is their bicycle tail light+radar, which I just use with wahoo's bike computer instead of other Garmin products.
My Garmin Forerunner 265 has pretty decent battery life, maybe 8 days. I think what was the value for many was how their Connect app processed and displayed stats, though a recent change to "be pretty" has undone much of the usefulness.
Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact, stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
There's really only 2 features my garmin forerunner lacks that would make it pretty awesome.
1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send out live track notifications from my watch would be really fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that stuff.
2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not having them.
I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two features above are the only things it does that I'd want from it.
I just don't understand how Apple, supposed masters of design and aesthetics, ever thought it was a good idea to release a square watch. It just looks so dumb.
I have a Garmin Descent Mk2i which I use for scuba diving, and it's a fabulous all-purpose fitness and adventure watch. I've used to for hundreds of dives, navigation on multiple backpacking trips, cycling, and tons of other stuff. I even wear it daily, and it nicely supports notifications from my phone.
When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats. People love them.
Man, I wanted to get the garmin dive computer so bad. It's got so many awesome features, it's just priced out of my budget. Wound up going with the peregrine from shearwater, which was about half the price, but does way less than the garmin.
Another place they shine is for bikes. Their radar system that integrates with a bike computer is absolutely groundbreaking. It's so fantastic to be able to know when a car is coming up behind you without having to turn your head and possibly lose balance, it's such a great safety feature.
I have one of those as well and it's generally a good device but it has a few weird software defects which make me wonder whether Garmin employees do any real diving? Like in the Multi-Gas activity profile it will automatically prompt you to switch gases based on calculated PO2, but the message covers the entire screen so you can't see your depth! And there's no way to disable those alerts.
- sells an accurate blood pressure cuff with WiFi data sync (sans phone)
- is an active R&D contributor to OpenEmbedded Linux
- includes optional health data sync to vertically integrated cloud
- provides open FIT [1] protocol for local data sync
Yet I can't use my new Forerunner 55 watch without connecting it to Garmin servers. They make sure it takes about an hour to have a reliable GPS position unless your make it regularly connect to an active Garmin account, either via Garmin Express (dekstop) or Garmin Connect.
I switch to GadgetBridge but without updating the AGPS files, no reliable GPS.
They also provide a lot of EFIS (Electric Flight Information System, or "Glass Cockpit") for small GA aircraft. I think AeroDyne and Honeywell are also in this market but I mainly see Garmin there. Like the G1000 (higher models are available on business jets I think).
It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
They have really become the gold standard in avionics, so much so that some airframes are preferred to others due to the fact that they've chosen to integrate a Garmin flight deck instead of Honeywell/Rockwell/etc. They have a very consistent and capable design methodology that extends from single engine piston avionics all the way up through relatively large GA jets.
The C172 with a G1000 setup was around $20/hr more at the local flight school than a C172 with a six pack. Def not needed for X-country but I always felt safer flying it through busy airspace. Garmin really does make fantastic avionics.
But the margins on that business are not exceptional. Operating income on "outdoor" segment of their business, the one that includes the epix and fenix series watches and so forth, is higher than aviation segment.
Many people get more than 3/4 day. For the Series 10 that 18 hours of battery is based on 300 time checks, 90 notifications, 15 minutes of using apps, and a 60-minute workout with music playback from the watch via Bluetooth. For watches without cellular it also assumes 18 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone. For watches with cellular it assumes 14 hours of Bluetooth connection to a phone and 4 hours of LTE cellular connection.
I've got mine set to charge to 80%, and over 23.5 hours it typically falls to somewhere in the 30-40% range. I put it on the charger for 30 minutes when I sit on my couch in the evening to watch Jeopardy! and do the NYT crossword puzzle. That's plenty of time to get it back to 80%.
I do have the always on display turned off, so the display only comes on when I turn the watch to look at it or tap or click. Always on display would take more power but my recollection from before turning it off is that it would still easily make it 23.5 hours starting from 80%. With a 20 W charger it can go from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, so that would still be done by the time I finished Jeopardy and the crossword.
(I didn't turn off always on display to save battery. I turned it off because I didn't really find it useful. When I'm not actively checking the watch I almost hold it in a position where I don't really have a good look at the display, and moving it so I can get a good look almost always would be enough to turn it on in "raise to wake" mode).
They target different market segments, that's all there is to it. Similar to how some phones get away with having an absolute rubbish camera while other brands offer high resolution cameras — they sell to different people and both companies do fine.
I can just leave my phone at home when I’m running or in the gym and get phone calls, send messages, and stream music from my watch.
I have a stand by my bed that I just plop my phone, watch and AirPods on and they all charge wirelessly and use MagSafe so I don’t have to worry about placement.
Ultra has better battery life, most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost everything essential in terms of communication without a phone if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.
That's because the analysis about Garmin is wrong. None of that stuff matters.
Garmin's competition is having kids. Moms and dads will buy Apple Watches because it is more compatible with the having kids lifestyle. In contrast you don't need a dive computer or a bicycle thing when you have no time for hobbies. So an Apple Watch with a diving app meets the demand for aspirational hobbies, which of course, aspirations have a much larger audience than going out and doing something.
That said, people having fewer kids is ultimately what is helping them the most. Every hobby got more expensive, there is more demand. If you believe that more dogs and cats, less home buying, more video game playing and TV watching, etc. is also related to the trend of fewer kids - if you read what experts say about this, and if you can believe that LOTS of stuff people spend money LOTS of money on is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the decision to have or not have kids - then expand your mind and look for it everywhere.
My Apple Watch is normally >40% by 10pm then goes on the charging stand when I go to bed. It’s part of the routine. Even if it lasted 7 days my routine would be the same.
Samsung has had 2+ day charge for several generations.
Their software was/is terrible, but since the switch to Google code 2 generations ago it is not bad.
An Apple device would need to bring 9.3x the value of a Garmin device in other ways to compensate the charge gap? I'd say Apple users would agree that it does.
The title here on HN looks more like "negative $40B pivot" than the real "approximately $40B pivot", which was a fun whiplash. I was wondering was their original car GPS market really that profitable?!
Of course, the unmentioned elephant in the room here is that Apple watches don't work with Android phones (it's possible to use the "cellular" version with limited features without a phone, but you still need an iPhone to configure it), which means that ~70% of the market are up for grabs...
But the ~70% isn't in every region, it's an average over all regions.
Certain developed countries, Apple iPhone market share is 55%-65% (Norway, USA, Canada, Japan), UK is at 50% and starts dropping down in other Western European countries. South Korea is dominated by Samsung.
> But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers.
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
The article further down has a diagram (and a reference to the source the Economist) which shows how automotive was 70% of their revenue in 2008 and how outdoor and fitness is ~50% today.
they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they may develop there first. is that what you mean by core?
because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning and now is outdoors and fitness.
I think you are correct here. There seems to be a misunderstanding that Garmin's primary industry was automotive navigation devices due to that brief moment in time. Well before Garmin made automotive devices they were a Avionics and Marine equipment company. They didn't shift away from automotive GPS as much as they continued on their original path of R&D into all things GPS.
My Garmin has a flashlight, maps with navigation on device, altimeter, barometer, thermometer, GPS and other satellite navigation systems, it tracks pulse, sleep, etc. It's perfect for hiking and cycling, helps you find the right route, shows the altitude profile, etc. The form factor is perfect, the watch is light and comfortable.
I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use certain apps are advantages
Moreover, they have a great variety of other options that look and feel similar to what you already have. So if you want to go further with cycling (and have a budget to do that), you can buy Garmin Edge bike computer.
I looked at the Apple watch but choose Garmin as it has a physical button to start and stop my run. I don't know if this is still the case but with the Apple watch I think you have to tap the touch screen. Takes too long, especially when every second counts on a 400m lap round the track :-P
I think Garmin is a really good example of a company that benefits from Apple making the market so much bigger. I had an Apple Watch, got into running a lot, and eventually found the Watch too limiting (bad heart rate measurement, touch only UI were my main issues). I probably wouldn't have ended up a Garmin customer if I'd never got an Apple Watch though.
Same here, just replace Apple with Fitbit. I had probably six Fitbits over the years and made the jump to Garmin last year. It's an amazingly better experience.
Meta: For some reason, HN replaced the tilde in the title of the article with a dash, making it seem like Garmin did a negative 40B pivot, instead of approximately. Why is that?
I used to have an Android Wear watch, when it was still called that. I thought it was really cool, a small computer on my wrist, ready to use instantly. I looked for more things I could use it for. But after a while, I noticed that I almost always preferred to take my phone out of the pocket if I needed to interact with anything. So the watch mainly got used for notifications, changing songs, and logging run workouts. My current Garmin can do all that, and the battery lasts a long time so I never have to care about it, and it has buttons. A WearOS watch is slow and unusable with less than 1 GB of RAM, there's something very wrong with that.
I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I can see why others would want that.
Same on the continent. They were a dutch company, so i guess they didnt have time to really expand much in the US until they got killed by smartphones.
I'm really glad Garmin exists and makes smartwatches. The broad approach they have to market segments has created really great products that serve markets other large tech manufacturers haven't really touched. I'm sure the Apple watch is a good product but I'm uninterested in a general notification device (what I take to be the function of a smartwatch). I've used my farming for hiking, paragliding, tracking sleep, connecting to my bike trainer, etc. It tracks all my activities and is my dedicated device for anything athletic. The athletic features, good battery life, and sleep tracking have made it so that I actually wear a watch all the time. Spent $700 4 years ago and it was totally worth it. Perhaps the only caveat for Garmin is that I don't need to upgrade. It does everything I want it to without issue.
Article doesn't talk about a very important point -- hold of the market. I say that Garmin is first and foremost aviation and maritime company, being pretty monopolistic there. E.g. Garmin G1000 for small airplanes costs around $30k, and G5000 for private jets -- around $500,000.
And the most important -- no one there ever talks about alternatives. Except for non-certified experimental tools -- Garmin is pretty much the only game in town.
So I believe they operate as aviation/maritime company first, while all the consumer devices like watches/outdoor trackers are like a side-business for them. Yes, that side business happens to bring in more money than the main business, but they wisely don't rely on it.
I do a lot of deep wilderness hiking. I have two Garmin products - an InReach Mini 2 and a Fenix 6X watch. There are a couple of big benefits over the Apple/Android ecosystem. 1) Battery life. 21 days (more with the newer models). 2) No dependence on cellular/wifi data availability (though they have been doing their damnedest to require it for syncing you watch to your Connect app). I'd love to see them merge the functionality of the two devices (provide satellite messaging direct from the watch). I have zero desire for some of the other stuff they've added (music player, payments, etc.), they're just battery drains.
I had an InReach for years, mostly just for the satellite messaging. I tried this feature recently out on the trail with my iPhone and it worked great. So, I got rid of my InReach, and now my iPhone and AllTrails subscription is all I need. Battery life hasn't been an issue for me on the trail - I usually just turn off my iPhone when I'm not using it.
I'm in the market for a watch. Turned 41, my weight has slowly crept up despite working out 4-5 times a week - not too bad, like not obese. My cholesterol is bad partially due to genetics but mostly due to diet. I also have a mild sleep apnea, especially when my weight is high. I'm focusing on dropping weight this year and would love to start tracking sleep, recovery, apnea, and any heart issues before/as they happen. I do not want another screen though and though I've looked at the Apple watch multiple times, I've not actually purchased it yet.
I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues at all unfortunately
It will alert you if your heart rate goes above a certain limit (that you've set) when you're not exercising. It tracks sleep too, but I don't know about sleep apnea signals. It does track pulse ox, so a low sleep quality report and low pulse ox might indicate sleep apnea? idk
I have an older relative who uses their Venu3 to take their own ECG and combine that with a Garmin Index BPM (~$150) to help monitor their heart function. The ECG is simple to use on the watch and the BPM syncs to Garmin Connect so that all that data is stored daily for their cardiac specialist to review when they go in for appointments. They had a diagnosis of A-Fib a while back that explained all their decrease in energy levels and since beginning treatment for it they have had no further issues. Now they have the ability to sit and take an ECG to transmit to their cardiologist if they start feeling bad. For them it provides peace of mind that their meds are working as designed. They regularly get in 5k - 10k steps daily which is pretty great for someone making a strong run at 90 y.o.
I don't think Garmin has a device that is able to track or identify sleep anea events but would not be surprised to see that functionality appear in the near future on some product.
I have an Instinct 2 Solar and it has been great for me. I told other relatives about it and they have picked their own models to suit their lifestyles.
I think that is Garmin's strength, the wide variety of fitness devices suited for almost any activity or personality.
I was in the same boat with genetics and cholesterol. It is all the diet.
At some point I realized I had to stop eating cheese completely. No pizza, no nachos, no tacos with cheese. I can stay in good shape with a once a week cheat night but I don't have the genetics to deal with the cholesterol like that.
It sucked at first but the things I do enjoy now, I enjoy them just as much.
one thing my first garmin from 2016 did for me was to make me more active, because its activity nags with minimum-enforced active time ensured that I wouldn't just keep sitting all day. Their newer models track hrv and offer ecg in some models/countries to help with heart health tracking.
The ecosystem around these devices is amazing. The data is openly available in ideal formats for sharing.
When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
If only more of the software world would settle into this type of equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from so many other companies, it’d be a far better world for consumers and competition.
Garmin’s business model doesn’t depend on hoarding data. Hope it stays that way!
My biggest gripe with Garmin is how they started to become a new NOKIA - at least in the smartwatch market.
10 years ago, they had a hand full of different models with clearly distinguished features. And there was one does-it-all model.
Now, they’re releasing 20 different watches a year which are all clearly based on the same hardware - just with different features enabled via software. There’s no top-of-the-line model anymore that has ALL the features.
And while I was able to turn my Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta via a simple firmware patch, they’re now using encrypted firmwares in all newer models. I.e. they’ve wasted lots of development hours on implementing encryption instead of fixing some of the various bugs reported in their forums or implementing some of the feature requests.
And don’t get me started on their nav units. They’re using maps from HERE. And after fixing mapping errors yourself in HERE’s MapCreator, it takes AT LEAST a year until they finally show up on a device. If you’re lucky.
Also, my motorbike unit’s manual explained a feature where it would warn you of upcoming bad weather. However, this feature never materialised and newer manuals don’t mention it anymore.
I think the article brings up a great point about how they pivoted. So many companies start out strong then resort to "the original" to try and get sympathy? Nostalgia? Idk who falls for that or why. Or they sell out to someone that'll gut them. These guys knew that their first success wasn't a GPS locator. It was a PNT device that met an unserved market. In that regard they haven't pivoted at all. I respect that immensely.
There's a lesson to be learned here for small bootstrapped SaaS founders. You can still succeed (as a lifestyle business) even when Big Tech has a competing product. Who would pay for email when Gmail is free? And yet FastMail does well. There are many, many, smaller companies that may not be VC-scale, and yet manage to build profitable, sustainable, businesses on top of a good niche product, even when competing against VC funded giants.
I actually really like the fact that my Garmin Instinct is not really a smart watch, it makes connecting it to your phone optional. Mine has never connected to a phone because I don't like to run Google's spyware on my phone. Yet, I can use most of it's functions I care about (time & date, GPS, moon & sun, compass, steps, heart rate, temperature, sports-specific stuff) without giving up my soul to Big Tech.
Meanwhile the Garmin UX is godawful with watch faces that crash and a deep forest of menus that requires you to push through mountains of youtube videos to understand. There are 2-4 ways to perform any function. Entire menu screens might be useless, but you can't delete any. The day Apple improves the Apple Watch Ultra battery life is the day I switch from Fenix and never look back.
As a somewhat proud owner of an Apple watch, I end up using my older lo-fi smart watch for long rides I do on cycle (anything 100+) cause its battery lasts just so much more.
I bought it when I did not have enough money to shell out for either an Apple Watch and did not even know what a Garmin was, but it does the job reasonably well though its GPS is a bit poor but I did last throughout the 12 hours I did my my BRM in July (a 208KM ride).
Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently people are being arrested for using it in my country.
I felt personally trolled when he said Google Maps launched after the iPhone lol.
If you’re not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005 a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-new technology “AJAX”).
Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
Sorry to pick on this detail, but I don't understand why TFA uses 2008 as year of Google Maps release. My memory (and Wikipedia) say 2005. I think I figured it out : in October 2009 Google maps introduced turn by turn directions.
One of Garmin's big old (probably still made in small numbers though) product lines were stand alone turn by turn GPS units you'd attach to your windshield or dash so when Google Maps introduced turn by turn that's when it became relevant as a major competitor to that product line and a major threat to Garmin.
I developed a proof of concept for a Garmin Watch (I forget which model, this was 6 years ago roughly), and it was interesting, they have their own programming language called MonkeyC, it wasn't complicated to get into, and I had a demo in under a week or two. I based my code off existing sample code, and made it do what was needed for demo purposes.
Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch, I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
We'll have to see over the next couple years how this pans out; early in 2024 they changed their Connect app to be significantly less usable, angering their core use base with many vowing to move to competitors. While some is handwaving, others are definitely not coming back due to how Garmin has handled it.
The Connect app was a big part of their watches' popularity.
For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+ reviews, so not an insignificant number
Love my Forerunner. I have zero interest in general-purpose smart watches but for Marathon training a fitness watch that I only use for tracking runs and workouts is a godsend.
Kinda hate mine, now. My Forerunner 55 can't find a good GSP fix in less than one hour, even in wide open skies. And I've returned it so they sent me a new one, which has the exact same problem.
The reason is that they want me to regularly connect the watch to their app/software (which requires an account) to update AGPS files. And there's no workaround.
I'd just like to be able to use the watch I bought, without having it connect it to Garmin servers every now and then. Why isn't it possible?
I used to own one Garmin GPS and replaced it with my cellphone plus a mount. Updating the map was a major pain point.
Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3 is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices. Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
I use a Garmin edge 830 for cycling and it feels like one of those devices where software engineers hated every minute developing the GUI for it. I can only imagine that the reason garmin is profitable is because they keep the same cheap hardware and custom OS they developed 10, 20 years ago for generations and just do occasional GUI refreshments. Definitely going to switch to an alternative for my next one.
I still use an Edge 130 because its lack of graphics abilities constrains the UI to something reasonable. All I want it to do is throw the time/speed/distance/pulse in my face. In fact if Garmin made an Edge-like product that was only a head unit for a smart watch, didn't have its own gps radios, that would be ideal for me.
Slightly offtopic but my girlfriend's smartwatch is falling apart and can't stand it anymore.
Her birthday is coming soon and was thinking about a Garmin smartwatch. She runs a lot, gym almost everyday. Loves tracking fitness data and workouts but she's petite.
Anyone with good recs on what to check?
forerunner 265 - I've used it for running triathlons and marathons and have had no issues. Garmin has great automated training plans where you can upload various races you're preparing for and Garmin will schedule your runs so that you can meet your time goals. Also highly recommend the vibrating metronome feature to improve your cadence. This feature has dramatically reduced the number of injuries I get. I don't use it to track gym workouts (e.g. lifting). There is a feature for that but I haven't tried it. If you want to really nerd out on your running the HRM Pro Plus provides amazing running dynamics information which again is very helpful for improving running form and reducing injuries.
For women you may want to look at the forerunner 265S which is identical to the forerunner 265 but is slightly smaller. The HRM-fit I believe gives the same data as the HRM Pro Plus but is designed to fit under a sports bra
If it's just running and gym she does, basically any watch will work capability-wise. Some specific lines have extra features geared towards other sports like diving, golf, etc. Other than that it will really come down to budget and aesthetic preferences. I would suggest just going on the website and having a look. The size of each model is also listed which is probably relevant if she is petite - some of them are pretty chunky. Forerunner and Vívoactive lines are both pretty suitable I would think.
Depends on what your budget is, if there's any additional features she wants, and how frequently she's OK charging it. Basically every Garmin watch will cover those initial use cases.
Try something like a Forerunner 265S. When you see an "S" suffix on model numbers that indicates it's a "small" size variant specifically designed for petite wearers.
I just got my first Garmin Watch (Venu 3) in December for Xmas. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm happy to see the company knows how to survive because my last few smart watches didn't fare so well, not exactly from market changes, but from acquisitions.
I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit.
I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did that and did the whole setup process again which included upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
I’ve wanted a Garmin for running but they are so expensive. I just buy a cheap old version of the Apple Watch for $30 on eBay and it works great. The crappy battery life doesn’t matter because the maximum length of my run is 1.5 hours.
I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS. I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my daily driver (lol?).
I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone service for navigation on this trip.
Although the question often comes up: why not just use your phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
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Pros:
- You don't need a cellular connection for map data.
-- Counter Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is something extra that you need to remember to do.
- You don't need to waste your cellular data
-- Counter Point: Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
- A corporation isn't tracking your every move
-- Counter Point: Most people don't seem to care about this.
- Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data
-- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
- Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get one that is as large as a tablet
-- Counter Point: you could probably use a tablet and google maps
- Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
- A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as long as you can update the maps.
- Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of these in the trunk of your car as a back up
- Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
- I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
Neutral
- The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all GPSes including apple maps and google maps
Cons
- And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer feature
Fellow user of a physical Garmin car navigation GPS. The one I use is my dad's old Nuvi from about 2015.
In addition to several of the pros you listed, I'd add a few more:
- Stupid-simple interface. I was a Google Maps user for a while, and I was not a fan of various popups (from "Welcome to <state name>" to "Is this speed trap still here?"). I'm piloting a several-thousand-pound hunk of metal at highway speeds, do NOT interrupt me!
- Unchanging interface. I'd get used to the way Google Maps behaved, and then an update would change something and break muscle memory. Whereas my 2015 Garmin isn't getting updated with unnecessary animations and pointless button re-arranging. When updating maps, the firmware update is a separate download. Since it's not Internet-connected, I don't care if I'm running "outdated" software. As long as it still gives directions, that's all I want.
- It's not my phone. I don't want my text messages coming up across the top of the screen while I'm trying to read the next turn on my route. I don't want anything on the screen that's not directly related to navigation.
It's a great example of KISS in a hardware product. It does GPS navigation. It is literally incapable of distracting you with anything else. I consider that a killer feature.
One has to wonder about this kind of turnaround that happened simultaneously with Blackberry's corporate implosion which were mostly due to the same exogenous factors.
I’m using a Garmin for bike navigation on long trips (Edge Explore 2). It works but all the software feels old and brittle. Syncing will fail frequently.
I don't know if their other product lines are better but the software and user experience of their Edge 1040 cycling computer is atrocious. It has every feature you could think of and some you couldn't but I swear it was designed by someone who has never ridden a bike.
Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
I remember using a Garmin Edge 1000 to navigate through a city I don't know. I could see the street I should be on running parallel to where I was but couldn't find the correct turn to take me there.
Then the Garmin popped a big modal dialogue over the top of the map to tell me I was on the wrong street. Worse still a few spots of rain meant the screen locked and I couldn't dismiss the modal.
I came to the same conclusion, that the UI wasn't designed by some one that rode a bike.
I have to say they've got better over time though. I've had a Garmin 530 for a few years and an Epix 2 watch that I like much better. I love that the Epix can be operated with just the buttons.
I have been looking around on a number of separate occasions for reimplementation of Garmin connect. Sadly i haven’t found anything yet.
As great as the hardware is the app is frankly atrocious and doesn’t inspire confidence with a company that is storing a lot of very sensitive personal information.
I love my garmin, it just feels like the perfect fit for me. I have zero interest in the Apple Watch, mainly because I don’t want yet another device bombarding me with notifications. Plus, the Apple Watch just doesn’t seem like something I’d be comfortable getting sweaty and slathered in sunscreen every day. The rubber and somewhat industrial design of the Garmin feels like it's just made for running, not for juggling texts or emails mid-workout.
I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by month.
Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the iPhone’s GPS was unreliable—it added zigzags to my routes, inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches, and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
So I’ve had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using colored ranges—it’s what I used to pace myself during races. For example, I’d aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11 for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That’s when I hit an inflection point: I couldn’t improve further without serious training plans.
I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn’t run enough hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated—my half marathon slowed to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn’t improve. I also psyched myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or over-fatigued on race days.
Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap? Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments. Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it—and ironically, I've just started improving again.
Garmin recently entered the ballistic chronograph market with their Xero - it's the closest thing to actual magic I've experienced with a piece of technology. Chronographs are notoriously finicky, since you are trying to accurately measure the speed of a bullet in an uncontrolled environment.
Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping and misaligning the radar in the process.
Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better form factor, better battery life, superior app integration, impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price, which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the combined used prices of all the various chronographs this replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
I picked up an Epix Pro during the holiday sales. Aware that they'd had a data breach, I was dismayed to find there is no way to get the data off it without using an app and that app won't even start without an account. Despite the settings, wouldn't show up as a storage device when connected (on Linux).
I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
By and large Garmin devices can be accessed directly from a Linux system. I have a FR 965 and it connects just fine.
But in typical Garmin fashion, there may be a hard to find setting to enable this. My watch asks if I want to connect to a computer when I plug in the cable.
Garmin is expensive? Maybe, but I got my Vivoactive 5 for $190. For a watch that I need to charge every 7-10 days (vs every day like it is for many other brands) it's a good value, imo.
There are various models and generations of their watches at every price point. Them having more expensive options doesn't mean they don't have less expensive options as well.
I think everyone should be reminded that a few years ago Garmin let someone take down their whole network (globally) and then paid the ransom after a few days [1]. In my opinion, the company does not deserve your money.
NoboruWataya|1 year ago
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
sylens|1 year ago
Garmin's unwavering commitment to physical buttons and how you can customize what they do is what makes them the gold standard in this area for me.
fiftyfifty|1 year ago
infecto|1 year ago
eitally|1 year ago
Garmin watches are great for people who prioritize active lifestyles over social contact but still like to have the ability to receive notifications on their wrist. Do note, though, that Garmin's Vivo line has become "smarter" in the current gen, but I don't see them ever tackling Apple Watches directly with Forerunner, Fenix, etc models.
danudey|1 year ago
The upside of the small battery capacity is a relatively fast charge time. If you put a watch charger in your bathroom you could put your watch on the charger when you go in for a shower and it'll be charged by the time you're finished showering, getting dressed, etc. I find it's a time that I have my watch off anyway, so it's not something that interferes with my daily use in any way. YMMV obviously, and after a few years when the battery starts holding less of a charge you may find a weirder time spacing that becomes irritating at times, but it's worked for me for years.
jmull|1 year ago
They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it.
IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if you're using GPS (which for me would be all the time I'm using it), you're still charging regularly. Might as well charge every time you take it off. Not quite daily, but in the same ball park.
scarface_74|1 year ago
briffle|1 year ago
The basic tracking of cardio, hiking, snowshoeing, etc, is exactly what I want from a smartwarch (lets me gamify my physical activity, and sleep).
I does have some great ways to map hikes, find out how to get back (direct path, or retrace steps, etc). Its pretty amazing for a low level garmin.
jajko|1 year ago
Different people prefer different things, for me its definitely the smart watch part. I am rather sporty, and tbh don't care about phone capabilities on my wrist, when I have it in the pocket/on the desk, that 1s lost when reaching for it is fine.
Premium price, premium look, massively better battery, durability, option of solar charging etc. I am taking poster child in Garmin Fenix 8 since they have very wide range of products compared to Apple. Fenix 8 is also much prettier than Apple's ultra wrist brick but thats subjective I guess. Diving capabilities for casual divers like me are just cherry on top, saving me some 300-400 for good enough (but otherwise completely useless) diving computer, minimizing yet-another-device syndrome.
mvdtnz|1 year ago
fishywang|1 year ago
If there's a way to use Garmin's smartwatches without using their cloud I probably would consider that. But since their ransomware attack from 2020, I really can no longer trust their cloud any more, especially that the data collected from a smartwatch is on the more sensitive side. The only Garmin hardware I'm still using is their bicycle tail light+radar, which I just use with wahoo's bike computer instead of other Garmin products.
petee|1 year ago
Combined with the chest monitor I could get balance, impact, stride etc stats live on my watch, which was great for helping correct a leftward lean I didn't know I was doing. So there are definitely some great features for runners. I hate carrying a phone, my watch does have GarminPay and music.
cogman10|1 year ago
1. LTE connectivity. Being able to take calls, get texts, send out live track notifications from my watch would be really fantastic. I take my phone out on runs not because I want to use my phone, but because that's the only way I can do all that stuff.
2. Paired with LTE connectivity, music/podcast streaming. My watch supports downloading playlists before a run which is nice but (frankly) a bit clunky. I really want to just be able to kick off yt music or spotify and instead.
But honestly, if I had to give up my other features like long battery life to get either of those two then I'm good just not having them.
I had fitbit watches before my garmin and I love the garmin ecosystem. My wife has a pixel watch and really the two features above are the only things it does that I'd want from it.
zamadatix|1 year ago
searealist|1 year ago
mvdtnz|1 year ago
827a|1 year ago
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InfiniteTitan|1 year ago
lenerdenator|1 year ago
1) build headquarters in (relatively) low COL city - in this case, Olathe KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City MO.
2) Have people who actually want to make a product instead of making analysts happy
3) Invest in R&D
4) Bring manufacturing in-house and tightly control processes
It's like everything the people actually doing the work at tech companies have been saying for years.
Can I have my $10mil/year pay package now?
y-c-o-m-b|1 year ago
spchampion2|1 year ago
When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats. People love them.
malfist|1 year ago
Another place they shine is for bikes. Their radar system that integrates with a bike computer is absolutely groundbreaking. It's so fantastic to be able to know when a car is coming up behind you without having to turn your head and possibly lose balance, it's such a great safety feature.
nradov|1 year ago
transpute|1 year ago
rcMgD2BwE72F|1 year ago
I switch to GadgetBridge but without updating the AGPS files, no reliable GPS.
How open of them.
unknown|1 year ago
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wkat4242|1 year ago
It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
FL410|1 year ago
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tzs|1 year ago
I've got mine set to charge to 80%, and over 23.5 hours it typically falls to somewhere in the 30-40% range. I put it on the charger for 30 minutes when I sit on my couch in the evening to watch Jeopardy! and do the NYT crossword puzzle. That's plenty of time to get it back to 80%.
I do have the always on display turned off, so the display only comes on when I turn the watch to look at it or tap or click. Always on display would take more power but my recollection from before turning it off is that it would still easily make it 23.5 hours starting from 80%. With a 20 W charger it can go from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes, so that would still be done by the time I finished Jeopardy and the crossword.
(I didn't turn off always on display to save battery. I turned it off because I didn't really find it useful. When I'm not actively checking the watch I almost hold it in a position where I don't really have a good look at the display, and moving it so I can get a good look almost always would be enough to turn it on in "raise to wake" mode).
Etheryte|1 year ago
scarface_74|1 year ago
I have a stand by my bed that I just plop my phone, watch and AirPods on and they all charge wirelessly and use MagSafe so I don’t have to worry about placement.
rm445|1 year ago
I'm very much on the other side of that decision - I find sleep tracking to be a killer feature, but you can see how Apple got away with it.
hx833001|1 year ago
doctorpangloss|1 year ago
Garmin's competition is having kids. Moms and dads will buy Apple Watches because it is more compatible with the having kids lifestyle. In contrast you don't need a dive computer or a bicycle thing when you have no time for hobbies. So an Apple Watch with a diving app meets the demand for aspirational hobbies, which of course, aspirations have a much larger audience than going out and doing something.
That said, people having fewer kids is ultimately what is helping them the most. Every hobby got more expensive, there is more demand. If you believe that more dogs and cats, less home buying, more video game playing and TV watching, etc. is also related to the trend of fewer kids - if you read what experts say about this, and if you can believe that LOTS of stuff people spend money LOTS of money on is DIRECTLY CAUSED by the decision to have or not have kids - then expand your mind and look for it everywhere.
thebruce87m|1 year ago
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canucker2016|1 year ago
Certain developed countries, Apple iPhone market share is 55%-65% (Norway, USA, Canada, Japan), UK is at 50% and starts dropping down in other Western European countries. South Korea is dominated by Samsung.
Even then, Apple's ~55% of the USA market isn't across all age groups - iPhone is a monopoly for teens, 87%, - see https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/10/iphone-teen-survey-2023....
salviati|1 year ago
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_OS
fuzzy2|1 year ago
yccs27|1 year ago
prodent|1 year ago
exabrial|1 year ago
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
froh|1 year ago
they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they may develop there first. is that what you mean by core?
because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning and now is outdoors and fitness.
izzydata|1 year ago
kubb|1 year ago
I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use certain apps are advantages
StrLght|1 year ago
Apple doesn't make this sports ecosystem
ghaff|1 year ago
Breza|1 year ago
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mcintyre1994|1 year ago
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sorenjan|1 year ago
I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I can see why others would want that.
xnorswap|1 year ago
In the UK, TomTom was much bigger than Garmin for in-car GPS:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=g...
It guess they didn't have the same market penetration / dominance in the US market.
tacker2000|1 year ago
Ataraxic|1 year ago
deepsun|1 year ago
And the most important -- no one there ever talks about alternatives. Except for non-certified experimental tools -- Garmin is pretty much the only game in town.
So I believe they operate as aviation/maritime company first, while all the consumer devices like watches/outdoor trackers are like a side-business for them. Yes, that side business happens to bring in more money than the main business, but they wisely don't rely on it.
DebtDeflation|1 year ago
jimt1234|1 year ago
kshahkshah|1 year ago
I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues at all unfortunately
dqv|1 year ago
doodlebugging|1 year ago
I don't think Garmin has a device that is able to track or identify sleep anea events but would not be surprised to see that functionality appear in the near future on some product.
I have an Instinct 2 Solar and it has been great for me. I told other relatives about it and they have picked their own models to suit their lifestyles.
I think that is Garmin's strength, the wide variety of fitness devices suited for almost any activity or personality.
dutchbookmaker|1 year ago
It sucked at first but the things I do enjoy now, I enjoy them just as much.
iamacyborg|1 year ago
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/garmin-technology/health-scienc...
abawany|1 year ago
cadamsdotcom|1 year ago
When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
If only more of the software world would settle into this type of equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from so many other companies, it’d be a far better world for consumers and competition.
Garmin’s business model doesn’t depend on hoarding data. Hope it stays that way!
mbirth|1 year ago
10 years ago, they had a hand full of different models with clearly distinguished features. And there was one does-it-all model.
Now, they’re releasing 20 different watches a year which are all clearly based on the same hardware - just with different features enabled via software. There’s no top-of-the-line model anymore that has ALL the features.
And while I was able to turn my Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta via a simple firmware patch, they’re now using encrypted firmwares in all newer models. I.e. they’ve wasted lots of development hours on implementing encryption instead of fixing some of the various bugs reported in their forums or implementing some of the feature requests.
And don’t get me started on their nav units. They’re using maps from HERE. And after fixing mapping errors yourself in HERE’s MapCreator, it takes AT LEAST a year until they finally show up on a device. If you’re lucky.
Also, my motorbike unit’s manual explained a feature where it would warn you of upcoming bad weather. However, this feature never materialised and newer manuals don’t mention it anymore.
Neywiny|1 year ago
_1tem|1 year ago
FriedrichN|1 year ago
carabiner|1 year ago
anshumankmr|1 year ago
Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently people are being arrested for using it in my country.
eduction|1 year ago
If you’re not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005 a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-new technology “AJAX”).
Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
RandallBrown|1 year ago
salviati|1 year ago
rtkwe|1 year ago
jeffbee|1 year ago
giancarlostoro|1 year ago
Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch, I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
petee|1 year ago
For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+ reviews, so not an insignificant number
nice_scott|1 year ago
dcchambers|1 year ago
rcMgD2BwE72F|1 year ago
The reason is that they want me to regularly connect the watch to their app/software (which requires an account) to update AGPS files. And there's no workaround.
I'd just like to be able to use the watch I bought, without having it connect it to Garmin servers every now and then. Why isn't it possible?
yurlungur|1 year ago
Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3 is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices. Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
jcfrei|1 year ago
jeffbee|1 year ago
fifilura|1 year ago
I have no deeper analysis than that, other than that I remember how proud they were to be able to launch 2 phones per month.
I am a Garmin user myself, but i have a basic $150 ForeRunner 45. I love it and use it every day, because it has all the features and no touch screen.
world2vec|1 year ago
asleepawake|1 year ago
For women you may want to look at the forerunner 265S which is identical to the forerunner 265 but is slightly smaller. The HRM-fit I believe gives the same data as the HRM Pro Plus but is designed to fit under a sports bra
NoboruWataya|1 year ago
disqard|1 year ago
StrLght|1 year ago
tw04|1 year ago
nradov|1 year ago
Hoefner|1 year ago
JanisErdmanis|1 year ago
flanbiscuit|1 year ago
I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit.
I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Closing_of_Pebb...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Rebble
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit#Google's_acquisition
The issues I was having with my Versa 3:
Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did that and did the whole setup process again which included upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
Mistletoe|1 year ago
regus|1 year ago
I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS. I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my daily driver (lol?).
I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone service for navigation on this trip.
Although the question often comes up: why not just use your phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
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Pros:
- You don't need a cellular connection for map data. -- Counter Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is something extra that you need to remember to do.
- You don't need to waste your cellular data -- Counter Point: Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
- A corporation isn't tracking your every move -- Counter Point: Most people don't seem to care about this.
- Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
- Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get one that is as large as a tablet -- Counter Point: you could probably use a tablet and google maps
- Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
- A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as long as you can update the maps.
- Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of these in the trunk of your car as a back up
- Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
- I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
Neutral
- The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all GPSes including apple maps and google maps
Cons
- And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer feature
maples37|1 year ago
In addition to several of the pros you listed, I'd add a few more:
- Stupid-simple interface. I was a Google Maps user for a while, and I was not a fan of various popups (from "Welcome to <state name>" to "Is this speed trap still here?"). I'm piloting a several-thousand-pound hunk of metal at highway speeds, do NOT interrupt me!
- Unchanging interface. I'd get used to the way Google Maps behaved, and then an update would change something and break muscle memory. Whereas my 2015 Garmin isn't getting updated with unnecessary animations and pointless button re-arranging. When updating maps, the firmware update is a separate download. Since it's not Internet-connected, I don't care if I'm running "outdated" software. As long as it still gives directions, that's all I want.
- It's not my phone. I don't want my text messages coming up across the top of the screen while I'm trying to read the next turn on my route. I don't want anything on the screen that's not directly related to navigation.
It's a great example of KISS in a hardware product. It does GPS navigation. It is literally incapable of distracting you with anything else. I consider that a killer feature.
rufus_foreman|1 year ago
They make versions that get the traffic data over FM radio, you don't need a phone with those. For example https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1240929.
qznc|1 year ago
insane_dreamer|1 year ago
Kodak in particular killed its novel R&D to protect its cash cow, instead of investing in R&D. So pretty much the opposite of Garmin.
bwanab|1 year ago
ddghhhhdaf|1 year ago
Are the watches different?
fudged71|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
froginspector|1 year ago
mathieuh|1 year ago
Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
Lio|1 year ago
Then the Garmin popped a big modal dialogue over the top of the map to tell me I was on the wrong street. Worse still a few spots of rain meant the screen locked and I couldn't dismiss the modal.
I came to the same conclusion, that the UI wasn't designed by some one that rode a bike.
I have to say they've got better over time though. I've had a Garmin 530 for a few years and an Epix 2 watch that I like much better. I love that the Epix can be operated with just the buttons.
philipwhiuk|1 year ago
bobmcnamara|1 year ago
SirHumphrey|1 year ago
As great as the hardware is the app is frankly atrocious and doesn’t inspire confidence with a company that is storing a lot of very sensitive personal information.
IronWolve|1 year ago
Fitbit 5-7 days
Apple 1 day
mbirth|1 year ago
jwhiles|1 year ago
Does hacker news not support Tildes or what?
its_down_again|1 year ago
I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by month.
Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the iPhone’s GPS was unreliable—it added zigzags to my routes, inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches, and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
So I’ve had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using colored ranges—it’s what I used to pace myself during races. For example, I’d aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11 for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That’s when I hit an inflection point: I couldn’t improve further without serious training plans.
I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn’t run enough hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated—my half marathon slowed to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn’t improve. I also psyched myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or over-fatigued on race days.
Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap? Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments. Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it—and ironically, I've just started improving again.
jboggan|1 year ago
Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping and misaligning the radar in the process.
Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better form factor, better battery life, superior app integration, impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price, which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the combined used prices of all the various chronographs this replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
0 - https://www.caldwellshooting.com/range-gear/chronographs-and...
1 - https://magnetospeed.com/v3-ballistic-chronograph
2 - https://mylabradar.com/product/chronograph/
3 - https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/771164
vdjskshi|1 year ago
They're also the Cadillac of dog tracking and training collars.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/outdoor-recreation/sporting-d...
newsclues|1 year ago
RandallBrown|1 year ago
The military (sort of) invented the Internet too, so no tech company would exist without the military.
gausswho|1 year ago
I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
canucker2016|1 year ago
Did you change this setting on the watch?
phicoh|1 year ago
But in typical Garmin fashion, there may be a hard to find setting to enable this. My watch asks if I want to connect to a computer when I plug in the cable.
basedrum|1 year ago
orphea|1 year ago
izzydata|1 year ago
djsjajah|1 year ago
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/garma...