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Connect+ nutrition absolute garbage (Austria)

icingman01

I have been using the free version of MyFitnessPal (MFP) for logging my nutrition since the start of the year. It's been going well, but the free version doesn't let you see the daily macro nutrient breakdown, so I thought I would opt for the Connect+ version (since I track all my activity in Garmin, if I'm going to pay I thought I might as well keep everything in one place). I signed up this evening and thought I would try taking some images of food to see how well they stack up against what my partner (a nutritionist) had them down as. The results were laughable - even the weight was often more than 50% off, which is a huge error if you're trying to track your intake reasonably accurately. I wasn't too surprised about this, as as I was never sure how a photograph could get particularly accurate results. So I thought, ok, that was always a nice to have, I'll just keep doing what I was doing in MFP and using the barcode scanner. As I started to go through things in the cupboard (and we are not talking about speciality foods here, just regular cereals, tinned items,etc.) Garmin was not able to find a single one! I gave up after about 10 items, and have now cancelled my Connect+ membership (the nutrition logging was the only real benefit for me). 

I get that this is a reasonably new offering from Garmin. But they are a huge company and they are asking their cstomers to pay for this "service". They should have either taken the time to build up their own full database before launching the service, or just bought the database from someone else. This is really poor.

Just as info, I do have all location settings set properly (Austria).

  • 0
    icingman01 said:
    They should have either taken the time to build up their own full database before launching the service

    With an AI driven system like this, it is impossible without millions of participants feeding the data. They could never manage it internally, or with just a bunch of beta testers. I admit they could grant a longer free trial period than just a month, but on the other hand they pay huge fees for the access to the AI API, so they have to keep the economy in balance somehow. However, with the number of users Garmin has, I think the AI will learn and improve rather quickly, and the system becomes better usable for everyone, over time.

  • 0 in reply to trux

    As stated in my post, my biggest frustration is with the barcode scanner. This is a database issue, nothing to do with AI.

  • 0 in reply to icingman01

    Barcode database also requires millions of users feeding it, before it becomes really usable. If you are not willing to participate, just wait till it gets better.

  • 0 in reply to trux

    Are you really saying that users should be expected to scan barcodes and enter the nutritional values from the packaging to provide this data to Garmin, whilst at the same time paying for this? This has nothing to do with being 'willing to participate', it's about Garmin expecting people to pay for a service which is not fit for purpose.

  • 0 in reply to icingman01

    Yes, that's they way all similar providers create their databases. Of course, they usually have purchased or created some database to start with, but there is no way to have it complete without the participation of a huge number of users. However, nobody forces you to pay for it, if you do not find the feature useful in this initial state. If your free trial period ended, you can terminate the subscription.

  • 0 in reply to trux

    Whilst other companies are reliant on users to generate the databases, it is not generally true that users have had to pay for the service at the same time as providing valuable information to the company. Once they have generated the database, certain aspects are often put behind a paywall. Of course nobody is forcing me to pay for it, and I have already cancelled the subscription. One way or another, you are missing/avoiding the point, so I will not engage further on this.

  • 0 in reply to trux

    The major problem garmin is bad is because of region settings. Food comes from all over the place in Central Europe, I have the same problem as this person, to get all the foods I need to change countries like 5 times in the settings to surrounding countries according to the country that is on the label as manufacturer. This is just not a sustainable way to use the all. Others like MFP do not have this region limitation and scan food seamlessly independently of the manufacturer of the food. Garmin nutrition is just rubbish due to that