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Badges NEED Improvement STAT

Former Member
Former Member over 6 years ago

Garmin Developers - Improvements suggested/Questions

1. Who makes the decision on what badges are available and repeatable? Why not let the community vote?

2. Will you please consider removing the flying squirrel, drone, multi gas dive (how many diving badges are needed? there are 8 of them), and other related badges (at least 12 total from the complete list available that should be removed in my opinion) that 99% of the people in this community will never ever use. Can't you determine how often badges are achieved and retire them from availability but not from a person's history? We're in 2019, we have the technology!

3. Reaching a 60 day step goal is impossible if you have it set on auto especially when you run long distances in training for a marathon.

4. Figure out a way to alert when new badges are available (Push notification?)

5. What about badges for the major races like London, Paris, Tokyo, Rock and Roll marathons, Disney marathons, etc....? Why only Garmin sponsored race badges? Seems a bit self serving and not true to the spirit of a "community."

6.  See points 1 through 5 above and address them! 

  • 0 over 6 years ago

    Agree.

    More badges should be repetable. Of course this would level up too fast, but points could be counted in some other way (like could be a "cold down time" for a given badge, if somebody gets a given badge everyday, then would get less points for repetition during "cold down time").

    True, there are some exotic badges who nobody use. Should be groups for badges. Run / Bike / Swim / Special etc. with CheckBoxes, if somebody don't want see one group, then would just uncheck it.

    Yes, auto step goal is useless if one sometimes makes longer runs. This should be changed to set minimum step goal together with auto. Shows auto-goal, but if complete minium goal - then still day should be green.

    True, could be some notification about new badges, but now you can check here (use some webbrowser addon for site updates): https://connect.garmin.com/modern/main/js/properties/badges-list/badges-list.properties

    True, would be nice to give badges for other big races.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago

    Yes, I agree so much, there is so much potential going to waste here..

    I wrote down some thoughts about this the day the old forums went down.. forums.garmin.com/.../883782

  • 0 over 6 years ago

    Agree on some points, but I also have some "devil's argument" considerations on others:

    1. Repeatable Badges: there definitely needs to be more of these! Since Garmin isn't regularly updating with new badges (yet?), you run out of badges to obtain pretty quickly, and there just aren't enough repeatable ones to make badges keep your interest and remain challenging.

    2. I don't see Garmin removing badges. These are selling points (however minor) for niche products they sell. And wouldn't you be angry if you bought a Garmin Descent diving watch and the badges were removed before you got a chance to get them? But what BunBun! suggests is a pretty good idea: they should group badges together via expandable/collapsible sub-categories. However, they do already have something similar to this: you can filter by badge type with the filter icon in the upper-right corner of the app whenever you are looking at badges. Garmin just needs to add some more filterable categories.

    3. Not really sure what can be done about this one? Any suggestions? It seems like auto-step goals and getting a long goal streaks are fundamentally incompatible (but I don't know this for sure since I don't make regular use of the auto-goal feature)?

    4. I like the idea of community-wide notification when new badges are released. This could be done in the notification inbox on GC Web and Mobile, I think. There have been some one-day only badges that I would've totally missed out on if I didn't see them announced on Garmin's Instagram page. They should also make use of the Garmin Connect notification system to inform people of these!

    5. I like this idea too! Perhaps Garmin can figure out a way to partner with some of these bigger races to "advertise" for them via badges. However, approaching this one from realistic expectations: I don't know how likely it is for Garmin to use graphics designer and developer resources unless there is some sort of partnership. In some cases, it may not even be legal for Garmin to use the intellectual property (e.g., trademarks, copyrights) for some of these races without contractual permission.

  • 0 over 6 years ago
    3. Reaching a 60 day step goal is impossible if you have it set on auto especially when you run long distances in training for a marathon.

    So deactivate it and set your goal to 10.000 steps.

    It will motivate you more, because it´s reachable. You won´t be frustrated, that you should do 16.000 steps on your resting day. Or during a marathon training, regular walking and 10km running were not enough to reach the goal.
    I´ve done it and I´m much more motivated!

    The badges are no Garmin idea. Its a feature, a competitor introduced and Garmin needed to copy it. So they might not put as much effort in it, as they could. It´s nice to have, but since people can easily cheat on it to reach hundreds of points, its pointless ;)

    Lower you stepgoal to the minimum and do daily challenges with all of your friends, separately. Congrats: You will at least get 1-2 points a day...

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago

    1. good point

    2. hells yeah. flying squirrel? that is dumb. and so are the others.

    3. dude, you have to shut off auto-goal. I hike 9 to 12 miles on the weekend and it can completely screw up the auto-goal calculator. I don't exercise for a living - I'm not gonna hike for 6 hours, 7 days a week.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I'm legally not allowed to dive due to chest problems.. Disappointed

    And who is running 100 miles in a single activity?!

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member
    And who is running 100 miles in a single activity?!

    UTMB is comming at the end of month. The sign-up process for this year's event is closed, but you could give it a go next year ;)

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I would love if they would entroduce badges for accumulated goals. For example when you reach your first 1000km/miles running. Then the next badge when you reach 10.000km/miles etc. The same for cycling kilometres. And badges for accumulated elevation gain in cycling and in hiking.