Sleep Streak badge vs Half Marathon badge

I totally agree, very strange that the sleep streak badge is 4 points AND repeatable. For doing absolutely nothing you'll get constantly rewarded.

Well, I may agree on the inconsistency of the number of points assigned to some badges, but come on, how can this become a reason for not running a marathon?? 

What if tomorrow Garmin decides to remove all badges and points system? Would you not run anymore??

Just take it as what it is..another useless (maybe sometimes funny) social media awards system. 

Just gained level 6 for sleeping ok 3 weeks. Free points.

I agree. For me, the new badges are missing the whole point of the garmin badge 'ecosystem' as I perceived it.

Ok, so what was this ecosystem (at least I thought), which seemed logical to me: you got badges for activities you completed. The more challenging, the more points. Running 1k = 1 point, running 10k = 2 points, etc. Once you completed that, you needed to go further to get additional points. And then because you cannot always keep on going further, the really challenging badges (marathons, century rides) were made repeatable, so you could keep on gaining points.

With the time bound challenges, this was already a bit softened, as you could get points as long as you did the right activity at the right moment/weekend. I sill understand this, as not everybody is capable of running marathons or riding centuries and there is no fun in stalling your garmin points forever. Furthermore, you still had to make some achievement. Riding 400k in a month is still something.

With the recent update, they added some features, which just favor grinding for points (if you have the right gear). I do understand you get a badge for a sleep score (my Forerunner 935 does not score my sleep, but that's too bad for me) or you get a badge for running a mile each day for 30 days etc. However, making these repeatable seems completely wrong as these badges do not represent extraordinary achievements. As you say: running a marathon should always be rewarded higher than getting 2 weeks of good sleep scores, or doing 10 sit-ups between 4 and 7 AM during a month.

I fully understand the idea of adding badges that make it possible for non-hardcore athletes to keep increasing their points, but please: making these 'grinding badges' repeatable(!) neglects the efforts of 'true' athletes.

My opinion is not purely based on my own situation: I do not consider myself a true athlete. I have not (yet) completed a marathon, nor a century ride. I do try to gain points by doing the monthly challenges and am working towards greater distances, but I do not think that I should get the same badge (with points) again and again for completing a rather minor feature.

I really don't understand all the complaints.

It seems that EVERYBODY can get the sleep badges, even the people running marathons. So how is that unfair?

Honestly though, I don't really care as the badges don't mean a lot anyway. They are not real, and not monitored for cheating, as some "collect" badges by changing their country location. I personally do all the Walking, Hiking, and Cycling challenges every month as a personal goal, and yes the points add up, but nobody is going to buy you a cup of coffee, or hang badges around your neck, because you got Garmin badges.

IMHO this is all much-ado-about-nothing. Get over it and move on to the important things in life.

Well, if I eat after 9pm, I will have less than 75 points. If I drink wine, my streak will be gone. If I go to sleep after midnight, or wake up too early, I will lose my streak also.

It's actually very hard to be consistent. With wine especially

And some will not get a Sleep Score because their watch does not have it. But the other sleep badge still gets them points.

The real joke here is the Expedition badges. All you have to do is wear the watch and let it count steps, no extra effort, no thinking about it except to join the challange. Of course if your watch does not count floors, then you can't get the Climb expedition badges. 

This is how Garmin hopes to push people into getting new hardeare. Funny tho that the Vivoactive 5 just released does not have the Baro but the Vivoactive 4 did. Another move by Garmin to get people to new (more expensive) hardware.

My point/concern is not that badges are given for 7 day sleep streak or stuff like that, it's just that they are repeatable. They should either make (almost?) all badges repeatable, or limit this repeatable to a) extrordinary activities (marathons, century rides) and b) activities that are limited to a certain day (new year's day). Personally, I believe limiting the repeatable badges would be best (as it was before). Should there be a badge that turns out to be too rewarding for some reason, people can at least only benefit from it once. 

I agree on the expedition badges, but at least they are not repeatable. there is about 25 expeditions at 3 points on average (rough estimation). That gives you 75 points and that's it (forever). And if you manage to get them in one year, you have really stepped and climbed a lot...

If you sleep well, you can get the sleep streak (4 points) each week. In other words, you can get over 200 points in a year. And then the same next year and the year after.

Now, it is getting obvious that Garmin hopes to push people into getting new hardware, as you say. The badges for activities with special watches (Avengers, Rey,...) have also become repeatable (they were not before, if I'm correct). For me, Garmin seemed to focus on sports/athletes with their badge system before. It's rather disappointing from Garmin to notice they are now clearly giving more badges to the people getting new hardware instead of rewarding stronger athletes. Now, that's something I'd expect from a brand like Apple, but not from Garmin which has a reputation of being there for sports/sporters.

4411990 said:

It seems that EVERYBODY can get the sleep badges, even the people running marathons. So how is that unfair?

The sleep savant badge I guess yes, but the sleep streak, certainly not.

The sleep streak can be more of being lucky that the algorithm things you sleep well instead of actually doing something to achieve it.

In my opinion they should limit the amount of times you can get it to around 10 or so, just to keep the option open for people with less luck to gain the same amount of points in the long run for this badge.

I suppose using that same logic, that if a person has bad knees, or some other reason they can't run marathons, they should be complaing that it's not fair you get badges for running. I've heard the same lame excuses because soneome doesn't cycle, because they don't like to cycle. Same excuse because cycling racing fans don't like that people also ride cycles for fun and can get most of the same badges.

It's all beginning to be a bit of a bore - all the nit-picking about virtual badges. Hey, they are not real!