Same here, I want to retire my edge... Gone is the button to do so. How can we solve this?

https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/account/register/products

That only gives the "remove" option. There used to be a "retire" option. Meaning your old devices staying visible but not active anymore.

Thanks. That links gives me the list of all the devices I owned so far. This is not the solution but it’s a good advice. 

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

I am still able to find the option explained in the support website.

There used to be a support article which had mixed advice about retiring/removing devices, but I can't find it anymore. The only article I can find with a reference to retiring a device is this: https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=7uOdYevlmK5UNUEFLNo4O6

What Does My Device Show as "Retired" in Garmin Connect?

The ability to retire a device used to exist in the Garmin Connect platform. While this feature has been removed, devices that were retired before will still show that status. To remove the status of retired you will want to remove the device from your account and add it again.

As for why the retire option was removed, I can only speculate, but I think that Garmin probably removed it because:

- it was redundant and confusing

- it was unclear to users how retiring a device was different from removing a device, and under which circumstances they should retire rather than remove or vice versa

I can think of a couple of use cases for why a user would want to retire a watch:

- they want to keep the watch, but not use it anymore. This is pretty simple to do without retiring the watch. Just stop using the watch

- they want to sell the watch, but keep it in Connect (while obviously avoiding receiving data from the new owner). This also easy to do without retiring the watch: make sure the watch is reset to factory defaults before selling it, which is something they'd want to do in any case

If the user doesn't want to see the watch in Connect anymore, then the remove option is obviously the right way to go.

Honestly, I'm all for this change, as imo Garmin historically has had issues with unnecessary complexity which doesn't really translate to useful functionality. One current example is when you edit gear, you have the ability to select multiple gear of the same type even if it doesn't make sense (specifically, running shoes). So when I want to change the shoes for a running activity from the default to another pair, there's always an extra tap or click to unselect the previously selected shoes. This is the most useless functionality in the world, since almost nobody wears more than one pair of shoes for a running activity, and even if they did, Connect doesn't have a way to split up the mileage for one activity between different shoes, so the the ability to select multiple shoes wouldn't even really help at all, as each shoe would receive too much mileage (which defeats the main purpose of tracking your shoes).

Hi,

I disagree with you on that topic, but it's fine.

It is one of the reason why Garmin is so successful. They provide so many options, so many customisation to their customers, that one thing that appears useful for me, appears useless for you.

I have owned and I still own a lot of Garmin devices. I like to be able to see my active devices (the one that I really use), and still able to see my "history" with Garmin. Removing the device makes me sad as I like to remember these devices and how far the devices have evolved.

You think it is redundant and confusing, some of us miss it and would like to see it come back.

BR, JC

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

Removing the device makes me sad as I like to remember these devices and how far the devices have evolved.

Again, if you don't want to remove your device, you can simply stop using it, in lieu of retiring the device. I assume that you know which devices you don't use, so seeing a "retired" label next to the device on Connect seems somewhat superfluous.

I have all my old devices in Connect, including a device that I sold. Yes, I retired the older ones, but now that the retire option is gone, I can't say that I miss it.

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

You think it is redundant and confusing, some of us miss it and would like to see it come back.

It doesn't matter what I think, I was just trying to come up with a rationale for why Garmin removed it. Personally I don't care either way. You want to know why I think it's redundant and confusing? Because Garmin had a whole support article about removing/retiring devices, and they didn't even have a coherent explanation for why a user should retire a device rather than remove it or vice versa. I'm pretty sure there was incorrect information in that article, as well. If Garmin themselves can't properly explain the difference between retiring and removing devices, then what hope do users have?

It's nothing personal against people who like the option to retire devices. Garmin is the one who made the decision, not me.

You asked the following question, and I attempted to answer it:

"Is it a glitch or is it a definitive change?"

Garmin themselves stated the retire feature was removed, so it's clearly a change that was made on purpose and not a glitch. Furthermore, I attempted to answer the implicit question of why it was removed. Sorry if you don't like the answer.

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

It is one of the reason why Garmin is so successful.

Garmin is successful in a few niche areas, mainly because it's been around for so long. As a runner who uses Garmin, for 5 years or more I've been hearing questions like "why don't you just use apple watch?" Even after I explain it, people rarely understand. I would also say that many runners barely use any of the functions of their garmin (many don't even know how to hold UP for the context-sensitive menu), and the main reason they use Garmin is because everyone else was using Garmin when they started. This includes coaches, age groupers and sub elites btw.

I don't know any "normal" ppl (who aren't addicted to running, cycling or triathlons) who would ever consider buying a Garmin. Normal people buy Apple Watch because it's trendy. Garmin has never been trendy and never will be trendy.

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

They provide so many options, so many customisation to their customers, that one thing that appears useful for me, appears useless for you.

Whether we like it or not, the trend in tech for the last 10+ years has been to make things simpler. Just look at what Garmin recently did with the Garmin Connect homepage: they removed a lot of functionality to modernize it and make it the same as the home screen for the Connect app. Do I think it's objectively better now? No, but when I said so, I got torrents of insults from people on these forums, even though I conceded that the new design is better in many ways, and that I understand why they did that. My sole argument was that functionality was lost, so it's wrong to say that the new design is objectively and unequivocally better, since the removed functionality was being used by people. The irony is that by taking away unique functionality from the connect website, Garmin only encourages people to use the app instead - then again, it's probably not that ironic, as I'm guessing they would love to stop supporting the website altogether.

Even Garmin, which is kind of notorious for being an old company with certain old practices, is moving down the path of trying to make things simpler (at the expense of functionality).

Like I said, it doesn't matter what I think.

In this case, I don't really see what useful functionality the retire feature gives you, except a way to label your old devices as retired. If you were using it and you miss it, I'm sorry to hear that, but again, it's not my decision.

It's also worth noting that the Connect mobile app (10+ years old now) has never had the option to retire devices, iirc. Outside of these forums, I would guess that tthe vast majority of Garmin users use the Connect app, if they even use Connect at all. (Many runners just use Strava). Just look at the garmin subreddit: lots of Connect app screenshots, and zero Connect website screenshots.

DC Rainmaker said he never opened the Connect website.

As you asked me to recognize that something I don't find useful may be useful to you, I'll ask you to recognize that maybe people who like and use the retire option in the Connect website are in the minority, especially given that people who use the Connect website in the first place are in the minority. I know a lot of runners, and none of them use the Connect website. Many don't use the Connect app, either.

Jean_Christophe_Bettinelli said:

I disagree with you on that topic, but it's fine.

Also worth noting that no one else even tried to address your explicit question (was this intentional?) and implicit question (if it was intentional, why was it removed?).

Usually people on these forums just give stock answers like "what did Garmin support say when you contacted them", "that's the way it is, deal with it", "suggest an idea at the garmin ideas page", "this is a user-to-user forum, garmin won't read this", etc.

At least I tried. Like I said, sorry you didn't like the answer.

trux said:

So practically it works exactly like the "retiring" previously worked, just with the difference that there is no label "retired" on the unused watch.

Exactly. I've seen multiple threads asking about what happened to the "retire" option, but no one can explain the advantage of retiring a device over simply not using it anymore (and disconnecting it from the Connect app, if necessary), other than the "retired" label in the Connect website.

Yes, I hate it when features are removed too, but in this case I can see why Garmin did it. And I've used the retire option in the past myself.

I personally don't think it's coming back, so all that's left is to try to understand why it was removed, and to make peace with it.