Connect +

Dear Garmin,

The recent (abysmal) update of Connect and now this. The first one reduced my use of Connect to almost never. This one reduced the chances of buying a new Garmin to almost zero.

You can almost see in the distance future, people will just only be using their watches to know what there current pace, speed, distance, HR, etc will be during a run or race. You won't even bother signing up for an account to upload the data to see graphs etc, as everything will be behind a subscription. With that said, there shouldn't even be a charge ever, they are using our metric data to improve their system etc, surely that is enough of a payment.

…and then they'll make the watch unable to work without internet. The only thing we can do as end users is for all or the vast majority of us to switch to other brands, eventually when they don't even sell a single subscription and very few devices will return to their original brands. This has already happened with Suunto.

Exactly. I really liked the old Garmin. Hopefully there will be some layoffs, abandonment of plus and  a return to sanity. Sadly this will likely be too late as most of us will have jumped ship. If connect plus is not abandoned soon, it is the end of high end Garmin watches. Sad to see something that was so good change to junk so quickly. Time for Garmin to clean house

It’s been about 2 weeks since Garmin introduced plus. I’m still angry and feel betrayed as someone that has used and promoted their products. I have watches, bike computers, HR monitors, and sensors.

I’m starting to enter the acceptance phase. After having time to hear what other are saying and reflect on the matter, I’m starting to realize that Garmin products aren’t really as good as we’ve all come to believe. When I look back, I’ve had quite a lot of firmware issues with my FR955 and both my edge devices. It took them several iterations of HR strap designs before you could change the battery without breaking something.

Perhaps this is a sort of blessing in disguise. I think connect plus brings in to focus how Garmin has a problem with its priorities. I understand that all devices will have bugs. But now it takes about a year for the main features to be sorted on any new device. The developers are introducing half-baked features, but rarely ones that the community has requested.

I’m coming to peace with the fact that Garmin is no longer get the company it was 10 or even 5 years ago. Maybe they will do a 180 on this plan, but I doubt it. The shareholders will love this strategy for the next 3 months. Stock prices will go up for a brief time. The team that came up with plus will be heros. It will take some time to realize that sales are steeply falling off because Garmin betrayed its core user base. By this time next year, Garmin will be scratching its head wondering what went wrong. The same idiots behind plus will blame the burst of the fitness bubble or the Trump-induced recession. They just won’t get it.

I plan to replace my FR955 this fall. Coros is presently at the top of my list. 

In the end it'll fix to satellites using the data downloaded from satellites. Also this way you can increase the time you spend for warmup and that may be better for you. Also you won't get software updates that solve one issue and introduce two. :)

it does not download data from satellites, it downloads data from connect / express or wifi sync for the satellites position in the sky

No, GPS almanac is broadcasted from GPS satellites so your GPS device knows what satellites will be in the orbit without having to use the Internet. GPS were being used before the smartphone era you know? Of course it doesn't download as fast as phone connection. For example complete almanac broadcast for GPS sats takes 12,5 mins and if you interrupt the signal it takes another round to catch and complete the rest of the file. But in the end your device can have a better TTFF as it can do a warm start instead of complete cold start. It's better than having nothing...

Did you read Garmins manually i attached?  Stop with your own ideas and fantasy. Read my last post