Connect +

bought 700 euro watch knowing there was no subscription

we'll see if they continue to implement new features for those who don't subscribe

Welcome Garmin to the Enshittification. You may be dead soon and don't know it yet. 9€/month for what exactly. We pay 500€+ for watches, do you really think a lot of people think paying 9€ monthly for some uncalled AI stuff will improve the user experiences? I doubt it.
My next watch won't be a Garmin.

"How long until they start putting the more robust training features behind the paywall"
Not long. As always with services like this, where premium has been introduced. 

where i live C+ is more than Strava  haha
In my local currency, Connect+ is ~2x what Strava cost me (37PLN for Garmin, 20 for Strava).

Best of this is AI, that tells me that i walked 4k steps more than the day before - yeah thanks Garmin! 

Given that Garmin can’t get “Integrated training status” in Connect to effectively sync calories across my Fenix 8 and my Edge 1050, surely the most basic of metrics, am I really going to start paying them – I think not.

As a long-time Garmin user, I have to say I'm incredibly disappointed by the recent decision to lock new Garmin Connect software features behind a paywall. When I purchased my Garmin Fenix 8 for over €1200, one of the primary reasons I justified the investment was the belief that software updates and feature enhancements would be included as part of that premium price.

I can understand charging extra for features that depend on third-party services or incur ongoing costs, but many of these new features are purely software-based and feel like they should be part of the existing platform.

If Garmin had been upfront about this model—offering a significantly lower hardware price and making it clear at the time of purchase that some software features would come with a subscription—that would have been different. At least then, we as customers would have had the ability to make informed decisions.

This paywall approach feels like a double-dip: charging a premium for the hardware while also expecting users to pay for software. It’s hard not to feel frustrated by the lack of transparency and the direction Garmin is taking with this model.

As someone who has supported Garmin over the years, I expected better. I’m now seriously considering looking for alternatives—brands with a clearer and fairer pricing model. You can’t charge above the competition for hardware and then also demand additional payment for software features that have historically been included. Pick one.

I’d be curious to hear if others feel the same way about this shift, or if anyone has suggestions for other brands offering a better balance between hardware pricing and software features.

Any other brand has better pricing - just look at the Suunto Race S - essentially the same features as the Fr965 at a fraction of the cost. Some will say that Suunto has heart rate issue but I would counter that with the fact that the Elevate 4 sensor has been inaccurate and having problems for more than a year without any indication that Garmin is going to fix it, you need a chest strap to get good data with Garmin already. Coros, Apple also better choices.

It should also be noted that Garmin took away the ability to customize the dashboard on the Connect web when they updated it to mirror your app, now they have given back the ability to fully customize your dashboard with the data you want and the way you want to see it with Connect+. They have taken have already taken away a feature that was once free and put it behind the paywall.

Just nope

I'm so disappointed.. I sell garmin product, I'm a manager of a running shop and for years I always advised client to trust and buy garmin over polar and coros for the quality of the after buy..(you buy a watch at launch and after 1 year you gonna have a lot more in your watch with update during the life of the product) I myself I'm a garmin addicted, I had the: vivoactive 3, forerunner 935 , edge 540, edge 1040, forerunner 945 , forerunner 955, and now fenix 8 solar. If they don't fix the big mistake they are making is big chance that in the future I'm gonna not be anymore a garmin user. I cannot understand how they think all this is a good idea. Is obvious that this is only the start and sooner or later we gonna see major update for the paying people and minor update for the rest. 

I hope they gonna see the mistake and retrace their step. But I'm worried the greed is gonna win.. and no they don't need money because they are making record profit in the last 2 years.this is only greed