Is there any way to find out if this new calculation will be backported to the Fenix 5+ (or 935 watches)? It doesn't appear to require any additional sensors or anything, but it would be great to have temperature taken into account when calculating VO2Max. It seems odd that it may come to the 945, but not the Fenix 5+, which should still be a more feature rich watch in my opinion. When the Galileo GPS rolled out they did backport that to the 935 so there is some precedent for it.
Something occurred to me this morning - these new features (Improved VO2, Respiration Rate, Body Battery) are all FirstBeat supplied, so perhaps there is an additional licencing cost that makes applying them to earlier devices prohibitively expensive.
e.g. Garmin paid FirstBeat say $10 dollars per device to licence the original VO2 max calc and they would need to pay an additional $5 to apply the new algo. Not a vast amount of money, but one that was not accounted for when the original devices were priced (there is obviously Garmin engineering time getting the algo to work on each device, but I'm figuring that they have budgeted for support).
these new features (Improved VO2, Respiration Rate, Body Battery) are all FirstBeat supplied, so perhaps there is an additional licencing cost that makes applying them to earlier devices prohibitively expensive.
For me, this gets to the heart of why Garmin likely don’t push every new feature capability on to current, let alone past, devices. When you add to that, that they don’t (yet) have a clear revenue stream beyond the initial device hardware purchase, then it’s clear why not every new feature on a new device is added back to current or old models. That said, Garmin often do add new features to existing devices; a very obvious and recent case in point is the safety alert and incident detection features just added to the 5+ series with software 7.10; but there was likely no licensing cost to that as it’s a Garmin home brewed feature. Once/if Garmin can monetise the CIQ store and maybe other areas, so that revenue income extends to the whole life of a device, then we might see Garmin’s behaviour change to something more similar to that of Apple and Samsung with their phones.
Yes, I was surprised that Galileo support was added to the original Fenix 5 so quickly after the 5+ release, but I guess this was as you say a "home brewed" Garmin feature and since they had already written and tested the code on the very similar hardware of the 5+ it was very low cost/effort to roll it out to the 5 -- they have spoiled us up until this point!
Knowing that it's the cost of the FirstBeat algos and not some marketing masterplan to artificially create differentiation / encourage upgrades makes me feel better about it.
I understand their possible reasoning, as these are firstbeat algorithms, however let's not be so quick to defend them. Keep in mind that the original fenix 5 got all day stress tracking and that also involved new licensing from firstbeat. I know that that was only one algorithm and was probably cheaper to licence, however, this watch is more expensive so they could have at least thrown in body resources to complete the stress tracking.
Not providing even one simple thing like this makes it seem as though they want to artificially differentiate by limiting features to get more possible fenix 6 sales, and it shows that support of the product and value for money is worsening. Keep in mind that this feature is available on a $140 tracker.
A watch that is both newer and more expensive then the 5 will finish it's life-cycle with the exact same training algorithms, no progress in over two years. That is quite poor on Garmin's behalf as this is first and foremost a training product. I don't expect all these things, however, I do expect something, at least on par with what the 5 got given the higher price point.
I also understand their reasoning, but the 5+ is less than 1 year old. It has already been superceded. If we are moving to a yearly release schedule Garmin need to back port some stuff. I am not going to drop £700+ on a watch every year with little chance of seeing any new features Body Battery for me would be really useful but I am not going to sell my 5+ and buy a 945 just to get that.
At least Apple who have a yearly release-ish for their watch, back port software and support their older hardware.
Yes, I'm also not planning on giving them any watch sales in the near future, however, this is exactly what they are counting on, the fact that people will upgrade to the latest version based on this suppression of features. They want to push new products but are seemingly not able to add enough perceived value in hardware, so they turn to the software.
I don't think the current pace of innovation warrants a yearly release cycle, and fewer polished products are better than many buggy units running different software and algorithm versions, however, shareholders must be kept happy, and the watches must be selling well at ever increasing prices. It's probably not sustainable long term but for now given their dominant position in this market it seems fine for them.
Stress tracking was added to the F5 a month or two after it was released so there's more than a good chance the license fee was paid but the feature wasn't ready in time and it was added at the same time that the feature was included with the release of the Vivosmart 3. It's been almost a year since the F5+ was released so I doubt the case is similar and there's no reason to expect something similar to happen.
Things like Incident Detection has been added so it's not like the model has been obsoleted and will never get further updates and bug fixes.
Look, I have an F5+ and an F5S+ and would love it if the new Training Load and heat acclimation features would come to them. But the fact is that when you're buying technology of any kind you get what has the features you want/need that's available in your price range at the time you're buying. These features nor the hope of receiving new features weren't part of what my decision chain when I bought the these watches and I'm not going thrash Garmin for not including them. I bought what I bought and I have a choice to:
Complain
Live with it and wait for the F6
Buy a 945
I'm not going to complain because it makes no sense to and won't change anything. I can live with what the Fenix 5+ watches I have gives me, but the F5S+ doesn't have the battery life I'd like and the F5+ is a bit too big for my wrist so I'm not interested in waiting for the F6 line. So I've ordered a 945 because it has the new features but also because it'll give me more battery life than the F5S+ but be more comfortable the F5+. (I know the case size is the same as the F5+ but the strap lugs don't stick out as far and is much lighter)
Stress tracking was actually added over 6 months after general availability of the fenix 5 or about 9 months since it's CES announcement, so I do think the case is similar.
The rest of your post I mostly agree with except we have differing expectations on what is acceptable software support. I would understand the features not being backported if a successor was announced like the fenix 6, however, without an apparent direct replacement and under one year still within the warranty period, I find Garmin's approach substandard, and below other smartwatch makers which have a tendency to backport more functionality. This will be reflected in my purchasing habits with an extended upgrade cycle to 4 years instead of 2. The fact that we are seeing this behaviour from Garmin probably signifies a mature product hardware wise and that an extended release cycle from them would be ideal anyway.
Perhaps they would do better if faced with more serious competition and diminished sales, which will be the case unless the bring revolutionary new hardware for the fenix 6, as I've said before new software barring additional hardware requirements should not justify a new product release.
