Turn by turn directions to an address

There is no need to have any maps within Connect. The watch has those. Connect only needs to understand and accept the geo: format:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_URI_scheme

And then pass that information on to the watch. That's all, only about 20-30 chars of text. sendpoints and iqmapreceiver show that it can be done, it's just unreliable and in case of sendpoints requires an internet connection for the watch.

If I install and use Explore, it would mean that only for this purpose I would need a second, inferior map application, including doubling all the offline map data, just for the point of transfering a waypoint/address to my watch. That's really overkill. And no, using only Explore is not an option, it's not close to being good enough for that.

Edit: btw, Explore doesn't understand the geo format either. So you can't easily share a location from another app (osmand, Threema, whatsapp etc.) with Explore.

I am sorry if I do not share your complaint. I disagree with you. Since I have been using Garmin watches since 2016, I have no problems sharing waypoints and addresses. I also have Sendpoints running without problems and very reliably. And again : Connect is not intended by Garmin for these purposes, and probably will not be in the future. It has been developed for other purposes. I am often on the road in areas where there is neither mobile network, nor Internet. Go to
example in the mountains. And that's where the Explore app with the optional offline maps is indispensable. It is the only app that works reliably and offline there. With Explore, I can send any point on earth as a waypoint to the watch. I'm not interested in Whatsapp. It's a completely superfluous app for me. When I need to communicate with others in these areas, I do it via inreach. 

That's fine, we do not have to agree. ;)

I do get where you're coming from, but Explore and Connect overlap already quite a bit, it's not like they are truly separated. Either way, my proposal wouldn't really change any of this. It would not turn Connect into a mapping application. It would merely add a small piece of usability to be able to quickly add a location to your device via sharing from a mapping app. I'm proposing it, because Connect is the main(?) app that is designed for syncing data between watch and phone (and no, not just fitness data). But of course, the same functionality should be added to Explore as well. It, too, should start accepting and forwarding geo: URI schemes. For Explore, the same is true in the other direction as well. It should be able to share a location as a geo: URI and not just as a gpx track. I got it from your posts that you're not interested in that yourself, but I guess you have to admit that many other would be, as this is how most people do it already with e.g. google maps and the messenger they're using.

Personally, I'm using osmand, which has very good offline map support. With that, you can e.g. display public transport routes and see at which intervals they're services, all while being offline. Very useful if you're in an unknown city on vacation. Maybe Explore is better for outdoor activities, I haven't compared them for that, but usually in these cases I do detailed upfront planning with Komoot or outdooractive anyway, so I don't have a need for that personally.

BS said:

I got it from your posts that you're not interested in that yourself, but I guess you have to admit that many other would be, as this is how most people do it already with e.g. google maps and the messenger they're using.

I think it depends on what you expect from a "sports watch" like the fenix is. You can plan tours with Connect, or Komoot, or PAR, RWGPS or any other planning tool. I think that works very well for you. These tours can also be transferred without problems to the watch.
The fenix is a sports watch. In my opinion, the transfer of routes and waypoints with the Explore or other planning tools works well.
The fenix is not a real smartwatch. Messenger and other things should be left to other brands in my opinion.

Do you know a watch from Suunto, Coros or Polar that can receive GEO locations from a messenger or Google Maps ?

Resurrecting an old topic.  I just bought a Fenix 7x and also purchased the Garmin City Nav maps for $99.  I recently purchased a 67 as well, and also purchased the City Nav maps for that as well.  The 67 works very well - I don't need access to my phone to search for an address - I can do it directly on the device.  I was very disappointed to NOT have that functionality on the Fenix 7. Reading this thread - there is absolutely no way to search for an ADDRESS without an internet connection.  Can you send waypoints / locations to the watch without a connection - yes, however I can't fathom why the functionality exists on other devices but not the watch, especially with purchase of the City Nav maps.

Because then you're needing a huge database of addresses for a device meant to navigate off road for activities... Rather than a surrogate car GPS it's designed more for trail running and hiking. The larger devices are best suited for that role

But that's MY choice to purchase and install the maps - which I did.  I also had the choice to do so on my 67.  The watch comes with 32 GB of space.  I am not going to install music on my watch, so give me the ability to install the FULL version of the City Nav maps on the watch which would allow me to do exactly what I want to do.  It's that simple, honestly.

I owned an Edge 830 and that had that exact feature included while having half the storage (16GB, my Fenix has 32GB) available. And it was designed for outdoor/off road activities as well. So really, this sounds like a pretty lame excuse to not include that feature.
(Edit: same story with the Edge 840 that I do own now. Of course that has address search included and it works beautifully.)

But as discussed before, I would actually be fine with looking up the address using my maps app on the phone (be it Google Maps, OSMAnd, Here or others), if there were a better way to send the address to the clock for navigation, but this is only possible via workarounds (e.g. Sendpoints).

And don't get me started on Explore again...

Explore doesn't work or isn't meant to be used for turn by turn navigation, I have been told.  I try and map out distances greater than 75 miles and it fails and just gives me a straight line.  Anything less than a certain distance I get the turn by turn snap to map.  Explore isn't a solution in my view, its a band-aid.  If the other products have the space and processing power to handle this, and the Fenix line doesn't - shame on Garmin for not stating up front what the limitations of the device are.  It's stated NO WHERE on the maps page that these features will be omitted if you use a watch vs the handheld device.