What does Fenix 8 / Tactix 8 Need To Have To Make You Upgrade?

It is true that a satellite is used in this system. Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with GPS tracking. The watch transmits on the aviation radio emergency frequency AM 121.5 MHz. This signal must be located by the rescue teams.

see:

mcbit said:

LOCATOR BEACON

The signal is detected by satellites operated by an international consortium of rescue services, COSPAS-SARSAT, which can detect emergency beacons anywhere on Earth transmitting on the distress frequency of 406 MHz. The satellites calculate the position or utilize the GPS coordinates of the beacon and quickly passes the information to the appropriate local first responder organization,

mcbit said:

The satellites calculate the position or utilize the GPS coordinates of the beacon

What Happens When I Activate My Beacon?

„Some Cospas-Sarsat satellites only relay the distress message transmitted by the beacon.  Other satellites relay the message and also gather details about the signal that will enable COMPUTERS ON THE GROUND to ESTIMATE the beacon’s location.“…

https://cospas-sarsat.int/en/beacon-ownership/what-happens-when-i-activate-my-beacon 

ECG, BPM, Smart Wakeup (like Fitbit) with adjustable wakeup window (like Casio), Boost from sleep (like Polar's Sleepwise), real LTE so that you can leave your phone home.

I don't need a distress locator beacon when I'm sitting at my desk.

I love the training suggestions as they represent that Garmin took sensor data and leverage them to drive suggestions for improvement.

I have Garmin hrm strap, the index scale, bp cuff, and foot pod... I want more proof that these products can trigger insights into my health.

More sensors are always interesting.  What's left? Skin temperature, skin moisture content, body electrical contact... sensors.

Tell me I have a fever, or I'm dehydrated, about to have heat stroke, pass out.  Let me see The numbers, chart them, make them available for export and interfaces to 3rd party services where we can play with the data and come up with new ways to correlate what's happening inside of our bodies with how we are feeling and what is our health potential.

If solar actually shows a significant benefit then keep it.  Otherwise let us know or scrap it.  Get rid of touch screen unless you actually show people use it.  Scrap any features people don't use because they are obviously not helpful

ajwms2222 said:

Get rid of touch screen unless you actually show people use it. 

When Garmin first released Fenix 7 with touch I thought it was a good addition and actually useful. But then Garmin extended touch to a lot of other places in the UI to the point where it now harms usability. My watch does undesired things with touch on its own far more often than I intentionally use touch to achieve something. The frustration overweights the benefits and I might as well just turn it off. 

Here in the UK I find the Talky Toaster Maps the best for my Fenix 7X and it’s smaller screen (compared to my other GPS devices). Clear and good to read while walking and mountaineering. OSM based so when I add new paths or do any editing those edits and paths are on my wrist in, at most, a weeks time.

silentvoyager said:

When Garmin first released Fenix 7 with touch I thought it was a good addition and actually useful. But then Garmin extended touch to a lot of other places in the UI to the point where it now harms usability. My watch does undesired things with touch on its own far more often than I intentionally use touch to achieve something. The frustration overweights the benefits and I might as well just turn it off. 

A wrist watch is jut not a great platform for always-on touchscreen. Like you said, there's just too many times when things get tapped or swiped on accident and without you noticing. However I really like Garmin's current application of touch, with the option to have it always off, but automatically on when viewing maps, as that's really the only time I care about it. And the ability to simply use a hotkey to quickly toggle it on for everything, in those rare instances where you might want that, and then toggle it back off when you're done.

I don't use touchscreen very much at all, but when I do use it I'm sure glad I have it.

Smart functions like using phone assistant etc. and having microphone and a speaker. Yeah, I'm not using F7 for these but, somehow it makes me feel staying in back without some newer toys.