Hot Keys

MarkC said:

I think that depends on how you see the lineup... I would argue that the OLED series of watches is there to appeal to the smartwatch customer base who value aesthetics more than pure sports-watch people.

That's not how I see it though, and apparently, that's not how Garmin sees it either.

Why do you think this watch is called Forerunner 165? Clearly it's meant to be cheaper and have less features than 265 and 965. The reason it's 165 instead of 65 is so Garmin can position it as being "better" (and more expensive) than 45 and 55.

Garmin 955 has hotkeys and 165 doesn't. By your logic, 165 should automatically be "better" than 955 bc 165 has OLED and 955 doesn't. Except 165 (no music) retails for $299 USD at release and 955 retails for $399 (on sale 2 years after release). More to the point, 965 costs $579.

All new Forerunners, regardless of price or features, are OLED anyway, which kind of invalidates your point. The customers who value aesthetics will go for a Garmin "lifestyle" watch (Venu or Vivoactive) or an Apple Watch.

I don't know why you think OLED is somehow a separate "series" of watches from Garmin and which should be exceptional simply bc they're OLED. In reality it's only older models (e.g. 955) which are non-OLED simply bc they're older and certain lines which are non-OLED for battery reasons (Fenix, Enduro, Instinct).

It's actually non-OLED which is the exception to the rule at Garmin now.

MarkC said:

If that is the case, then it would make sense for Garmin to improve the smart-watch features by including hot keys for all the little widgets.

"Hot keys" isn't a smartwatch feature imo. If it was, marketing would shouting about it from the rooftypes, but as you pointed out, they aren't. Instead, it's a tiny little footnote in the manual and a minor point of discussion in the forums. DC Rainmaker never mentions hot keys in any of his gigantic reviews (although he has mentioned them in some how-to guides.)

I strongly disagree that the kind of user who cares about aesthetics (and coolness) would tend to buy a Garmin instead of an Apple Watch, and even if someone who leans towards aesthetics wanted a Garmin (bc they're a runner or cyclist I guess), "hot keys" wouldn't be the feature that tips the scales.

MarkC said:

Apple has thrived on making money through improved ease of use.

Garmin ease of use is terrible, and I doubt anyone thinks that customizable hot keys will make their devices easier to use for normies.

A lot of the people I run with have no idea that holding UP on a 5-button Forerunner opens settings. (Why do you think they added the ability to open activity settings by short-pressing UP before the activity starts, along with an on-screen button hint? Obviously a significant number of ppl didn't know how to open settings the "normal" way.)

Many people also don't know that holding DOWN opens music controls.

And the ppl I run with don't realize they can return to the watch face during an activity using - wait for it - a hot key, bc they have no idea what hot keys are or that their device has them. Bc - guess what - they didn't buy their Garmin for hot keys.

MarkC said:

I think that depends on how you see the lineup... I would argue that the OLED series of watches is there to appeal to the smartwatch customer base who value aesthetics more than pure sports-watch people.

MarkC said:

SmartWatch + Aesthetics + Running + Health : FR165, FR265

Running + Health + SmartWatch + Aesthetics: FR255

+ Maps: FR965, Fenix, Epix etc...

This isn't even consistent with your own argument. FR255 doesn't have OLED but you put it in a category with "Aesthetics", when your claim is that OLED is for people who like aesthetics (I agree with that part anyway.)

And your first two categories are exactly the same, just in a different order.

I assume it's a typo to have aesthetics in the second category, but it doesn't matter bc you don't get to define Garmin's marketing strategy for them. You might disagree with them, but I think they know what they want their product categories to look like.

Also, nobody thinks Garmins are good smartwatches. That's why some people actually wear both a Fenix and an Apple Watch (sometimes even at the same time), which admittedly sounds crazy to me.

Here's how I see it. Instead of asking why Garmin doesn't put hot keys in Forerunner 165 watches, try asking why customers won't buy Forerunner 965 instead, which has everything FR165 has and much more, including hot keys (which is apparently the most important feature Garmin never talks about).

Oh I know. Because FR965 is much more expensive than FR165.

So it really has nothing to do with OLED, aesthetics, or any of that other stuff. Garmin wants more money from you if you want hot keys, and they're willing to bet you just might pay it. Or if you don't, they get your money anyway when you grudgingly buy the FR165, which is much more reasonably priced.

I see:

1xx as basic GPS running watch.

2xx as 1xx + advanced metrics (training rediness etc...) and better build quality.

9xx as 2xx + Mapping. Bigger screen, better battery and better build quality.

I see:

x6x as a more premium version of x5x with OLED screen

Admittedly 165 is more than a premium 055, but maybe that is Garmin's error... Maybe there is not enough to differentiate between 165 and 265 for the £200 price difference. 

MarkC said:

I see:

x6x as a more premium version of x5x with OLED screen

Not exactly how to interpret this.

If you mean that all x6x watches should be "better" than all x5x watches, that's clearly wrong.

You'd be saying that 165 should be better than 255 and 955 just because it's newer and has OLED, despite the fact that 165 (no music) retails at $299, while 255 was $399 at release and 955 was $499.

Again, for the 3 digit watches it's clearly the first digit which tells you how expensive/fancy the watch is (what I referred to as tiers). The 2nd digit tells you what generation it's in (i.e. what time frame it was released in).

If you're saying that 265 is a more premium 255, 965 is a more premium 955, etc., that's exactly what I said above. And that doesn't imply that 165 should have everything that 955 had (such as hot keys).

With a few exceptions, Garmin purposely holds back features from the low tier watches which are present in the high tier watches, even across generations (like mapping). OTOH, some features (like OLED) are added to all watches in a certain generation (that's why every *6* watch has OLED). Yes, the exception here is that sometimes a "high tier" feature will make its way down to a low/middle tier watch in the next generation. This has happened in the past with the stopwatch/timer, navigation, and multisport features. But again, notice that the next generation is usually more expensive (which does tie into how the next generation is more "premium" in some ways, but not every way.).

You may not like Garmin's marketing scheme, but that's how it works.

Does Apple automatically add every feature from the most expensive watch/tablet from previous years to this years cheapest iphone/ipad? No. That's why for years, the cheaper iphones had LED screens and the more expensive iphones had OLED. Now all new iphones have OLED, but again, that's no different than what Garmin sometimes does, by finally adding a feature to middle or lower tier watches that used to be exclusive to higher tier watches.

It's also the same as how not all ipads have Face ID. By your logic, every new iPad in 2024 must have Face ID (and not Touch ID) because every 2024 iPad must be more "premium" than a 2023 iPad. But no, actually apple has reserved Face ID for the iPad Pro, so they have a reason to justify the higher price. It's called marketing.

Sometimes companies go in the opposite direction, like how fitbit has removed the baro from every device except for its smartwatches. So it isn't even the case that the next generation of a device has every feature that the previous generation did.

Garmin removed "auto lap by position" from most newer forerunners, except forerunner 745, although Fenix has always had it, and so did a few ancient forerunners.

MarkC said:

Admittedly 165 is more than a premium 055, but maybe that is Garmin's error.

Uhh it's not an error, again I pointed out there's a reason the watch is called 165 and not 65. If they wanted this watch to simply be the next generation 55 (55 + OLED), they would've called it 65. And it still wouldn't have hot keys, since 55 didn't have hot keys.

Your whole argument basically boils down to "I think 165 should be better than all *55 watches because it's newer and it has OLED (which is premium af) so why doesn't it have hotkeys?"

This is totally ignoring the fact that:

- 955 had hot keys, 255 did not

- 945 had hot keys, 245 did not

- 935 had hot keys, 235 did not

Starting to see the pattern? 965 has hot keys, 265 does not. And 165 does not.

I don't think it's unreasonable for Garmin to make sure that a watch released in May 2022 (955) still has more features (big and small) than a watch released less than 2 years later (165, in Feb 2024) which is $200 cheaper.

The point of having different models with different features at different prices is to extract the maximum amount of money from the maximum amount of people, not to give customers everything they want at a lower price point, or to add every feature from old devices to the cheapest new devices. Garmin added OLED to all new Forerunners, but they didn't add mapping to all new Forerunners. Every Garmin has optical HR now, while 10 years ago OHR was a premium feature for some models. Yet some Garmins from 10 years ago have features like mapping that some new Garmins do not have. Garmin decides what features to add to *every* new device, whether you like it or not.

You think any of this stuff you're saying will cause Garmin to slap their foreheads and say "oh snap yeah we should've put hot keys in the 165 our bad".

You want hot keys, just buy the more expensive watch that has them.

I agree to what you say - but 265 actually has hot keys