Garmin Forerunner 955 Status

who knows said:

If there where two versions that would be great, but I disagree that it would be a deal breaker if they all came with LTE. 

Depends on the pricing and others is it a deal breaker. For me it might be. Especially if the GPS is as bad as in 945.

who knows said:

Anyway, I wanted maps.

Well the maps is also a big feature for me and without maps I think I would have gone back to 935. I don't use Garmin Pay or Music etc. But the cost of having those is not so expensive than LTE, even if you sum the features. Most of them are just using the hardware the watch already has without extra cost. If there's Maps, there's need for more storage which can also be used for Music. These share the cost of larger storage etc. If there's optical HR, the SpO2 is not so much extra cost for it, granted it's done with different leds, but cost of leds, pennies. Garmin Pay is using the NFC, also not a expensive chip. So I understand that point that there are features that you pay but don't use, but I think that the cost of LTE is pretty much higher than cost of those other extra features which makes it different thing.

who knows said:

I hope you understand why people like myself would like this feature. 

I think I've always understood but somehow my communication was always taken like I don't.

If the 955's only additional feature is an LTE connection, I'm not interested in buying it.

I bring my phone with me when I run so that I have incidence detection and reporting, nothing else.  I've got my phone in a waist band in the small of my back, where it doesn't bother me at all.  On the longer runs which require hydration, my phone goes in my hydration belt or vest.

I don't need my phone to be accessible, so having it stashed somewhere like that works fine for me. I don't use it while running.

If the watch doesn't need the phone to call for help, that might be useful EXCEPT I'd have to pay a monthly charge for the cell service in order to use it.  And that extra cost is more than the benefit I would receive by not having to carry a phone.

Obviously other runners may weigh the factors differently.  But will enough runners think that paying extra every month for phone service is worth it?  Is the market big enough that Garmin will be able to sell enough watches to make some money?  That's a question I don't have an answer for.

Some might buy it just to have the latest and greatest running watch.  For those people, it really doesn't matter what's in the watch as long as it's "newer".

(There's also the technical question of whether the reception on the watch will be as good as the reception on the phone.  There's far more room for an antenna in the phone case than inside the watch.  And my one smart watch that had a SIM card required that the band be unchanged because that's where the antenna was.  The battery life sucked, which is why I stopped using that watch.  But my daughter really likes making phone calls on her Apple Watch)

Worse yet.  Even if I moved to an LTE watch and stopped bringing my phone, I still wouldn't get incidence detection when I need it the most; in the deep woods.  So even if I had the 955 LTE, I'd still need to carry an inReach Mini, which kind of spoils the entire reason for getting an LTE watch.

(I wonder if you need LTE if all you're using it for is incidence detection?  Text messages are, by their very nature, very low bandwidth.)

Fredrik_Coulter said:

But will enough runners think that paying extra every month for phone service is worth it?

I think I would have bought InReach Mini without the subscription it needs. My need for it is so few, we have pretty good mobile networks here, so even the cheapest InReach Mini subscription of 14,99 e/month if I'll buy it for a year is totally too much, and only one month is 19,99 e/month. So no deal. I'd rather have something like 100e/emergency billing, but people probably have too few emergencies for that to be profitable subscription model.

LTE would not have to be Garmin operated and you would get local mobile networks there, which would make it pretty cheap at least in here, so I could get extra SIM without any extra cost if I don't use it... and then if I use it would be max 1e/day or 25e/month which in my case would probably be pretty rarely.

But in my case, probably the answer is no.

jmto said:

why LTE is good, not counting that emergency thing and not having phone with you.

Ehh, what good is an apple if you discount its good taste and nutritional value? ;-)

I look forward to LTE, to me the use cases all have to do with the watch having phone capability. Since.. ehh, that is what it is about, right? Adding phone capabilities to the watch.

Alright, jokes/teasing aside! The primary benefit for me is indeed ability to run without having to have a phone (yay, no armband or belt!! sooooo awesome) while still retaining the use cases that the phone offers, which - again for me - are indeed liveconnect so my wife and kids can check where I am (more stability on liveconnect would also be nice...) and (indeed) emergency dialing.

Currently I also use the phone for music, but that is already solved by the 945 - although I have not yet upgraded since if I am already carrying the phone for the other purposes, well, might as well use it for spotify too, right... So 945 was no killer upgrade for me.

Still rocking a 920xt, actually. Works nicely, still. I think apart from the armband the thing is a good testament to garmin quality. Except when it hangs. Which typically is on the important runs - so I know I cant use all features on a race, to make it more dependable (like route/map + liveconnect = garmin crash).

But when the times come and I can ditch the phone on my runs?
Killerrrrr - upgrade alert will be sent instantly to wife!

Take care!

chipbite said:

to me the use cases all have to do with the watch having phone capability.

It won't have phone capabilities. It has some of them, not all, not by long shot. 

And that's where it comes, why do you need your phone with you and will having LTE in your watch solve your needs or not. You might not even have the need for the phone, or you have use cases where the LTE watch can handle them or you are still requiring your watch.

In your use case, yes, you would be happy, others might not, YMMV. So it's not just absolute killer feature for everyone, I'm not waiting for it and if it comes I would hope that there's LTE and non-LTE version.

I'm just hoping there's an actual leap from the 945-955 to justify an upgrade.  The differences between the 935 and 945 were underwhelming, and that's being generous.  Anyone who has asked me about tri watches, I tell em to wait if they can, otherwise, get a 935.  LTE and a smaller bezel would do it IMO. 

LTE would be a reason to switch back to Polar. I want a sports watch, not a lifestyle thingy full of useless gimmicks infested with software flaws. Garmin pay and music are already insulting enough.

It pretty interesting that I've thought Fenix as lifestyle watches and Forerunner as sports watches, but nowadays it seems that Fenix has more sports features than sports watches. Which also makes me think that should the next upgrade be to Fenix.

I just got myself a FR945. I was using FR45 previously.

I hope for better battery life, more sensors, better resolution display.

4G or 5G is going to be overkill. It will not help to improve battery life.

You'll love it. My son has a 45, and it's b-a-s-i-c.  I was shocked to learn you can't even adjust the watch face from dark to light.