Garmin Forerunner 955 Status

Just wanted to say that the maps, payment and music feature combined with an overall improvement in UI performance is totally worth it for me. (235 -> 935 -> 945)

You don't see usage? You realize that LTE gives the ability to connect to any data in the world without having a phone around? That is, finding the nearest bus-stop, live traffic updates (road-closures), weather forecast/alarm, contacting your relatives/friends... The uses for LTE are enormous.... Yes, the big, big issue is battery life. That's the only reason why I would not expect such a feature on the next gen FR.

I don't. I do. Like I said "I have my mobile with me, I can take nice pictures with it and call help.". 

If I need those features, I have mobile for those feature. If mobile in the watch would be great idea, we would have them already. There are LTE watches already, how many people do you know using them? Yep. They are not atm a product that solves a need we have.

I think the feature I would like to see most would be dual-channel GPS! Maybe we could get the accuracy back to great level! :D 

That's all the things I would never do when doing sports. Forerunners are still sport watches aren't they?

5082041 said:

That's all the things I would never do when doing sports.

I too don't want to use LTE only because of battery life, but I don't understand your comment unless you only wear your watch while doing activities. Most use their watches 24/7 and the examples LopenMetTom gave make perfect sense if someone doesn't want to carry their phone. 

jmto said:

If mobile in the watch would be great idea, we would have them already.

But they do.  Like I said, I wouldn't use it because of the cost to battery life, but it's a huge selling point for the Apple Watch.  If it were possible to use LTE and maintain the current battery life with our Forerunner's, I really don't buy into the "I prefer to carry my cellphone for those features" argument.  And if it were an option, one could choose if they want to use it just as we can currently do with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

And why didn't you quote the next part? "There are LTE watches already, how many people do you know using them?"

I don't know anyone who has LTE watch and those who do, are minority. It maybe "huge" selling point for the Apple Watch, but people buying Apple Watch are not buying a sports watch, or if they are, they don't know much about them. If I would have to say I don't know that any of my friends are using Apple Watch.

If it were possible that LTE would not cost battery life, and would not make extra cost, then yes, it wouldn't matter, but like I said "They are not atm a product that solves a need we have".

And the said use cases.. uh. well let's go through of them:

- finding the nearest bus-stop => can be solved by maps, how often do they change the places of bus stops that it will need online database? and how often would Garmin update them to that online database versus to map? I don't much see benefits here to be online.

- live traffic updates (road-closures) => how changing road-closures there are where you live? these are usually planned and known and can be loaded to watch during sync... for the traffic updates, what traffic and what sport are you doing that the traffic would matter much? Of course there could be accident, which causes road closure.. and even if this data would be loaded over the internet, makes make also wonder why? Isn't TMC for this? 

- weather forecast/alarm => during activity? can't you see it? otherwise it has been synced before the activity? or how long activities do you generally do that there would be some weather event that would have alarm during your activity? 

- contacting your relatives/friends => contacting how? call with the watch? some really annoying SMS/IM? Or they are contacting you? For contacting the one thing that would be great here would be automatic emergency service call...

jmto said:

And why didn't you quote the next part? "There are LTE watches already, how many people do you know using them?"

OK, we'll add it for you.  I know several.

jmto said:

and how often would Garmin update them to that online database versus to map?

Why would Garmin be responsible for updating online bus stop schedules or locations?  And yes, online information would be more current than waiting on Garmin to update maps.

jmto said:

contacting how? call with the watch? some really annoying SMS/IM? Or they are contacting you? 

Why not?  If there's an emergency and someone needs to contact you, you find a call or SMS annoying?   That's right.  You'll needlessly be carrying your phone.

jmto said:

- weather forecast/alarm => during activity?

jmto said:

what traffic and what sport are you doing that the traffic would matter

Your focus seems to be the LTE feature could only be used while in an activity.  You do understand it could be used outside an activity 24 hrs a day when one doesn't want or need to carry a phone?

jmto said:

Of course there could be accident, which causes road closure.. and even if this data would be loaded over the internet, makes make also wonder why? Isn't TMC for this? 

I don't know where you're from, but where I live there is no "if this data would be loaded over the internet"; it is, so I  could be updated without the need for a phone.  I don't know what your referring to with TMC.  

I do understand your argument about carrying a phone when you can have the same information with LTE though.  I never understood why Garmin added GPS and maps to their watches when it's preferable to carry a portable GPS unit that does the same. 

tess said:

Why would Garmin be responsible for updating online bus stop schedules or locations?  And yes, online information would be more current than waiting on Garmin to update maps.

If not Garmin then who? Where to get the data? How is this going to work globally so that people can get the data and it works? If Garmin implements something and then it's for the local government or somethings responsibility to do some API where to get the data? How does the watch know where to get it and how to query it? I see a lot of integration problems in this. I don't understand how do you expect it just to work.

tess said:

Why not?  If there's an emergency and someone needs to contact you, you find a call or SMS annoying? 

Why not what? You want to be able to call with the watch? So you will need speakers and microphone also for that. And then the SMS/IM annoying is the how to write the text, it's really painful for even name the HR straps if you want to, I don't want to think about writing SMS with it.. Speech recognition? Over the LTE I assume by using the LTE, mic and speakers with some Siri like feature? Speech recognition is also pretty crappy usually, especially for many other languages than english and if english isn't your native language.. Not really very good global solution.

tess said:

Your focus seems to be the LTE feature could only be used while in an activity.  You do understand it could be used outside an activity 24 hrs a day when one doesn't want or need to carry a phone?

Of course I'll focus during the activity as I don't understand this case, not carrying your phone in some other case... I understood that the point was that during activity you don't have to carry phone. If isn't not activity I can't see why would I want to swap my mobile to watch which UI/UX is much worse than mobile.

tess said:

I don't know what your referring to with TMC. 

It's the standard for getting the traffic data. I think Google would have told you about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_message_channel 

tess said:

I never understood why Garmin added GPS and maps to their watches when it's preferable to carry a portable GPS unit that does the same.

Being sarcastic and failing badly to understand the point. The point is if it's better, more convenient... To me it's pretty clear that portable GPS isn't as good as some in watch, but if watch would replace mobile, people would have just watches, not mobiles. Technology wise we just aren't yet there.

Or are you saying that the persons you know having LTE watch have also dropped using/carrying their mobiles?

But this conversation is also pointless... Let's just disagree.

And I'll hope that we won't see LTE.