A clever move would be to open up their Connect platform to non-Garmin devices, I would pay money if I could use Garmin’s Fitbit Connect data and analysis like EPOC training load with my Apple Watch.
Instead Garmin execs, whose current model is to charge premium prices for devices (£1,000 for a watch) because you get hardware PLUS locked data and analysis ecosphere with Connect all bundled together (which makes sense), decided to create another revenue stream by separating some of this data out and charging extra, after you’d already spent that £1k. .
Oh, like TV content. Not long ago, the wife was lamenting not having much to watch on the box, so she started talking about the streaming services. I went though the ones I could see using, and did a spreadsheet to present, and she was shocked. AND it’s only gotten WORSE!!
Adobe went SAAS (Software As A Service) years ago, you basically ‘rent’ their software, and after that, everyone eventually tried jumped on that speeding cash cow. Some software, the users flat out demanded they not change the extortion process, other vendors and niches, the users either didn’t care, or were find with it. So now, even more than the past, ‘we’ don’t own anything1 ‘We’ don’t own the software we bought, ‘we’ don’t own the videos and much of the music we bought. What we DO own is the physical media (unless we downloaded it) and that is it. If the media is defective, we may have the right to get replacement media, but some software is also copy-protected to the end of time, and requires more that just a new DVD.
So tanstaafl…
Even formerly ‘freeware’ software has over the years gone ‘payware’. People got to eat, but look at what Adobe demands from everyone of their users. If you aren’t in the business and can charge a king’s ransom for your services, the fees are bleeding people, studios, and corporations dry! One of my clients (who went out of business) was paying over $100,000 a year in software subscription fees!! CAD software isn’t something some businesses can live without, and all of their other software too. YIKES!!
Honestly, they would have been better off using the money they spent on developing what is almost assuredly a failed platform and using that to help fund the purchase of an already existing and successful platform and then integrating it into their ecosystem.
My view is these generated summaries, which rehash simple data that you already know into a load of textual cruft, actually have negative value - being literally a waste of your valuable time to read. The idea I’d pay money for these Absent Intelligence “insights” is laughable.
When Strava released their so-called “AI” crap last year, I posted that they think we are idiots, and now Garmin has joined that club too.
As you rightly point out, there seems to be a gulf opening between those touting a useless veneer of “AI” and others, like TR, putting in the hard yards to deliver functionality that’s genuinely useful. Probably helps that the boss has proper techie smarts so not gonna be impressed with some sh!tty veneer!
I asked Copilot AI to fix Garmin’s connect business model and the second thing it said was make it work with Apple and fix the user interface
At no point did copilot say that Garmin should use AI.
Other noteworthy comments from it
Not to focus on premium priced products like watches
collaborate with other brands and not be locked behind hardware
I’m not anti-SAAS per se, but Garmin devices cost a lot upfront and have really short lifespans (in terms of major software updates), it seems reasonable that the software environment should be considered part of the purchase. And it’s wild to me that they’re launching it with seemingly nothing to offer?
Imagine being the team that developed this platform, and after seeing the ridicule Strava got last year, thinking it was a good idea to plow forward with essentially the same thing….but hey, enhanced Live Tracking, too!
The reviewers seem to think there is a large market for being able to watch videos of the exercises on your phone. I’m not in that market, but that does seem to be what some people think is the main benefit. Something to compete with other phone exercise apps.
It just amazes me in general that Garmin and Strava have never seemed to be phased by the huge swath of loyal customers who they outrage with this kind of stuff. Garmin Reddit is literally just a huge dumpster fire of speculative hate right now. Similar to the Strava thing last year. And they both do it over and over again.
Having said that, they announced record profits and the stock is high, so who knows. Maybe we’re just the very vocal minority of their user base.
I can’t say too much about TP, but when your entire business model is based off of coaches paying to use TP, athletes paying coaches who then pay TP, an AI model isn’t something that aligns with their mission. We tried, actually launched an AI running app and scraped it pretty quickly.
FasCat’s model is pretty solid. Two of the lead devs/engineers who built that came from TP.
Yeah, Strava’s warning that “requesting or attempting to have Strava revert business decisions will not be permitted” when they announced the API changes last year blew my mind. I sincerely cannot fathom having that much disdain for your own users.
I’m a big no. For me, Garmin connect is just a way to send my outdoor rides (recorded on my Edge 1040) to other platforms for combination with other activities (e.g., indoor TR workouts, run / walks on my Apple Watch, etc.). Personally I find Garmin Connect an UI/UX nightmare (why can’t I hide the golf part? I don’t golf, get rid of this please), and the “insights” laughable - condition score at the beginning or rides, whether or not a particular workout was productive, etc.
Before Garmin tries to charge for this, they need to fix the underlying crap and make their recommendations actually useful, and user centered.
My garmin devices are data collectors and mapping devices. I use other platforms for insights, visualization, training. . . . Like this one, TP, intervals.icu.
The metrics, scores, and other features (sleep, recovery time, DSW, etc) are “neat” or interesting. But they don’t change my training plans or anything.
Of the paid features, the strength work out live sync seemed neat. I use Free strength workouts and it does ok auto-detecting. But it’d be nice to just keep those in sync as I go…not worth 70/year though.
As long as they keep my data accessible, easily sync to other apps, and good core device features I’ll probably stick with them. It doesn’t bother me that they’re investigating new revenue sources.
I would buy it if it supported cycling outdoor structural training - just to have iPhone on the handlebar instead of Edge, but apparently they won’t allow that, forcing customers to buy hardware, too. I do have Fenix 8 and I would sell in this case Edge.
