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- cross-posted to:
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For all those clammering to sell and throw away, stick on the shelf, I will keep, buy, or what have you all your Garmin watches so long as they aren’t trashed and are relatively newer models.
Yes I am serious. PM me so we can discuss further if your done with Garmin.
JFC, is nothing safe?
I was just talking about dumping Fitbit as Google destroys it and jumping to Garmin…
Me too. What now?
What now?
Some options:
- Gadget Bridge allows connecting most devices fully locally
- PineTime simple, but cheap and free of corporate nonsense
- RePebble (coming later this year) - I just learned and it in this thread, but it looks promising.
Easy fix:
Buy a fitness/smart watch - an older one is fine, why go excessive
Download GadgetBridge from F-Droid/Droidify and then use that instead of a proprietary app which is just harvesting your data and telemetry at every chance:
I wish that was the case, but it absolutely doesn’t even come close.
I recall an app called endomondo doing similar. I’d bought the Pro version for lifetime only to find them move to a Premium option.
That was fine as I still had what I had paid for… until take up wasn’t good enough and slowly key features moved behind the paywall.
Im fairly certain this is the direction this is going. I wonder if there’ll be a class action if so to force buy back of the hardware
Oh no, good thing gadgetbridge exists
AFAIK gadgetbridge is not even close to a replacement WRT functionality? Last I checked it only supported basic data import, has that changed?
It depends of how well supported a specific model is
My Forerunner 165 is well supported, nearly the same as the official app.
What features are you missing?
You cant use it to create or manage workout plans. It is feature complete for the health data as far as I can tell (HRV, sleep, etc).
You cant use it to create or manage workout plans
Bummer, that’s a pretty significant reason for owning a sports watch I would say, probably one of the most important features actually.
Is workout tracking feature complete?
Yes workout tracking works fine, not quite as polished as Connect but it is functional.
I just tried it with my Fenix 6 and it does not appear to work at all despite being listed as partially supported. My watch can’t even be discovered by the app, even after factory resetting it and removing all of the Garmin apps from my phone.
That’s a shame. I’ll go back to wearing my mechanical watch for a while, I think.
For fuckkkksss sake. Ill keep my garmin watch until it works but never buying another one. I was so happy to find a watch that had everything i needed. Actually huge shame…
Uch, was already willing to get rid of my garmin but this just gives me more motivation
It’s also not trustworthy. Would you want the united states to have access to your heart rate, pulse ox, gps location, and other health stats?
My main reason for wanting to get rid of it is indeed #BuyFromEU based, but tbh I’m also still using my google pixel (looking to install Graphene once I bought my appartement, don’t want to risk issues with my bank app right now)
Probably getting a withings watch soon™
There are lots of European smartwatches as well. I too had a garmin but after the united states declared war on canada we have/are purging all US tech/products from our house.
This was in my mind but I don’t spend money easily so intend to replace it when it breaks.
I’ll need to reassess if the US invades
Withings is french :)
My main issue has always been battery life, garmin was and still seems like the only watch able to go so long on 1 charge (outside of withings, but those are hybrid watches)
Polar was on my radar but still crazy expensive for meh battery life (my #1 requirement)
I had a garmin instinct solar 2 and that battery life was approximately 29 days so I hear you.
Check out suunto! Similar to garmin and some of their offerings have similar battery. The suunto cores battery is 12 months in watch only mode according to their site.
Just as I was saying to myself “I’m pretty happy with the Garmin I have, I don’t need a new Pebble,” here come Pebble’s marketing department with a reason!
… What do you mean this is an announcement from Garmin?
Garmin is being eaten alive by Apple and Samsung, it’s their last grasp for some air. They refused to change their business model for a decade and it’s a payback time.
Which is odd because their stuff is really good for sensors, and has weeks of battery life vs other smartwatches that struggle to last a day.
They’re stuck with 1990-s mentality and refuse to change, sadly.
What would you like them to add?
I don’t want them to add anything, I want them to switch from making a thousand models and selling software features as hardware revisions to making one model which can go do everything and to have a proper app store instead of a joke they have right now.
Gotcha, one model for everything would be quite expensive though given all the extra sensors, better displays, solar charging and stuff the higher end ones have yeah?
What kind of apps do you want to use?
These probably seem like dumb questions but the only other smart watch I’ve used was an android wear model, and that was an absolutely miserable experience compare to my garmin. I never found any apps worth using on it aside from normal built in smartwatch stuff.
one model for everything would be quite expensive though given all the extra sensors, better displays, solar charging and stuff the higher end ones have yeah?
That’s the problem with Garmin - it won’t be more expensive. If we ignore optional gimmicks like solar charging, then there are no real hardware differences between VivoActive 5 and Fenix 8 apart from the barometer, which was present in even cheaper VivoActive 3. Depth sensor, for example, is just a software feature of a barometer (you need to calculate depth and altitude differently from the same data).
Garmin is selling software features packaged as different hardware SKUs and charging up to 4x more depending on a feature set. Their product range is extremely large with multiple product families divided into multiple physical products, which all are essentially the same piece of hardware. And today their range is actually more streamlined than it was before.
This is a stark contrast to Apple, for example, where you have one bloody watch and that’s it. Yes, you have different physical sizes to fit different people, you have different materials and finishes to choose from, but when you’re buying an iWatch you’re getting all the features no matter which screen size and arm band you choose.
Garmin should realistically only have two lines of watches - base model which has everything Fenix 8 has for £250-300 to compete with iWatch and advanced model with solar and other gimmicks no one cares about for £650-800 to compete with iWatch Ultra. That’s all.
Don’t worry, the c-suite will pull a j/k and then do it anyway later.
Fuck ‘em, eventually they will learn.
Yikes… Once my current Garmin watch dies I’ll just switch back to a regular non-smart watch
Time to search for a new brand for my next watch 😓 (when I need it)
Pinetime
Pebble!
Google (which purchased Fitbit, which had bought Pebble) still owns PebbleOS - https://repebble.com/
Right in their website.
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Why are you linking me the same website I linked?
That isn’t really an issue as PebbleOS is open source.
Ow, you are right. And it looks like part of it is a licensing problem too…
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Wym see also, that’s the link I shared 1 hour ago in this very comment chain.
Unfortunately they don’t include a GPS.
There it is.
So glad I skipped out on buying one of these.
I got a used dumb tracker for $8 (looks like it’s gone up since). No internet, no synching. Perfect for workouts.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. We just bought our first Garmin watches two months ago. I felt uneasy about our new relationship with yet another american corporation, but we loved the watches and the app… And now what?
Don’t worry nothing has changed at all, this is a paid tier same as any other land grabbing company on the planet for new tech.
Nothing compares to their battery life and feature set for health data as a whole. Garmin seems to have tbe most comprehensive health data coverage of all smart watches.
They are a stand up company anytime I ever needed support which has been many times for family as well.
Don’t worry nothing has changed at all…
Yet
