by thibautg on 1/18/25, 11:35 PM with 310 comments
by NoboruWataya on 1/21/25, 12:21 PM
I do think Garmin have found a really good balance for their devices in being smart but not "too smart". I have had a Vívoactive 3 for years that I am pretty happy with. Good battery life and does all the basic fitness stuff plus some actually useful extras like alerting me to phone notifications, etc.
Also interesting is that the phone never just replaced standalone GPS fitness trackers. It's entirely possible to just use your phone to track your run, though obviously there are downsides, like you don't get heart rate tracking and it's a lot bulkier (though I think most people probably run with their phone anyway).
by lenerdenator on 1/21/25, 3:46 PM
1) build headquarters in (relatively) low COL city - in this case, Olathe KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City MO.
2) Have people who actually want to make a product instead of making analysts happy
3) Invest in R&D
4) Bring manufacturing in-house and tightly control processes
It's like everything the people actually doing the work at tech companies have been saying for years.
Can I have my $10mil/year pay package now?
by spchampion2 on 1/21/25, 3:57 PM
When Garmin originally launched a scuba watch, I was kind of surprised. It's a small market, and there were a lot of established "good enough" players in the space. Everyone already had a dive computer. Who would want an expensive one from Garmin when they could buy an expensive one from Shearwater? But Garmin showed up with a good product, iterated by adding their sonar based SubWave for air integration, and eventually took a lot of marketshare by including fitness and smartwatch features the competitors lacked. Now I see tons of Garmins on dive boats. People love them.
by transpute on 1/21/25, 1:00 PM
- sells an accurate blood pressure cuff with WiFi data sync (sans phone)
- is an active R&D contributor to OpenEmbedded Linux
- includes optional health data sync to vertically integrated cloud
- provides open FIT [1] protocol for local data sync
by wkat4242 on 1/21/25, 12:26 PM
It's pretty good too, you get a lot of features that were limited to airliners in the past. Like seeing terrain contours around you. Not that I fly IFR (instrument without visibility conditions) but still. I think it's very impressive.
by maskull on 1/21/25, 11:57 AM
by rtkwe on 1/21/25, 3:36 PM
by rob74 on 1/21/25, 12:34 PM
by fuzzy2 on 1/21/25, 12:20 PM
by exabrial on 1/21/25, 4:37 PM
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
by kubb on 1/21/25, 12:55 PM
I'm still considering getting a next gen Apple Watch Ultra if the specs are good. Having data on the watch plus being able to use certain apps are advantages
by neillyons on 1/21/25, 12:46 PM
by mcintyre1994 on 1/21/25, 12:32 PM
by lopis on 1/21/25, 1:11 PM
by sorenjan on 1/21/25, 2:31 PM
I worry that Garmin isn't well placed to compete with the new generation smart watches though. Google and Apple can make watches with connected voice assistants and phone calls. Garmin uses their own OS on hardware an order of magnitude less powerful. That's their strength and weakness, and it will be interesting to see what the market chooses. My next watch will also be a Garmin, I don't need or want a wrist computer, but I can see why others would want that.
by xnorswap on 1/21/25, 1:08 PM
In the UK, TomTom was much bigger than Garmin for in-car GPS:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=g...
It guess they didn't have the same market penetration / dominance in the US market.
by Ataraxic on 1/21/25, 5:01 PM
by deepsun on 1/21/25, 11:27 PM
And the most important -- no one there ever talks about alternatives. Except for non-certified experimental tools -- Garmin is pretty much the only game in town.
So I believe they operate as aviation/maritime company first, while all the consumer devices like watches/outdoor trackers are like a side-business for them. Yes, that side business happens to bring in more money than the main business, but they wisely don't rely on it.
by DebtDeflation on 1/21/25, 3:56 PM
by kshahkshah on 1/21/25, 12:52 PM
I don't believe the Garmin tracks apnea signals or heart issues at all unfortunately
by cadamsdotcom on 1/21/25, 8:33 PM
When your workout syncs from your watch to the Garmin app, Garmin ships it to a whole bunch of other places - a whole data pipeline kicks off across the Internet at no cost to you.
If only more of the software world would settle into this type of equilibrium, instead of the competitive data hoarding we see from so many other companies, it’d be a far better world for consumers and competition.
Garmin’s business model doesn’t depend on hoarding data. Hope it stays that way!
by mbirth on 1/22/25, 12:14 PM
10 years ago, they had a hand full of different models with clearly distinguished features. And there was one does-it-all model.
Now, they’re releasing 20 different watches a year which are all clearly based on the same hardware - just with different features enabled via software. There’s no top-of-the-line model anymore that has ALL the features.
And while I was able to turn my Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta via a simple firmware patch, they’re now using encrypted firmwares in all newer models. I.e. they’ve wasted lots of development hours on implementing encryption instead of fixing some of the various bugs reported in their forums or implementing some of the feature requests.
And don’t get me started on their nav units. They’re using maps from HERE. And after fixing mapping errors yourself in HERE’s MapCreator, it takes AT LEAST a year until they finally show up on a device. If you’re lucky.
Also, my motorbike unit’s manual explained a feature where it would warn you of upcoming bad weather. However, this feature never materialised and newer manuals don’t mention it anymore.
by Neywiny on 1/21/25, 12:39 PM
by myflash13 on 1/21/25, 1:09 PM
by FriedrichN on 1/21/25, 1:56 PM
by carabiner on 1/21/25, 6:00 PM
by anshumankmr on 1/21/25, 12:49 PM
Garmin is at a bit of risk from these sort of companies cause it costed me 7K INR (its newer variants cost a bit more), there is another brand called Coros which has the same value proposition as Garmin as well, so yeah the good times might not last always.
But they have also other interesting set of products like a GPS device for cycles which I don't think anyone else offers yet which gives a lot of advanced metrics like power, cadence apart from speed, time etc but those too cost a bomb and apparently people are being arrested for using it in my country.
by eduction on 1/21/25, 5:51 PM
If you’re not old like me, know that Google Maps launched in 2005 a couple years before the iPhone. It launched on the web and was lauded for its pioneering degree of interactivity (aided by then-new technology “AJAX”).
Presumably he means Google Maps app for the iPhone/Android.
by salviati on 1/21/25, 12:58 PM
by giancarlostoro on 1/21/25, 4:45 PM
Personally I have owned a Fitbit Ionic, and now an Apple Watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever take the plunge towards a Garmin watch, I mainly enjoy the benefits of the Apple Watch integrating into my iPhone nicely (notifications and GPS nudging come to mind).
by petee on 1/21/25, 3:48 PM
For what its worth they managed to lose 0.4 of their Play store rating down from 4.5 in short order, and thats based on 1M+ reviews, so not an insignificant number
by dcchambers on 1/21/25, 5:39 PM
by yurlungur on 1/21/25, 4:39 PM
Now I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good the descent mk3 is which I wear all day and there's also inreach etc. Garmin products are really safe buys when it comes to fitness devices. Other smart watches suffer mostly from the software side whereas Garmin connect syncs well and has good UX.
by jcfrei on 1/21/25, 1:46 PM
by fifilura on 1/21/25, 3:31 PM
I have no deeper analysis than that, other than that I remember how proud they were to be able to launch 2 phones per month.
I am a Garmin user myself, but i have a basic $150 ForeRunner 45. I love it and use it every day, because it has all the features and no touch screen.
by world2vec on 1/21/25, 4:34 PM
by flanbiscuit on 1/21/25, 7:25 PM
I had the original Pebble and Pebble 2. Loved them. Then one day Pebble was just shut down because of an acquisition by Fibit[1]. There was a group of people that started Rebble[2] to restore web services and support the watch but I was not interested so I switched over to Fitbit.
I had the Fitbit Versa 2 and Versa 3 watches and for a while they were great. Then Google bought Fitbit[3]. The impending "Killed by Google" was always in the back of mind, especially since they already sold smart watches. But I have been on Pixel phones for a while now and I thought maybe Google buying them would lead to good things. At first not much changed, but eventually I started having issues with the watch (more info about that below) and I got fed up with it and now I have a Garmin Watch.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Closing_of_Pebb...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Rebble
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitbit#Google's_acquisition
The issues I was having with my Versa 3:
Daily I would notice I had missed a sms notification and realize that my watch was disconnected from my phone. I had to go in and manually reconnect it. I also had issues using the voice command feature. I used to be able to use my Google Assistant through the watch, but at some point it just said "check bluetooth connection", even after confirming that connection. So sometime last year I decided to see if a factory reset would work. I did that and did the whole setup process again which included upgrading to the latest firmware. This did not fix the issue and it came with the added bonus of completely disabling my sleep tracking. I think I was grandfathered in because sleep tracking became a premium service that I was getting for free but doing the reset lost that. So now I was out of sleep tracking, voice commands to any assistant, and a stable connection.
by Mistletoe on 1/21/25, 3:28 PM
by regus on 1/21/25, 4:24 PM
I am one of the few people left that still use Garmin's car GPS. I currently use the latest model, the Drive Smart 66. It is my daily driver (lol?).
I recently went on a cross country road trip and this thing worked perfectly even when I was in the middle of the desert or driving through a canyon. It was nice to not rely on cell phone service for navigation on this trip.
Although the question often comes up: why not just use your phone? There are pros and cons for sure.
--------
Pros:
- You don't need a cellular connection for map data. -- Counter Point: You can download map data on google maps. True, but it is something extra that you need to remember to do.
- You don't need to waste your cellular data -- Counter Point: Don't most people have unlimited plans these days?
- A corporation isn't tracking your every move -- Counter Point: Most people don't seem to care about this.
- Modern Garmin GPSs can get traffic data -- Counter Point: It requires a cellphone and it is not going to be as good as google maps
- Modern GPS screens look just as good as a phone and you can get one that is as large as a tablet -- Counter Point: you could probably use a tablet and google maps
- Garmin makes GPS units for specific vehicles like motorcycles and RVs and they take their vehicles quirks into account when routing trips. Google maps is one size fits all
- A Garmin GPS unit from 20 years ago will still work today as long as you can update the maps.
- Because of the previous point, it is very nice to keep one of these in the trunk of your car as a back up
- Garmin GPSes can handle sitting in the hot sun without overheating, which some cell phones are prone to do.
- I really like having the GPS on my dashboard so I don't have to look down and to the right to look at my car's infotainment screen -- Counter Point: You can mount a phone on your dashboard or windshield. They even sell stand alone monitors for your car where you can view apple car play as it was a stand alone gps.
Neutral
- The routing can make weird mistakes, but this is true for all GPSes including apple maps and google maps
Cons
- And this is the biggest: it is nowhere near as good at finding businesses as google maps. To me that is google map's killer feature
by qznc on 1/21/25, 5:29 PM
by bwanab on 1/21/25, 6:12 PM
by ddghhhhdaf on 1/21/25, 9:58 PM
Are the watches different?
by fudged71 on 1/21/25, 3:55 PM
by froginspector on 1/21/25, 9:00 PM
by mathieuh on 1/21/25, 12:08 PM
Even the navigation isn't great. Most of the time when I get to a roundabout it wants me to exit at the first exit, then immediately perform a u-turn, rejoin the roundabout, and take the actual exit. Not even sure what's going wrong here, the same routes on a Wahoo unit work fine.
It would put me off buying another Garmin product to be honest.
by IronWolve on 1/21/25, 5:43 PM
Fitbit 5-7 days
Apple 1 day
by jwhiles on 1/21/25, 5:04 PM
Does hacker news not support Tildes or what?
by its_down_again on 1/21/25, 7:17 PM
I first started tracking my runs with apple health, basically carrying my phone in my pocket to measure distance. Back then, I had no weekly mileage targets, or pace goals. Just a curiosity about how far I could run. Eventually, I switched to Strava. I felt a bit of friction around starting and stopping runs on the app, but I loved watching my paces gradually improve month by month.
Eventually I signed up for my first marathon, taking my iPhone in my pocket and first gen airpods that ran out of battery halfway through, but I finished in 3:48. I stuck with the iPhone for a while, but one day I zoomed into the strava map and realized the iPhone’s GPS was unreliable—it added zigzags to my routes, inflating my mileage and making me seem faster than I really was (massive ego bruise). So I went to research accurate GPS watches, and I remember seeing people test them by running straight lines to check for accuracy on a map. The forerunner was the most satisfying straight on the map, and so I bought that in May 2020.
So I’ve had a garmin since May 2020 and still love it. The simple start/stop mechanism has become a ritual for me. I also appreciate the heart rate screen, which shows my zone using colored ranges—it’s what I used to pace myself during races. For example, I’d aim to stay under 160 bpm during half marathons and marathons. With the Forerunner, I brought my time down to 3:11 for the marathon and 1:24 for the half marathon. That’s when I hit an inflection point: I couldn’t improve further without serious training plans.
I tried using Garmin Coach but made the mistake of choosing plans slightly below my fitness level. As a result, I didn’t run enough hard workouts and plateaued. After that, I lost motivation and took a break from running and lost fitness-- my old 130BPM pace became my new 160BPM pace. When I returned, I spent a year trying to regain it. I watched countless YouTube videos and read Reddit threads claiming, "every amateur runs too fast and too few miles." So I focused on high mileage without prioritizing aerobic envelope workouts. My fitness stagnated—my half marathon slowed to 1:27, and my 5K and 10K times didn’t improve. I also psyched myself by overshooting mileage targets, leaving me either sick or over-fatigued on race days.
Eventually, I gave myself permission to run hard again, and my fitness returned. I worked my way back to a 3:02 marathon last year. Now my favorite workflow involves using the VDOT app as my personal coach. I set a weekly mileage target, specify which days I can handle hard workouts, and it generates a detailed plan for me. For example: warm up for 2 miles, run 400m at a target pace of 5:40 with 1-minute rests, and cool down for 2 miles. The garmin integrates as what I call my "buzz coach" through each stage of the workout. Too fast? Buzz. Too slow? Buzz. Next lap? Buzz. The alerts really help with making real-time adjustments. Overall I find this setup eliminates the decision fatigue of training. I used to obsess over pacing, distance goals, and analyzing every bit of my data. Now it feels like I'm just getting outside, running a lot, and having fun with it—and ironically, I've just started improving again.
by jboggan on 1/21/25, 1:39 PM
Some optical chronos make you shoot through a very narrow window [0] which restricts you to a tiny shooting position and don't work in many natural lighting conditions. Some attach directly to the gun or barrel to allow any shooting position but are very sensitive to offset and distance and can't be fitted to a majority of pistols and rifles to work up load data [1]. Some higher end models get around all of these issues by using radar [2] but the implementation is tricky. The unit is about the size of a laptop, has to have the flat side pointed perfectly downrange, and collects data in a window triggered by a recoil or audio sensor. Practically this makes it unusable at a public range with other shooters in adjacent lanes because you have a lot of gunshots and other projectiles and spall wizzing around at all times creating a mass of false or irrelevant data. The radar units sometimes have Bluetooth connectivity for an app that records data strings and allows you to change sensitivity settings on the radar. The app is terrible and the physical UI on the unit is atrocious as well, and most range sessions devolve into tweaking multiple sensitivity params endlessly in a futile effort to get only your own shots to register, inevitably bumping and misaligning the radar in the process.
Which brings me back to Garmin, who somehow managed to release a tiny unit [3] that is the size of a GoPro, has only one settings option (fast or slow projectiles), and simply WORKS. It has a simple and clean UI but the biggest thing is how it somehow picks up all of your shots without the need for an external audio or recoil trigger to start collecting data, and never picks up data from adjacent shooters. I truly don't understand how they managed this because it isn't sensitive to alignment like other units were. As long as it is on your bench or vaguely pointed downrange from near your position it filters out all of the other shots.
This wasn't an incremental product improvement either, they somehow launched their first product with superior UI, better form factor, better battery life, superior app integration, impeccable data quality, and better commercial availability than all of the previous solutions. When I show it to other experienced reloaders at the range they literally cannot believe how well it works. The only thing it doesn't compete on is price, which is fine because the reloading/shooting market that needs this unit is fairly well heeled and it still costs less than the combined used prices of all the various chronographs this replaces. Their product team hit this one so far out of the park.
0 - https://www.caldwellshooting.com/range-gear/chronographs-and...
1 - https://magnetospeed.com/v3-ballistic-chronograph
by newsclues on 1/21/25, 12:08 PM
by gausswho on 1/21/25, 1:06 PM
I noped right out. Reeked of surveillance capitalism. Shame because I did like the hardware. Is there a dumb watch that's got a good enough screen for hiking maps and the ability to SOS without sending Walmart and the NSA my realtime heart rate?
by basedrum on 1/21/25, 12:22 PM
by djsjajah on 1/21/25, 12:43 PM
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/garma...