AI-powered insights come to Garmin – for a price

In addition to the essential LED flashlight, the other major reason I always have a Garmin watch on one wrist is the comprehensive ecosystem powered by Garmin Connect. 

Garmin Connect, both via its smartphone app and website, will continue to provide a free, personalized experience. However, Garmin is launching another option for people who want more from their devices.

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Garmin Connect Plus is an optional subscription service for $6.99 monthly or $69.99 annually. There’s a free 30-day trial to test the service and see if it satisfies your needs. Active Intelligence, powered by AI, is designed to give you insights personalized to your daily health and activity data collected by various Garmin devices. The more you use the service, the more it will be tailored to you and your goals.

In addition to Active Intelligence, Garmin Connect Plus includes a new performance dashboard with customizable graphs and charts, live activity functionality where you can view indoor activity data from your watch streamed to your smartphone, additional coaching guidance when following a Garmin Run or Cycling Coach program, and enhanced social features that include exclusive Connect Plus badge challenges.

Since I use Garmin watches daily, I will try Connect Plus with the free 30-day trial. The monthly fee is the same as one Starbucks latte a month, so I may continue paying for the service. However, Garmin must convince me that even a reasonable monthly fee is worth it. I rarely participate in challenges, so the enhanced social aspects are not a factor in my decision.

I recently picked up a Wahoo bike trainer so I will test the indoor live activity for this workout. I also use my Hydrow for rowing and other indoor workouts and will check Garmin’s capability for body weight and other exercises. I have also had success with Garmin training plans for half marathons and look forward to evaluating the additional coaching guidance included with Garmin Connect Plus.

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One reason I like the Garmin Connect website is the ability to dive into all the data collected by the watches, especially for tracking performance trends. The enhanced dashboards will be one of the first things I test as I find this type of data motivating and useful for inspiring me to continue with activities.