'I'll switch to another brand': I polled over 1,000 Garmin users to see what they thought of Garmin's Connect+ premium tier, one year after its launch

One year ago, users of the best Garmin watches were very angry indeed. They took to platforms like Reddit in droves and filled comment sections (and my inbox) with their fury.

Why? Garmin had announced its then-new premium tier, Garmin Connect+, which asked users to pay $6.99 / £6.99 / AU$12 per month or $69.99 / £69.99 / AU$120 annually in exchange for exclusive access to new AI features like Garmin's Active Intelligence commentary, along with an improved LiveTrack service, Performance dashboard, and other bits.

Garmin users were worried about this. While none of the vast swathe of comprehensive features they enjoyed in the base app were going away, many feared this was only the beginning of the process of dropping new features behind the Connect+ paywall. In this scenario, subscribing to Connect+ would eventually become all-but-compulsory, even after shelling out for an expensive ...