It’s been almost exactly two months since Garmin announced Garmin Connect+, the sparkle-anointed subscription platform that adds a handful of additional features to your Garmin Connect experience (both on desktop and mobile). At launch, as I noted, it didn’t seem to offer a strong enough value proposition, at least to me and my needs.
But Garmin said to give it time, as it would soon expand it, and improve components like the AI insights. Thus today marks the next new subscription feature: Trails.
In short, Garmin Trails is a mapping and routing feature that finds routes while you scroll about a map (within a new ’Trails’ section on both app and web). You can filter these routes by a number of parameters, and then send them immediately to your device. To be super clear, this does not replace or remove the existing ability to create your own routes, search heat maps, or anything else that exists today on Garmin Connect. That all remains, and is free. There is no loss of features here.
Instead, think of this roughly like what portions of Strava Routes does, or Komoot does, in terms of surfacing up specific trails/routes to you, including ratings, difficulty levels, and even whether or not they have flowers or require a permit. These routes can then be pushed to your device for navigation, or saved to your account for later reference.
Now, eager to try things out, I started off looking for trails around my home in Spain. But sadly, at the nearest default zoom level, nothing was showing up. So, I zoomed out a bit (despite living on a national park packed full of running/hiking/cycling trails). Still, nothing. Then, I zoomed out to the entire island of Mallorca…nothing.
There are apparently no trails in Mallorca. Noted.
Ok, let’s reset. We’ll go to Amsterdam and surrounding areas, where I’ve been most of this week.
Ok then, maybe not. Perhaps I need to go into the dunes national park area, packed with trails that Dutch people wander in hopes of climbing the next best thing to real mountains: sand mountains.
Still nothing (despite literally showing trails within the map). But that’s OK, I’ll go to one of the places I know best: The Alps, specifically around Chamonix Mont Blanc.
Finally, success! We have found routes (indicated by the blue dot, showing the number of routes in that area):
I’ll set aside the fact that the left-hand side of this map is oddly empty of little blue dots, while the right-hand side is populated. And when you zoom in, said left-side shows trails just fine. Here’s the main Chamonix valley, which includes 8 trails (all of which appear to basically be near identical variants of a single section of trail).
Looking at the first trail in the list, on the upper left side we’ve got some overview stats (seen below, left), and then we have a little snippet of descriptor text. While this seems AI generated, putting it through an AI-text-detector actually says it’s 100% human. Scrolling down we get more stats about this trail, including seasonality usage, obviously favoring the summer quite heavily.
And yes, this is a trail (technically), and yes, the description is fine, and the stats are fine. But, this trail is not something anyone would hike as-is standalone.
I’ve hiked this specific trail section, a number of times, forwards and backwards. But, nobody would hike this trail as-is. To begin, this trail starts in Trient, a tiny little cutesy town that most hikers on the Tour de Mont Blanc would hike through. Here’s two photos from one of my hikes, from the exact spot this route starts.
But nobody would actually leave Chamonix village to drive all the way here here, and start here (remember, I zoomed into Chamonix for my search). But setting that aside, we’ll start there. Once we begin, Garmin says it’ll take us 7-11 hours, that’s probably a bit high to be honest, given this escapes much of the complexity of going over the ridge behind Le Tour, but fine, we’ll go with it.
The issue is, the trail as Garmin has it, ends on the side of the mountain, nearly 1,000 meters above the valley floor. If you were to hike it, you’d then need to find your way back down to the base (you aren’t allowed to camp in this area, only considerably above it). If you waited till June 7th, you could take a cablecar down from this point (since that’s where the trail stops). But that cablecar ends at 15:45, and with a 7-11 hour hike, that means you need to be starting upwards of before 6AM. Or inversely, if we did this entire route backwards, then we’d have to get to the starting point (the cablecar doesn’t open till 9AM), putting us in a town with almost no transportation options at 7PM (it would take 3 bus connections through two countries, a bit over 3 hours to get back, according to Google Maps).
Look, there are *SO MANY* incredible trails from the base of Chamonix village. Dozens of popular ones, and countless other variations. It couldn’t identify/list a single trail round-trip or otherwise usable trail from the Chamonix village base – arguably the most popular outdoor hiking destination in all of Europe.
Now, let’s look more at the technical features here. There is the ability to filter trails by a bunch of different parameters:
I think these filters do have validity in terms of utility and usefulness, but, it requires more underlying actual trails to become useful. For example, these parameters would be super useful with Strava Routes, where there are gazillions of trail options.
What’s puzzling to me though is that Garmin appears to be relying on some sort of manually curated trails here. Whereas they have this vast trove of automatic route generation pieces that they’ve used on both Garmin Connect and devices for years. And those automated (Round Trip Routes) actually tend to be really good, heavily dependent on Garmin Popularity map (heat map) data. It doesn’t seem like Garmin is leveraging any of that for the instantiation of the trail (perhaps just for the route duration portion).
Look, Garmin appears to be very committed to Garmin Connect+ being a core revenue stream going forward, just as Apple is with various Apple services. But Garmin has to find ways for these features to be fundamentally additive to the premium on-device experience, without feeling like they’re taking features that should be included for the premium Garmin device price. When I pay for Apple’s Fitness+, it’s paying for instructors/coaching. When I pay for Apple iCloud, it’s for the storage of all my silly photos (including the two I pulled from 3 years ago, for the photos above). All of those features have clear value props to me, because they’re executed well, and I can wrap my brain around why I’m paying extra for it (despite paying a premium for the Apple hardware it operates from).
I’m not convinced this new feature is currently providing that value to users, despite having the technical framework (filtering/etc) to do that well. Hopefully that changes.
With that, thanks for reading!
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Garmin has lost its way, it’s sad. Charging $1000+ for a device and then having you pay for subscription and so far the best they can do is trails? 99% of people know where they are going beforehand, they don’t need to find trails. It’s not like finding a restaurant.
Once my Amazfit Trex3 gets the new Zepp OS 5 that includes golf courses I can stop using my Fenix 6x Pro all together. They got greedy with pricing and not adding new features to older watches.
Hi DC,
If Garmin asked for your input, what would you suggest they add?
Don’t worry—we won’t tell them, so they can’t charge us for it :)
Thanks!
I guess the ongoing analysis of all your health parameters to detect medical conditions, alerts that something is going in wrong direction, active coaching on bilion of stats they are already measuring in activity (like “you should take shorter steps when running because X, Y and Z) would be worth paying for.
And LTE, obviously.
All I want is to turn off the stupid voice yelling in my ear, yet have turn notifications on my 7X, just like I was able to do on my 6X.
But, no… Despite it being a (former) flagship, that’s too much to ask!
Awesome, they started to charging people for already existing functions. The same thing is available in their normal -unpaid version- under Training & Planning -> Courses -> Nearby Courses. And its damn useful as already somebody uploaded a course for something that might be interested in.
The vast majority of the people are right to lost faith in this company. Myself included. Excluding the hard -Garmin boys- who I think they are ready to pay even for the simplest and useless things tons of money without proper justification.
Thanks for the explanation. When I saw the new Garmin Trails badges, I found your article. I’m an avid hiker and this could be a good feature if more trails were included. Not a Garmin + subscriber yet as it’s probably not the most effective with a Vivosmart 5. But I am a Badge Hunter. Thanks for posting
It’s a bit sad that the new norm for features is to launch in beta status and we’re supposed to accept the fact that the features don’t really work as marketed/intended at launch.
While interesting and (eventually) useful, it’s sad that this is a monthly paid feature, and, again, seems to set the baseline that every new feature going forward will (likely) be on the paid bracket.
Only elevation profile and season popularity, that’s all? No breakdown of terrain type, no photos, no % gradient? That’s just sad…
Maps still the worst in the industry? Check ✔️
I wonder if they’re going to quietly shut down Komoot or AllTrails integration in order to drive traffic to Connect+? I don’t want to give the ideas
So it looks like Trails is available on the free Connect, under “Training and Planning -> Garmin Trails”. Apparently what they’re charging for is the ability to send a trail to a device.
Anyway, I live in an area with a ton of trails both in the nearby Rothrock and Bald Eagle State Forests and on Nittany Mountain. All of the trails seem to be there, and the proposed loops all seem to be reasonable for the most part. Some of them I’ve actually done. There’s a bias towards longer hikes for some reason, but otherwise in central Pennsylvania Garmin Trails seems reasonable. No reason to sign up for Connect+, though, since there are plenty of ways to recreate these loops and navigate them on a Garmin device.
Trails is a big lift. Even if Garmin acquired TrailForks and GaiaGPS from Outside there would be huge gaps.
Perhaps over time the amount of trails in this tier will increase, especially if as you surmise here, the data being brought in seems to be mostly human-curated. We’ll see….
Garmin has certainly been hit or miss with their overall trails-data category, over time. Garmin Explore is a mostly-overlooked mess as far as I see it, and the inherent trails/courses process within Garmin Connect can also be mind-numbingly complex and confusing for most folks.
They have work to do in this area, and it could (SHOULD!) be an area where they lead, given their legacy with maps, GPS, mapping tech, etc.
Again – we shall see….
I like Garmin and I always buy the most expensive devices because I have money but I dont like the Connect+ feature is disrespectful for those who spend much money on it
I love to do sports but I hate that reality when everybody is saying “just give me your money and give me more money and give me all your money” because you love to do sports.
So pay for something Alltrails does very well, for free. Noted.
You’re right. Garmin already has a free Courses function that you can filter, in addition to the heat map. They are introducing a paid feature that already existed for free. I hope it doesn’t disappear.
I would be sort of ok with the Garmin + subscription for additional features, but so far, the features vs the cost doesn’t quite work, but the way for them to get traction is to gift an annual or maybe 3 month subscription to new devices.
Apple did this with Apple TV+ and it helped get the TV service up and running.
Maybe they think there will be early adopters, then they only have to give away subscriptions later on. But the risk then is people who take the plunge on a device, then find out that had they waited they would have got a free subscription, get shafted!
Not quite right I think. I did the trial period then cancelled. Though that was before “Trails”. Simply not enough features for the price point.
Oh dear oh dear. Still no reason to use the 1 month trial for Connect+.
There needs to be useful tools for paying for something like this that I can’t get from Strava Premium. Lets be honest, Strava is where it’s at as far as community is with Segments, K(Q)OM’s and Local Legends. Then there’s all the routes using heatmaps (I know Garmin provide that for free at the moment) that Strava has taken 10+ years to build to where it is now.
The only thing Connect+ really provides that is of any use, and I think it’s more suited to inexperienced people, is the workout function so you can see your workout on your phone as you’re doing it in the gym.
All of this, and the lack of backwards compatibility on a lot of watch features (hardware permitting) and watch faces (charging £4.99 a watch face) is disappointing from Garmin, and makes me either want to hang on to my current Garmin watch for much longer than I previously have with other Garmin watches, or look elsewhere (Suunto, Coros) when the time does come to upgrade. But, that all depends on whether the competition can step up to the plate in the meantime.
Is this a third party license? That might serve as a valid excuse for putting it behind the subscription.
Apparently Suunto knows Mallorca has trails. And, it’s free
This stuff just confirms everyone’s worst fears about this subscription model. There’s nothing wrong with a subscription, in theory, but we’re paying a massive premium for Garmin’s watches. With their newest releases, the cost continues to go up while new features are locked behind paywalls. I could stomach that if their highest end watches were in the $500 – $600 range. Or if they came with a multi-year subscription. But then on top of it all…the features suck.
I’m extremely happy with my Forerunner 955 Solar & Edge 840. They will last me many more years. But at some point, I’ll need a new device and I am not going to be paying into this scheme that Garmin has going now. Hopefully by then, Garmin will have come to its senses (or this terrible program will have done so poorly they’ll have to kill it because its costing them more money than it makes)
Fairly limited selection of areas that have trails available, explains why none are showing in Mallorca yet.
Where are Trails Available?
Trails can be found in the following regions:
Austria
Germany
Liechtenstein
Switzerland
United States
Ouch
For my part, I use other tools, the annual price of which does not allow Connect to be considered, without it being more expensive with Garmin.
So apart from being able to manage everything from the same place and remain captive, I personally prefer to use different services and thus easily change when needed.
There are, it appears, no trails on the island of Ireland…….
Interestingly today I got an update of the Garmin Explore App and inside that app you get the trails for free. So if you use an Explore compatible device (Fenix, Epix) there’s no need to pay for Connect+.
As the5krunner said:
It would be useful if they start and put official trails first into the system.
Then match it with heatmap data to create new ones, but first take the official once.
Those are curated to take care of the environment. Something wich heatmap data alone doesn’t show (but should reflect in some way).
I always hated Garmin Connect for route creation and this doesn’t seem to make it any better.
While it is ok on the desktop, using it on a phone is bad.
So us plebs are never getting new features and as a result are not buying another garmin device
I found one of the Trails listed near me is using one of my hiking activities from 2017. The GPS track is identical and, unfortunately for anyone that decides to follow it, it includes the nearly one mile out-and-back section in the middle of the loop where I missed a turn and had to backtrack .. so anyone hoping it leads out to a view or something interesting is going to be mighty confused and disappointed.
They better not nerf Strava integration to try to push this.
i love garmin devices. i’ve had lot of watches scales and gps devices
software has always been below standars
connect+ is a rip off
trails….wikiloc