Every piece of tech has a shelf life, and Garmin has confirmed that day is coming for some of its most popular Forerunner and Fenix watches. Sort of.
Thanks to a little light digging from DC Rainmaker, Garmin has said the Forerunner 965, Fenix 7, Fenix 7 Pro and Epix Pro are going to miss out on several of the new features coming to the new Forerunner 970 and 570.
If you own a newer-generation watch, including the Fenix 8, Enduro 3 and Tactix 8, you’re still on the guest list.
The crucial question: what exactly do you miss out on? Watches like the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro typically provide more features than most people need, but there are some interesting bits.
Garmin’s Missing Features
Running Tolerance is one of the missing features I could do with, considering some of the recent injuries I have had. This is effectively a specialized version of the Training Load feature, but made for runners.
The concept is to get runners away from simply judging their training plan by their miles or km ran each week, because running of different intensities and styles will have more or less of a strain on your body.
The Fenix 7 and co will also miss out on the Triathlon Coach mode, which is an “adaptive system” that moderates your suggested workouts across running, cycling and swimming, based on your condition. It’s a hard enough task with one form of exercise, but three? That’s a big job.
Other features that won’t make the jump to the older watches include MultiSport workouts transmitted from Garmin Connect, Impact Load, Ovulation tracking with skin temperature, Autolap via timing gates during a race and Suggested Finish line. This can automatically trim activities based on where your Garmin watch thinks you crossed the finish line.
After all, who hasn’t been at a race where you are going so hard, you completely forget to stop tracking at the finish?
The Forerunner 965, Fenix 7 and fellows will also not be able to collect extra running analysis stats when paired with Garmin’s new HRM 600 chest strap, which I wrote about recently.
Is Garmin dropping the Fenix 7 Pro and others too soon? That watch series is two years old, so not primed for a replacement yet for most owners. It’s worth noting Garmin isn’t discontinuing support for these models, though. They are still getting new features and updates, just not all of them.
When I last made a similar enquiry last year about which Fenix 8 features would come to older watches, Garmin said that generation brought with it a significant change in the core software that would limit what older watches would get. Is that just an excuse? Sure, considering plenty of the new features wouldn’t need a huge visual component.
However, it has also become clear Garmin has spent significant thought investigating ways to increase its revenues, most notably with the launch of the contentious Connect+ subscription in March.
