Here is The whole lot You Get With a Garmin Join+ Subscription

Garmin watches have by no means required a subscription to entry any of their core options, and that hasn’t modified. However as of 2025, Garmin now presents a $6.99/month subscription known as Join+ that gives “premium options,” together with AI, on prime of what you already get at no cost with the Garmin Join app.

Up to now, no preexisting options have gone behind the paywall, regardless of some Garmin customers’ fears. However what does Join+ provide you with, and is it price it? I signed up for a subscription to search out out.

How a Join+ subscription works

A Join+ subscription prices $6.99/month or $69.99/yr. Once more, it solely provides options on prime of what you already get with the Garmin Join app; after almost a yr, no preexisting options free have been paywalled. 

Garmin did beforehand tease that “premium enhancements could also be made to present options,” main customers to invest that any new options that come down the pike could also be restricted to paid members. Garmin is within the behavior of including new options ceaselessly, and infrequently allows them even on older watches. Prior to now yr alone, we’ve gotten energy teaching, a new sort of run teaching, and the power to detect your lactate threshold coronary heart price with out a chest strap—all issues that simply appeared on my watch or in my app someday. I wouldn’t anticipate watch firmware updates to be affected—it is a premium subscription for the telephone app—however I’ve to marvel if there can be fewer of these new app characteristic rollouts at no cost customers as Join+ grows its subscriber numbers. 

Join+ will not be Garmin’s first subscription service. They’ve lengthy supplied a slate of companies for varied particular functions, together with mountain climbing and looking maps, marine charts, search and rescue insurance coverage, canine monitoring, youngsters’ smartwatch monitoring, and extra. However that is positively Garmin’s first foray right into a premium subscription for well being and health options, in the identical vein as, say, Fitbit.

What Join+ contains

Here is what you get for that $6.99/month:

• Lively Intelligence (an AI evaluation of your actions; this requires opt-in). It appears fairly lackluster.

• Enhanced LiveTrack (additionally out there with an Outside Maps+ subscription), permitting you to textual content contacts whenever you begin an exercise, or arrange a public monitoring web page

• Dwell Exercise, which helps you to comply with a exercise out of your telephone and never simply your watch

• A Efficiency Dashboard on the net with new charts and comparability options

• Social options, together with double factors on badges and the power to earn badges from anyplace on the planet (some badges are solely out there in sure places). Instantly upon signing up for Join+, I seen just a little yellow star on the nook of my profile pic on the app. 

• Further coaching steering when you’re following a Garmin Coach program (primarily within the type of further movies)

• Garmin Trails, a characteristic that appears to be like prefer it’s alleged to rival AllTrails however does not appear to have sufficient knowledge to take action (but?)

• 3D maps for actions, programs, and trails

• The tip-of-year Garmin Join Rundown that collects all of your stats for shareable viewing

Of all these options, Dwell Exercise and the Efficiency Dashboard appear essentially the most helpful, so I am going to go a bit deeper on these.

What you get with Dwell Exercise

Screenshots of a dwell exercise on the house display, modifying units and reps, and what you see whenever you do a treadmill exercise.
Credit score: Beth Skwarecki

Till now, a exercise you do in your Garmin watch stays in your Garmin watch, at the least till you end the exercise. At that time, it syncs to your telephone, the place you’ll be able to view and edit the main points. 

However with Dwell Exercise, now you can use the Garmin Join app whereas you’re doing an exercise in your watch. That’s particularly helpful for energy exercises, which beforehand required you to edit weights and reps by means of a clumsy interface on the watch after every set. 

To check this out, I did just a few fast exercises on my Garmin Forerunner 265S. One was a mini exercise of kettlebell swings and sit-ups that I created on the app, and despatched to the watch. 

I began the exercise on my watch. Nothing occurred on the telephone—I may need anticipated a notification—however once I opened the Garmin Join app on my telephone, there was a tile on the house display for a Dwell Exercise. I tapped it, and there was the identical exercise I used to be doing on the watch. I might see my coronary heart price, the time elapsed, and which train I used to be alleged to be doing. 

I didn’t see the promised train movies immediately, but it surely seems it’s good to swipe left on the center price graph. There you’ll be able to see an train video (or a relaxation timer, if acceptable). Swipe once more, and also you’ll see your coronary heart price zone. The underside half of the display reveals your stats in progress, together with your reps, units, coronary heart price, and a timer. 

Importantly, when you’ve turned off rep counting or weight modifying in your telephone (as a result of they’re so annoying in regular use), you’ll need to flip them again on for this. The watch counted my kettlebell swings, and on the finish of every set prompted me to edit my reps and weight. This modifying display got here up on each the watch and my telephone, and naturally it was simpler to edit that info from the telephone. 

With Dwell Exercise, you are able to do the next from the watch or telephone:

• Pause or unpause the exercise

• Edit reps or weight in a energy exercise

• Advance to the following set (energy), or begin a brand new lap (in actions like operating)

• View stats like your coronary heart price, time elapsed, reps, tempo, and so forth

However solely the watch can do the next: 

Dwell Exercise positively improves the usability of the look ahead to energy exercises. I don’t totally see the purpose for operating exercises, however perhaps there’s a use case I haven’t considered but.

What’s within the Efficiency Dashboard

4 of the charts I can view in my Efficiency Dashboard
Credit score: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin

One in every of Garmin’s better-kept secrets and techniques is its internet dashboard. You’ll be able to log in right here and examine all of your actions and knowledge—basically an online view of every thing that’s within the app. 

The Efficiency Dashboard is a brand new merchandise within the sidebar of the online dashboard. To set it up: 

1. Mouse over the black sidebar on the left aspect of the display. 

2. Choose Efficiency Dashboard, which I see because the final blue merchandise, just below Experiences.

3. Click on Add dashboard, and select whether or not you need a operating, biking, multisport, or customized dashboard. (You’ll be able to have multiple.) 

Among the charts on the efficiency dashboard are additionally out there from the free Experiences software, though Experiences will solely present you one chart at a time. The Efficiency Dashboard is certainly a greater software when you’re seeking to actually nerd out about your knowledge. 

For instance, I can get a easy report from the Experiences software that reveals my operating mileage over the previous six months. It offers me a bar chart with one bar per 30 days. The Efficiency Dashboard, then again, can provide me a bar for every week, and I can choose a customized timeframe as an alternative of simply choosing one of some choices. There are additionally extra choices for forms of knowledge you’ll be able to view. Are you aware how your watch will ask you on the finish of every run how onerous it felt? Now you can see that on a graph known as “perceived effort over time.”

What you get with Lively Intelligence

There’s excellent news right here for individuals who need AI in every thing, and for these of us whose response is “oh god, not right here too” (this meme sums up my private stance). The AI (“lively intelligence”) is the one characteristic of Join+ that requires you to choose in, even after you’ve gotten subscribed to the entire bundle. 

However I did it, expensive readers. I opted in for you, so I might let you already know what the AI can truly let you know about your coaching—and whether or not it’s any higher than Strava’s notoriously clueless AI. 

Sadly, there’s not a lot to say in the meanwhile. After I first tried it, my residence display “perception” (which you’ll flip off, by the way in which, even with AI enabled) at first simply informed me to test again later. My current runs did not have any AI commentary connected. Garmin says that “As clients use Garmin Join+ extra, the insights will turn into extra tailor-made to them and their targets.” 

I wrote a bit extra concerning the AI characteristic right here. As you may anticipate, it summarizes, typically hallucinates, and tends to repeat info that is out there in additional readable kind elsewhere within the app. I am not impressed.

The AI characteristic is labeled as a “beta,” with a thumbs up/thumbs down icon that lets me price the perception I simply learn. I can say that it’s attention-grabbing, not attention-grabbing, or “report a priority” if it’s inaccurate, discouraging, or poorly written. (It’s also possible to give a customized response.) I’ll keep watch over these notes and report again because the AI will get to know me higher.

Not less than Garmin asks your permission to coach its AI in your knowledge

To activate the AI options, it’s good to click on by means of an settlement the place you permit the AI to entry your coaching and well being knowledge (in order that it could possibly run its analyses). This additionally permits your knowledge for use as coaching knowledge for the AI. 

I requested Garmin if because of this the AI is solely skilled on individuals who opt-in. A spokesperson confirmed: “We solely prepare with knowledge from customers who’ve consented.” The present mannequin was skilled on customers who beforehand granted permission for his or her knowledge for use for product enhancements. Garmin has a quick AI transparency coverage right here. 

You’ll be able to revoke permission at any time in your Join+ settings, which may even flip off your entry to AI options.