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Garmin's –$40B Pivot

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Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#101

Post by jmull »

jagermo wrote: post #87
jmull wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for. They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it. IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if y…

can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"? I wear my Epix 2 every day and it does all I want from a smartwatch - see incoming texts and calls while it tracks my health stats day and night. Yes, apple watch or Samsung ones may have more features, but I am not missing anything.

> can you elaborate on " aren't designed for wearing all the time"?

Well, they look like sport watches.

People can choose the aesthetic they want, but you're sending a message with one that's that opinionated, which I don't particularly want to.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#102

Post by rtkwe »

The title here on HN looks more like "negative $40B pivot" than the real "approximately $40B pivot", which was a fun whiplash. I was wondering was their original car GPS market really that profitable?!

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#103

Post by jerlam »

jmull wrote: post #77
NoboruWataya wrote: post #14

Interesting article. My partner bought an Apple watch a couple of years ago and I was shocked at what a poor value proposition it was. Very expensive and wouldn't even hold a charge for a day. I guess you get used to it but having to charge my watch every day would drive me mad. Obviously there are things it will do better than a Garmin (and things it can do that a Garmin simply can't) but overall it didn't make sens…

From my perspective -- someone who wants the things a smart watch does -- I can't figure out what a Garmin is for. They don't really do the job of a regular smart watch and aren't designed for wearing all the time, so it becomes a secondary device you need to manage and charge separately, not to mention pay for. Meanwhile, an Apple Watch can do all of it. IME, the battery life of Garmin's isn't a game changer... if y…

My perspective is the exact opposite - I can't tell what "smart watch" features the Apple Watch is supposed to provide me over my "fitness" Garmin as a trade off for terrible battery life.

The Apple Watch actually provides worse functionality for notifications than my Garmin, since it wants to act as its own separate device, instead of simply mirroring my phone's notifications.

Interacting with the Apple Watch is usually so difficult and the app support is lacking (I believe it's actually gotten worse over time) that I generally take out my phone for anything beyond pressing the dismiss button, so it's no better than the Garmin.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#104

Post by Marsymars »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #5
hx833001 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra has better battery life, most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway. It also enables you to do almost everything essential in terms of communication without a phone if you want to leave it. Garmin watches do not.

> most people don’t wear a watch while sleeping, so it’s easy to charge at night like you do with a phone anyway for me at least, the silent alarm so as to not disturb my partner is a huge part of the value in a smart watch.

I bought a Fitbit Inspire 3 several years ago for <$100 for this feature alone. Works great for that.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#105

Post by rtkwe »

prodent wrote: post #66
fuzzy2 wrote: post #12

The title on HN got mangled. It’s ~$40B (APPROXIMATELY $40B), not minus.

Sure it's mangled, but it's clearly a dash (–) and not a minus (-).

It's an en dash which is supposed to denote ranges eg 2013–2024 basically meaning 'to' so it's still incorrect here even if it weren't extremely similar to - or negative and easy to confuse.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#106

Post by tzs »

aldur wrote: post #37
neillyons wrote: post #34

I looked at the Apple watch but choose Garmin as it has a physical button to start and stop my run. I don't know if this is still the case but with the Apple watch I think you have to tap the touch screen. Takes too long, especially when every second counts on a 400m lap round the track :-P

I discovered this recently, but can start/stop by clicking the crown and the side button at the same time.

You can stop a workout by telling Siri "end workout".

I'd expect that you can also start one with Siri but have never actually tried, mainly because the idea of using Siri to start/stop workouts never occurred to me until reading this thread, which I happened to be doing this morning while doing a workout on my treadmill.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#107

Post by lenerdenator »

So, let's review:

1) build headquarters in (relatively) low COL city - in this case, Olathe KS, which is a suburb of Kansas City MO.

2) Have people who actually want to make a product instead of making analysts happy

3) Invest in R&D

4) Bring manufacturing in-house and tightly control processes

It's like everything the people actually doing the work at tech companies have been saying for years.

Can I have my $10mil/year pay package now?

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#108

Post by rtkwe »

salviati wrote: post #47

Sorry to pick on this detail, but I don't understand why TFA uses 2008 as year of Google Maps release. My memory (and Wikipedia) say 2005. I think I figured it out : in October 2009 Google maps introduced turn by turn directions.

One of Garmin's big old (probably still made in small numbers though) product lines were stand alone turn by turn GPS units you'd attach to your windshield or dash so when Google Maps introduced turn by turn that's when it became relevant as a major competitor to that product line and a major threat to Garmin.

Re: Garmin's –$40B Pivot

#110

Post by iamacyborg »

dhosek wrote: post #99
scarface_74 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With my Apple Watch, I don’t need my phone when I’m running, swimming or at the gym. I can receive and return texts, make and receive calls and listen to music either stored on the watch or streamed over cellular.

The swimming tracking seems magical to me. It counts laps and even identifies what stroke I’m doing (although I need to have a pause if I change strokes to let it accurately catch the change of stroke).

Pretty much all fitness trackers can do this, even really cheap ones.
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