Garmin overhauls free online fitness community with Garmin Connect™ redesign
SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland/ January 6, 2014/Business Wire—Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today announced a complete overhaul of its free online fitness community, Garmin Connect. The new Garmin Connect has a completely updated look and feel, with improved navigation and a customisable widget-style dashboard. The updated fitness features include enhanced reports to track performance over time and free training plans that can be sent straight to compatible Garmin devices. With the all-new segments and leaderboards feature, users can run or ride against past efforts or against others to see how they stack up against the competition. The new Garmin Connect is now compatible with the Approach series golf products as well as the new Garmin fitness band, vívofit™. The new look and feel of Garmin Connect will make it even easier for users to upload their workouts, track their progress over time, and meet their fitness goals.
“Whether users are just starting out, or training to win an elite race, the new Garmin Connect can be personally customised to meet their needs,” said Andrew Silver, Garmin EMEA Product Marketing Manager, Fitness. “With more than four billion miles already uploaded by users, the new Garmin Connect will continue to support users’ active lifestyles and inspire them to achieve their goals whether they are focused on one sport of if they participate in a variety of activities.”
The most noticeable update to Garmin Connect is the look and feel of the interface. The new dashboard, organised by widgets, is completely customisable, so users can choose what information they want to see. There is an updated reporting function to analyse progress such as total distance or average lap pace over time. Also with the new Garmin Connect, users will have access to free training plans that can be sent straight to their devices, whether they are training for a charity 5K or an elite race like an ultra marathon.
With the new Garmin Connect, the free fitness community becomes even more social, allowing users to connect with friends, pros and even foes for some friendly competition with the new segments and leaderboards feature. Users can search for segments created by other users, and virtual leaderboards allow users to rank themselves against other athletes who have completed that segment. The new Garmin Connect also makes it easy to share progress on popular social media platforms.
With this update, compatible Garmin golf devices will now be supported on Garmin Connect. Owners with Approach series golf devices will now be able to upload, analyse and share their scorecards, as well as other data like fairways hit, greens in regulation, shot distance and number of putts. Users can keep track of whom they’ve played against, and who won each round. Like with other fitness devices, it’s now easy for golfers to track their progress over time. Users can even analyse course data, and see hole-by-hole details to understand their own trends and tendencies to improve their game.
Owners of the new fitness band, vívofit, can track all of their fitness goals with the new Garmin Connect. On the daily summary page, they can see all of their progress in one spot: total steps, progress towards their daily goal, a breakdown of the time they spent active compared to time spent sedentary, and more. The new Garmin Connect will even help track users’ weight, calories and sleep, making it easier to find and keep healthy habits. Unique to vívofit and the new Garmin Connect is a global challenge based on steps per week, language and time zone that users can participate in. This creates friendly competition, and lets users see how they stack up against other vívofit users that are like them.
The new Garmin Connect will be rolled out in phases during Q1 of 2014. The Garmin Connect mobile app will also be updated to reflect the new look and feel of Garmin Connect.
The new Garmin Connect is the latest from Garmin’s expanding fitness segment, which focuses on developing technologies and innovations to enhance users’ lives and promotes healthy and active lifestyles. Whether it’s running, cycling, or other athletic pursuits, Garmin fitness devices are becoming essential tools for athletes both amateur and elite. For more about features, pricing and availability, as well as information about Garmin’s other fitness products and services, go to http://www.garmin.com/en-GB/explore/intosports, http://garmin.blogs.com/uk/ and http://twitter.com/garminuk.
