They (Strava) are at it again!
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/strava-sues-garmin-demands-stop-selling-devices.html
Talk about biting the hand that feeds* you!
* Or provides probably a significant proportion of your data feed...
Synopsis: Strava are trying to sue Garmin because of dodgy patent infringements surrounding segments and heatmaps. Seems like a suicidal move by Strava...
Seems like a suicidal move by Strava...
I reckon Garmin needs Strava more than Strava needs Garmin.
Garmin had a good partnership going there, they've (potentially) screwed it by trying to back door what Strava had and copy it to create a competitor. It'd be a lot wiser to accept that Strava are the market leaders in this stuff, play nicely with them and co-develop with them to subtly promote your own product.
I think Garmin are looking at Strava and going "ooh yes, we'd like what they've got!" but everyone (including Strava) simply see Garmin as a half decent conduit to everything that Strava has.
The genius of Strava is that it works across platforms whereas any GPS manufacturer trying to copy them is restricted to their own hardware. No-one wants a Garmin leaderboard and a Wahoo leaderboard and a Polar leaderboard.... 🙄
Read (or watch) Rays analysis. Basically, the Strava patents are worthless as Garmin actually did it before them. Other than sharing some stuff (I only switch Strava to public during the STW 100 day thing) I could sack off Strava tomorrow. All Garmin has to do is switch off the feed to Strava and the value of Strava would plummet - just as they're kicking off an IPO.
Strava is cross-platform. I'm not going to commit to a Garmin - only solution, as the price of their hardware is now ridiculous compared to some of the (cheaper) competitors. It's also (seems?) to be a lot more open to data sharing to other 3rd party developers.
e.g. does Veloviewer or Intervals.icu work without Stravas API??
I'm pretty sure Garmin had a chunk of the things that Strava do now. Pretty sure segments were there before Strava introduced them.
However as mentioned Strava's advantage is it doesn't rely on a particular manufacturer of device(s) and everyone using it is on the leaderboard (somewhere).
Sounds utterly bonkers, seems like an odd attempt at getting more money.
Still glad I removed myself from Strava (also aware my removing myself had zero impact on Strava).
Strava keeps taking away things I liked, and charging more.
I’ll take garmin over Strava if one doesn’t feed the other. He’ll, I’d probably ditch paid strava if live segments stop working on garmin
i love live segments on the bike!
free Strava would be enough to keep up with friends’ activities
Strava keeps taking away things I liked, and charging more.
I’ll take garmin over Strava if one doesn’t feed the other. Hell, I’d probably ditch paid strava if live segments stop working on garmin
i love live segments on the bike!
free Strava would be enough to keep up with friends’ activities
e.g. does Veloviewer or Intervals.icu work without Stravas API??
intervals.icu does take a direct feed from Garmin Connect. VeloViewer doesn't (though I've suggested it previously).
I, for one, will not be buying shares in Strava at their IPO based on their current leadership competence!
I reckon Garmin needs Strava more than Strava needs Garmin
I would bet at least 50p that the majority of paying Strava users use a Garmin tool for data collection.
This seems like a v bad day in the Strava boardroom when they decided to lunch a legal attack like this just before they're hoping to get people to buy their shares.
Matt Salazar posted on Reddit last night, took a *right* kicking before i logged off and went to bed.
Think this will be the end of my Strava journey, was already a bit meh about the whole thing, and dont really want to carry on giving them money anymore, i'll move to an alternative, hell, i could probably manage with connect only (which covers probably 90% of what i need).
Am watching with interest, I've been a big fan of Strava to date, largely due to the route planner and heat maps (I'm trying RidewithGPS now, the planner is better as it snaps to more trails than Strava does, but the base map isn't as good and the heatmap much more limited). However recently the Strava route planner has become super flakey and is almost more of a hindrance than a help now, if I can view the heat map with a free account and plan in RidewithGPS that might have to be the way forward...
In general I'm a bit over-sensitive to corporate/capitalist shitbaggery right now, if I though Strava were doing this just to bolster their share price or something (I don't understand this stuff very much) then I'd be even more inclined to leave.
Could I tear myself away from segment leaderboards and the social aspect though? V.tricky, it's about the most reliable dopamine hit I get, I'd need to go and start having arguments on Twitter or something to keep the notifications pinging 😆
The thing I like most about Strava is the fitness graph. No idea how accurate it is but I use it as a bit of a motivator. The social thing is nice again it can be a bit motivating. My wife likes the beacon feature
Garmin connect, the annual plan is more expensive. My vivoactive 4 keeps unpairing itself and I have to re-pair it most days (forgetting the Bluetooth connection)
Garmin connect, the annual plan is more expensive. My vivoactive 4 keeps unpairing itself and I have to re-pair it most days (forgetting the Bluetooth connection)
There must be a solution to the pairing issue, surely? Either your phone or watch are faulty, or the software's gone wonky somehow. That's definitely not a 'this is just what it's like, we all just put up with it" thing. Garmin support may be helpful via their online chat thing. Sometimes they're great, other times it's a bit of a battle, but worth a go.
What do you mean by Connect annual plan being more expensive? Connect is free. There's an add-on subscription thing (Connect+) which seems to provide almost no value at the moment (which is mad, and potentially a bad sign of their future plans) but Connect itself is free. Which it really ought to be, given how pricey the devices are!
In general I'm a bit over-sensitive to corporate/capitalist shitbaggery right now, if I though Strava were doing this just to bolster their share price or something (I don't understand this stuff very much) then I'd be even more inclined to leave.
Isn't the playbook of these small tech (and they are a minnow) startups to get bought out by a giant and the execs wander off with a life changing payday?
It sounds like Garmin looked at buying them a few years ago and decided against it becasue the value was questionable. I suspect the dream for Strava is to be hoovered up by Apple, maybe they want to piss off these traditional hardware 'partners'.
And this is why I just pressed the cancel button on the subscription.
It won't make a material change to how I use the service, my annual plan has another five months on it. I expect if enough folks who were not happy with their stupidity did the same it would send the sort of message it needs to.
Isn't the playbook of these small tech (and they are a minnow) startups to get bought out by a giant and the execs wander off with a life changing payday?
Yeah I guess, I don't begrudge company founders their payout! What I'm now alert to (because I'm experiencing it first hand) is what the 'giants' do next. If they just keep it business as usual with a few 'efficiencies' here and there or maybe use their scale to expand, fair enough, but if they enshittify it (I believe this is becoming the recognised term? 😆 ) by laying folk off, jacking up prices, increasing advertising and AI etc. etc. then I'm out. Jury's still out on what might happen with Strava but I worry that the flakiness of the route planner might point to some key investment in maintenance or software development or something that's not happening.
I can only presume enough Strava users like me aren't paying their silly ~£55 annual sub, for a load of extras I have no use for, when I used to be happy paying ~£20. They need money, so sue Garmin.
I meant connect+ I looked at the extras that didn't seem worth it overall.
I need to get my finger out to sort the flaky connection
I don't begrudge company founders their payout!
Well I kind of do because to make it attractive to buyers they are squeezing their customer base, and, as this case shows, trying desperately to demonstrate they have something unique that can't simply be replicated by somebody else.
They already enshittified it enough for me to ditch it.
I ditched strava premium a couple of years ago, segments aren't that important to me, especially as I've got older and fatter, and the premium features aren't really worth it to me. Ironically because garmin connect does the same things I'd want, but they aren't the things that strava is suing over.
I could ditch strava all together tbh, just would need intervals to come up with a slick enough app so I could have all of my data in one place, I do periodically get the urge to use an apple watch, which I'm currently doing but using my garmin for proper training and I don't want to pay extra for the analytics that Garmin do for free.
Garmin and sync direct to intervals.icu...gives a load of graphical insight.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/comments/1nw8u98/setting_the_record_straight_about_garmin/
In case anyone else wants to see the Reddit thread/stack/reaction.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/comments/1nw8u98/setting_the_record_straight_about_garmin/
In case anyone else wants to see the Reddit thread/stack/reaction.
thanks I haven’t read it all, but that didn’t look to go as planned for the main Strava product man. Hilarious and completely unsurprising, given Strava previous actions / stance on data and api’s. They’ve arguably been way more aggressive than Garmin ever have.
I stopped paying for Strava a good while back, there’s nothing there that I need, tbh Garmin connect does more of what I need now than Strava has ever done.
the only objective Strava must have is increased publicity for the ipo. Which they’ve got.
If not then I don’t really understand what they’re doing.
Can’t see this getting too far, honestly don’t know what percentage of Strava users upload via Garmin but suspect it’s a fair few…surely this can’t end well if they press on, Garmin could just pull the plug…
After experiencing my Garmin fail to actually do the main thing I want from it this weekend ie direct me from A to B without lagging, freaking out, telling me to 'do a u turn' as both a direction and an off-course warning, recognise a trail, stop telling me i've had a crash, or a jump (when i haven't) etc etc
Maybe Strava forcing Garmin to stop selling their shitty overpriced computers will allow a new entrant in the market with a half decent product?
Nah, what am i thinking, that'll never happen
stop telling me i've had a crash, or a jump (when i haven't)
A few of those features are optional & easy to turn off. Perhaps you are unlucky but my Garmin doesn’t have any of those routing problems. It might have been a bit flaky in the past but not any more. Is yours an older mode?
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