'The cost of cloud services and the cost of AI will also go down in the future, so we’ll try very hard to keep it for free': Coros' CEO on how the smartwatch maker is swerving subscriptions for now — avoiding another Garmin Connect+ disaster

How Coros has "no plans" to implement unpopular Garmin- or Whoop-style subscription-only features

Features By Matt Evans published 1 May 2026

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In 2025, both Garmin and Polar made the bold move to launch paid subscription services with AI-driven coaching features, putting a host of software features behind a paywall.

Unsurprisingly, the introduction of Garmin’s Connect+ and, to a lesser extent, Polar’s Fitness Program didn’t go down well with many existing users. In particular, Garmin users that had just spent a lot of money on a watch they assumed they’d have access to everything on offer, with few users migrating to the paid tier according to our poll.

Garmin and Polar join Oura, Whoop, Google and most other major wearables manufacturers and fitness apps in offering a paid tier full of AI-powered features. When two of the most established sports watch brands make those kinds of moves, it’s understandable to wonder if everyone else will follow suit.

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Coros is a relative newcomer to this space, launching its first watch in 2018. Since then, it’s rapidly grown its presence to appear on the wrists of many runners, cyclists and endurance athletes, and features on our lists of best running watches. Coros’ companion app and features have been free to access with the purchase of a watch, and have been since day one. So would it follow in the footsteps of Garmin and others by starting to make its users pay up for extra features?

“First of all, never say never,” says Lewis Wu, co-founder and CEO at Coros.”It really depends on how things go. “We don’t have a payment subscription plan on the roadmap yet, because so far the development is good enough for us to eat that cost.

“Hopefully we’ll never need to do it. The cost of cloud services and the cost of AI will also go down in the future. So we’ll try very hard to keep it for free. We'll try to be as nice as possible for a long time!”

Wu was speaking to us at the launch of a new collaboration between Coros and Wahoo that now allows training data to be shared across devices from both brands. That includes Wahoo’s new Kickr Run treadmill to boost indoor run tracking accuracy. Again, there is no extra charge for this feature for Coros or Wahoo users.

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