Garmin has confirmed that it was a cyberattack that took Garmin Connect and the wearables company's other systems offline for more than four days. The company says that it is still working on bringing all of its systems back online, but says there is "no indication" that any payment information from its Garmin Pay service or otherwise was stolen.
Garmin's huge outage is gradually starting to ease, with a number of the fitness company's connected services beginning to come back online after reportedly being the victim of a ransomeware attack. It's been a long weekend for the fitness wearables and navigation products firm, as it enters day four of Garmin Connect and other services being pushed unexpectedly offline.
This week Garmin suffered an outage, so some (or all) of their services are down. That won't stop active individuals from running (or so we hope), so what's to be done with all this data that's still being racked up in Garmin trackers? How might you quantify your activities? For some Garmin products, there's good news: You don't need Garmin's (currently out of commission) services to see your data!
This week Garmin services and production were reportedly the victim of a ransomware attack. As a result, Garmin experienced an outage that affected Garmin.com and Garmin Connect, as well as Garmin call centers. This attack's various hits meant that at the same time Garmin was experiencing what was likely the most comprehensive loss of service in its history, the company was completely unable to reieve service calls, emails, or participate in online chats.
If you're a Garmin customer, you may have found yourself unable to access the company's mobile apps, smartwatch syncing features, or even to get ahold of customer support through the company's call center. This is due to a major ongoing outage, the company has revealed, one that has been taking place for the majority of Thursday. It's unclear when the services will be back online and it has been several hours since the company's last status update.
Just about a year ago, Garmin rolled out a solar-powered fenix 6X smartwatch - the first solar-powered watch it's ever released. The fenix 6X Pro Solar, as it's officially called, featured a special lens called "Power Glass" that would charge the watch when exposed to sunlight. Today, we're seeing Garmin bring its Power Glass to a range of new smartwatches, with wearables in the Instict, fenix 6, and tactix series all being outfitted with these solar charging capabilities.
Garmin has revealed two new rearview radars for cyclists, giving those on bikes a warning when cars and other traffic might be pulling up behind them. The Varia RVR315 and Varia RTL515 both keep track on what's happening in riders' blind spots, and work with Garmin's new Varia app - as well as other bike hardware - to alert them to approaching cars.
Dash cams are nothing new, but in the age of ride sharing, drivers may need to record more than just the road in front of them. Garmin today introduced a new dash cam that does just that, recording both the road and inside the cabin for a 360-degree view of what's going on. Dubbed the Garmin Dash Cam Tandem, this new device has lenses on the front and back that record simultaneously.
In addition to its new vivofit activity tracker for kids, Garmin has unveiled the Legacy Saga Series, a pair of smartwatches that feature Star Wars imagery including character insignias and digital elements. The designs come only months ahead of the Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker movie scheduled to arrive in theaters this December.
Garmin has launched a new version of its vívofit jr. 2 fitness tracker for kids, one featuring a Star Wars theme. The new product packs a themed band with embedded Star Wars imagery, as well as a companion app that brings experiences inspired by the franchise. Kids will be able to unlock new adventures and get help with Star Wars characters, motivating them to get enough activity during the day.
Smartwatches are a dime a dozen these days, including those not even running on Wear OS by Google, many of them sporting nearly identical hardware and features. Standing out from the crowd, therefore, all boils down to how you market those features and when it comes to presentation, Garmin's new MARQ Commander might take the cake. Save for one or two features, the smartwatch almost sounds like any other but the way Garmin talks about this "tactical timepiece" makes it sound like you're reading about 007's latest toy.
We're in the midst of IFA 2019, and Garmin decided to show up to the event with a slew of new wearables in hand. In all, Garmin is launching eight different smartwatches today, many of them with a number of variants to boot. These watches all seem to have the same core feature set centered around fitness, with one or two major differences to make them stand out in the lineup.