'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

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.

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.

“One thing we need to look at is, what kind of features are we going to build?,” Wu said. “The second thing is, what’s the cost of that feature? If the profit from hardware sales is able to cover it, then we’ll find a way to offer it for free. We have been building features for existing hardware for years without charging anything.”

As far as the likes of Garmin and Polar deciding to offer a subscription element to their respective software platforms, this is something Wu isn’t wholly surprised by.

“A company needs to make a profit. That’s one thing, says Wu. “That’s part of why you start a company right? Whether you’re a large company or a small startup. We want to keep our business model simple. We want to sell hardware and reinvest the profit into the back end development.

“There’s no problem for an app-only company to charge a subscription because that’s their only source of income. We’re fortunate that we have the hardware sales to support us.”

Is a screenless Coros tracker on the horizon?

Locking software features behind a paywall isn’t the only trend in the wearable space that has pulled in some of those established sports watch brands. In 2025, Polar introduced the Loop, a screen-less band clearly set on offering a subscription-free alternative to Whoop. Garmin is expected to launch its Cirqa band soon and do something similar. Google and Fitbit is set to join the screen-free party with the device likely being dubbed Fitbit Air. So is Coros cooking up something screen-free as well?

“Screen-less devices really land on understanding what kind of problem we want to solve for consumers?” explains Wu. “We’re not a company that sells tons of screen-less devices and makes tons of money from it. What we’re going to do is look at what kind of problems cannot be solved by a watch. For the most part, most problems can be solved by a watch. It’s a device you can wear 24/7. It can record your heart rate and metrics like HRV.”

This kind of problem solving is what led Coros to build and launch an arm-based heart rate monitor. To solve the problem of offering more reliable heart rate tracking across workouts compared to the performance of doing that from the wrist. It also launched the Coros Pod to provide more accurate tracking of running metrics like pace by placing motion sensors closer to your feet.

“We build a watch now and our first step is to build a very established wellness system,” explains Wu. “We’ll see if consumers are happy about it, or if it is absolutely necessary to build hardware. You look at the smart ring companies. They offer a good experience, right? Whatever decision we’re going to make, it’s going to be about solving a problem. It’s not just about another source of income because fundamentally, there's not that pressure.”

So it’s a no to a Whoop rival for now at least and crucially for Coros users, no plans to hit that subscription button any time soon as long as those watches keep shipping.

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