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When people talk Garmin, it’s usually about one thing – the best running watches. And sure, that’s the bit most of us see. You buy a Forerunner or a Fenix, sync it to the Connect app, and then spend the next few years being a bit too smug about battery life, especially when your friends complain about their Apple Watches dying after a day.
But when I was invited to Garmin’s HQ in Olathe, Kansas for a media tour to coincide with the surprise launch of the new Forerunner series last year, I was excited to see behind the scenes. As a smartwatch enthusiast, it was like a golden ticket straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
1. Garmin tests all its watches in-house to breaking point
The highlight of the tour for me wasn’t a shiny new watch reveal, it was the testing labs. Not because they’re glamorous (they’re really not), but because they explain why Garmin owners tend to have the same device for ages.
It was quite amusing to hear how Garmin actually want their devices to break in these labs. But the point is, it really helps them understand why failures happen, so they can fix them before a product goes to market.
The guide explained that the whole point of this kind of testing is to get ahead of potential “field failures” as early as possible in development, then keep rerunning tests as the design matures. They would much rather a prototype to fall apart in a lab than for a retail unit to die halfway through a user’s triathlon, which makes complete sense.
The variety of tests happening in those labs was also quite impressive. I was shown specially-made chambers for cold, heat, humidity and UV-style weathering, designed to accelerate the kind of slow damage that normally manifests after months of sun, sweat and winter runs.
There are also salt fog chambers for corrosion, including one that cycles exposure to mimic real-world conditions, and chemical testing for the stuff people actually get on wearables, such as artificial sweat, sunscreen, and even nastier things like fuel and transmission fluid.
Then there’s the physical abuse the wearables undergo. Drop testing is a given, but Garmin uses rigs that can orient a device so it lands exactly on a specific point (like a button) over and over, with high-speed footage so they can watch what fails in slow motion.
Cycle tests make up a big part of the testing, too, where parts get actuated thousands of times – like straps stretching repeatedly, buttons being hammered, or mechanisms being worked until something gives. It’s not just about whether it can survive a fall, but if it can survive being used how a normal person would, repeatedly, over months, years, and maybe even decades.
I wasn’t allowed to take photos in this area, annoyingly (but understandably), but what I will say is that experiencing it left a stronger impression than any product slide deck did that entire trip. It’s also the sort of thing that makes Garmin’s, err, premium pricing a bit easier to swallow. You might still wince at the cost, but at least you can see where some of that money is going.
2. Garmin’s enormous warehouse is basically a super-advanced robot motorway
If the test lab is where Garmin proves its products’ durability, the company’s warehouse is where it showcases scale. This area was unbelievably huge but it wasn’t just its size that surprised me, it was seeing everything that happens here.
It’s definitely not the sexy side of tech, but I got to see how the company ensures you get your watch quickly, handles returns efficiently, and how much (or little) waste gets created along the way.
The warehouse operation is perhaps the most impressive, since it’s absolutely packed with automation, employing towering machines and robots that shuttle products around so that staff aren’t constantly trekking up and down endless aisles or stairs.
The guide here explained that the warehouse robots follow set routes, drive underneath a mobile storage rack, lock into its base and lift it slightly, then carry the whole rack to wherever it’s needed, all directed by tablet requests from staff and cutting out a ton of pointless walking.
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The most oddly satisfying bit, though, was the packaging line. There’s a machine that measures the height of what’s in a box, scores the cardboard, folds it down, glues it, and basically trims the packaging to fit.
That doesn’t sound like a big deal until you remember that shipping is based on size as well as weight. When stacked together, those small savings in space really add up, meaning Garmin is saving emissions by not paying to send a load of air, resulting in fewer trips.
All this automation and efficiency is highly advanced, and might explain where some of those high asking prices are going.
3. Garmin’s aviation roots mean reliability is its cornerstone
So here’s the part I really didn’t expect – just how much of Garmin’s DNA is ingrained in other industries like aviation, not just fitness, and how that feeds into our fitness watches.
On the tour, Garmin’s ties to aviation were flaunted as one of its foundational areas – something the early team was apparently deeply rooted in. And they spoke about it with the kind of pride you normally hear when brands talk about their “hero” product category, and not just some side business-to-business side hustle.
They walked me through the sort of systems Garmin builds into aircraft, from big cockpit displays, sensors, GPS, comms, even connectivity for keeping databases up to date, so pilots aren’t manually fussing with backgrounds while in the air.
There was also a lot of emphasis on flight control tech such as autopilot systems and safety features, including a one-button emergency function that can take over, communicate, pick a landing location and bring the aircraft down safely if something goes wrong.
They even took us up in the air in some of their planes (yes, they have their own hangar) to show us how it all worked, which wasn’t terrifying in the slightest…
Obviously, this is all worlds away from a Forerunner buzzing your wrist because you’ve drifted out of the Zone 2 heart rate zone, but it does explain that Garmin is obsessed with reliability in situations where failure isn’t just annoying, it’s dangerous. Whether you’re in the air or out in the wilderness, tech needs to be reliable. And this – for me – helps reframe the conversation around how expensive Garmin devices can be.
I now see Garmin as not just a brand that just makes good-quality wearables, but one that builds serious navigation and control systems, and then brings some of that mindset and engineering culture into its consumer gadgets.
All of the above made the campus feel less like a running watch HQ and more like a weirdly broad tech empire with fitness, outdoors, aviation, marine, and automotive all under one roof, which, I must admit, gave me some serious Apple HQ vibes.
I flew there thinking I was covering a sports watch launch and came away with a totally different perspective on the brand. That the reason Garmin kit feels so dependable isn’t just the watches themselves, it’s the fact it’s a capable engineering company built around building complicated navigational tech extremely well.
So, if you’re about to buy your next Garmin, it’s probably worth remembering these three things: the watches are tested in genuinely brutal ways; the logistics operation is far more advanced than most people realise; and the company’s serious engineering roots run much deeper than fitness.
That doesn’t mean Garmin is perfect, but its devices not only stands the test of time, but they also tend to make day-to-day training feel smoother and more reliable, which is the sort of thing that’s hard to give up once you’re used to it.
The best Garmin watches for all budgets
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