Garmin listens to feedback, adds Spotify to Fenix 5 Plus Series watch

By Kelly Hodgkins Published October 5, 2018

Spotify on fenix 5 Plus and fenix 5S Plus — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Garmin is rolling out Spotify support for its Fenix 5 Plus series of GPS multi-sport GPS watches, the company announced Wednesday, October 3 at a New York City event. Fenix owners can visit the online Connect IQ app store and download the Spotify app immediately. The addition of Spotify is a huge win for the smartwatch maker, which is pushing music as one of the flagship features of its Fenix 5 line of fitness trackers.

Designed for serious athlete and adventurers, the Fenix 5 Plus series launched earlier this year with integrated music, but the platform supported only iHeartRadio and Deezer. Spotify was noticeably absent — an omission we noted in our recent review of the Fenix 5X Plus, and one that spurned consumers to band together and voice their complaints. Garmin was silent and would not say if or when the popular music service would be added to its devices. The announcement is a pleasant surprise for all Fenix 5 Plus series owners.

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Garmin Fenix 5 Plus owners now can choose their favorite playlists and sync those tracks using the phone’s Wi-Fi connection. The watch ships with 16GB of onboard storage so there is plenty of room to store multiple playlists for offline listening. The new feature requires a Spotify premium account, but Garmin and Spotify are partnering to offer a free trial premium account for Garmin owners.

After the playlists have synced, Garmin watch owners can listen to their music offline through the new Spotify app. They will be able to choose between different playlists and move through the tracks using the controls on the watch. These music controls are available from the music data screen when exercising and from the music widget anytime.

The new Spotify app is available now to download from the Garmin Connect IQ app store. It is compatible with the Fenix 5S Plus, the Fenix 5 Plus, and the Fenix 5X Plus. Unfortunately, Spotify is not yet available for the company’s other music-enabled watches. Both the Garmin Forerunner 645 and the Vivoactvie 3 Music allows owners to listen to offline playlists from Deezer and iHeartRadio. Now that the gates are open for Spotify on the Fenix models, support for the Forerunner and Vivoactive hopefully is not too far behind.

Former Contributor

Kelly's been writing online for ten years, working at Gizmodo, TUAW, and BGR among others. Living near the White Mountains of…

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