Garmin’s new AI nutrition tools will tempt other athletes to try Connect Plus
What you need to know
- Garmin announced new nutrition tracking features for Garmin Connect Plus users this week, allowing you to set calorie goals to lose weight or see nutrition recommendations tailored to your body size.
- You can use your phone’s camera to scan barcodes or “AI-powered image recognition” to log your food data.
- Garmin’s nutrition tracking will be synced with Connect+ AI snapshots and Lifestyle Logs, which connect unhealthy eating habits and their effects to your health statistics.
Garmin wants to help users achieve their New Year’s resolutions to eat better, adding a nutrition tracking tool with personalized meal recommendations and AI image recognition to log your calories. But you’ll need a Connect Plus subscription to access it.
Already available in the Connect app on Android and iOS, nutrition tracking can be added as a main tab in the navigation bar; you can also add a feed widget to the Focused or View sections on the Home tab.
Essentially, Garmin Nutrition Tracking allows you to log each meal or meal from a “global food database” with “packaged food options, restaurant and region,” by searching by name or by using your phone’s camera to scan barcodes. You can use “AI-powered image recognition” to capture the food of a restaurant or something that can be easily calculated.
It’s similar to how Amazfit’s Zepp Health inserts food using AI recognition, although that doesn’t require registration. I plan to test the accuracy of Garmin’s AI in the coming weeks.
Once entered, your food calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates will be compared to your daily goal, which is created using personal data such as height, weight, gender, and active calories from exercise. You’ll also customize targets based on your specific goal, such as losing X pounds in Y weeks or eating more protein.
Like most nutrition apps, Garmin lets you create meal preferences to add quickly and easily. Some Garmin watches also support the option to add favorites directly to your wrist, while older models will rely on mobile logging.
Update: Garmin shared the full list of watches that support this feature, either natively or with Connect IQ:
- Fenix 8 / Pro / E
- Predecessor 570/970
- Instinct 3 AMOLED / MIP / Tactical
- Area 4/X1
- Vivoactive 6
- Connect IQ: Fenix family 6, Fenix family 7, predecessor 165 / 255 / 265 / 955 / 965, Venu 2/3, Vivoactive 4/5
Once you start logging for a long time, Garmin will create “daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports” so you can see changes in your eating habits over time, while AI “Active Intelligence” will judge “how nutrition affects health and training,” such as predicting the connection between your poor sleep and late-night eating.
Garmin Connect Plus launched in 2025 with several special features: AI workout summaries, Garmin Trails recs, live mobile activities, training videos paired with Garmin Coach training programs, additional challenges and badges, and advanced data graphs in the Connect web interface.
Garmin hasn’t phased out any old features, but longtime users tend to react negatively whenever a new feature requires Connect+, such as the New Year’s Update. But nutrition logging is often included in paid apps like Fitbit Premium or MyFitnessPal, so it’s no surprise to see this feature tied to a subscription.
Garmin has emphasized health tracking with recent updates, especially the Health Status and Lifestyle entries. Nutrition falls into the same general category, aimed at athletes who expect guidance and training in both health and fitness.
Anyone can try Garmin Connect Plus for 30 days to test logging, after which you’ll have to pay $6.99/month or $69.99/year.
