{"id":11988,"date":"2026-05-05T13:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/tech-tidbits-garmin-suunto-lawsuit-update-new-form-swim-2-lt-peloton-spotify-partnership\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T10:14:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:14:55","slug":"tech-tidbits-garmin-suunto-lawsuit-update-new-form-swim-2-lt-peloton-spotify-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/tech-tidbits-garmin-suunto-lawsuit-update-new-form-swim-2-lt-peloton-spotify-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Tidbits: Garmin-Suunto Lawsuit Update, New FORM Swim 2 LT, Peloton-Spotify Partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Here’s a rundown of interesting things I’ve noticed over the past few days, or, today in some cases. With that – let’s dive into randomness!<\/p>\n

Garmin-Suunto Lawsuit Update:<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

You may remember that a few months back I posted about a review of the Suunto case against Garmin for various things. It was basically a chef’s salad of random copyright infringement complaints. Sunto began his lawsuit in September, but things got spicy with Garmin’s WWF-style beating in late December. And on top of that, Garmin countersued Suunto with an equally random set of allegations of patent infringement.<\/p>\n

Annnnyyywaaaays\u2026.<\/p>\n

The two companies have been trading a lot in legal proceedings, but one notable one happened a few weeks ago with Suunto’s parent company, Dongguan Liesheng. As an afterthought for two seconds, when Suunto sued Garmin, it was Suunto rightfully suing Garmin. But when Garmin objected, they extended it to Suunto’s parent company, Dongguan Liesheng, by including a number of no-name watches sold by Dongguan Liesheng in the US on Amazon. Legally, that was a very creative move because he ‘made it real’ for Dongguan Liesheng by carefully flipping the script and capturing almost all of their watches. Basically, Garmin decided to play hardball.<\/p>\n

In fact, DL notes this in their filing, saying:<\/p>\n

\n

“The circumstances surrounding the filing of Dongguan as a Counter-Defendant strongly suggest that Garmin’s intent in naming Dongguan was not to defend against an infringement claim, but rather to place the burden and expense of patent litigation on the foreign parent company of its adversary litigation as a means of manipulation”.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At this point, I’m sure both Garmin and anyone who stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night would say: \u201cYeah, yeah, duh\u201d.<\/p>\n

That background legend noted, back a few weeks ago Dongguan Liesheng tried to dismiss this claim by filing a strong plea in court. This includes some non-patent specific notes, and a nice long 20 page breakdown of the specific patent in question, including raising some very interesting technical points (as I did next to the torch piece). But, as any lawyer knows – there is a time and place for disputes about the validity\/validity of the patent in question. That’s not the case, it’s putting the cart before the horse.<\/p>\n

Which is to say, while Dongguan Liesheng may have a point there (or he may not, he’s getting *WAY* deep in the weeds very quickly), it doesn’t get them off the hook for having that conversation down the road.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the judge gave a short verdict of ‘no’, saying:<\/p>\n

\n

“WE HAVE CONSIDERED, Dongguan Liesheng Electronic Technologyh Co., Ltd.’s Motion to Dismiss Garmin’s ‘351 Patent Infringement Claim. After consideration this motion is denied.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After that, Dongguan Liesheng also filed an angry response in court yesterday. Less on the court, and more on Garmin’s legal team.<\/p>\n

\n

“Instead, Dongguan’s motion indicates that it accepts those allegations as true, as is required at this stage, but points out that Garmin’s allegations, if taken as true, are irrefutably inconsistent with the requirements of Garmin’s patent. This is not a factual dispute. It is a facially reasonable contradiction within the Garading decision.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dongguan Liesheng seems to be upset that Garmin has dared to extend this naval game to their Dongguan Liesheng watch, rather than just Suunto watches. Again, whether Dongguan Liesheng is right or wrong is beside the point here, as the official name of the situation they find themselves in is simply: FAFO.<\/p>\n

In the end, I still suspect that Dongguan Liesheng will end up throwing everything away here. Also, as I’ve noted before, I get the (very strong) impression from talking to many people that no one at Suunto wants this case. This was very much Dongguan Liesheng’s thing, coming in and seeming to think that Garmin would be easy pickings for a typical patent-troll type case. Why they think that is beyond me (or anyone else I’ve talked to). Garmin is well known for not losing many patent cases. And more critically, Garmin has an inordinately large number of patents with which they can challenge Dongguan Liesheng (as they do here).<\/p>\n

If there was ever a suitable betting pool, it would be when Dongguan Liesheng saw this and hid it. After all, even Strava took just a few weeks to realize the magnitude of their mistake.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

FORM Smart Swim 2 LT \u2013 Budget Plan:<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

FORM, the head-up display goggle maker, has launched a new budget-friendly version. As you may remember, they are on what is now their 3rd generation. There was google’s first FORM Swim, then the V2 goggle which added a heart rate sensor, then the V2 Pro which added scratch resistant glass. This new version of the LT takes the base of the V2 goggle (including updated internals and a reduced form), but it doesn’t have the V2’s pulse-pounding feel, or the new Gorilla Glass features of the Pro. But otherwise it has all the same software features.<\/p>\n

Here’s a quick comparison chart of all three:<\/p>\n

\"FORM<\/p>\n

Another thing worth noting is that SwimStraight is included in every mirror, with no registration required. That’s the piece that keeps you going to the exact location without a small compass. Likewise, the Pro edition was reduced in price from $299 to $259, and HeadCoach now includes all types of strokes, whereas before it was only freestyle.<\/p>\n

I suspect that the $149 price tag will be more appealing to the skeptic crowd, than the higher priced options.<\/p>\n

Peloton & Spotify Deepen Connection <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the end, I thought this was a little interesting, at least enough to mention it. Some Peloton classes are now available on Spotify. These classes include Strength, Stretching, Yoga, Meditation, Floor Cardio, Outdoor Running, Walking, Pilates, and Barre. Which means the classes generally don’t need much, if any, extra equipment (keep specific weights for specific strength classes).<\/p>\n

In this case, you don’t need to be a Peloton subscriber, but you do need to be on Spotify. The idea here is to finally convince people to jump on Peloton. Also, I suspect there’s something driven by Spotify trying to push people more onto the platform with non-audio content (eg, video content, including video podcasts).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That said, both finding and getting content is a mess. Simply searching for ‘Peloton’ within the Spotify app doesn’t prioritize any of these things. Instead, I’m dealing with just a bunch of user-created and Peloton-created playlists. I think in my head, I thought Peloton would be treated as an ‘artist’, and then somehow in between I would get a workout the same way I would get albums\/songs. But it is better organized. Instead, it is unreasonable and impossible to find everything easily.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The first ‘best’ place is Spotify’s announcement page, but even that is short on jumping-off points. I suspect they want you to go to the ‘Eligibility’ hub, which currently prioritizes Peloton to the top, but again, there is no ‘All Things Peloton’ home page. Or, if there is, I can’t find it (and it doesn’t link to it anywhere in the publications, announcement page, or Spotify app)\u2026which tells you all you need to know.<\/p>\n

With that – thanks for reading!<\/p>\n

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Here’s a rundown of interesting things I’ve noticed over the past few days, or, today in some cases. With that – let’s dive into randomness! Garmin-Suunto Lawsuit Update: You may remember that a few months back I posted about a review of the Suunto case against Garmin for various things. It was basically a chef’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wearables"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11990,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988\/revisions\/11990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aura-node.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}