Garmin had the nerve to launch a food-tracking characteristic in Las Vegas

Garmin’s large announcement for CES 2026 wasn’t one other health watch. As an alternative, it revealed it’s including food (and calorie) tracking to its Connect app. It combines AI picture recognition with a wealthy meals database, so you may monitor your calorie and nutrient consumption with out leaving the app — and even log some meals by way of its watches.

The meals monitoring works equally to current apps like MyFitnessPal, Noom, LifeSum and lots of others. Nonetheless, Garmin hopes to make its companion app one of the best place for monitoring vitamin with out having to go away its app – and tying it into your different health objectives.

This is sensible in a number of methods. When you already use Garmin to trace your train, the app can present a extra correct estimate of your calorie expenditure. It’ll personalize it primarily based on top, weight and gender, which you’ve possible already entered in your Garmin profile. It might probably even provide calorie and macronutrient suggestions tailor-made to your health objectives.

Nevertheless, it unveiled the information at CES 2026, a tech convention held in Las Vegas, which appeared like a troll. Las Vegas, the place you’re by no means removed from a three-foot margarita, a BLT Bloody Mary or fried hen and waffles. In actual fact, Garmin chosen one in every of my favourite eating places, Yardbird, to showcase its new nutrition-tracking characteristic. Yardbird does unimaginable hen and waffles. It’s presumably the worst doable place to start out monitoring my calorie consumption, whatever the 15,000-odd steps I take every day right here.

Along with the meals database, you need to use the digicam to log meals. With AI-powered picture recognition, the Join app makes a usually good guess at what you’re consuming. Throughout the media briefing lunch, the app swiftly acknowledged grilled salmon, corn and several other different greens. The portions weren’t remotely correct, nevertheless: 5 kernels of corn don’t equate to 1 cup. You may manually modify the serving dimension, however sadly, it could possibly’t make a extra knowledgeable estimate at this level. A Garmin spokesperson famous that the corporate is trying into methods to enhance accuracy right here. (It’s a standard situation for any app or service making an attempt to make use of AI picture detection to analyse meals.) It was, nevertheless, fast and simple.

You may also create personalized meal entries (with the right ingredient portions), making it simpler to trace your common breakfast habits or noon espresso order. Higher nonetheless, you may monitor vitamin and calorie consumption on appropriate Garmin watches. You may even log your favourite (and not too long ago logged meals out of your wrist while not having to make use of your telephone. Voice instructions additionally work on appropriate Garmin wearables.

The characteristic is now out there to Garmin Join+ subscribers, who pay $6.99 per 30 days. This additionally consists of Energetic Intelligence, which already presents AI-powered insights into your exercises. It might probably now think about your vitamin.

Subscribers may also have the ability to get each day, weekly, month-to-month and even annual studies on calorie targets (and what you ended up consuming). However let’s begin monitoring that when I’ve left Vegas, please.