Garmin has been quietly racking up wins in the European Union, and the latest one arrived with iOS 26.5 this week. EU Garmin owners can now get Live Activities forwarded to their watches -- transit countdowns, flight updates, timer countdowns -- plus the ability to reply directly to messages from their Forerunner, Fenix, or Epix. It's a significant step up from the passive notification display these watches have been limited to.
But there's a catch, and it's a big one: this only works if your Apple account is registered in an EU country. If you're a US or UK Garmin owner, you get nothing. For now.
What's Actually New
The iOS 26.5 update opens up two capabilities to Garmin watches in the EU:
Interactive notifications -- Your watch can now act on notifications, not just show them. Reply to a text, dismiss a message, trigger an in-app action. This has been Apple Watch territory since 2015, and Garmin owners have been waiting a long time for it.
Live Activities forwarding -- These are the live-updating panels you see on your iPhone lock screen: Uber ETAs, package deliveries, flight status, in-app timers. Apple is now letting Garmin forward these to your watch face. Useful for runners who want real-time race or workout timers without pulling out their phone.
Both features require:
- iPhone on iOS 26.5 (rolled out Monday)
- Apple account registered in an EU country
- A Garmin firmware update (no ETA yet from Garmin)
The first two are ready. The firmware isn't.
The Good: Why This Matters for Garmin Owners
Let's be clear -- this is a meaningful upgrade for EU Garmin users. Here's why:
Better smartwatch parity. Garmin watches have always excelled at training and navigation, but their notification game lagged behind Apple Watch. Reply-from-wrist closes that gap for a lot of everyday situations. A quick "Running now, talk later" from your watch is genuinely useful.
Live Activities are genuinely valuable for athletes. If you're mid-race and want to track your progress without looking at your phone, Live Activities on your watch face is a real improvement. Same goes for gym sessions with built-in timers.
It's another sign of EU DMA pressure working. Apple has been forced to open up iPhone features to third-party wearable makers. Garmin has now gained: per-app notification filtering (iOS 26.3), background sync without Connect app open (iOS 26.3), and now interactive replies plus Live Activities (iOS 26.5). This regulatory pressure is making Garmin watches meaningfully better in Europe.
The Bad: US and UK Users Get Nothing
This is the part that stings. If your Apple account is registered in the US or UK, iOS 26.5 does nothing for your Garmin -- regardless of where you bought your phone or your watch.
The features aren't disabled by accident. Apple explicitly designed the system to geo-lock these capabilities. The company told developers in the updated Developer Program License Agreement that data from these features can't be used for advertising, profiling, model training, or location tracking -- which suggests Apple is thinking about eventually expanding this, but right now EU is the hard boundary.
There's a real equity issue here. A Garmin Fenix 8 owner in Stockholm gets features a Garmin Fenix 8 owner in Seattle doesn't. The watch is the same. The price is the same. The functionality isn't.
US Garmin owners have one slim hope: Apple could choose to expand these features beyond the EU if it wants to (the terms say "if Apple allows it"). There's also US antitrust pressure building, but that's a slow-moving process. Don't expect anything soon.
What This Means for Garmin's Competitive Position
Garmin has been threading a needle in the smartwatch market -- good enough for everyday use, elite for training. These EU features help that positioning. A runner who wants reply capability without Apple Watch now has a viable path with a Forerunner or Fenix, at least in Europe.
Globally, though, Garmin still can't match Apple Watch's core notification experience. The gap matters for everyday use, even if it doesn't matter for the athlete who primarily cares about training metrics.
Bottom Line
If you're an EU Garmin owner: this is good news. Mark it on your calendar -- the firmware update will come, and when it does, your watch gets meaningfully more capable. The combination of reply and Live Activities addresses two of the most common complaints from Garmin-to-Apple switchers.
If you're in the US or UK: this is a reminder that Apple's ecosystem walls still stand tall, and Garmin owners outside Europe are stuck waiting for a policy change that hasn't been announced.
The EU regulatory wins keep coming, though. That suggests the pattern will continue -- if not for this feature, then the next one. Garmin owners have been waiting a decade for Apple-level notification features. In Europe, that wait is finally over.
Have a Garmin watch in the EU? Already got your iOS 26.5 update? Drop a comment below -- we'd love to hear if the new features are working for you.