CES 2026: Garmin had the nerve to launch a food-tracking function in Las Vegas

Garmin’s large announcement for CES 2026 wasn’t one other health watch. As a substitute, it revealed it’s including meals (and calorie) monitoring to its Join app. It combines AI picture recognition with a wealthy meals database, so you’ll be able to monitor your calorie and nutrient consumption with out leaving the app — and even log some meals by means of its watches.

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

This is smart 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 based mostly on peak, weight and gender, which you’ve seemingly already entered in your Garmin profile. It could actually even supply calorie and macronutrient suggestions tailor-made to your health targets.

Nonetheless, 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. The truth is, Garmin chosen one in every of my favourite eating places, Yardbird, to showcase its new nutrition-tracking function. 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 digital camera to log meals. With AI-powered picture recognition, the Join app makes a typically good guess at what you’re consuming. Through the media briefing lunch, the app swiftly acknowledged grilled salmon, corn and several other different greens. The portions weren’t remotely correct, nonetheless: 5 kernels of corn don’t equate to 1 cup. You may manually modify the serving measurement, however sadly, it might probably’t make a extra knowledgeable estimate at this level. A Garmin spokesperson famous that the corporate is trying into easy methods to enhance accuracy right here. (It’s a standard concern for any app or service making an attempt to make use of AI picture detection to analyse meals.) It was, nonetheless, fast and straightforward.

You can too create custom-made meal entries (with the proper ingredient portions), making it simpler to trace your common breakfast habits or noon espresso order. Higher nonetheless, you’ll be able to monitor diet and calorie consumption on suitable Garmin watches. You may even log your favourite (and just lately logged meals out of your wrist without having to make use of your telephone. Voice instructions additionally work on suitable Garmin wearables.

The function 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 could actually now consider your diet.

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