MicroLED smartwatches have been rumored as the next big thing for years, but they finally became a reality in 2025 with the launch of the Garmin Fenix 8 Pro.

That the world’s first MicroLED device came from sports watch giant Garmin, rather than the likes of Apple and Samsung, might have come as a surprise to many, but this is technology that Garmin had been working on for a couple of years.

“This was a two-year development effort,” says Ralph Poshak, Display Technology Manager at Garmin. “We found out one of our suppliers was working on this and was going to do it in a format that would be applicable to a wearable. We said, ‘hey, we need to start exploring that’.”

The Garmin Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED is a pinnacle product and considerably more expensive than the AMOLED version of the Fenix

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