Garmin has a launch event on Tuesday, August 25, listed on its YouTube channel for 12 PM UK time. It is called Play Harder, the teaser image is a surfer coming off a wave, and no product is named anywhere on the page. Garmin launched the Fenix 8 series and the Enduro 3 together on August 27, 2024, which puts this one two days short of a two-year anniversary.
The software has been less careful than the invitation. Gadgets and Wearables found an entry reading Enduro_4 inside Garmin Connect version 5.26, the phone app that pairs with every Garmin watch, attached to internal product ID 5179 and filed under the fitness, outdoor, golf and wellness categories Garmin reserves for its serious multisport watches. In the next release the name was gone. Product 5179 was still there, now carrying the codename GOBI.
That is a watch Garmin has already written software for, which is a different thing from a watch people expect it to make.
The Fenix 9 case is thinner. Garmin Connect 5.27 added six unreleased devices that fall into two groups of three, MARGAY_CARACAL, BENGAL_SIBERIAN and PANTHER in one, TORR_SNARF, LEAH_CHEETARA and WILYCUB_PANTHRO in the other, all six carrying the same fitness, outdoor, golf and wellness classification. Three devices per group would fit three case sizes across two hardware or display versions, which is how a Fenix generation is usually built. That reading is a reading. Garmin has confirmed none of it, and there is at least one more unreleased project sitting in the same place under the name BRISTLECONE.
So the Enduro 4 has a product name, an internal ID, a codename and a date that lines up with the last Enduro almost to the day. The Fenix 9 has six codenames and an inference. Garmin is giving nothing else away, and the YouTube page tells you to come back on Tuesday.