Where Do My Activities Go On The Computer Before They Are Uploaded To Garmin Connect?

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With the rise of connected devices that automatically upload your rides and runs upon completion to Garmin Connect, there's been a corresponding rising in usage of 3rd party sites that synchronize that information to other training log platforms such as Strava and Preparation Peaks. These middle-man sites operate by copying your activity data automatically upon detection of a new activity being uploaded, to the concluding destination of your choice.

It is in some means ironic that with increased connectivity has come more than complexity in getting files where you want them. That'south largely due to the fact that Garmin has been less than entirely piece of cake when it comes to getting data where end users program to analyze it. While Garmin Connect does take an API available, that API isn't well documented, nor supported at all, and hasn't been updated in years.

Thus well-nigh of these 3rd political party applications have had to spend a bit of fourth dimension reverse engineering how things piece of work. Sometimes that works well, but other times that'due south caused some ripples betwixt Garmin and 3rd party apps – such as with CopyMySports earlier this year being throttled from an activeness polling standpoint.

Ultimately though, these solutions do offer users a bang-up fashion to quickly and seamlessly get data from Garmin Connect to tertiary political party sites. With that, let's run through the three I'yard aware of today. Oh, and all of these are gratis.

Tapiriik:

We'll showtime off with Tapiriik from the very kickoff, which takes you here, to their landing page to select which services you want to connect to.

In my instance, I'll start with Garmin Connect first:

Once I've washed that, you'll see how 'Garmin Connect' is shown on the upper half with 'Connected' side by side to it, while the others are downwardly below indicating they aren't connected to yet.

So side by side I'll cull Training Peaks, and consummate the same thing:

Once that's consummate, you'll see both listed on the upper half. You'll also see the pick to 'Synchronize now', likewise as 'Automatic Synchronization' below it.

In my instance, I went with 'Automated Synchronization', which costs $2 per year. Otherwise, yous tin can simply printing the 'at present' push button and it does it for free.

After I paid my two bucks via PayPal, I was back on the landing page and able to configure settings. In this folio I tin choose which accounts sync where. Sorta similar beingness a traffic cop.

In my example, I didn't desire to sync from Training Peaks to Garmin Connect, then I unchecked that option:

Then, I let it do it's matter for the initial synchronization. Considering I have a couple of activities in Garmin Connect (uhh…thousands), this took a bit of time. I merely went to bed. It sorta worked out ameliorate that mode.

With that, it finishes some time afterward (only insert some montage music). And, magically, all the activities in my Garmin Connect business relationship show upwards in Training Peaks (an account I tend to employ for random testing and thus doesn't have all my activities in it):

Once it completed, you'll see how frequent it synchronizes. This is a scrap unlike than CopyMySports which does polling at an undefined frequency. In this case, Tapiriik has a defined 60-minute interval.

The next day I went out for a run, and let the Garmin FR620 automatically upload the run like normal to Garmin Connect via WiFi when I got back to the house. For fun, I timed to meet how long it would take to show-upward in Training Peaks. In my example, about 10 minutes and 9 seconds. But why 10 minutes? Well, that's simply when it happened the next sync would occur – which is every hr. Then it was mostly merely pure impaired luck it was on the shorter side rather than the longer side.

The long pole in the tent hither is pretty much the polling procedure to pickup the activity from the source service (i.east. Garmin Connect). The cosmos of the activity in the destination service (i.eastward. Training Peaks) takes mere seconds.

At this point, the activity is ready to use as normal for analysis/logging within Preparation Peaks. Note that for Training Peaks you'll demand to be either a Premium or Coached member for sync to piece of work, which, I call up is a fair business organisation move.

Of form, Tapiriik supports other services too (like Strava), I just happened to use Training Peaks equally my example. Overall it works quite well, and is the virtually 'known' in terms of having a simple countdown clock until sync. While I wish the synchronization were more frequent, I suspect that's purely a case of not ticking off Garmin with too many requests.

Plus, for free, it's difficult to shell.

CopyMySports:

CopyMySports has been effectually quite a long fourth dimension, though under their previous proper noun of 'GarminSync', which they inverse mid-summer. The awarding is largely aimed at copying data from Garmin Connect to Strava, simply it besides copies data to RunKeeper as well.

To setup CopyMySports you'll starting time with their home folio. This is where you can setup the sync procedure to either Strava or RunKeeper (the 2 services they support today). Downwardly the road they've noted they plan to add back up for Training Peaks.

At the bottom of the page yous'll see a little box to blazon in some text. In order to setup CopyMySports you'll basically need to tell the service who you lot are. Instead of authorizing your Garmin Connect account like Tapiriik, y'all're going to provide it with an ID of one of your activities. It and so uses that to follow your future activities by looking upwardly your username.

To discover an ID, simply open up one of your activities in Garmin Connect. At the top of your browser in the address bar yous'll see the activity ID. I've highlighted information technology in yellow. It's but the numerical number.

Copy that number down (using copy and paste, or quondam-school with a pen and newspaper). Then, paste/write it in the picayune box. A few seconds afterward information technology'll practise a quick validation and allow yous know the account it belongs to, along with a brusque blurb about the action. Validate all is well there before continuing on.

There'south a little checkbox higher up (actually 2). The first ane will copy activities marked every bit private. For example, by default I mark all my activities as private and merely publish those I permit to exist shared – thus I don't want to check that box. The second checkbox enables you to copy the activity y'all just typed in the box to a higher place. In my case, I've already published that action to Strava, so I unchecked it after I took the screenshot.

Next, I clicked 'Connect with Strava'. This volition bring up a page from Strava that has you authorize CopyMySports. This is similar to (for instance) what Twitter does if you qualify an awarding or service with them. It allows you lot to easily revoke access subsequently on. In my case, I just click 'Qualify' and I'm adept to go.

One time I've washed that, it'll requite me this little confirmation folio. Note that in my instance I didn't exercise a bulk copy of past activities (though I did for Training Peaks with the previous business relationship). You can do that to Strava though for older activities using the CopyMySports Majority Copy feature, which will get back and re-create all your older stuff over. In my example, I've got tons of wonkiness in my Garmin Connect account (for case, I frequently take iv-6 versions of the same ride recorded since I utilise then many devices), so I want to go on my Strava account kinda 'clean'.

Note, if down the road y'all ever desire to revoke access to CopyMySports, you can do that within the Strava settings then 'My Apps' department:

With that, I went alee and went out for my run and came back. Once within I pressed the 'Upload' button on my FR620 and let it upload to Garmin Connect. One time I confirmed the activity was on Garmin Connect, I was curious to meet how long information technology would take until it showed up on Strava.

In my case, that was 38 minutes.

CopyMySports aims for a synchronization time as little as every 15 minutes. If you had for example paired your FR220/FR620 or Edge 510/810 to your phone and uploaded upon completion at a park somewhere, it'd potentially be at that place before yous got home. At worst, if you finished at home it'south at that place before you're out of the shower.

As you can encounter, the solution worked well. I know they're working to speed upward the synchronization delay, merely like everyone else, is a fleck limited there past what Garmin will tolerate.

SyncMetrics:

(Update equally of Baronial 2014: SyncMetrics is no longer operating.)

At present, SyncMetrics is a flake different in scope than the previous two sites. Information technology does Garmin Connect to Strava like the others, but information technology also covers more than health-focused sites like Withings, FitBit and iHealth.

With that, let's get things setup. To do so, we'll tap 'Annals' in the upper right.

That'll pop-up an business relationship creation page. Now, I really like this over the other ii sites, equally I feel like I take more 'control' over the transactions. Of form, both the other sites take ways to turn things off, but this just makes it simpler in my mind (I know some would disagree).

It'll send me an account activation e-mail, to validate I'm a real person and didn't hose upwards my e-mail accost. I suggest clicking on that link you receive if you desire to take further success in this venture.

Once you practise that, y'all'll be brought to the below screen. Which is absolutely a bit confusing (primarily the upper portion). Just ignore all the upper stuff, and focus on the lesser half, which is all the accounts y'all can link up.

Next, I clicked on 'Garmin Connect' in the list to showtime that setup. You'll then click on the Garmin Connect logo, every bit it specifies in the 'Hint'. I'd suggest a 'Hint' of my own however: If I accept to have a hint when that'southward pretty much the only button/link on the page that'due south not conspicuously a push, perchance it'due south time to create a real button.

Next, nosotros'll enter your Garmin Connect credentials in.

Once you lot've done that, you'll be back here, ready to link upwards another business relationship. In my case, I'chiliad going to spit this out to MapMyFitness. So I'll click MapMyFitness and so click to 'Qualify'.

I also did the same for RunKeeper, just to run across how that'd piece of work.

Later, if you were to look at RunKeeper, you'd see the API authorization listed there in your settings:

Once that's done, I'm presented with options to sync activities to/from Garmin Connect. The claiming though is that I don't have much command over what happens after I check that box.

And I checked the same box for RunKeeper.

At present, there's some limits here:

– I can't specify if information technology'due south for just newer activities, or also older ones too. Currently, it pulls only activities after the cosmos date.
– I can't specify what to do about private activities, to include, or not to include? Currently it pulls them.

Once it's done a sync, y'all'll see the activities listed within the window 'Activities' tab. I actually like this a bit, as it's more of a sync log file, something the other ones lack. I tin can come across what got processed easily.

Afterwards it syncs yous'll see the data on the destination side. Below, you tin can encounter my activities copied over from skiing the past few days (I've got duplicate activities since I was uploading from different devices).

I tin can then click on an activity and see it in its fully glory:

Now, I had some initial teething issues with the SyncMetrics service, simply the support folks were able to have care of information technology. The interesting aspect to SyncMetrics is that it goes across but the sport side and delves into the weight/sleep side a bit, where the other services shy abroad from that.

And so if your goal is getting more health and wellness data moved around, SyncMetrics may be the better pick.

Wrap-up:

In looking at the solutions at hand, you tin can see they vary a bit in implementation, and thus the 'cleanliness' of each solution. Further, some solutions may exist faster simply less consistent in terms of speed, while others may be slower, but more consistent. Unfortunately, at that place is no perfect-instant solution. But, I recall that they practice offer quite functional solutions, and ones that ultimately get your information to it's final destinations jazz-hands free.

At present, the trick hither is that all of this depends on an API that's just barely in that location. Garmin deleted the API'south main page late this by summer, though the rest of the API documentation is still published. In my recent discussions with them, Garmin has seemingly tried to further altitude themselves from even having an API at all (outside of their corporate health programme stuff they announced a few months back). I'm optimistic however that they'll re-think any 'back of the encephalon' thoughts most closing things downwardly any (further). Only because I'd note that the sports technology darling of the globe (Strava) tried doing that this past summer, and that didn't plow out terribly well for them.

Thus, in that vein, here's a fun fact for you (or for Garmin): That Strava API endmost post was shared more than any other post ever in the history of this site – including any individual production review at that signal (which are typically the most popular posts here). Every bit a result, Strava has mostly inverse their ways, which is a expert affair.

In the meantime, nosotros tin all enjoy the free offerings that are out in that location today, and hopefully downward the route sure parties will go far easier to utilize their devices while notwithstanding using the bountiful and diverse 3rd political party software options congenital around those devices.

Thanks for reading!