Apple Activity Rings not updating with Garmin workouts

I see your earlier point about not having to have an Apple Watch and just getting the data to sync to the Health and Activity app alone. I hadn't looked closely at that but will now to see current behavior. I did just notice one additional item. When I look at total miles showing on either the AW or in the Health/Activity app, it only shows total miles for activity generated while wearing the Apple Watch even though it shows the synced activity from Garmin Connect. So if I did a 5-mile run, and only wore the AW walking around the house, that's all the total miles it shows, even though it shows the red move ring and exercise ring being completely closed. Calories show up, of course, as that is what closes the red move ring. Exercise minutes as well, of course. But the total distance doesn't reflect any Garmin activities that synced. Makes sense on the one hand since someone might wear both watches (like many of us were), in which case which data is prioritized? But our whole focus here as been about not having to wear two watches and/or to get the Garmin data to sync properly with Apple Health and Activity apps. Hope this is helpful.

1 - Yes

2 - Yes

3 - Australia

just curious...what sort of timeframe to receive contact on this? Responded 7 days ago and not heard anything yet...

1-Yes

2-Yes

3-Germany

Garmin-Kevin, found this explanation from another user in another thread (https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mobile-apps-web/f/garmin-connect-mobile-ios/308178/issue-with-distance-and-apple-health) that may explain why the rings does not close. Could be valuable information for the developers when analyzing this issue so we can get it solved. This is what the user said

Welcome to the mess that is Garmin's implementation of the HealthKit API.  The short answer here is that Garmin has failed to implement almost anything correctly for this integration.  (other than a couple things like all day HR, or steps). Anything related to an activity is just wrong.   The reason all this is happening is actually pretty simple.  AppleHealth has two ways that data samples work.  Snapshot or count over time.  For instance, if you record a weight, that is what you weigh at that instant.  So, 180 pounds at 7:15am.  BUT, for things like distance or steps it expects you to give a time range.  You would say that between 8:15am and 8:16am you walked 40 steps for instance.   

Apple does it this way because it allows any software to figure out things like speed, create graphs, etc. but also just as importantly to figure out which data takes priority (which you can set in Health).    For instance, if you walk with your iPhone in your pocket, and a Garmin watch on your wrist with both counting steps, there is a very good chance they will get a slightly different count.  So, the priority determines which is 'right'.  (and again, you pick that).  So, it would look at two samples that overlap the time range and although it keeps both (which is great) it reports on the one you said to trust more.   In some cases (like HR) Garmin does a great job with this.  In fact, as an all day measurement, Garmin writes HR in smaller spans than the Apple Watch does (making it more precise).   

BUT, (and this brings us to the second item). Garmin does things like not time stamp entires (so they get ignored for things like closing your rings), or in the case of Walking + Running distance they write the total for the day with a single time stamp rather than a range.  SO, Garmin is explicitly telling Apple Health that you Walked/Ran 5.1 miles in ZERO seconds at 5:10pm (or maybe over a minute or two, but regardless, it's wrong.    Apple trusts Garmin (because you said it could) so it includes that value since it doesn't overlap anything the iPhone measured.   Which doubles your day.  It's not an Apple bug.  Garmin is writing garbage data because they don't follow any of standards for the API.

I'm not sure whats going on with Connect, mine was working correctly until recently, for example my rings move but the workout descriptions have changed. When i do a Zwift ride its considered virtual and when connect pushes it to health it was labeled as outdoor ride which gave me speed and distance. Now when Connect pushes it to health its labeled as indoor ride and i lost speed and distance stats... But my rings still move ...

With that said, for those of you who use Apple watch for basic workouts and a Garmin for more intense workouts what are you all doing to keep your data on both apps ? I'm leaning towards using Rungap again, or possibly just using both devices at the same time to log workouts...

Richny said:

what are you all doing to keep your data on both apps ?

Well first, I bought a 2 generation old AW with purpose to have Apple Music with me while running without the need of carrying a heavy mobile and also because the Garmin Gym App on Watch sucks; can’t define your own exercises.

My wish is to wear my Epix as a 24/7 watch but since daytime fake sleeps overwrites the better nights sleep which totally mess up the training readiness I have give up on that and now only wear AW during daytime 

For this to work together with Epix I have disabled the following tracking by Garmin in Health: Stairs, steps, energy at rest, and resting pulse.

I During training I only log exercise on the Garmin watch. I import metrics logged during daytime on AW to Garmin using RunGap