Garmin connect repeats calories if not synced every day

I have a vivoactive 4 and am using Garmin connect on iOS, though I believe I have seen this happen with my old vivoactive 3 and on the android platform.

The issue is that if I don't sync every single day, then when I finally do sync -  the latest full day recorded from previous sync will be duplicated for the following day. (calorie count, including active and resting calories will duplicate; It does not duplicate the step count; that remains distinct for each day)

As an example,  lets say I sync Tuesday morning, and then don't sync again until Saturday morning.  It will look like  the table below (day/steps/calories).

Tuesday's calorie data will very often just copy Monday's calorie data, though the steps/sleep/etc will all be distinct.


Monday       8500    2500
Tuesday      9200    2500
Wednesday 6200    2350
Thurs           7500    2410
Friday          8200    2450

  • not sure I understand this reply?  I don't have GarminConnect attached to any other apps if that's what you're asking.  
    Also I don't use myfitnesspal, but i do use another app to count calories consumed.  I just use the garmin one to estimate calories burned.

  • Monday       8500    2500
    Tuesday      9200    2500
    Wednesday 6200    2350
    Thurs           7500    2410
    Friday          8200    2450

    Which of the values are doubled, according to you? They are all up to 2500, which is rather normal for an adult man (or for a taller woman too). Half of it would be definitely too little for any adult person.

  • I'm not saying the calories are out of range for normal.  i'm saying that I have noticed multiple times, in the scenario where I don't sync for multiple days at a time, the next time I do actually sync, the first date with new data will duplicate the exact calories of the last day with already-synced data.

    it is highly unlikely that two consecutive days would have the exact same calorie count, though not impossible.  when that scenario happens multiple times, pretty sure it is a bug in the syncing process that is recording calorie data from the watch to the app.

  • OK, I see. And how many calories are shown directly on the watch for the concerned day, where you suspect it was not synced correctly?

  • that's a very good question. i haven't paid attention before syncing, though i will try and remember to do so next time when I test this behavior.

    on the vivoactive 3 i was actually able to scroll back in time and see previous days' calories.  on the 4, i haven't found any way to do that.  the closest I can get is from the calories widget; you can see a graph showing previous days calories in a bar chart format, but with no numbers included.  obviously the watch is recording it, though I don't know how to see it there.

    for anyone else who may be reading this or have experienced the same issue, I did submit a ticket with garmin support about it.

  • Well, at least, you can see on the chart whether the values for Monday and Wednesday are identical or not. If not, then make a photo of it, and send it together with the screenshot of the values in GC to the Product Support. It is a clear evidence, and much simpler to understand, than when you explain it just verbally.

  • good call. the lines for the affected days look identical on the watch,
    I think it's possible the app is writing back to the watch due to the physio trueup function

    i'm going to start testing this over the next couple of weeks on my own.
    especially if I can find a way to get the actual number data from previous days on the watch itself

    like I said - duplicate consecutive days to the exact are possible but pretty unlikely (the numbers in my chart above were just round number examples to make it easy to digest; the actual numbers from the app/watch are rarely round like that - for instance last month I had two consecutive days in this syncing situation that were both 2503)