ZWIFT Rides No Longer Count Towards Challenges?

trux said:

And where is the problem? Connect the chest strap as an external sensor to your Forerunner. 

The problem is that I tried that and it didn't work. But even if it did, what's the point? If I wanted to record my activity on the watch, I'd be OK with the built-in wrist HR sensor it has. My issue wasn't inaccurate HR tracking. My issue was no HR tracking/syncing at all (see my comment on the other tread for more details). And when it worked earlier, the HR data read by the watch sensor itself wasn't as accurate as the one reported by the chest strap sensor, but it was accurate enough to calculate the intensity minutes properly (i.e. watch was detecting the same HR zones most of the time, even though the exact BPM values were off by like 10-15 units). Also, as I mentioned before, I want Zwift to be the "source of truth" there b/c it tracks the distance, GPS, speed, etc, while, obviously, there's no way Garmin watch could track any of that data for the "Indoor Cycling" activity.

Kion said:

My issue was no HR tracking/syncing at al

See my comment in the other thread - that topic has absolutely no relation to Zwift. You simply had multiple GC accounts associated with the device, and the HR & IM data was landing in the wrong account. Whether the system then counts Zwift rides or not, cannot help in any way. 

What I wrote about recording Zwift rides still stands - as long as you record them with a Garmin device, they will count towards badges and challenges. However, you have to have your device and account set up correctly.

trux said:

See my comment in the other thread - that topic has absolutely no relation to Zwift.

None of these topics have anything to do with Zwift in general (Zwift ride is just a particular case where Garmin's data sync policy is not working well / as expected, but it applies to any external services that sync data to Garmin Connect).

trux said:

You simply had multiple GC accounts associated with the device, and the HR & IM data was landing in the wrong account.

No, that was not the case at all. The issue was that the watch was not syncing HR data to Garmin Connect and as long as "Intensity Minutes" is calculated based on the data captured by the watch itself only, Zwift ride wasn't counted towards intensity minutes (b/c even though I did wear the watch during the ride, it didn't sync the captured HR data to Garmin Connect).

As I mentioned multiple times at this point, calculation should really be happening either on their servers or on the mobile app and it should be taking all the data into account, no matter which source (e.g. Zwift) it comes from.

Of course, that would not resolve the issue of HR data being missing in the Garmin Connect for all the outside of activities time.

trux said:

What I wrote about recording Zwift rides still stands - as long as you record them with a Garmin device, they will count towards badges and challenges.

I'm still not sure how exactly is that supposed to work b/c Garmin watch just can't track things like distance, speed, GPS, etc for the "Indoor Cycling" activity, so that data has to come from Zwift. And without the distance/speed data, badges and challenges aren't going to work.

trux said:

However, you have to have your device and account set up correctly.

So that I assume means I'd need to set up some sort of "data merging" solution, which was suggested before and, as I said already, I am not willing to pay for a yet another piece of software just to complicate this process even more, while all that is really needed in order to get this sorted out is as simple as a tweak on Garmin's end to take all the data into account (e.g. data Zwift syncs to Garmin Connect) and not only the data captured by the watch itself. It's really is just ridiculous that Garmin isn't able to solve this problem b/c it's the same exact data format in all cases and same exact data (like distance, speed, etc), so there's really no reason to exclude data coming from the syncing services.

In fact, what's even the point of syncing data with Garmin Connect from external services if it's not being taken into account for challenges/badges and isn't being calculated towards "Intensity Minutes" and other similar things?

I somehow thought that's exactly the point of Garmin Connect (it's right there in the name of it, no?) - to connect all the services and get accurate data stats no matter which source data came from.

If they require everything to be recorded on the watch, data sync feature is pretty much useless anyways and Garmin Connect is just not needed at all, IMO.

Kion said:

In fact, what's even the point of syncing data with Garmin Connect from external services if it's not being taken into account for challenges/badges and isn't being calculated towards "Intensity Minutes" and other similar things?

Most people don't log their training for badges, challenges, intensity minutes and other pretty irrelevant stuff. They log their training to see progress, plan training and other relevant reasons for logging their training. To get a good overview and detailed view of the training you need to log everything into one place.

Kion said:

In fact, what's even the point of syncing data with Garmin Connect from external services if it's not being taken into account for challenges/badges and isn't being calculated towards "Intensity Minutes" and other similar things?

As for the Intensity Minutes - Garmin is contractually bound to insurances and to large coprorations, and hence have to keep the control on the way the data is entering the system. So that's likely the main reason they do not allow importing of Steps, burned Calories, and IMs from 3rd parties. 

However, it cannot pose any problems as long as you use you Garmin device properly, and record all your activity with it.

Of course, if you encounter a problem like you with non-syncing HR, and wait a month before fixing it, then you cannot be surprised IMs were not counted in the meantime.

Kion said:

Garmin watch just can't track things like distance, speed, GPS, etc for the "Indoor Cycling"

Just enter the distance shown by your indoor bike once you finish, and its done. Speed will be calculated automatically. And the GPS is completely irrelevant since you did not leave the building anyway.

Better yet, get a real bike and go riding outdoors 

Boil this down, and the essence you are left with is that Garmin doesn't care about its user base. Plain and simple. They don't care.

e7andy said:

Most people don't log their training for badges, challenges, intensity minutes and other pretty irrelevant stuff.

If all of it is irrelevant, why does Garmin provide/support it? They should just remove those features! :)))

Seriously, I appreciate your opinion, but it's nothing more than an opinion of one person. I don't care about challenges at all (never used it a single time), don't care about badges much (even though it's a nice-to-have feature, I'd say) but do care about intensity minutes (I use it for the purpose of general tracking of my weekly activity progress). And that's just my opinion and nothing more than that.

Other people may care about challenges and badges more than other stuff and we can't tell them they care about wrong things, don't you think? So, it's cool when you speak for yourself, but I wouldn't just say "They..." when you making any statements of this kind. Nobody knows (except, maybe, Garmin? :)) what the full data across the entire Garmin platform looks like. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people on the platform who don't use it for "training" purposes, but rather use it for "general fitness" purposes (even though I myself also tend to believe that Garmin is used more by the "athlete" kind of users).

e7andy said:

They log their training to see progress, plan training and other relevant reasons for logging their training.

Umm... That's exactly what I do as well. Are you saying that riding a bike outside with a Garmin watch on your wrist IS a workout, but riding on Zwift is NOT only b/c I sync the data instead of recording it on the watch itself? :) Jokes aside though, I actually put way more workout effort when I ride on Zwift compared to when I ride outside (which I'd often do just for the recreational purposes, i.e. not in the "workout mode").

e7andy said:

To get a good overview and detailed view of the training you need to log everything into one place.

Again, that's exactly the point! I use Zwift to ride and I want the data it recorded to get sync to Garmin Connect - that ONE PLACE - and while, yes, I do it primarily to "get a good overview and detailed view of the training", I think it's ridiculous that same same isn't being used for all the different calculations (like "Intensity Minutes" metric, which I personally do care about and I'm sure there's a plenty of other people who care about it as well!) unless it comes from the watch itself. There really should be no difference where it comes from.

trux said:

Just enter the distance shown by your indoor bike once you finish, and its done.

First of all that's not nearly as convenient as have it "just work". Second, what about things like laps, segments, etc? There's no way I can manage that manually, but it's all there in the fit file and they know how to parse that data and there's technically nothing stopping them from using that data. But yeah, maybe it has something to do with the contractual bounds you mentioned, who knows.

trux said:

And the GPS is completely irrelevant since you did not leave the building anyway.

Well, I don't know how familiar you are with Zwift platform, but some of the routes there are the 1-to-1 (or almost ideantical) models of the real world routes (including routes being used for world championships, famed races, etc) and GPS Zwift reports is what you'd get in the real world.

I probably won't even have a chance to climb Alpe D’Huez (one of the more famous stages of the Tour de France), but I can climb Alpe Du Zwift modeled after it any day I want. And yes, if I can get GPS tracking for it, why wouldn't I want it to be tracked?

trux said:

Better yet, get a real bike and go riding outdoors

No sure what you were trying to say. I use Tacx Net 2T with my real road bike. I can easily take it off the trainer, put the rear wheel back on and ride it outside whenever I want. Well, OK, not whenever b/c there's winter season, weather and other things that prevent me from riding outside sometimes (or just make it less comfortable than riding indoors), so in those cases I ride on the trainer instead. I won't take it personally though. I'm sure you were just kiddin' :)

Kion said:

If all of it is irrelevant, why does Garmin provide/support it? They should just remove those features! :)))

Badges and challenges are for fun. Intensity minutes are for people that don't train a lot and just trying to start to move to get healthy. Just like the step challenges.

I'm running a site and blog dedicated to Garmin badges and challenges (https://garminbadges.com/) so I care a lot, but the whole thing with badges and challenges is just for fun.

Kion said:

I use Zwift to ride and I want the data it recorded to get sync to Garmin Connect - that ONE PLACE - and while, yes, I do it primarily to "get a good overview and detailed view of the training", I think it's ridiculous that same same isn't being used for all the different calculations (like "Intensity Minutes" metric, which I personally do care about and I'm sure there's a plenty of other people who care about it as well!) unless it comes from the watch itself. There really should be no difference where it comes from.

You can use Zwift and other 3rd party services how much you like and sync to Garmin Connect to get everything in one place. The only thing that doesn't work is badges and challenges.

I don't understand why intensity minutes are so important for you. Are you really measuring your training in intensity minutes? I got irritated by all notifications about it so I set it to 1000, but I almost always do over 1000 intensity minutes every week so I guess I will have to set it even higher.

Intensity minutes aren't even measured on the Garmin Edge devices. It is just something for the Garmin watches with activity tracking. 

One other possible reason to why everything is calculated on the device could be licensing. Garmin uses Firstbeat algorithms and I bet they are licensed per device. Garmin bought Firstbeat for a while. Probably due to massive licensing costs and that they use Firstbeat algorithms a lot so we might see changes to how the algorithms are used in the future.

e7andy said:

Intensity minutes are for people that don't train a lot and just trying to start to move to get healthy.

I strongly disagree with that. It's one of the most important features for me personally, and I think I don't quite belong to the category of people who "don't train a lot" (but then I'm also not a "real athlete" either), even though that's a very subjective definition in the first place - "a lot" I'm sure has different meaning to different people (again, I'd suggest you to stop making assumptions about other people - how you track your data might be completely different from how many others do it). Especially since you can set it to any number you want and Garmin recognizes "moderate" vs "vigorous" activity intensity for it. As I said before, I use it to track my overall weekly activity progress and it's a very important feature for me.

In either case, even if your "Intensity minutes are for people that don't train a lot and just trying to start to move to get healthy" statement was true, that still would not mean this feature isn't important just b/c it might not be important for those who "train a lot", don't you think? I mean, Garmin isn't just for the "real athletes", is it? I do tend to believe that many athletes would prefer Garmin watches over other brands, but that doesn't mean "regular" people who are simply "trying to start to move to get healthy" (as opposed to those who "train a lot") can be completely discarded by Garmin (or people on this forum).

e7andy said:

You can use Zwift and other 3rd party services how much you like and sync to Garmin Connect to get everything in one place. The only thing that doesn't work is badges and challenges.

And, well, intensity minutes. Unless you wear the Garmin watch and HR tracking/syncing for it works as expected.

e7andy said:

I don't understand why intensity minutes are so important for you.

Neither you need to. It's a feature Garmin provides (so I guess they decided it's important too, no?) and one of the most important features for me as a Garmin user.

e7andy said:

Are you really measuring your training in intensity minutes?

Not really, more for a "general weekly activity progress".

e7andy said:

I got irritated by all notifications about it so I set it to 1000, but I almost always do over 1000 intensity minutes every week so I guess I will have to set it even higher.

Again, that's just how you use it. Not necessarily how others use it. At least not me. I don't do nearly as many intensity minutes every week (good for you!), so I guess that's why this feature is more important for me than it is for you.

e7andy said:

Intensity minutes aren't even measure on the Garmin Edge devices. It is just something for the Garmin watches with activity tracking. 

I don't care about Garmin Edge (how's it even related to this conversation?), I don't use one, I only own Garmin watch.

e7andy said:

One other possible reason to why everything is calculated on the device could be licensing.

Yeah, that or as someone else (or was it you?) mentioned earlier it might be the contracting bounds or something similar.

Whatever the exact reason is though, it doesn't change much about the end-user frustration situation.