Hi my vo2max is higher on my watch than my Garmin connect.

Again, such a years-old bug. Garmin generally never fixes anything, they just add new bugs.

Will it auto correct itself after a few days so watch score is the same as the app?

trux said:

There are several possible reasons:

This is such a fanboy nonsense. There is no such explanation.

Why always tell any stories when you have no idea? What sense does it make to send the user now with this nonsense on the search?

The reason is Garmin's inability to round in the same way on the watch and in Connect. If the described behavior occurs, you can look at the VO2 max stored in the track in Runalyze, for example, and you will see that it is just between 2 values, for example 45.47.

Thanks for the responses. I only use my app on my phone and the watch itself. All sync’d ok as steps and body battery etc all match hours since I ran. Very annoying. I’ll check that guide now too. Thank you 

Don't do the work, it's almost certainly a rounding error.

BuckelFipsHonk said:

you can look at the VO2 max stored in the track in Runalyze

Yes, you can, but you are comparing apples and oranges, since Runalyze calculates the VO₂max by a completely different method than Garmin. The VO₂max values are not stored in the activity FIT file. And the activity file also does not contain any HR Variability data that the device uses for the VO₂max calculation. Therefor Runalyze uses just the plain HR data, the pace, and the terrain profile, to calculate the VO₂max by their own means. The result may be close to the value reported by Garmin, but can also differ considerably. Runalyze will show the VO₂max value even for watches not supporting that feature at all (like for example my older Instinct model).

That told, I do not exclude that there is a rounding error in some of their interfaces, although I did not observe any on my own data yet. However, if any other data is missing after the sync too, I'd advise better checking the troubleshooting guide.

trux said:

Yes, you can, but you are comparing apples and oranges, since Runalyze calculates the VO₂max by a completely different method than Garmin. The VO₂max values are not stored in the activity FIT file. 

Actually runalyze calculates its own VO₂max *and* it (optionally) shows Garmin's VO₂max value, which actually *is* stored in the activity FIT file.

You just have to add the "VO₂max (by file)" column in Configuration > Dataset.

The nice thing about runalyze's view of the data is that it shows Garmin's VO₂max to 2 decimal places, which can explain why your watch said that your VO₂max went up or down even though the rounded whole number didn't change.

You'll see that other apps like ConnectStats for iOS can also show VO₂max from file (although ConnectStats doesn't show the extra 2 digits of precision.)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/connectstats/id581697248

Also note that runalyze's VO₂max is per-activity, while Garmin's is apparently a moving average over a certain amount of days. (The former has a lot more variability than the latter.)

WillNorthYork said:

it (optionally) shows Garmin's VO₂max value, which actually *is* stored in the activity FIT file.

The activity FIT files from my watch do not contain the VO₂max value. I checked them both with Runalyze, as well as with the Garmin FIT SDK. And yes, the watch supports VO₂max, and the concerned activity did trigger a VO₂max measuring with results. I do not know whether it is works differently on other Garmin models.

trux said:

The activity FIT files from my watch do not contain the VO₂max value

Fair enough - I shouldn't have assumed that everyone's watch has this feature.

This thread may be of interest:

forums.garmin.com/.../extracting-precise-vo2max-from-fit-file