I love Connected Apps / partner integrations. It's wonderful that I can record my activities on my Garmin Edge 1030 bike computer, or my Garmin Fenix 7 watch, and they automatically show up in both Garmin Connect and Strava (for example.)
There's one frustration that could be better -- managing duplicate activities -- when using 3rd parties. For example, virtual indoor rides recorded on Zwift. Also, Concept 2 indoor rowing sessions sent to C2's log book via the ErgData app. These activities end up being sent to Strava twice, once by Garmin Connect and once by the 3rd party.
I like to record everything on my Garmin devices, even if I can count on C2 or Zwift to record activites and send them to both Garmin Connect and Strava. There are two reasons: first, it is a backup plan, in case the 3rd party service fails to correctly record, and second, I think I'm getting the most complete capture of data if I'm recording it with my own local devices.
As much as possible, Garmin devices are my originator of data and my source of data capture. But, I curate and interact with my data heavily on Strava. Strava is my curated source of truth.
What's needed is a way to tell Garmin Connect: Do NOT automatically upload my Indoor Row or Virtual Bike rides to Strava, but do send all other activities. Users with different 3rd party fitness platforms or activity routing needs may want to elect a different combination of Yes/No automatic activity sharing preferences.
Without this, certain activities can show up twice in Strava:
Zwift activities, recorded on my Edge 1030 bike computer, and also in Zwift, load into Strava 2x -- once from Zwift and again from the Garmin Connect integration with Strava after I have saved the activity on my bike computer. I prefer the Zwift data to be the one displayed on Strava because it has the virtual map, but I want the bike computer based data to go to Garmin because there are additional metrics (HRV and possibly other First Beat related ones) that only import to Garmin connect if the activity is sent directly from a Garmin device to Garmin Connect.
C2 recorded Indoor Rowing activities similarly land twice on Strava. They are sent from the ErgData app to Concept 2's Logbook, and then from C2 to Strava via the Partner Integration. I prefer the C2 data on Strava because it most closely tracks my workout selected for the session. I don't have to rush to start rowing after starting my watch, or remember to immediately stop recording the moment a workout is completed. The ErgData recording is more tightly aligned with the workout than my watch recording. But again, I want to record the session on my Garmin watch also and send that version to Garmin Connect. Since that also automatically sends the activity to Strava. I end up with 2 copies of the workout and need to delete one.
I'm envisioning / requesting an Activity type based preference setting for Connected Apps. That way users will be able to indicate things like: "Send all of my run, ride, hike, pickleball, and walking activities to Strava, but DO NOT send my Virtual Ride or Indoor Rowing Activities." In this way, the bulk of my activities (usually outdoors) would automatically flow from Garmin Connect in to Strava, but my Virtual Rides would not, by elective choice, since Zwift will send those to Strava. And, my Indoor Rows would not, because C2 will send those to Strava.
In short, it would be very nice to have finer grained controls for Connected Apps to indicate which activity types are automatically shared and that would allow setting share/do-not-share on a per Activity type basis.
