Multiple shoes during one activity

You need to raise this directly with Garmin.

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I recommend recording the run as a Multisport activity with two Run legs. You can then assign a different pair of shoes for each of the parts. 

TL;DR I think the ability to select multiple shoes is a worse than useless feature without the tweak that OP is suggesting. It just makes things more annoying for runners who only wear one pair of shoes on a run, but they constantly rotate through a couple of pairs of shoes (so every other running activity needs to have its gear changed, assuming they have a default pair of shoes.)

I actually like it when ppl post bugs and feature requests in the forums, bc it gives the community:

- awareness of what other people want (personally I like knowing whether other users want the same thing I want, and/or having the chance to possibly learn something new about Garmin products, which sometimes happens when I hear about a bug or feature request.)

- the chance to discuss them

I actually used the Garmin Ideas form to suggest adding a community Ideas subforum - similar to the Spotify Ideas community page - where we can post ideas with votes, discussions, and Garmin employee feedback, but I have as much confidence that idea will be implemented as any of the other ideas sent to that one-way black hole.

imo the current implementation is a classic Garmin example of unnecessary complexity that pleases no one. If I want to change shoes (*) for an activity in Connect (either the website or app), it's always an extra tap/click to deselect the currently selected pair. The app has a bunch of additional problems, such as:

- the list of gear is always displayed in a different order, which slows you down if you're trying to change shoes for multiple activities

- you can't change gear from the activity gear tab, you have to waste two more taps to press ... > add or remove gear. Strangely enough, the gear tab does let you add gear if none is currently selected

(* bc I have a default pair of shoes for running, but I used a different pair for that activity)

My 2 cents:

- I don't think it makes sense to always allow the user select multiple shoes (this should be a special mode/toggle - off by default - for the people who need it, rather than forcing every single user to waste an extra click/tap when they want to change shoes)

- selecting multiple shoes for a single activity only makes sense if, as OP mentioned, the activity distance can be split between the different pairs of shoes. It makes no sense to allocate the full distance to all shoes assigned to the activity.

In contrast, Strava has a much simpler UI for selecting gear (only one pair of shoes can be selected per activity) but it's so much faster (far fewer taps) to change shoes.

I did not advise selecting multiple shoes in a single activity. I advised recording the run as a Multisport activity that allows to assign the shoes with the right mileage. 

While discussing the issue here, is certainly welcome, I do not quite believe Garmin will add the demanded feature (at least not any time soon). Using the suggested Multisport feature offers a solution available instantly.

trux said:

I did not advise selecting multiple shoes in a single activity. I advised recording the run as a Multisport activity that allows to assign the shoes with the right mileage. 

That's correct but I wasn't talking specifically to you, I was talking to OP and the community in general (anyone else reading this thread.) My post was actually a direct reply to the OP, although ofc it's hard to tell since posts aren't threaded.

My point was that Garmin has offered a "feature" - selecting multiple shoes in an activity - which is worse than useless bc:

- it addresses an edge case poorly, so even the tiny minority of ppl who would want this feature are unhappy and they probably wouldn't use it as-is

- it makes things harder for the vast majority of ppl who don't want the edge case

As I said, even if I don't want to select multiple shoes in a single activity (I don't), the fact that Garmin implements this behavior means that it's always an extra tap or click for me to change shoes for a running activity.

Regardless of anything you've said, this is still the reality for me. If I were rational, I would stop tracking gear in Connect and simply stick to the Strava gear tracking functionality.

I will say that unlike Strava, Connect does allow you to add shoes for activities other than running (such as basketball), so you win some, you lose some.

trux said:

Using the suggested Multisport feature offers a solution available instantly

I didn't offer my opinion about your solution, but I can imagine that some people might not want to do that, since (for example), such an activity would show up as multiple activities in Strava.

I'm also not a huge fan of workarounds for bugs, missing functionality or poor design, especially when it's a non-trivial workaround (a multisport activity with multiple runs is not the same as a single run activity.)

Regardless, nothing I said prevents OP from taking your advice.

trux said:

I do not quite believe Garmin will add the demanded feature (at least no any time soon)

In general I see 2 types of responses to every feature request (sometimes from the same person - not you):

- nobody has asked for this feature, so you're wasting your time requesting it

- many people have asked for this feature for years, but it hasn't happened, so you're wasting your time asking for it

By this logic, nobody should ever ask for anything. But it's funny how "everybody wants this" and "nobody wants this" are both used to justify telling ppl not to ask for things.

I do agree with you though.