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Where do i begin?..

Former Member over 13 years ago

So i just picked up the Forerunner 610 (first GPS watch ever purchased) and signed up for the Garmin Connect. I like all the features but there should be so much more..

Garmin connect profiles: I have a username "robk732", and i can log all my runs and see all the stats of each activity. I can also share my activities on all the million social networking sites. I can see others runs in my area and download their data to my watch for "virtual runner" and i can look up others if i know their user ID. Garmin Connect should be set up more like this forum, when it comes to a user profile. Add information about yourself, add your friends that are on Garmin Connect and easily be able to see their activities (instead of bookmarking their username search). Basically Garmin fitness social networking (like facebook but aimed at fitness, sharing activities, locations, runs, etc.). This way i can see all my friends in one spot, see all their activities, maybe be notified when one of my favorites posted a new activity.

Activity Invites: Be able to send an invite to certain people with GPS location for a specific event, everybody can load this to their device and meet at that location for a group run. I would say 90% of my facebook friends could care less about a run I completed (that's why i haven't posted any).

Location Groups: So Mark, Steve & Amanda all go hiking at "Death Mountain Trail" but don't know each other. If I went to that spot and my device synced to the Garmin Connect, maybe notify me about the others who have recently been there (friend suggest).

Location Tracker: Foursquare gives people stats for visiting a certain taco shop frequently. Every time you go to "Death Mountain Trail" your profile will keep count. So and so has been here 13 times and this other spot 4 times and over here 8 times, etc. Then you can click on the number of trips and view the different runs/hikes/walks and see their fastest time, record to beat, etc. I think Nike's website does something like this.

You get the idea :)

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

New feature suggestions

I too just bought a Forerunner 610 (our 1st GPS watch too) for my son who is running all the Rock N Roll 1/2 marathon events this year (19 of them) and we were amazed at all it had to offer and the Garmin Connect softward. We bought a second one for my husband 2 weeks later, so now we have 2 Forerunner 610's in the house. I will be buying yet another, our 3rd, for me next week. So we now will have 3 Forerunner 610's in our house.

Suggestions (or ignorant lack of knowledge if it can do this and I didnt figure this out yet):

USER FIELD ON ONE GARMIN ACCT:
Since we have multiple 610's in the house, but all share ONE Garmin account, we would like an option in Garmin Connect's drop down activity descriptions to include user or other type of searchable/filterable field so that we can run reports and filter activited by watch/user without having multiple garmin login's, which we don't want.

REMOTE ANT DOWNLOAD
When we go out of town to run a 1/2 marathon, I really don't want to have to bring a laptop to download the info from the 610. Can I just bring the ANT Fob and find a place to download? Is there a way to use my iPad to download from my 610 to Garmin Connect? That would be great.

ISSUES WITH TUNNELS
We just finished RnR Seattle, and there was a tunnel on the course ... of course we lost distance on the Garmin with this. Is there any way to tell the watch to use a smart calculation (GPS location when sattelite lost ... to GPS location when Sattelite found ... it knows the time between these events, so why can't it calculate the speed and such to fill in the distance?) ... it just sucks that we lost almost 1/2 a mile because of the loss of a sattelite signal.

EVENT START / END PREPROGRAM
Is there a way to just load a known event like a Rock N Roll half marathon course to auto start at the start line and auto stop at the finish line ... just in case we forget to press the start and end buttons because of all the activity at the start and end of an event like this?

COACH LOGIN / EVENT SHARING
Without sharing all my events on the web or sharing a specific event for all on Facebook, is there a way to share either a link or the info on one particular activity event with someone like a coach? I gave my son's running coach our login so he can see his training and races, but would like it if we could have given him his own login ... either that, or put a button similar to your "like on Facebook" to share a particular event to someone, like a coach, via email.

NOTIFY TEXT OR EMAIL WHEN A CERTAIN EVENT IS UPLOADED
Another nice thing for people with coaches would be that a text or email alert be sent to to the coach when a new event of a certain type is uploaded to our account. Maybe add an area to input coach name, email and what type of activity you want him/her to be notified about when it is uploaded.

Okay, that is it for now. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this Forerunner 610, and soon will have 3 in our home. There is so much great human engineering already in it, and like that they listen to users for suggestions on fine tuning features!

- Denise

0 DW152 over 13 years ago

iPad -- Right now Apple won't support external devices other than digital cameras. I don't think most hotel computers will allow you to install the Garmin Communicator software (which is what the Ant agent uses to transfer your data).

Regarding the tunnel -- you can buy a footpod. When you lose GPS signal, it is supposed to switch to using the footpod for distance (and pace). You can also use the footpod for indoor training, such as running on a treadmill.

Don't think there's any way to program in the start and finish locations to automatically start and stop the timer. Even if there were, this would be problematic for several reasons, primarily because the GPS accuracy wouldn't give satisfactory results. If you do enough races, it will become second nature to start and stop your watch.

Yes, you can send someone a link to your activity - just copy the URL. There is also a "share" button in Garmin Connect, which gives you lots (more than 20) of options of sharing, including email. Is that what you're asking?

0 RVDowning over 13 years ago

The 610 doesn't assume a straight line distance and compute the tunnel time & pace? I know my 310xt and 305s do.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Tunnel Warp

Miscalculations due to loss of satellite signal also is a nag to me.
It happens in tunnels (as obvious) but also if hiking in the woods.
I frequently get irrational speed displays from my 305.
The forerunner should track signal losses and transfer this data to the tracking software too.
Thus the garmin connect site (which processes the data points from the forerunner device) could have some intelligence to avoid ridiculous warp effects.
I. e. the pace display should just show a gap or a straight connection line (maybe in a different color) if there was a loss of signal.

I have set my forerunner to auto-pause and when I enter a tunnel it stops tracking. When I leave the tunnel it starts tracking again.
Uploading the data to garmin connect also shows irrational pace values in this case.
Even though it may be difficult to get correct information about spurious signal losses at least the auto-pause should be known and the pace display be filtered correctly.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Really want an iPad wireless upload solution

The only reason I us a PC is to link my 110 to my Garmin connect. Really need an iPad solution...come on Garmin

0 DW152 over 13 years ago

The only reason I us a PC is to link my 110 to my Garmin connect. Really need an iPad solution...come on Garmin

It's not Garmin's fault. Talk to Apple.