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Do Forerunner 610 and Vivofit Coexist?

Former Member over 11 years ago

I've had a Forerunner 610 for a while and have a lot of activities on Garmin Connect. I just bought a Vivofit and there seem to be a lot of issues. First, when I connect the Vivofit to Garmin Connect, it switched me to the Metro interface - fine. But the Forerunner device (and all its activities) are not available. If I switch to Classic, the Forerunner is there (but no Vivofit). Is this how it is expected to work?

Also, the Vivofit had me install Garmin Express. It worked correctly with the vivofit. I added the Forerunner but it shows it as not connected to the computer. It is connected to Garmin Connect (classic) and I can upload activities. It also connects to the Garmin Training Center app. Garmin Express also tells me I have 2 software updates for the Forerunner, but I cannot install them because it thinks it's not connected.

0 travis.vitek over 11 years ago

It appears that for the time being you'll have to get used to Garmin Connect's split personality. It sounds like they intend to make the modern interface compatible with all of their currently supported devices, but they haven't got that working yet.

It sounds like you have both the ANT Agent and Garmin Express installed. This can cause a lot of confusion. It also sounds like you are using Garmin Training Center, which I do not believe is compatible with Garmin Express. If you don't need to upload data to your 610, and you don't need Garmin Training Center, I'd suggest you just uninstall the ANT Agent, Garmin Training Center, and Garmin Communicator. This is the direction that Garmin seems to be nudging their users, and it would avoid a lot of problems.

If you want to use Garmin Training Center, or you want to be able to upload data to your 610 (workouts, health data, training zones, courses, ...), then you need to keep the ANT Agent and Garmin Communicator. If this is the case, then you have to manage Garmin Express and the ANT Agent to keep them from stepping on each others toes. Basically everything you do with the VivoFit should be done with Garmin Express, and everything you do with the 610 should be done using the ANT Agent, Communicator Plugin, or Garmin Training Center. If you want to use your 610, you should open up the services control panel (Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services), double-click the Garmin Core Update Service, change Startup Type to Disabled, click Apply, then click the Stop button to stop the service. Once you've done that, you want to close Garmin Express (and exit the little tray icon near the system clock). Once you've done that, fire up the ANT Agent and use your 610 as you would have in the past. When you want to switch to using the VivoFit, you have to reverse the process. Exit the ANT Agent, enable and start the Garmin Core Update Service, start Garmin Express...

You should also be careful. If Garmin Express is connecting to your 610 and uploading activities, you may not be able to view those activities in Garmin Training Center or upload them to 3rdparty websites such as Strava or MapMyRun. If you opt to have both pieces of software installed, I recommend deleting the 610 from Garmin Express until you switch to it full time.

**Note: All of the above comments are based on what I've been reading about using Garmin Express and ANT Agent on the same PC. I could be misinformed. I apologize if that is the case. I'm just trying to be helpful.**

Travis

0 Former Member over 11 years ago

Thanks for the info. I've been playing around with all of it for a couple of days and found it's workable. I'm using a Mac, so my experience may be a little different. I've found that I can let Garmin Express ignore the Forerunner and use ANT Agent for that. Having them both running doesn't seem to be a problem (so far). I'm going to keep both for now because I've read about a lot of problems with Garmin Express and Forerunners. As long as ANT Agent works, I don't want to tempt fate. I do wish they would handle the Forerunner activities in Metro though.