Just stumped up for Forerunner 220 because supposedly it works with Strava. Now I find auto upload (Garmin Express/Connect) does not work with one of the main OS varieties. I figure this has been considered here before but would someone mind giving me the executive summary and let me know if I should just send it back? I'm not interested in messing about with fixes, I paid for supposedly seamless connectivity.
The 220 is a mass storage device, right? It shows up as a mounted disk when you plug it into a USB port? In that case, you simply manually upload from the 220 to Strava. You can also use Garmin Connect Mobile on your Android or iOS device to upload via Bluetooth to Garmin Connect, and you can pair Strava with Garmin Connect so that they get the tracks automatically.
Good luck finding any device that works seamlessly with Linux.
The days before Wifi upload, I've used this little Python package: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gcpuploader/ If you're familiar with udev, you can add some nice rules to automate the call to gcpuploader upon connection of the device.
Appreciate the replies. The transfer from Garmin Connect to Strava is the problem. From the Strava website it appears tapiriik does the job. It's appalling third parties have to be relied on for basic functionality. Garmin should just make the code open source if they can't provide properly ported applications
Yes, tapiriik will do the job. I've had few problems myself with the automatic connection from GC to Strava since it started, so you should probably make sure it's set up properly on both ends. There are occasional days where it doesn't work, but they're rare. On those days, I use manual uploads.
I totally agree that Garmin should open source at least some of its code, like Express. It'd help everyone, including Garmin.
Browsing around the forum I get the impression Garmin doesn't post much in the way of feedback to users - certainly gives the impression they don't care what users think once they've bought their product
They certainly don't usually make any responses in the forums. There are a few happy exceptions, but not many. Mostly you're talking to other users here.
So now I finally realized what you were having trouble with. You don't have Express, so even if you do upload manually, the tracks won't go to Strava. That's because the manual upload mechanism does something different than Express does. No changes made on the GC web site ever get transmitted to the other paired sites. As far as I've been able to determine, Express sends to a front end machine which then distributes the files to GC and whatever other services you've got paired. (There have been times when the GC website was down but my tracks still make it to Strava and SportTracks almost instantaneously.) So Garmin should at least fix the manual upload button on GC so that it uploads to the same place Express does.
I was recently given a forerunner watch and so far haven't found a good work-around to be able to use it with linux. I installed a linux garmin plug-in but the garmin connect site won't allow me to do anything because it detects that I have linux as OS:
I had been considering for some time a garmin tracker for hill-walking/running but having seen that Garmin neglects linux users I'm now looking for alternatives on that front and it's quite likely that the watch will be going back.
You get any better treatment from Microsoft or Apple? Face it, choosing Linux means for the most part forgetting about commercial software for the desktop. Good luck finding any alternative to Garmin that supports Linux; a few of them don't even support OS X.
Why is it necessary with Garmin to use special software to upload stuff? Why can't it be just done via the website as with strava? (Strava is accepting my Garmin fit files as they are, direct upload)
You get any better treatment from Microsoft or Apple? Face it, choosing Linux means for the most part forgetting about commercial software for the desktop. Good luck finding any alternative to Garmin that supports Linux; a few of them don't even support OS X.
I don't use either Microsoft or Apple. Garmin does.
It can be done via the web site. Click on "Activities" in the activities widget, then click on "Import" to the right on the page that appears. You don't have to use Express. Not everything Express does can be done on the web, but uploading activities isn't a problem.
