Hey all, the dev here. Posting Rack on the Showcase since this is where it actually belongs. Built it for myself after my Fenix 7 stopped logging mid-squat-day last November, and figured someone here might've hit the same wall.
Quick story, Heavy squat day. About three sets in I noticed the rep counter wasn't budging. Finished the session anyway, opened Connect on the phone after dinner, and spent six minutes editing rep counts so the activity didn't look like nonsense. Turns out Garmin's native strength mode silently caps long sessions. No alert, no error, no log entry, just stops. After enough of those nights I opened Xcode instead of arguing with it.
So Rack is what came out. Not a Hevy clone. Garmin-first, watch-first, no Apple Watch.
What it actually does
- Watch app counts sets, reps, weight, rest, and remembers your last-used weight per exercise across sessions.
- Phone companion holds the full lift history, PRs, plate calculator, and program builder.
- On finish, the data writes a real Garmin FIT activity directly to your watch over the CIQ BLE channel. Same FIT format your cycling computer uses. Training Load and Body Battery treat it like any other activity, no Connect cleanup.
The FIT-over-BLE part matters because Garmin closed the cloud `addSet()` write API to third parties in 2025. Hevy applied for write access and got told no. Rack doesn't go through that API. It goes through the same FIT-import path Wahoo, Suunto, Coros, and every third-party device on the planet relies on. Garmin can't deprecate FIT import without breaking their own bike-computer partnerships.
There's a longer technical writeup at rackstrength.com/garmin-activities with the full BLE flow.
Status
iOS shipping since November 2025, currently v2.0.0. Android in closed test, Play Store in a few weeks. dozens of paying users so far, all organic. Freemium, the free tier is intentionally generous because lifters notice when an app paywalls the basics.
Three things I'd genuinely value your input on:
1. Anyone hit the same silent-stop bug with Garmin's native strength mode? Looking for the worst-case session length and set count so I can document it properly.
2. Anyone running an older 64KB-CIQ-memory watch (FR 245, Vivoactive 4) where the live HR overlay won't fit? Want to help me prioritize what to cut to make it work?
3. Anyone here lift on a Garmin and run a second tracker concurrently (Apple, Whoop, Coros)? Curious how the dual-tracking experience holds up day-to-day.
Links
- CIQ store: apps.garmin.com/.../248b678a-4e1f-48f7-8d83-15bdf894bf7a
- How the FIT path works: rackstrength.com/garmin-activities
- Android beta signup: rackstrength.com/android
I'll be in this thread for the next two weeks. Happy to argue protocol details, ship bug fixes from your reports, or just trade squat-day horror stories.
Cheers,
Noah /founder, Rack