Request for Assistance: Custom Activity Settings for Drumming with Garmin HRM

Did you ever find a solution for this? I am facing the same issue…

Did you ever find a solution for this? I am facing the same issue…

TL;DR try wearing only the HR strap and not the watch while you drum

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Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see how double bass pedal movements could result in fake steps being counted.

- When you wear the watch, steps are counted based on hand motions (arm swings). I think it's more likely that all the drumming hand motions are causing fake steps to be counted, then it is for pedal movements to count as steps.

- When you wear a Garmin strap that supports running dynamics, steps are technically not part of the running dynamics data. Yes, if you wear an HRM-PRO, HRM-PRO+ or HRM-600, steps will be counted and synced to the Connect app on your phone (and later synced back to your watch), but only if you are not wearing the watch at the same time as you wear the strap. Furthermore, these steps would be based on the up and down motion of your upper body as you run or walk. So I can't really see extra steps being counted based on pedal movements here. 

For this use case, I also don't see any need for both the watch and the HR strap to be worn while you're drumming, unless you need to look at your watch while you drum. The HR strap should provide all the HR data that is necessary for the watch to calculate calories, intensity minutes, and other HR-related metrics for the activity.

So my educated guess for a solution would be to wear the strap while you drum, but don't wear the watch. Hopefully this should result in 0 steps being recorded during a drumming activity. Even if you have the kind of Garmin HR strap that records steps, I doubt it would detect any steps based on the motion of your upper body while you drum. If it somehow does record fake steps during drumming, the last resort would be to disconnect the strap from your phone, which would prevent it from syncing steps to Connect.

hi, unfortunatelly no :( 

Hi FlowState,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Just to clarify — I actually only use the HR strap when drumming, without wearing the watch. The watch sits next to the drum kit during the session.

Double bass drumming, especially with strong technique, involves much more than just the calves — the chest and whole lower body are engaged, in a way quite similar to running. This is something that might not be obvious to beginners, who often compare footwork to pressing a car pedal. Here's a short video for context: https://youtu.be/fwCHo1vcvB8?t=29

My usual flow:

1. Start the custom activity.

2. Wait for HR strap to connect.

3. Press start and leave the watch near the drums.

4. After the session, the data looks great...

5. But later, steps still get synchronized — apparently from the HR strap.

At the moment, there seems to be no option to disable this sync — and I believe that's the core of the issue. If activities had a setting like:
“Sync with HR strap running dynamics: On/Off”,
that might completely solve the problem in cases like mine.

Appreciate your help and any further thoughts.

Best regards,
Konrad

TL;DR disconnect your Garmin HRM-PRO/PRO+/600 strap from the Connect app (tap on the watch icon in the upper right corner), and steps won't be synced.

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Hey, thanks for the clarification! My bad for have zero clue about drumming haha. I kinda made a few guesses based on the assumption that you actually wear the watch while you drum (but now I know you don't).

You are right, steps do get synchronized from the HR strap (if it's an HRM-PRO, HRM-PRO+ or the new HRM-600), *if you are not wearing your watch at the same time*. This is supposed to be a feature (e.g. for cases when you play team sports and you don't want to wear the watch). It could also be seen as a cash grab, since Garmin refuses to similarly sync steps from a foot pod when you wear one during an activity while not wearing the watch -- they want you to buy this premium Garmin strap just for the privilege of syncing your steps.

KonradConer said:

1. But later, steps still get synchronized — apparently from the HR strap.

At the moment, there seems to be no option to disable this sync — and I believe that's the core of the issue

Actually you can disable the sync - disconnect your HR strap from the Connect app on your phone. The strap syncs steps to Connect, then Connect syncs them back to your watch. Without the connection between your strap and Connect, that step data will never leave your strap. (The strap does not sync steps directly back to the watch.)

- open Connect app

- tap on watch icon in upper-right hand corner to open the Devices list

- you should see your strap (e.g. HRM-PRO) in the list of devices

- tap on the device, tap the 3 dots icon in the upper right hand corner and tap Remove Device

This will prevent your strap from syncing any kind of "activity tracking" data (steps, all-day HR, intensity minutes, calories) that was collected while the watch was not being worn. (In this context, "activity tracking" means physical activity outside of a timed activity that's being recorded on your watch.)

However, you can still use your strap as an HR source during *timed activities* like drumming. It will still collect running dynamics data, but that doesn't really matter bc like I said, running dynamics doesn't actually include steps (Garmin actually  refuses to use a foot pod or an older Garmin HR strap as a source for steps, which is annoying to many users). 

Other things which would also work, but might be impractical:

- wear an older/cheaper Garmin strap which doesn't sync activity tracking data

- wear a non-Garmin strap

- wear the watch on your wrist while you drum (but then the watch might pick up steps from your arm movements). I'm guessing you don't want to do this anyway bc it would be uncomfortable

- ask *someone else* (who isn't drumming or moving around) to wear the watch (this is probably the craziest workaround I can think of)