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Easiest way to play podcasts?

acousticbiker
over 4 years ago

I’d rather not pay for Runcasts

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I believe the easiest way is to manage podcasts though a playlist in Spotify. From your phone you can add whatever episodes you want to a "Garmin podcasts" playlist, and afterwards update downloads on your Spotify app on the watch. This is still not 100% perfect as it requires the pre-adding from the phone, but it's way easier and faster than adding and deleting episodes 1 by 1 through the Spotify app on the watch.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    What I do is this (on PC) - this works really well:

    Setup

    1. In MusicBee (https://getmusicbee.com/), set up your podcasts. This can also include paid podcasts with a specific URL - which Spotfy cannot handle
    2. Set Podcasts to auto refresh on open of MusicBee
    3. (I have added a custom search and replace pattern adding the episode date to the start of the podcast title as Gamin's totally random definition of which episode you're looking at [on the second line when entering podcasts] is 100% useless - see below)
    4. Set it up to auto sync with the watch on connection of the watch and and delete played episodes (I prefer to set episodes as played it manually in MusicBee when I have listened on the watch)

    Usage

    1. Open MusicBee and mark episodes played on the watch while podcasts are being updated in the back
    2. When done with the download, I connect the watch
    3. New podcasts are automatically uploaded and played ones deleted from the watch. For me takes 5 mins
    4. No manual work (except marking as played)

    I really wish Garmin would

    • Make it possible to set Podcasts as the default category for music on the watch. I never listen to "local" music - if I listen to music, it's Spotity
    • Fix the ridiculous podcast list
      • Sorting seems completely random
      • The marking of episode number is completely random. I have a support case on this but finally getting Garmin DK to understand the problem meant transferring to Garmin US. I have not heard from since this happened, 2 weeks ago.
  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to fjelsten

    This was exactly the info i needed. Thank you so much. I just set up MusicBe and it wasn't hard to get it syncing at all.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 1649394

    Glad you like it. I find it works really well.

    Here, 1 month even later, I have still heard nothing from Garmin about how podcasts are handled on the watch wrt episode numbers, etc.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 1-Ghost

    Hello, how do you get it to initiate a download?  I have a Mac running Catalina, using the Podcast app.  I have the watch plugged in, and it shows "Podcasts" both on my Fenix and my Mac, but can't transfer over.  Thanks!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to pmrose8

    Use the Garmin Express app on the mac.  Once you have your podcasts downloaded in iTunes, you can select which ones to sync in Garmin Express.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to _hernan

    I tried that one and whilst it improves the syncing situation it creates another problem. For whatever reason Spotify in Garmin treats everything on a playlist as music, that means you don't get the rewind/skipping 15 seconds controls and worst, it won't remember where you left it, which means you better listen to that whole 1+ hour episode on one go or you'll have to listen to the whole thing again next time, no way to get to where you were. The only way Spotify treats it as a podcast episode is to painfully and manually download it as such, if you add it to a playlist, even Spotify's own automatic podcast playlist, it'll be treated as music on the watch app.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 1-Ghost

    Thanks, 1-Ghost, but I think my problem is that I'm using Catalina, which removed iTunes and has the separate Podcast app.  I'm using Express - but it shows "iTunes Library" which doesn't exist.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 1-Ghost

    Update.....tried an old Mac running El Capitan and it worked as you described.  Looks like it's not compatible with Catalina.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to pmrose8

    What I just recently found out is the way to make to work to sync in bw Garmin Express and Podcasts app. 
    The later has "Stations" (aka playlists for podcast) that anyone could add. Those got updated in Garmin Express hence there is a smooth way to sync podcasts you like.