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Garmin - change in sync behaviour?

Ɛpsilon
over 3 years ago

Komoot, Strava and PlotARoute offer features to sync routes from their platforms to GArmin.

In the past, it seemed to be (and this seems confirmed as both Komoot and PAR mention this in their own support articles) that setting up routes for sync (for example, starring them in PAR) would mark them for syncing to GC and then the user can manually send them onto a device

So for example PAR say that "Once a route has been transferred to Garmin Connect you can sync it with your Garmin devices, following the instructions on Garmin Connect. If your device supports bluetooth, you can sync it using the Garmin Connect mobile app, otherwise you'll need to download the Garmin Express transfer software, which will transfer the route from your computer."

This behaviour has seemingly changed that any such a route now AUTO syncs to your device as well. This behaviour may be problematic for people with multiple devices.

Can anyone else confirm (with Strava, PAR or Komoot accounts) this behaviour? And if so, Garmin, can this be please looked at?

(Forwarded to Garmin support as well

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Behaviour confirmed: all courses sync'd to Garmin Connect are automatically onwardly sync'd to ALL (course-compatible) devices registered to your Garmin account.

    This is definitely undesirable for those of us with multiple Garmin devices: I only want my planned rides on my Edge, and runs/hikes on my fenix, and not vice versa. Additionally, this splatter gun approach is problematic for those of us that create lots of routes across multiple platforms (eg. multiple variations of the same route) yet only want a small percentage of these pushed to devices to actually follow.

    Seems an easy solution would be to stop the auto-pushing of new courses added to GC to devices, instead requiring these to be manually pushed by the user (using either the GC website or app). Or, alternatively, a setting for users to pick the default behaviour ("auto/off/selected devices only"). The icing on the cake would be some intelligent course handling by type ("Send rides to device x", "Send runs to device y and z" etc).

    Finally, while on the subject, the device sync queues seem to be buggy in this area: if a course is renamed on the source platform (ie. komoot) this is automatically reflected through onto GC - good - yet the old name still appears in the device sync queue(s) alongside the new name (eg. for a single new course there are now two entries, "Course old name" and "Course new name") and which then causes a sync error because "Course old name" no longer exists. Again, this is repeated in each queue for every Garmin device registered. This behaviour is the same if a course yet to sync to a device (ie. queued) is deleted from GC - its corresponding entry is not removed from the sync queue and causes a sync error.

  • 0 over 3 years ago
    Ɛpsilon said:
    This behaviour has seemingly changed that any such a route now AUTO syncs to your device as well.

    Confirmed ( for Komoot )

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Had a reply from Garmin Support - not sure what to make of it. . I've replied 

    "That's the thing. They're going from the third party (say Komoot) into Garmin Connect and then seemingly auto syncing without user interaction directly into the device"

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I am afraid we are unable to comment on the syncing of routes via the 3rd party apps mentioned.

    We are only able to comment on routes that are stored (May have been sent from 3rd party apps) on the Garmin connect platform and then synced to the device. 

    If there is anything else I can help you with then please let me know. Alternatively you can search for a solution here: https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Can I ask to those seeing this behaviour

    Garmin Connect - Android or iOS

    Android here

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Ɛpsilon

    Clear as mud?!? I/we would like to hear their comment: 1) is it expected behaviour all routes sync'd to the Garmin Connect platform are then automatically pushed to all course-compatible devices registered to that account? 2) if so, surely this can be seen as undesirable and therefore should be an option to turn this off?

    Good luck and look forward to further updates, thanks. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Ɛpsilon

    iOS here.

    However, I see this as irrelevant - the unwanted auto pushing out to all devices can happen without any mobile platform/app being in the loop: 3rd party website (komoot etc) -> Garmin Connect platform -> next wi-fi sync of Garmin device will see that course automatically pushed to it.. no mobile phone app involved.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Ɛpsilon

    Also, just did another test - used the Garmin Connect website course creator (first time, I've always used third-party sites before!) to actually create a course on the Garmin Connect platform itself. This newly created course did NOT automatically sync to any Garmin devices, which makes sense as there's the "Send to Device" button for this very purpose!

    In summary: courses stored on Garmin Connect that are CREATED in Garmin Connect do NOT get automatically push to devices, as expected, yet courses stored on Garmin Connect that originate from third-party websites DO get automatically pushed to every device on the account (unexpected and in the most part unwanted behaviour).

    Hopefully this gives Garmin a clear differentiator for them to investigate - surely the behaviours should not be different.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to maxcalce

    Same here. Unstaring route in Plotaroute doesn't remove it from watch though.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    This feature has always been auto-sync, this is not new. If you star it it will sync. Same with Strava. With Komoot you don't even have a choice and it will transfer everything. I never liked it because it clutters my Edge devices with routes I don't need all the time.  I would like it maybe to show in the mobile app and the Connect website, but then have an option to transfer it at my command when I need it, like for a regular Garmin route. But it has never been like that.