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Setting alerts for 10 second average power for workouts

Koyot
over 2 years ago

When creating a bike workout in garmin connect there's no options to set power zone for a different average power than 3 seconds. And there's nothing more infuriating, than riding on a technical terrain and every 3 hearing alerts because of going too hard, too weak, just right on loop for the entire duration of a hard workout. I can't work out if there's even a possibility to set alerts on power goals for longer average period than 3s, whether it be garmin connect or the watch itself. I'm using a Fenix 6X Pro.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    It is actually possible but as far as I can tell not within Connect (if I'm wrong about this please someone correct me). The fit file SDK actually defines several options for target type including 3s, 10s, 30s, and average for the lap. Since Connect doesn't have the option to select a different target type there are a few other ways this can be done.

    The first would be if there is a third party workout creation tool out there that supports this and will either sync directly to Connect via the API (this may or may not work) or will generate a fit file you could copy to your device. You could then recreate your workouts there.

    Another option would be to edit the existing fit files. You would need to send the workouts to your watch, copy them to a PC or Mac, edit the fit files, and then copy them back. I did a small test to see if this works and I was able to change the target to 10s power and get the workout back to the watch. This is not the easiest solution though since fit files are not plain text, though they can either be edited in a hex editor or there is a tool to generate them from csv files as part of the fit file sdk.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to PaulDN81

    Can you name a specific tool? I went here: https://www.fitfileviewer.com/ but can't see anything related to average power. My hunch is that the field is omitted so Garmin just takes the default average of 3 seconds. Maybe a .FIT file specification would say anything more but I haven't come across anything useful.

  • +1 over 2 years ago in reply to Koyot

    Sorry, I don't know of any specific tools that do that, I mentioned it mostly in case someone else was aware of one (one of these days I may write my own workout creation tool but I need to work with the sdk more before I can do that).

    If you are looking in the viewer you mentioned there is a field in the workout steps called target_type. If you have set a power target for a step the target type will be power_3s. If you edit the fit file the target type will be a number (the viewer substitutes the text name). Power_3s is represented by a 7 and power_10s is an 8. So you would need to edit the file to change 7 to 8 for the target_type field for any steps you want to use 10s power. You could then load the new file into the viewer you linked to validate that the change worked.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to PaulDN81

    Amazing, that's what I've been looking for. I really hate garmin for things like that. They have all this amazing technology and whatnot and occasionally it's lacking basic settings or the simplest things are just plain *** and have to be done in alternative ways. You can't even send workouts via garmin connect, only through cable. That's utter ***.

    Anyway, massive thanks for help!

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to PaulDN81

    Hi Paul,

    I have a Garmin Edge 520, an XT920 Forerunner and a Garmin sapphire fenix 6x.
    I've built some power based workouts in Garman Connect,but I've noticed that I can only get the watch to indicate (via the alert option) when I'm inside a desired power zone and not when I've dropped out of it, which seems really silly.
    I'm not partiIcularly good with anything techy, so maybe I'm missing something really basic.
    Otherwise, it's just plain dangerous to be spending so much time looking down at my device in order to confirm I'm in my desired zone.
    If anyone can suggest a way forward for me, it would be really appreciated!
    Thanks,
    Paul