vivoactive 4 activity metrics while doing workout on another Garmin device

I wear my VA3 while cycling but record the ride on an FR910XT. The FR910XT records the ride stats. I don't start an activity on the VA3 but the VA3 records steps, intensity minutes, continuous daylong heart rate stats, etc..

I use a chest strap for HR and I don't think I would depend on the VA to broadcast HR as I find that wrist HR monitors don't work well enough for me when cycling because of my wrist position while leaning over handlebars. At one time, I had Scosche HR monitor that I could wear higher up on my arm and that worked better.

Thank you for your replies. Yes, I have an HR chest strap. And reason for wearing the watch is Garmin Pay rather than using it as a fitness device at that time. But I'll probably have to either turn it off or start the workout and discard it at the end...

Hi Martin,

I realize that I'm resurrecting an old post, but it sounds like you have the right kind of experience to answer this related question.  I'm also a cyclist and considering a Vivoactive 4 for *non-cycling* fitness tracking (i.e. running, hiking, etc).  I don't want to carry another device with me while cycling since I've already got a bike computer (Elemnt Bolt) and a more accurate heart rate monitor (Scosche Rhythm 24).

Question: If I leave the Vivoactive 4 at home during bike rides, but record my ride with a different device (e.g. Scosche heart rate band + Elemnt Bolt bike computer) -- and manually synchronize these rides to Garmin Connect -- will the Vivoactive 4 use those uploaded rides when calculating activity statistics?  Or does the Vivoactive completely ignore activities that happen when it isn't being worn, even if those activities are synchronized to Garmin Connect later?

PS:  It would be nice if I could automatically upload rides from my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt to Garmin Connect, but I'm guessing that the mutual enmity between the two companies will ensure that never happens.  

I'm not 100% sure but I'm very confident it won't use any of that ride data. Its not that its even collected from a competitors device, since Garmin doesn't even offer this service with their own devices. At least not with the EDGE 530 and the Garmin VA4 that I have. If I leave my VA4 at home, and go for a 2h intensive ride, after synchronising the ride, the watch will only show an estimated body battery drain based on data prior to removing it. After the ride, it will notice that your "stress levels" are elevated causing a higher rate of body battery depletion but it won't take into consideration the elevated heart rate and stress from during the cycling...

Its such an absurd system, that if I cycle with the watch on, it will deplete my body battery at a specific rate, but because the optical HR sensor is in a passive (not in high power) mode that most of my HR data will be inaccurate. Comparing my HR history graph to the HR data from the actual EDGE 530 file, one will see the data doesn't match.

The most accurate way of doing it is pairing the HR monitor to the watch, and then recording a cardio or indoor activity while recording on the external device. Upon completion of the cycle, you stop and discard the activity on the watch. It will still have stored the HR data from the external strap, which will now accurately reflect your workout and contribute to increased body battery accuracy graph.

It should be a pretty simple thing for Garmin to implement on their server side... that it prioritises the HR data recorded from a dedicated device and then upon upload and synchronisation, simply override the data written by the watch. But this is Garmin after all, and common sense things are often dismissed over inventing unnecessary features in their devices that nobody actually wants or needs. I would like the above feature much much more than the silly jump and flow feature in the EDGE 530... since that is arguably useless and completely inaccurate too. 

Hi Martin,

This is an incredibly helpful reply.  A huge thank you!  It makes my complex pathway of choosing a new running watch/activity tracker a little clearer.  I had a feeling that the sad state of affairs you described might be the case, but I was really hoping my hunch was incorrect, because, seriously?  Why ignore the activity data that is sitting within Garmin Connect?  It's just so short-sighted.

I was looking at devices I could procure (real world on-sale prices) for $250 or less, including "renewed" options from Amazon, which have a 90 day return policy.  I can afford to spend more, but I do much more cycling than anything else, so the high-end running watches aren't really justified for my usage.  Plus the higher end devices are larger and heavier than I'd prefer for daily wearing.

My requirements include having an altimeter, which basically removes all of Garmin's lower-end running watches from consideration (e.g. Forerunner 55/245).  That narrowed my list to Vivoactive 4 ($175 renewed), Garmin 645 Music ($220 renewed), and Coros Pace 2 ($200 brand new price).

At the end of the day, the Vivoactive 4 ticks the most boxes for a very reasonable price: It tracks runs, plays music from MP3 files or even Amazon/Spotify, can do very basic breadcrumb navigation (via the DW map app), and comes in a small and lightweight package.  And it has an altimeter for better tracking elevation on hikes and runs (and possibly bike rides if I bother to bring it).  I'll admit the crazy long GPS battery life on the Coros and ability to connect to a cycling power meter were both appealing, but it lacks other features I wanted (e.g. music and potential breadcrumb navigation).

For cycling:  I'll probably stick with my current setup of bike computer + dedicated HR monitor.  That's the only way to get truly accurate heart rate on the bike.  If DC Rainmaker and other folks who have tested dozens of fitness watches say that *none* of the wrist-based products on the market do outdoor cycling heart rate particularly well, I'm not going to contradict them.  I've seen the data they've presented.  

For tracking recovery and training load: I'm going to use some combination of a sensible training plan where I have the time to pursue one and Golden Cheetah for looking at the data and long term trends.  I just got Golden Cheetah installed this week, and though there is a learning curve, I now have all of the key metrics easily available in neat graphs with just a few clicks. 

Finally:  Your tip about how to get the Vivoactive to actively track heart rate on the bike (for better numbers) is very clever!  I might just leave the Vivoactive behind for bike rides (and accept that I'll do my training stress tracking elsewhere), but I like your solution.  You get more accurate HR minutes, avoid duplicating the activity (by deleting it at the end), and probably save a lot of battery life because you are setting it to indoors (no GPS tracking).  It's sad that such a workaround is needed, but credit to you for finding a way to make it work better.

Anyway, thanks again!

Martin said:

The most accurate way of doing it is pairing the HR monitor to the watch, and then recording a cardio or indoor activity while recording on the external device. Upon completion of the cycle, you stop and discard the activity on the watch. It will still have stored the HR data from the external strap, which will now accurately reflect your workout and contribute to increased body battery accuracy graph.

Hey Martin, I'm still waiting for my Edge 130 Plus but I was sure that this problem wouldn't exist because of TrueUp which would integrate data from the different sources. I wonder if you have it enabled or it just doesn't work as advertised?

tracksmart said:

PS:  It would be nice if I could automatically upload rides from my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt to Garmin Connect, but I'm guessing that the mutual enmity between the two companies will ensure that never happens.  

you can upload data to your Garmin Connect from different bicycle computers, myself I tried doing the same with Meilan and  also tracking my cycling with Wahoo app which collected my cadence, speed, map and HR and then exporting fit file and uploading it to Garmin connect. So technically you will be able to export fit file and see it in Garmin connect but it wouldn't be used for calculating of your intensity minutes and other stuff. That's why I decided to invest into Edge.  Hope that helps.

sensovision said:

you can upload data to your Garmin Connect from different bicycle computers, myself I tried doing the same with Meilan and  also tracking my cycling with Wahoo app which collected my cadence, speed, map and HR and then exporting fit file and uploading it to Garmin connect. So technically you will be able to export fit file and see it in Garmin connect but it wouldn't be used for calculating of your intensity minutes and other stuff. That's why I decided to invest into Edge.  Hope that helps.

Thank you.  That is definitely helpful and confirms what I had suspected and what Martin also believed was the case.

True up is on and works, but it only works on things like V02 max calculations, training status, intensity minutes, etc

Your heart rate data is captured by the watch, and if its left at home while cycling, or doesn't capture the correct HR values, then that influences your body battery and everything else HR is related to.

It would be nice if Garmin did the logical thing and replace the recorded HR values from the EDGE over that recorded with the watch.

Thanks Martin, once I get the device I'll give it a try and if it's look bad then  submit a ticket and in the menatime I'll probably use cardio with HRM strap just as you suggested