Related

AUTO LAP BY TIMING GATES — any details

dtunney
3 months ago

Any details on the Auto Lap by timing gates?

I cannot seem to find it in the manuals.

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to S.M.R.

    Ahhhh that is great, there is a data field for races that let you do similar if you hit lap. Hope this is the same!

    Thanks!

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to dtunney

    This could be a really great feature.  Does anyone know how many races Garmin has that can be loaded to make this feature work?  In other words, is it just a few of the biggest races, Boston Marathon, NYC marathon, etc?  Thanks for any insight...

  • 0 4 days ago

    it seems it is based on Course's km (or mi) markers, not watch's

    Well, I hoped I could add some of those markers in a newly made course, but it seems they are auto-generated...

    So, not exacty "Lap by Position" which is offered by www.fbbbrown.com/.../

  • 0 4 days ago in reply to arkrunner

    I think it is just any course you enter/make within Garmin Connect. There is a "Auto Lap by Timing Gates" option on running. courses. Here is a random one near me that I can add if I wanted. For my upcoming races I have either created my own course (following the race route) or used an existing one.

    You have to send the event to your watch for the data to be there and make sure to select the route on race day.

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to ge0kas
    arkrunner said:
      Does anyone know how many races Garmin has that can be loaded to make this feature work?  In other words, is it just a few of the biggest races, Boston Marathon, NYC marathon, etc?

    Anyone could make or duplicate a course based on a race and move the markers themselves, assuming they knew the exact location of the real-life course markers

    Here's a course for the Chicago Marathon which has timing gates set. Not sure if it's official or not.

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/392209911 

    ge0kas said:
    So, not exacty "Lap by Position"

    You're right it's not exactly like lap by position [*]. Both very old and newer high end Garmins have this feature built-in tho - some slightly older Garmin don't have it. e.g. I think FR935 didn't have it but Fenix 5 did. Now both FR955/FR965 and Fenix 7 have it, I think.

    [*] unless maybe it is: see next comment (you can add custom distance markers manually but idk if they will trigger auto laps). I guess it still wouldn't be the same because I don't think running past the same marker multiple times will work (or will it?).

    Ofc it's not easy to make loops in the Garmin course editor either (you could always do so in Strava, sync it to Garmin Connect, and duplicate the course for further editing).

    But even if you can get loops in a Garmin course, the user experience of actually running such a course makes them kind of useless:

    - e.g. say I have a loop in a course that's supposed to be run twice. After I run the first loop, I obviously have the choice of continuing to the next run of the loop or exiting the loop (assuming the course continues after the loop). As I near the exit / end of the loop, the Garmin device kinda gets confused bc it has no idea whether I intend to continue with the loop or not. So no matter what I do, it'll (eventually) say I'm on course.

    Yeah it works as long as I *know* how many loops I'm supposed to do. But no matter how many loops are in the course vs how many I actually do, the Garmin watch is not gonna give me guidance either way. I can stay on the loop when I'm supposed to exit, or exit the loop when I'm supposed to stay on it, and my Garmin device won't exactly argue, it'll just assume I strayed off the course for a second and jumped back on shortly after. In fact, when I near the exit, it may tell me to take that turn, even if I'm supposed to do another loop, bc I thinks that I've gone off course on purpose.

    So really it make little difference how many loops I actually put in the course, except ofc for the actual distance measurement and km/mi markers.

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to flowstate
    ge0kas said:
    Well, I hoped I could add some of those markers in a newly made course, but it seems they are auto-generated...

    They are initially auto-generated (based on 1km / 1mi laps, and standard distances like 21.1km / 42.2 km), but you can move them. (I know this isn't exactly your point)

    In classic Garmin style, this isn't neither obvious nor user-friendly. To move a purple course marker, you click on it once to edit it, then click somewhere else on the course to move it to that location. This doesn't change the nominal distance (like "5 km"), just the position on the course. Which is obviously a necessary feature, otherwise auto lap by timing gates would be fairly useless.

    You can also add a course point with a type of "distance marker", but I'm not sure how useful this is since you're not allowed to specify an actual distance for this type of marker (although you can specify any name you want).

    I do see your point you're can't add markers of non-standard distances (except for the distance marker with an unspecified distance.)

    Just for fun I created I created a random 9k-ish course and added auto-generated 1 km course markers, as well as manually adding an extra distance marker. I also moved the 3 km marker a little further along the course than the default position.

    I exported the course as a FIT filem opened it fitfileviewer, and noticed a few things:

    - the course actually contains both km and mi markers under the covers

    - the generated km and mi markers are have names like "1 km", "1 mi", "2 km", "2 mi" etc which obviously don't change if you move them

    - each of the generated markers also has the exact distance on the course (by Garmin's reckoning) which ofc does change if you move a marker. In fact if you move even one marker, it slightly changes all the other distances

    - the generic distance marker that you can add is just called "Distance Marker", but you can change this to anything you want

    So this leaves me with a few questions:

    1) wrt to the timing gates feature, does Garmin really adjust the activity / lap distance when you run past a generated distance marker?

    e.g. When I run past the "5 km" distance marker, does it adjust my activity distance / pace to exactly 5 km, even if the "course distance" of the marker is actually 5.23 km (or whatever)?

    Or does it just trigger auto laps without any adjustment?

    2) what is the point of the generic distance marker? doesn't seem like it will work with the timing gates feature. Or will it? If the answer to 1) is no, maybe it will.

    3) is there actually a way to use the timing gates feature with non-standard distance markers of a specified distance? Can I edit the FIT file so that the "1 km" marker is named "0.4 km" and expect it to work properly? (I doubt it, unless the answer to 1) is "no". but if the answer to 1) is no, then there's no point in trying to edit the FIT file that way)

    If the answer to 1) is "no, it doesn't adjust lap distance, it just triggers auto lap", then it seems that the generic distance markers would work just fine for your use case (assuming you don't need the lap distance to be adjusted).

    It seems that if you changed the generic distance marker name to "400m" (for example), and if the watch displayed that name and triggered an auto-lap, it would fulfill your use case perfectly (assuming you don't need lap / activity distances to be adjusted)

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to flowstate

    Here's my course with auto-lap by timing gates enabled, before moving the 3 km course marker:

    (note how the course distances for each 1k marker are precisely at 1000, 2000, etc km)

    Here's my course after moving the 3 km course marker

    (the course distances for the 1k markers are no longer exactly 1000, 2000, ... even though I only moved the 3km marker. even the mile markers moved slightly)

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to flowstate

    nice one , thanks. (ALso pliiiiz make RunPower available for Fenix8  !!!!! )

    When I make a test course with auto-generated Timing Gates enabled, there are no purple flags, nothing to move or change !! https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/400075463

    Perhaps you have to actually run the course and add the Gates using the device standing physically in point, that's what I 've read in some MTB forum

  • 0 3 days ago in reply to ge0kas
    ge0kas said:

    When I make a test course with auto-generated Timing Gates enabled, there are no purple flags, nothing to move or change !! https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/400075463

    Like I said it's not intuitive at all, but:

    - Click on a purple timing gate (e.g. "1") to edit it. (It changes from solid purple to white with purple outline)

    - Click on a different point in the course to move it. 

    - Press Done to save your changes

    If it wasn't possible to move the timing gates, then auto lap by timing gates would be a completely useless feature. You'd get laps when you're 1, 2, 3, ... km/mi into the course, but you get that anyway (disregarding slight mismatches between your activity distance and the course distance due to GPS error and not running the tangents).

    Here's a dupe of your course but I moved the 1 km timing gate to about 1.1 km. The timing gate is still called "1 km" ofc, but its physical position has changed.

    Original course point:

    After clicking on course point to edit it:

    After moving course point:

    After pressing Done:

    If you dupe the new course and export to FIT, you will see the FIT file has this distance marker ("1 km") at roughly 1.11 km into the course. And ofc the lat/lon coordinates will reflect the new position.