I've had a Garmin Swim watch for two years now. It's a great bit of kit and is undoubtedly instrumental in making me focus on daily exercise and setting myself weekly targets.
But it was, frankly, a pain in the posterior when it came to syncing data to the Garmin Connect website. You had to have the physical ANT+ usb stick plugged in to a PC, install additional software, etc, etc.
I always thought that it would be so much easier if I could simply sync new data directly via my smartphone and have it uploaded to my Garmin Connect account, without the need to remember to do so when I got home and then make the concious effort to switch on the PC. Don't get me wrong. It's hardly a deal-breaker, but it seemed like there were hoops I was being required to jump through that shouldn't be necessary in this day and age of connected everything.
So about last September 2014 I got hold of a new phone - it was the Oneplus One. It's an excellent bit of kit. At the time it was about half the price of comparable handsets from other leading manufacturers.
Shortly after I read that the Oneplus One, like many of the latest generation of smartphones, has ANT+ compatibility, but it lacked the software drivers. I duly downloaded these from the google play store, enabled bluetooth and crossed my fingers. Nothing. It didn't work!!!
More recently though, I updated the OS on the Oneplus to the latest version of Android - Lollipop. Again, it crossed my mind that perhaps I ought to revisit this issue of getting the data from my Garmin Swim onto the phone. But, unlike my previous half-hearted attempt, I found an additional app in the Google Apps Store by Quantrity.
Already with the ANT+ drivers on my phone from the previous attempt, adding the 'Garmin ANT+ Watch Uploader' app to my phone did the trick! It connected to the watch, the watch asked me if I wished to give access to this new connection. I confirmed this on the watch and the app then proceeded to download about 100 previous records. It then asked me if I wanted to upload them to my Garmin Connect account, but, having already synced this data before I said no.
After the next day's swim I started the Garmin ANT+ Watch Uploader app again, it connected to the watch, downloaded the new swimming record and uploaded it to Garmin Connect over the phone's mobile connection. It was was that simple. So I am no longer tethered to my desk in order to sync swim data from my watch. Result!
PHOTO OF APP IN ACTION:
Of course, this does highlight the failings at Garmin in having, thus far, omitted to introduce this simple solution into suitably equipped smartphones using the Garmin Connect app for android. I use this on my phone to review past swim data but it's basically all it's good for as it's still unable to utilise ANT+ enabled devices like my Oneplus to talk directly to my Garmin Swim. Clearly though, this is very achievable as I've learned for myself using ANT+ drivers and this 3rd party app from Quantrity.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my experiences setting this up here, in case anyone else is minded to give it a go.
Cheers
Ralph
THINGS YOU WILL NEED
1. A smartphone with ANT+ compatibility.
2. All the necessary ANT+ drivers installed on your phone. -- ANT Radio Service -- ANT+ Plugins Service
3. A 3rd party app, such as the one mentioned above, to talk via ANT+ to your Garmin Swim.
