Garmin Connect is an app that can collect your fitness and health data. There is a web-based service too for Garmin Connect. It can connect up to 5 Garmin devices/wearables. You need to pair up these devices with your Garmin Connect app.
How to pair a device?
The app is designed for use by one user. So, it can collect data only from one of the paired devices at a time. To pair a device to the app, tap the option Garmin Devices from the dropdown menu on the left. If you paired a device before, it will show up here. If you want to pair a new device, tap ‘Add Devices’, choose your device name and let the Bluetooth connection pair the device to the app.
See also: Best fitness apps for Android
How to use basic features?
Besides just collecting fitness and health data, the app also provides an analysis of the data collected over a certain period of time. Moreover, there are several other features which you will find very useful:
- You can go to the calendar and see the compiled data for any day. There are also details about your data there if you want to dive deeper.
- You can monitor details about your sleep too. The app gives a graphical analysis of your sleep cycles and durations of a deep sleep, light sleep, etc. You can change your bedtime duration in the app and it will let you know how long you slept within that duration and how much you slept out it.
- Depending on how many different types of sensors are paired up with the app, you can track many different kinds of data as calories burnt, heart rate, steps walked, etc.
- You can create custom courses for cycling and run too or you can let the app make an automatic one depending on your location. You can save courses and do cycling and running as many times as you want later.
- You can get data on your activities in the past 24 hours in the ‘My Day’ section. Tap on the specific activity to get more details about it.
- There is a feature called ‘Badges’. Its motive is to highlight your achievements. You get badges for finishing different activities. This can be a big motivation for your fitness goals if you like to show off your achievements to others.
Connect with other fitness enthusiasts
- Join groups and connect to other fitness enthusiasts using the app. You can find and connect to more such people using your phone contacts, Facebook and Google account too. You can also find people you know using the search bar.
- You can not only share your fitness/work out details but also see these details of the people you are connected to. This can act as motivation for you to do better for your fitness as you can remain accountable to others.
- The app also allows you to edit what you share with others in the privacy settings.
- There is a feature called Insights with which you can get a report on how you are doing in terms of fitness as compared to other people of your age and gender.
Some advanced features
- A feature called LiveTrack lets you share live information about your activities along with your GPS location, heart rate, distance, etc. It can be important to share this information with your family members and close friends. They can monitor these data using the web page with the shared link.
- If you want to be competitive, you can create challenges in terms of different workout routines/goals and challenge others or participate in challenges created by others.
- Also, you can connect your app to the Strava platform which is a great data capturing platform. To connect them, go to settings and then third-party apps. Choose Strava from the list and choose what you want to share and tap connect. Then you need to log in to Strava and confirm the connection.
