[HN Gopher] GarminDB
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GarminDB
Author : haltcatchfire
Score : 308 points
Date : 2025-02-02 22:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| stonogo wrote:
| I was hoping this would be a way to import and track data
| directly from the device, but it appears it talks to the Connect
| API, so I'm still tied to the official app.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Activities are just FIT files that can be accessed over USB.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| You are right, but I've worn out the USB ports on multiple
| Garmins from using the ports to recharge and download the
| files. Now I just use the app and download the files later
| from the Garmin website, and use a magnetic charger plug also
| to eliminate the wear and tear on the port. I wish I could
| wirelessly access the files and cut out the Garmin
| app/download steps.
| drawkward wrote:
| Whats your magnetic charger of choice? I am tired of
| wearing through my charging ports.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I gamble and buy the cheapest ones on EBay in lots of
| three (some have adapters included plugs for USB-C/micro
| USB, though it seems like as time passed by, more and
| more are separating the plug purchase from the cable
| purchase). The recently announced tariffs will put a
| damper to this since the last few I have bought were
| dropshipped from China.
| loeg wrote:
| I've been through a lot of Garmin devices and mine always
| have battery degradation before the USB port is in any way
| non-functional. Especially with USB-C on the newest ones,
| that really shouldn't be happening.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I've been using 520-530-540 on a bicycle and ride every
| day but only need to charge once every three days or so,
| but these came with microUSB ports.
| loeg wrote:
| I believe 540 is on USB-C. I have an Edge 840 (same
| generation as the 540).
| stevenwoo wrote:
| You are correct, the last time I had to replace my 530,
| the 530 was on sale due to the 540 coming out so I bought
| the 530 on sale and haven't thought about it since. For
| some reason I thought I bought a 540 after comparing the
| product pages for so long.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| How old is your Garmin watch/device?
|
| I'm still using a Forerunner 935 from 2017 and I haven't
| had any problems with charging/syncing data. I use the USB
| charger about once a week. Once every two weeks during
| winter when I don't use the GPS as much.
|
| Only thing I have updated on the watch is the free loop,
| which holds the watch band after you've threaded it through
| the buckle. I'm gonna have to replace the watch band
| eventually - the plastic band is starting to crack,
| Canadian winters aren't gentle on these things.
|
| Garmin support sent me replacement free loops when I called
| in asking how I could replace them.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I use mine every day for recording year round barring a
| few breaks and need to charge every three days or so.
| I've had one long enough to have to change the battery
| because the life went down so much.
| kawsper wrote:
| I've given up on that, I now use http://www.rungap.com/ to
| extract Garmin data from their API to my iCloud storage.
|
| You can select the filetype too: gpx, fit or tcx.
| mvkel wrote:
| it always surprises me how much data is locked up in garmin's
| (ancient) sdk.
|
| for example, the FIT file format, used exclusively for
| programming workouts on all bike computers, are only supported in
| one or two apps!
|
| I suppose that's our fault and we should build on the sdk
| nradov wrote:
| The Garmin Connect web site seems to work fine for building
| structured workouts. It can also sync with TrainingPeaks. Is
| there something else we need?
|
| There are a lot more than two apps which read or write FIT
| files for purposes other than workout planning. I wrote one of
| them.
| mathieuh wrote:
| Yeah, Garmin's own software isn't great but it very easily
| syncs directly to loads of other services, and there are
| "interlocutor" (not sure what the right term is) apps like
| Rungapp on iOS that will let you sync it to even more.
|
| I personally highly recommend intervals.icu
| throwawayjd wrote:
| Any benefits of intervals.icu over Garmin connect?
| eitally wrote:
| I personally don't know anyone who creates workouts in Garmin
| Connect. Not saying it doesn't happen, or even that it isn't
| common, but everyone I know is creating their workouts in TP,
| Intervals.icu, Golden Cheetah (or other similar dedicated
| training platforms), or even in Zwift (or another virtual
| training platform).
| kevmarsden wrote:
| I build workouts in Garmin Connect (web version). It's not
| great, but it works.
| getlawgdon wrote:
| I have, for years.
| timanderson wrote:
| I create workouts in Garmin Connect
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I'll parrot the other replies and say that I also do.
| mvkel wrote:
| > for purposes other than workout programming
|
| I specifically called out workouts.
|
| one tedious thing is needing to manually create the workouts.
| Unless you're doing the same thing week in and week out, it
| gets old quickly.
|
| I'd build something like a ZWO to FIT converter but there's
| no way to load them onto a bike computer without Garmin or
| TrainingPeaks
| deaddodo wrote:
| I only use my Garmin for GPS+heartbeat based workouts such
| as hikes + my runs. I've never had any issues integrating
| their services into Strava or a variety of workout devices
| in gyms. Though, on a sidenote, it is beyond annoying when
| many of those devices only support Ant+ _or_ Apple
| HealthKit integration; but I wouldn 't really tag that a
| Garmin issue as much as an ecosystem one.
|
| That all being said, I could imagine more complicated
| workouts that surpass simple lap/leg tracking could be
| problematic.
| pokstad wrote:
| Garmin should really embrace this. The alternative, relying on
| smartphone apps, will lock them out in the long run. The big
| advantage of buying dedicated hardware, like a Garmin bike
| computer, is having more control over your data.
| etrautmann wrote:
| The WorkOutDoors app and Strava both provide full access to gpx
| data
| cenamus wrote:
| Is the Garmin data you get through Strava unfiltered? As
| strava does some auto-pause things and so on, Garmin too
| probably...
| andreareina wrote:
| If it's pushed to Strava from another device (Garmin,
| Wahoo, etc) then you can download the original file, which
| will have all the data that the original device recorded.
| This may have auto pausing, may not.
|
| On e.g. files that are uploaded from my Garmin watch,
| Strava adds its auto pause as a filter on top of the data:
| iff the original data doesn't have any pauses (Garmin auto
| pause not enabled on my runs), then Strava will cut out
| periods of time when you're standing still; otherwise it'll
| leave the data alone.
| thefz wrote:
| You can view and download everything from their website
| dolmen wrote:
| I have two Garmin devices: a watch and bike computer. Both are
| connected to the same app that collects data to a single Garmin
| Connect account.
|
| I expected some synergy but I got nothing. When monitoring the
| same activity with the two devices you just gets dupes (for
| example, sum of the distances measured by the two devices).
| This is worse than if I had 2 devices from 2 different brands.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| What synergy are you expecting if you're recording distinct
| activities on two devices?
|
| FWIW you might have been looking for extended display mode.
|
| https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=fZaD0E9cTwAwBffjoJcWT8
| nradov wrote:
| Right, Garmin doesn't support simultaneous recording on
| multiple devices. But if you've got a bike computer then
| there's nothing to be gained by also recording on your watch,
| you won't get any more data.
|
| There's another related defect if you use one of their chest
| straps that records and stores heart rate data for later
| download (this is mainly for swimming activities where radio
| can't be used). If you record an activity on your watch and
| it syncs to Garmin Connect before downloading heart rate
| data, then after the watch downloads from the chest strap it
| will create a duplicate activity in Garmin Connect instead of
| updating the existing activity. Customers have been
| complaining about this for years but Garmin doesn't care.
| hn8726 wrote:
| I wish Garmin worked on their SDK and documentation -- I wrote
| a quick app for personal use, and it made me appreciate folks
| who write Garmin watch apps much more. The documentation is
| incredibly bad, half the things I had to figure out using trial
| and error, and even then I wouldn't know how to build/test for
| other watches than the one I own. I'd have gladly worked on the
| app and put it in the store, I think it'd useful to some
| people, but I'd have to put far more effort than it's worth.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Be warned anyone that uses this - it uses Garth
| (https://github.com/matin/garth) to authenticate. It masquerades
| as an Android app (a single instance of one at that) and does
| some hacky stuff to login via web forms.
|
| Garmin is such a horrible company to try to integrate with. I
| don't know why they lock down their stuff so hard like this. And
| if you do manage to gain access to one of their offical APIs or
| SDKs, they are total dogwater.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Garmin has nothing on Strava. If you integrate with Strava and
| the user revokes the link, _you have to delete all the data
| that came from Strava_ or you risk losing access to the API.
|
| > I don't know why they lock down their stuff so hard like
| this.
|
| Same reason every other company locks down your data. You are
| the product and they want to keep you locked in, feeding them
| data.
|
| They can't have you running off with all your data when a new
| device comes out from a competitor that is better; that would
| force them to compete more!
|
| Garmin has a long history of being lazy as fuck unless
| someone's actually competing against them. The smartwatch
| market heated up and lo and behold features and better models
| coming out left and right. Their bike computers would go years
| between refreshes..until Wahoo, Bryton, Coros, and Hammerhead
| started beating on their door.
|
| Strava is much the same way. They were pretty free with access
| in and out, and tightened things down making it nearly
| impossible to export data.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > If you integrate with Strava and the user revokes the link,
| you have to delete all the data that came from Strava or you
| risk losing access to the API.
|
| That seems fair - the user has withdrawn their permission for
| processing their data or invoked "right to be forgotten", no?
| kawsper wrote:
| Strava also imposes limits on app developers, it doesn't
| matter if you have 1 user or 1 million users, and it was
| quite hard to get the limits increased.
|
| You'd think they would allow a popular app that their
| customers likes to use could have higher limits.
|
| CityStrides were battling with it a lot, but it looks like it
| was resolved, finally:
| https://community.citystrides.com/t/increase-strava-api-
| limi...
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Isn't that just following the law? User revoked their consent
| for you to have their data.
| foobarian wrote:
| > Garmin has a long history of being lazy as fuck unless
| someone's actually competing against them
|
| Heh, isn't that pretty much every company in the history of
| capitalism?
| fbnlsr wrote:
| I'm a Garmin user as I find the hardware to be very reliable
| but the market is in deep need of an Open Source alternative.
|
| Let's not forget Garmin was victim of a ransomware attack in
| 2020 and they finally paid $10 million after days of blackout
| and they never really addressed the issue.
| mightysashiman wrote:
| An open source bike computer that isn't the price of a 2025
| flagahip smartphone and the specs of a 2010 midrange
| smartphone! Please please!
| grokx wrote:
| I found this Raspberry Pi Zero based bike computer project:
| https://github.com/hishizuka/pizero_bikecomputer
|
| This seems pretty nice in terms of features, but would
| probably need a bit of polish.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| We looked at this years ago and came to the (sad) conclusion
| that in this space there is no money to be made in hardware,
| the UX, while uniformly bad, can't make you profitable, so
| it's down to selling the user as a product once again.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > Garmin is such a horrible company to try to integrate with
|
| Is it still? A few years I built integration for creating
| posters from route GPS data, and it seemed pretty much the same
| experience as Strava and RunKeeper, but then they changed their
| TOC and wanted about $10K to connect.
|
| It seems to be free now - although they still require approval.
| https://developer.garmin.com/gc-developer-program/overview/
|
| If you want data for your own use - and to send data from one
| service to another - then tapiriik is great (or atleast was, I
| haven't used it for a few years):
|
| https://tapiriik.com/
| mrbonner wrote:
| I think th consumer/retail side of Garmin company is a shit
| show. I recently ordered a HRM on Garmin website instead of
| other retail site. My order just sat at "ordered" status for
| over a week. I ended up just cancel and use Amazon.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I've run into that with most manufacturer retail sales
| departments -- it's almost always a better buying experience
| to use Amazon or another established online merchant.
|
| It's expensive to build out a first class order fulfillment
| system and it's hard to compete with Amazon's system since
| they have such huge economies of scale -- Amazon probably
| ships more product in a few hours than Garmin does all year
| from their retail site.
|
| Even worse than buying products from a manufacturer is buying
| a spare/replacement parts, you need a $5 replacement charging
| cord? Well it'll cost you $15 in shipping and still take 2
| weeks, and often those spares are only available from the
| manufacturer.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Very contrary to my experience.
|
| I've been using InReach and the InReach APIs for a few years
| now.
|
| They were both very reasonably priced (they cost nothing above
| my InReach subscription price), very easy to get access to (I
| emailed them and got access to API docs and the APIs within a
| day or three) and extremely well thought out and reliable (very
| robust callback based event/point reporting system, with
| retries on their side if your code breaks or is flakey, their
| web page has a great debug interface to see what happens if
| your webhook fails) and their support was top-notch (if not
| super fast).
|
| I had a weird bug with their webhooks when I started
| implementation, where every event would come in twice, once
| with the timestamp of the event truncated to an integer of
| whole seconds. You could see from the user-agent that the one
| with the truncated timestamp was a few versions older of their
| software. Wrapped that analysis up in an email to them and
| about 12 hours later saw it get fixed and about 12 hours after
| that got an email back from AN ACTUAL ENGINEER who thanked me
| for the description, explained why and how it happened and
| explained their fix.
|
| Granted, the InReach and definitely the InReach Professional
| API, are more of a professional product and less pure consumer,
| but, Garmin definitely knows how to do this.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Garmin acquire Delorme in 2016 including the inReach
| satellite communicators. I bet the development culture came
| with acquisition.
| ggm wrote:
| Before I recommend this to a garmin-owner who rows, does it have
| good models for rowing specific data like the 500m split timers
| and your cadence? I looked and it seems like its very bicycle/run
| aware, and "paddle" is not a term of art for rowers. (thats in
| the plugin) -If there is a data model for the Ergo, it probably
| would work because "its the same" (it isn't but anyway. meh)
|
| He shared some data with me to see if I could decode/dump (2+
| years ago) and I gave up. Garmin are not easy sometimes. Shame. I
| doubt their s/w is making them much, people buy for the hardware
| not the app specifically. False benefit lockin.
| parkersweb wrote:
| A friend recently put me on to Intervals (https://intervals.icu)
| for Garmin / Strava related data nerdery and I've enjoyed it very
| much. As a rower it was nice that you can construct reports that
| give rowing related metrics rather than just the usual cycle /
| run stuff.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I tried using that a couple years back and recall being
| frustrated by how it required running intervals to be
| formatted.
|
| I believe it wanted interval activities to be recorded without
| also recording the rest intervals in between which was
| frustrating.
|
| /edit derp, I'm getting confused between this and runalyze
| caiimsyname wrote:
| I built something for post-processing runs into common
| running workout structures (e.g. 4 x 1mi) based solely on lap
| data, without needing the actual programmed workout.
| workoutsplitz.com if you want to try it out.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Neat! Will give it a go
| thefz wrote:
| > We may use your Personal Data to contact you with
| newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other
| information that may be of interest to you.
|
| Noped the f outta there
| hn8726 wrote:
| > ... You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these
| communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or
| the instructions provided in any email we send.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Nah thanks, I'll press the "report spam" button instead, k
| thnx have a nice day bye.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| What dastardly acts do you think they're committing here?
| They need your personal data (your email address) to send you
| emails, which presumably you can unsubscribe from
| eikaramba wrote:
| Nice app, i didn't know that one. I think for cycling that is
| quite sophisticated. However i had a different problem recently
| wanting to track a Hyrox Workout. I have a epix gen 2 (800EUR)
| and i cannot track it nicely. I know you can define workouts
| but it is such a hassle and doesn't even work good.
|
| Long Story short, i just programmed my own App now for that.
| Works with all garmin watches and let's use define a fixed
| Workout and allows to analyze your individual performances
| across exercises:
|
| https://multisports.creatness.studio - i'm still waiting for
| Garmin to approve my App Store Submission (another long story
| with garmin) but it can already be downloaded and sideloaded on
| a garmin watch. using it for a few weeks now myself.
| shpongled wrote:
| Intervals.icu is great, and totally worth paying to support.
| Really fun to see progress over time, and the ability to
| customize charts is neat.
| bacon_fan123 wrote:
| I just got a new Garmin Vivoactive5 this week, because my old one
| broke (also vivoactive3). For now I am quite happy with it, but I
| bought it knowingly, that Garmins APIs and possibilites are not
| _optimal_ at all.
|
| I looked into getting a Apple Watch series 10, but ultimately
| decided against it (battery lasting not longer than 1.5days / no
| real use for messaging or smart apps a side from health / 2x
| price compared to the vivo).
|
| I would love to find an _open_ watch, that allows for hacking,
| nice APIs, self-hosting of dashboards even, nice apps et cetera.
| I feel like there is market for people like me. Maybe the rebirth
| of the pebble will be able fill this void?
| liotier wrote:
| What similar devices don't fight their own users wanting to
| access their own data ?
| resource_waste wrote:
| Apple locks down everything:
|
| 'I like the safety'- Apple marketers or people who fell for the
| marketing
|
| Garmin/google/anyone else does it:
|
| "So dumb, I should be able to use my own stuff!"
| snakeyjake wrote:
| You can export all health and fitness data with no trouble
| using the Health app.
|
| 1. Open the health app
|
| 2. Tap on your face in the upper right
|
| 3. Scroll down to the bottom and tap "export all data" or
| whatever it says.
|
| Bam: every workout and every health measurement in an XML
| file.
|
| Whoever told you apple locks down health and fitness data was
| either mistaken or lying to you.
|
| edit: here is a more technical explanation
| https://www.ryanpraski.com/apple-health-data-how-to-
| export-a...
| jo-m wrote:
| What you can always do to get ALL your raw data out of Garmin
| connect (as FIT files) is using the data export
| (https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=W1TvTPW8JZ6LfJSfK512Q8).
|
| There are some good OSS libraries to read and interpret those
| files (e.g. Python https://github.com/polyvertex/fitdecode, Go
| https://github.com/tormoder/fit).
|
| To get your _current_ data, it is possible to pull the current
| .FIT files from your device (watch, bike computer, ..) when it is
| plugged to your computer and mounted as file system.
|
| I once started a side project to do exactly that, but abandoned
| it after a while (https://github.com/jo-m/garmin-disconnect).
| winkywooster wrote:
| um, have you tried to export all your raw data from garmin? i
| have 15 years of logged data, and that dump does not include
| any fit/gpx/tcx files. it was 196 json files (228mb) which are
| just high-level summaries. using one of the hacky third-party
| export libraries, i was able to get the actual fit files (5708
| files, 373mb). even that has missing files, empty files, and
| duplicates. very frustrating.
|
| the lesson i learned is you can't just expect these exports
| from any online services to be complete or what you expect. i
| highly recommend going through an export of anything you depend
| on and see if it has what you expect.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| This is particularly relevant with the recent blue triangle
| of death episode where all their newest watches downloaded a
| corrupted gps ephemeris data file and entered a boot loop.
|
| One of the recommended fixes was a factory reset of the
| watch, which deletes all of the stored .fit files.
| hn8726 wrote:
| Should it be possible to request all the data via GDPR and
| friends?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| You've got nothing to lose from trying
| manosyja wrote:
| It's not only that API access is hard, it's also they don't
| listen tot the community.
|
| Example: It's not possible to filter for workouts without gear.
| Sometimes I forget to add my bike or a pair of shoes, so such a
| filter would be helpful.
|
| It would be very easy for them to add add that filter to the app
| and / or connect website.
|
| But without a community manager, there's no engagement possible.
|
| Imagine they had a public tracker where people could request
| features. They could review them and use that knowledge to build
| better stuff, making more money.
| aradox66 wrote:
| I just set this up a few months ago! It stores data in a local
| sqlite db. I have a script that pulls in new data once a day.
|
| It takes a surprisingly long time, there must be some serious
| inefficiencies since the watch only takes a second or so to sync
| all that same data to my phone. I haven't had a chance yet to
| look closer at the internals.
| jerjerjer wrote:
| Any fitness watch with better access to data? I'm not even
| talking about open source (which would be great), just interested
| in real-time access to health info without monthly subscription
| or scrapping their online portal.
| m463 wrote:
| I believe garmin is actually better than the others.
|
| I've never put my watch online.
|
| You don't have to "activate" the watch or create an account to
| use it. You can just strap it on your wrist and go.
|
| You can get to your data using MTP (or the garmin protocol) by
| accessing the watch filesystem.
|
| I'm not certain about updates. I haven't found a way to
| download and update the watch offline, but I haven't seriously
| tried. I did notice some beta firmware you could download and
| update older watches with offline.
|
| So I think you might need garmin connect or similar to download
| apps or updates.
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(page generated 2025-02-03 23:02 UTC)