Workout duplicated from Garmin Connect

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Level 1

9 points

Workout duplicated from Garmin Connect

Well, I hope my question will not be frawned upon, I can see it is not something a lot of us would do.

I had always been a faithful Garmin user, and I love Garmin Connect, especially that it is one of the few services allowing gear tracking. However, I was not happy with my Fenix 7X Pro Solar completely. I had the up and light buttons broken so many times, I had the watch replaced 4 times!

So, I gave it a try and got myself an Apple Watch Ultra 2. But I didn't want to stop recording my workouts on Garmin Connect either, and since Apple cannot sync workouts to Garmin Connect (could be Garmin's fault, not sure), I am using RunGap to import my workouts to Garmin Connect exported from RunGap, imported from the Apple Watch.

But I still want the option to use my Garmin watch. The idea is to wear the Apple Watch all the time, collect the steps, record walks, (unlock Mac computers), but bring out the big gun (Fenix) when I want to do some more serious activity. So I still sync my activities from Garmin to the Health app.

But it leads to the situation, that when I am done importing the workout to Garmin Connect, it will be synced back to Apple. And all the exercises I record with the Apple Watch will be duplicated.

Am I the only one with this weird setup? So far I couldn't find any better way, than delete the duplicates manually. I would think the Health app might be able to recognize a real duplicate, but of course, because I am using a third party app to export the workout and import it to Garmin Connect, the data will not be identical. Although, in the AI era, one could expect such thing handled...

Posted on Apr 8, 2025 11:06 AM

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Answer 1

mikigal Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 19, 2025 9:35 PM in response to LD150

While this situation would not happen without a manual "sync", I wouldn't say the duplicate is because of the manual intervention. The intervention is manual, because Apple refuses to open up their health interface to the world, they let app developers do that. Other services allow you to sync back and fro. But of course the mistake I make here is to call this "synchronization". It is not. It is just transfer. Synchronization is when the two sides are compared, and an "intelligence", that Apple is so proud of, and call it AI, should make a decision how to align the two sides, and avoid creating duplicates. But it does not happen.

Strava can detect duplicates, but only when the data streams are identical, although coming from different sources. I used to record my indoor bicycle rides with Zwift, send it to Strava and to Garmin Connect, while my Garmin Connect service was sending everything to Strava, too. And there were no duplicates on Strava.

But here the data streams are modified in the middle, by that 3rd party app (RunGap), so it would not be so trivial to detect duplicates. But I think it should not be that difficult, with a little data crunching. And I think Apple Devices would have plenty of processing power to do that.

To me it seems the only way it works, if I accept that Apple Health is at the top of the hierarchy, and forget about Garmin Connect. But there are a few features missing from Apple, that I have with Garmin (watch and service), that I wouldn't want to give up.

1) Gear tracking

2) Tennis workout with GPS track

3) Battery life

4) Ability to fully use the watch with touch screen disabled

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Answer 2

LD150

Level 10

100,059 points

Apr 20, 2025 1:05 AM in response to mikigal

https://apple.com/feedback

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Answer 3

LD150

Level 10

100,059 points

Apr 19, 2025 5:14 AM in response to mikigal

"But it leads to the situation, that when I am done importing the workout to Garmin Connect, it will be synced back to Apple. And all the exercises I record with the Apple Watch will be duplicated."

Yep. Manual import intervention will do that.

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Workout duplicated from Garmin Connect

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