Why won't health app sync?

Claiming the app is not malfunctioning because yours works fine based on your subjective expectations is patently absurd. Many users are reporting various problems over at the Garmin support site. Many have been told by Garmin that it is because Apple's system is at fault.

eightzero wrote:

Claiming the app is not malfunctioning because yours works fine based on your subjective expectations is patently absurd.

These are not "subjective assumptions". The app asked me if I wanted to sync to Healthkit. I said yes. It gave me a list of things I could sync. I chose the ones I wanted to sync. It syncs those. Would I like it to sync cycling data? Sure. But that's not one of the options. That doesn't mean it's broken. That means it doesn't work the way I would like.

I'm not saying you're not having problems. I'm trying to explain that it can work. However, I'm not interested in trying to help you get yours to work as it appears you're not either. You want to complain and wait for someone else to magically solve your problem. I'm done, though.

Best of luck.

FYI it seems that some apps are working and some are not - I believe there are problems with either HealthKit or the Health App. I'm having all sorts of problems and there are many many reports of others as well. Data is sometimes duplicated multiple times or working for a while and then not working. For example I have sleep data that came from 24/7 Motion - it was duplicated so I deleted some of the duplicates... then the chart stopped working even tho there's data.

eightzero wrote:

Claiming the app is not malfunctioning because yours works fine based on your subjective expectations is patently absurd.

These are not "subjective assumptions". The app asked me if I wanted to sync to Healthkit. I said yes. It gave me a list of things I could sync. I chose the ones I wanted to sync. It syncs those. Would I like it to sync cycling data? Sure. But that's not one of the options. That doesn't mean it's broken. That means it doesn't work the way I would like.

I'm not saying you're not having problems. I'm trying to explain that it can work. However, I'm not interested in trying to help you get yours to work as it appears you're not either. You want to complain and wait for someone else to magically solve your problem. I'm done, though.

Best of luck.

--

Thanks. You too.

By way of update, Strava released its HealthKit enable app today. It too will not populate cycling distance into the Health app. The Strava customer support was excellent with many fast responses and suggestions. The Strava app is way better than the Garmin Connect ap. Strava does ask for access to Health, and shows in data sources. It just doesn't send its data (all appear just fine in the Strava app) to Health.

I also tried one of Apple's app suggestions "Human." It's not a great app, but it did request access to Health, but didn't populate any data into it.

I'm guessing there are some bugs in the Health app on the Apple side. Unfortunate.

eightzero wrote:

The Strava app is way better than the Garmin Connect ap. Strava does ask for access to Health, and shows in data sources. It just doesn't send its data (all appear just fine in the Strava app) to Health.

Pretty sure apps don’t send data previous to when it was actually linked.

Possible. But the Strava guy said his was on his 5c.

By way of still more info, it turns out the Strava people solved the issue: you have to have "workouts" enabled as well. Let the Strava app push that data source to Health, and ding, the Cycling Distance field is populated. Kudos to Strava.

Garmin wrote back and said the Garmin Connect app doesn't support cycling distance at this time. So yes, it appears their app is still not functional, apparently by design. Fine work.

I think the devs are still getting their feet under them.

Interesting that you say that Strava "solved the issue" of non-recording cycling distance -- my iPhone 6 with latest Strava and iOS versions won't pick up ANY data. I've tried about every setting I can think of (neither Strava nor Apple really have instructions about how to use these apps!). I've uninstalled and reinstalled the Strava app. Nothing works.

Do you have a link to the Strava discussion that says enabling "workouts" is the answer to getting cycling distance into the Health app? I've searched extensively in the Strava support forum but didn't see anything like what you're saying...

In my instance, the Strava app had populated the "feed" from Garmin Connect. I needed to scroll through the feed, and it then populated the cycling distance into the Health app. when "workouts" was enabled to send data to Health. it also populated the "active calories" feed into Health if I opened each activity in the Strava app by tapping on it I

Kinda unintuitive, but the Strava guy did sort it out. It was a support ticket - the Strava guy was emailing me.

THANK YOU very much for this! I confirmed cycling distance is working for me as well. with no need to allow either app to read/write to/from each other as long as the settings are correct.

my setup involves the following:

vivofit + edge 1000 for the hardware side of things

healthkit on an iphone 5 with strava + garmin connect app.

healthkit setup:

garmin connect: all applicable toggle switches enabled (this enables walking + running distance, steps, active calories)

strava: cycling distance & workouts enabled (this enables cycling distance)

I did ask garmin support why their app doesn't sync cycling distance to healthkit and below is their response.

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I would be happy to help you with this.

The Apple HealthKit currently only supports wellness devices. This means devices like vivofit or vivosmart will sync information over to Apple HealthKit. Forerunners and Edge devices will not show any information from running or cycling activities.

Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thank you and have a great day!

With Best Regards,

Michael

Customer Care - Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Michael 8996208

www.garmin.com

I replied back telling them Strava's app is able to do it by reading garmin connect's data(via strava's official garmin connect sync partnership) and sync it to healthkit so why can't the official source app do it directly? - im awaiting their response.

"Forerunners and Edge devices will not show any information from running or cycling activities."

Yep. Looks like they intend to not support their own devices.

Their reply:

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I would be happy to help with this issue.

The reason the data on Strava can be seen and uploaded is because it has its own app and its own communication with the Health app. Garmin is working towards getting the Health app to be compatible but at the time there is only selected part of it that will work.

With Best Regards,

Cody

Customer Care - Fitness Team

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Cody 8996227

www.garmin.com

cmon garmin.. your lagging behind on strava - on everything.

Thank you for addressing this issue! It's crazy that neither Apple nor Strava have any instructions about this anywhere on their websites or in the apps themselves.

I am having the same issue -- Strava is not sharing/syncing my cycling data with the Health app. After reading your post, I enabled "workouts" but still nothing is showing up in the Cycling portion of Health. After you enabled "workouts," did the cycling data you generated before enabling "workouts" sync automatically and immediately, or were only rides you took after enabling "workouts" synced?

After enabling "workouts," are there any specific steps to take to get Strava to sync (such as press a "sync" button on either app, which I have not been able to find!)?

I've closed and reopened both apps and still it's not syncing, which makes me think there is some extra step I am not taking to get Strava to recognize that I want it to push the data out to Health.

Thank you in advance for any insight you may have!

After enabling all categories in Strava, scroll (still in Strava) through all of your rides in your "feed". This should populate the "cycle distance" record in Health.

On a side note, I don't find that the Health app really adds anything to the Strava app (or Garmin Connect, for that matter). The way cycling and calorie information is displayed in Health is far less useful than in the native apps.

For additional tips see the Strava Knowledge Base -- there are comments from several others on this (get Health and cycling data working).