Has anyone come up with a way to synchronize data between the Apple Watch and a Garmin GPS watch? I'd like either the Activity app or Garmin Connect to store daily activity, including runs with the Garmin and daily steps with the Apple Watch. I've been wearing a Garmin 235 (with activity and sleep tracking) and it's been great being able to see the entire day's activity in one app.
Hi Patrick, I have an Apple Watch and a Garmin 235 and I completely agree, the Apple Watch just isn't there yet. The answer to most of the problem is Rungap (as others have said), but it's a bit more complicated that just installing it, so I'll detail below what I've discovered.
What you want to do should be a very simple task, via Apple Health, but thanks to Garmin's hopeless implementation of Apple Health, syncing just doesn't work. The Apple Watch seems to log things like steps in 1 minute increments, whereas Garmin Connect logs in bulk at completely random times. Even if you set the sync priority in Apple Health correctly, Garmin Connect timestamps some of the data it uploads at midnight, instead of the correct time, resulting in duplicate counting of data. It's just a mess and delays updating of the exercise rings on the Apple Watch. I've reported this to Garmin, but they don't seem to care.
So the solution is as follows (assuming you have Garmin Connect and Rungap installed on your phone.
1. Disable all Garmin Connect syncing to Apple Health (except for Weight, Body Fat index, BMI and sleep analysis) - this will stop exercise data from being corrupted, but still enable weight data from Garmin scales and sleep data from the Garmin to sync into Apple Health
2. Install Rungap and link it to your Garmin Connect account. After a workout you will have to manually share data with Apple Health, unless you subscribe to Rungap.
3. in Apple Health, ensure that Rungap is the first priority for all workout data categories that it writes data to. To do this you will need to go into each of the following categories in Apple Health:
Exercise Minutes, Active Energy, Flights Climbed, Walking + Running Distance, Workouts, Swimming Distance, Cycling Distance
In each category, you need to select "Data Sources and Access", then Edit at the top right, then ensure Rungap is at the top of the Data Sources list
This solves most of the problem, in that all your workout data will start closing the Move and Exercise Rings on your Apple Watch. The downside to this solution is that it will not update the Stand Ring - although I usually manage to close that anyway.
The other downside with this solution is that it won't update the Steps complication on the Apple Watch. To solve that problem I use the HealthFace app as a steps complication, as this is able to display the step count from the Phone, rather than the watch's internal Step Counter which cannot be updated by other apps. This will enable the steps synced from Rungap to display on the Apple Watch.
Obviously this is a far from ideal situation, as it is not a true two-way sync, but it does give me all my runs stored in Garmin Connect which has better metrics and analysis than Apple Health, whilst at the same time ensures my overall fitness data in Apple Health is accurate - and I get to close my rings!
The only other downsides are the manual Rungap sync after each run (because I'm too cheap to subscribe) and neither Rungap nor Garmin Connect seem to sync Vo2max from Garmin Connect.
None of this would be a problem if Garmin would simply fix Garmin Connect's Apple Health syncing, but they have known about this issue for ages and seem to have zero interest in fixing it. I've now given up on them and am really hoping for somebody to come out with a decent fitness app for the Apple Watch and maybe a Wahoo Reflekt for my bike, so I can eventually ditch Garmin altogether.
Happy training!
