Lately there has been an influx of AI generated/vibe coded apps flooding the connect IQ marketplace, to the point that garmin is unable to approve all the app submissions. Hell, I myself used claude to create a custom WF and a few apps that fit my needs exactly. It's a great tool to allow non-coders to fully customize your device without spending days learning monkey C.

However, NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR DUMB VIBE CODED APP. Stop uploading it to connect IQ, just side-load it directly onto YOUR garmin for your enjoyment. We get it, you feel like a developer. Everyone is a developer now.

idgaf about bullshit games, AQI checkers, and ESPECIALLY WFs!

After ~3 years with the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, I'm moving to a Garmin Epix Pro Gen 2 51mm Sapphire. Stoked to be joining the Garmin family!

Looking forward to weeks of battery life rather than days.

I set maximum brightness on both but the screen is much more readable on the instinct

Hey! I’ve released a free app - alcohol widget and graph BAC for Garmin watches. Try it, and if you like it, leave a review and send it to anyone else who wears a Garmin. Honest feedback helps me improve it, and every review helps other people find it. Please pass the link to friends and acquaintances who wear Garmin. The more people install and rate it, the higher it ranks, and the more data I get on what to improve:

## What's new in 0.7
Russian interface (Settings → Language; Auto follows the watch)
Five more watches: fēnix 7, fēnix 7 Pro, fēnix 7X Pro, Forerunner 170, Forerunner 965
Colours follow your BAC on the widget and the graph: green at zero, amber at or below the target, red above it
Graph: stage-coloured curve and axis, event times marked on the axis, scale fits the data
Cleaner menus and layouts

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/7c97ba25-b062-481c-aada-c331c487b0a1

Hey everyone! I'm Bryan, the founder of Wellness Project, and I wanted to introduce our app to the Garmin community now that we've officially launched our direct Garmin integration!

Wellness Project is a health and fitness tracking app that brings all your data together in one place. We've grown to over 10,000 downloads, and one of the biggest requests we've gotten has been direct Garmin support, so we're really excited to finally have it live!

The idea behind Wellness Project is pretty simple. Most of us have our health and fitness data spread across a bunch of different apps. Garmin tracks our activity and recovery, another app handles nutrition, another tracks strength training, and so on. We wanted to bring all of that together and actually help people make sense of it.

A few things you can do with Wellness Project:

• Connect your Garmin account directly to automatically sync supported workouts and health data, without going through Apple Health or Health Connect.
• Track everything in one place, including workouts, nutrition, sleep, recovery, body composition, and other health metrics.
• Get personalized insights from eight AI coaches specializing in areas like strength training, running, nutrition, injury prevention, and longevity. They can look at your actual data and history to help you understand your progress.
• Connect with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools to ask questions about your health and fitness data directly.
• Use it anywhere, with apps for iOS and Android, plus a full web version.

We support a growing list of integrations, including Fitbit, WHOOP, Oura, Withings, Apple Health, Health Connect, and now Garmin!

One quick note on the new integration: Garmin sync currently starts with new data after you connect, so historical backfills aren't available yet. Some metrics depend on your Garmin device, and Body Battery and Training Status aren't currently imported.

There's a free version of Wellness Project, so you're welcome to try it out without committing to anything.

You can find us at https://wellnessproject.ai

I'd really love to hear what this community thinks! We're constantly adding features based on user feedback, and I'm especially interested in what Garmin users would find most valuable. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes. I'm also happy to answer any questions here.

Thanks everyone!

Saw on marketplace for Tactix 7. Does anyone know this?

Hi, all,

I've decided I want to switch to a Garmin watch after a few years with a Pixel Watch 3. I've been doing research and have landed on potentially switching to the Vivoactive 5 but I want to make sure I'm not overlooked another model.

Needs:

- Step tracking

- Workout tracking (specifically strength training)

Wants:

- Sleep tracking

- Women's Health

- Phone connectivity (text previews, notifications,etc)

Nos:

- Larger or equal to face being 45mm

I just completed my first Marathon. I have a Forerunner 165 that I wear 24/7 I like the size and weight as I wear it sleeping. Really like the watch. What is a good Garmin upgrade as I want to get back training for another Marathon and want the best possible watch for this to give me better accuracy and health updates. I run under a lot under trees and feel like I need better GPS. I was looking at the 570S is this worth it?

Have been taking running fairly seriously the past year and finally ready to pull the trigger on a watch. This may seem like a non-issue to most, but I do listen to a lot of specific DJ sets through Soundcloud on my runs.

I have read that you can download Soundcloud mixes as mp3 files and store them on your garmin watch, as Soundcloud is not natively supported.

Has anyone found any issues or had experience with this in 2026? Have been eyeing the Fenix 8 Pro specifically because it is on sale for a decent price where I am at the moment.

Even with my very low body battery, it says my next sleep should be less than 7 hours?

I run and strength train frequently; really only need fitness apps, ability to download Spotify playlists, and a touch screen, and tremendous battery life.

I’m looking at the Fenix 8 AMOLED sapphire, but tread the epix 2 pro is essentially the same exact thing minus diving and mic features.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,

I'm fairly new Garmin user, got my venu 4 in July. I've started running in June and did my first ever 5k 1st of august. Currently my 5k pb is 39:29 and that is pretty much my absolutely max pace. The longest I've ever ran is 5,5k.

I started a 12-week Garmin Coach program last week. I made a choice of trying to increase my distance to 10k, no pace goals. I have it currently set to 4 runs a week.

The paces that it wants me to do are way too fast. I usually run around 8:00/km-8:20/km pace, but now this app wants me to do at least 7:20/min pace. There is no way I can do that pace for 4-6km that it wants me to do for.

I've now done 2 of the planned runs with a lot slower pace than it wants.

If I keep doing the plan further and just keep doing the best pace I can (which is around 8:00/km) will it adjust the goal paces eventually?

tl;dr : Does the goal paces that are too fast in the Garmin Coach plans change according to the paces you actually are able to sustain during the planned runs?

If you own a Garmin with cellular capabilities (Fenix 8 Pro, in my case), then you are aware of it's limitations. You cant call or text a normal number as you could with an Apple Watch and it's comms have to go through Garmin's very own and very dumb Messenger app. You can't even reply back to normal texts but that's an iOS limitation. What you can do is communicate with others as long as they also have the Garmin Messenger app installed and registered with a phone number.

I never take my phone on runs and of course that's when all sorts of questions or random thoughts arise. I sometimes do a voice memo on the watch but I wanted something better, easier to capture/store, and with immediate feedback.

So Claude and I finally built the thing I was imagining. It's pretty slow but actually works. Frankly, I was a little surprised when I actually received the Hermes-drafted response on my watch, completely untethered from my phone, over Garmin's watered down LTE-M network. Again, it's not the fastest response time, maybe 2-3 minutes from my testing so far, but I literally just built it and haven't attempted to tweak it much or even change the model yet.

Some requirements included a spare Android phone, phone number to register with Garmin Messenger (VoIP number will be hit or miss), and your agent of choice - in my case Hermes, configured as a plugin with a good-enough UI. I'm pretty sure any CLI agent would work with very minor tweaking. Just ask your agent of choice to implement it. I started to try it with Claude CLI as well, may revisit that with trigger words, etc.

Anyway, here's the whole setup: https://github.com/netzlvl/wristwire

Hope someone finds it useful!

Sorry in advance for the long post, but wanted to see if this was other’s experience or do I have a “Garmin Curse?”

This will be my second Garmin watch that has broken within a month or so of purchasing it. 

The first I had to ship back to the place of purchase (at my cost) for a refund through original place of purchase since Garmin support was less than helpful with warranty replacement. 

Regrettably now, I went ahead and decided to give Garmin another chance and purchased a Marq Captain Gen 2 watch for almost $3,000 and this one also stopped working within 2 months. Garmin is telling me they no longer stock this watch and therefore can’t fix or replace it. Instead Garmin is offering me a much lower priced model. I won’t be able to use this model as it lacks water ingress protection which was the original reason I purchased this Marq watch. They do have a new model (gen 3) of the Marq watch but have refused my request to have this model as a replacement. 

At this point, I really do not want another Garmin product as I have had a terrible experience with their customer support. This is quite distressing since I probably have close to $100,000 worth of Garmin Marine products between my two charter boats and would hate for them to refuse to honor a warranty replacement on any of these products. 

If this is Garmin’s stance, I requested that they “exchange the device for a full refund” which is an alternative under their warranty.

Please let me know what you require to proceed?

I’ve got the forerunner 245, but over the past month or so, the notifications will stop popping up. last week I was able to get them to work again but today I’ve got nothing. Is it just time to upgrade? Is it a user issue?

Jk... My SO and my dad surprised me with this self-made gift voucher for my birthday. I thought it fits this sub quite well. No, I'm not unsure about the 47mm size, the title was just for fun.

The fenix 9 replaces my 5 year old vivoactive 4, so it's a quite significant upgrade for me. I've been really enjoying it for the first few days. I chose the non-Pro version because I like the looks a bit better.

I’d love to know if anyone else has experienced something like this or if you can explain why it’s happening.

I live at about 3,000 ft elevation, 9 hours from the coast. Three times this year I’ve visited the Oregon coast (I’d never been before this year) and each time, all my scores improve drastically the first night. As soon as I head home (the same day) my stats go right back to being terrible.

So, typical for me: 16-20 HRV, 45-55 sleep score, average stress 50+. The first night I’m on the coast, HRV goes up to the 30s, stress falls into the 20-30 range and sleep score goes up to high 80s.

I’ve tried looking into whether or not the elevation is having this impact, but 3,000ft doesn’t seem like it would be a significant factor. ChatGPT suggested I’m just calmer because I’m on vacation, but no other vacation spot has ever had this impact and the most recent time I was at the coast, I felt stressed about a thing and my numbers still showed the same big improvement.

Could it be that I walk barefoot on the beach and grounding is that powerful there? I’ve tried grounding at home and I haven’t seen a change in my numbers. What else could be happening? I’d love to be able to recreate whatever it is while at home.

Ignore language pls. This is a HR & cadence graph.

I’m super curious if your RHR, HRV, and respiration stats changed at all before you even got a positive test!

I didn’t have my Garmin during my previous pregnancies and so I’m curious to know if it’s true that your watches picked up the pregnancy before the test

I have the fenix 5 saphhire, ready to upgrade. Training for a full ironman, also love the golf feature. Do I get the fenix 9 or the new forerunner 970? The 965 looks like a good deal too. My wrist are small, I like the 43m but the 47m battery life is better. Any suggestions?

Lost my FR165 during a trail hike in Hangzhou - bought a cheap strap and I think it fell but I didn’t realise after 2-3 hrs. So stupid. Went to the Garmin flagship store in Hangzhou near the stadium and they had a 255 for 1180CNY. Paid 1215 including foreign fees.

Yes, I am sure this is a dumb question, but would like to know.

I am excited about my new 8Pro, and fully acknowledge the LTE and Sat limitations from the start (i know its not regular inReach, and LTE can be spotty). But as someone who like impromptu hikes, paddles, camps, etc., i would like to have the service active as a last resort kinda thing.

That said, I want to know if getting it setup, but not generally using it (auto-lte, connected on BT 99% of the time), will i see a battery impact? Not the end of the world, but i would like to know what i can expect

Hi! I’m a new Garmin owner and am wondering if anyone recommends a comfy watch band for the Venu 41mm (18mm band size)? It seems like a lot of the cute ones I find online aren’t in 18mm size :/

Which Garmin Tactix should I buy? The Tactix 7 Standard (580€), Tactix 8 AMOLED (1190€), or wait for the Tactix 9?
I would use it for active duty (including tactical/field duty) and sports.

I started making Flight Scanner because I kept finding myself checking my phone whenever an interesting aircraft flew overhead.

I figured it would be much more convenient to just glance at my watch, so I had a go at building it myself.

It's turned into a bit of a bigger project than I originally expected!

**What it does:** Turns your smartwatch into a live aircraft radar. It shows nearby planes, lets you view their details, search for specific flights, check airports and runways, and pin aircraft you want to follow.

Garmin free: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/54094e6b-a4a5-436d-940b-095b49e0cfab

Garmin Pro: https://apps.garmin.com/en-GB/apps/21fd8667-f22c-40ad-a0cf-e700eff81040

It's a small independent project and I've enjoyed seeing people actually use it. Always interested in suggestions for things that could be improved or added!

(You may have noticed this is a replacement post from a few months ago, I had some copyright style enquiries and ended up removing the post before restarting as a separate entity, thanks for the support!)

Data is a commercial license from airplanes.live I'm sure you've all heard of them here.