Application Review - Garmin Connect

 I recently purchased a Garmin Forerunner 245 for my running training and will be providing a review of the Garmin Connect Application that works with my running watch.

The use of the app is fairly simple. Opening it from the icon takes you to a “My Day” screen, providing quick access to a dashboard of statistics about the current and previous day. This allows for a quick view of how things are going and allows a quick comparison to previous days.  Personally, I use my Apple Watch when I am not running, so the statistics shown are limited to my running workouts.

 

Along the bottom for quick access, there are Challenges, Calendar, news feed and more.

The Challenges provides access to challenges with other users.  I have not used this feature, so I don’t have much to review. The look and navigation seems easy enough though.

 

The calendar has bars on each day for activity, heart rate, body battery, stress and steps. As I said, I only use when I am running, so data on non-running days is limited. Clicking on each day gives you a further breakdown.  I like this as it gives me an overview of the days I am active and drills down further into the activity if I want.

 

 

 

The newsfeed is a way to connect with friends and acts as like a Garmin social network.  I have not delved into this much, but looks forward to its capability.  As it stands, I see my activity. 

 

The “more” tab opens up a listing of a lot of other functionality.  At this time, I have worked mostly with the training feature as it lets me move into workouts that I can program to my running watch.   

Overall the usability of the app is good.  The design is pleasing to the eye and generally easy to navigate.  There is a lot more functionality than I have explored, which can seem a little overwhelming.

I would like a way to quickly access features I use more frequently.  For example, to get to the workout creation screen I do have to navigate through 3 separate screens.  It would be nice to have  way to customize the quick access buttons. It would also be good if some of the stats were explained a little more. For example, I have a statistic of my VO2 max, and I ended up googling what that meant for my overall health.

In addition, I did have to do some Google searching to find out how to program some of my workouts.  A quick, embedded tutorial for the different features would be beneficial. As I have said, I haven’t explored all the functionality and I am sure there is a lot more that I might find beneficial.  Having so much at my fingertips is a little daunting.

Lastly, as I know I am not the only person who uses this just for running and a dedicated smart watch in the day to day, it would be nice if the app integrated more with other apps.  Backwards and forward compatibility with Apple Health would be nice to get a full picture of my day to day activities.  Further, compatibility to speak with other running apps would be helpful too.  I tend to use Runkeeper to provide audio cues while I am running and sometimes a race will require me to use Strava to track my progress.  Interaction between the apps would help paint the overall picture.