C[omp]ute

From: andrew cooke <andrew@...>

Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 21:56:24 -0400

I recently bought a Forerunner 230 and have been trying to work out
how best to integrate it with other software.

For uploading data to Strava you can simply connect the watch to a
Linux machine, open the thing as a USB drive, grab the relevant file,
and manually upload to the web.

If you want to use the watch as a "smart watch" then you need an
Android (or I guess Apple) device.  That must include bluetooth 4.0,
so my ancient Nexus tablet doesn't cut it (but that would be silly
anyway, because you need to carry this around with the watch).

If you want to update the OS then you need a Windows or Apple
computer, on which you run a program called Garmin Express.  This
works together with the Garmin Connect (which also connects to the
app).  It's all rather clunky, but lets you upload software to the
watch over USB.

Using Express also messes up your settings (settings in the website
seem to overwrite settings made using the watch).  But since the whole
thing isn't that wonderful anyway the best approach seems to be to use
it once to update to the latest OS and then ignore.


So, in summary: you need a non-Linux computer to upgrade the OS.  But
for day-to-day use you can do things with Linux alone.  Unless you
want the "smart watch" features in which case you will presumably have
the appropriate phone.

And WIndows 7 in VirtualBox worked fine for running Express (you need
to insteall the proprietary extras package for VB to get USB working
and you need to add yourself to the vboxusers group for device
permissions to work OK).

Andrew