Garmin Physio TrueUp – Synchronise Your Physiological Data Across Multiple Devices

Yesterday Garmin announced their TrueUp feature. It was no secret that this has been in development for some time and it syncs some of your physiological data across multiple devices.

It is already available in some firmware versions, like this for the Fenix 5S: https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=11661

What Happens?

After downloading the firmware you will be prompted to enable Physio TrueUp

What is Sync’d

For now it will be: VO2 max, recovery time, training status and training load plus your activities

Me: as of 6/6/2018 I’m not seeing activities transferred to the 935 from either the edge 820 or forerunner 235 and that is testing files that do/do not contain hr data. The ‘test’ files did find their way to Garmin Connect from the 820/235.

What Devices?

These: Edge 1030, Forerunner 935, Forerunner 645, Vivoactive 3, Fenix 5 series

The Garmin press release notes that data from other, non compatible, devices will be transferred TO the compatible devices. I take that to mean that the TrueUp metrics go one-way from those devices.

However it seems, looking at the Garmin forums (link to: garmin.com), that this expected behaviour might only apply to Garmin devices and not to data from Zwift, Sufferfest, etc. Possibly this might be linked to data being transferred to CONNECT, effectively, as a TCX file (I’m not sure about that).

How?

Cycling and Running TrueUp data are considered separate for VO2max.

Data for the last 30 days are considered valid. So if you did an awesome VO2max session 29 days ago and you’ve just bought a new, compatible Garmin device then the VO2max should transfer over to the new device.

Benefit

Clearly if you have more than one device then the potential exists to have different VO2max values on each device. This is clearly nonsensical & wrong – but hopefully now solved.

Your Training Load is necessarily comprised of ALL your trainign load and not just the load recorded on one device. Again, the previous situation was clearly nonsensical & wrong – but hopefully now solved.

The same argument applies to training status and recovery time.

You also will now get all you on-watch totals as being correct.

You may have previosuly been taking two devices with you to ensure that one was kept up-to-date. You no longer have to do that. Indeed it will be interesting to see how duplicate sessions from different devices are handled. No doubt that has been thoroughly thought through.

What Do Garmin Say In FAQs?

• When enabled Physio TrueUp will sync activity summary data and display it on the watch, regardless of the device activity was recorded on. (Edge 810 activities, for example will show in the activity history on the Forerunner 935)
• Physiological Metrics can update from devices that do not support Physio TrueUp. Example, Training Load and Vo2 Max (sic) can update on the Forerunner 935 after an activity from an Edge 520 is synced to the device.
• Recording all activities with heart rate will ensure the most accurate data.
• Recovery Time is the only metric that will require both devices to have Physio TrueUp support. This will mean that the Recovery Time on a Forerunner 935 will not update based on an activity coming from an Edge 810.

 

Summary: Nice to have

Here’s What You Might See In Garmin Express When You Update The Firmware

I’m not entirely sure it’s all working on 6Jun with many devices not properly completing their sync. Remember that old adage your IT told you about and which you ignored “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I’ll add to that….let someone else fix it and wait a while, if you can.