[1] Local-first software:
[2] Murphy's law:
You can setup a watch without a phone and without ever activating the online services.
They are here only for backup and additional features like social sharing. You can also backup locally with open source software if you want.
That's why I chose one and it's one of the best products I ever had.
How's the outgoing connection established to send the position established then?
I think the only major impact is that "coached" activities won't be available, but everything else in the watches works without a network connection. Data history isn't hugely available on the watch either, but that's just an inconvenience.
It might be annoying, but it still works. Without a note in the app, i would not have noticed.
Garmin support[2] is not really good. Some commenters here mentioned that Garmin watches can work without servers, maybe that's why.
It's not local-first by definition, because you still need a phone with an app, but it's the best I got for now (apart from finally assembling my PineTime watch).
How does that work? Does the watch have its own SIM card? Does she need to carry a phone for the Garmin watch to work?
Asking for I bought a cheap chinese watch but it's a standalone watch that takes a SIM and, James Bond style, allows to pass and receive phone calls (without needing a lame iPhone in your pocket: the watch is really standalone). The phone feature is really fine but sadly the battery empties quickly (in a day) and the location isn't very accurate.
This affects most (all?) Garmin fitness products such as the popular Fenix watches.
The Garmin Connect app seems to be completely useless without the Garmin Connect servers being up. It is not even possible to see local data on the phone.
I guess this also means that at some point in the future when Garmin discontinues the servers an enormous amount of watches becomes useless worldwide.
The problem that happened last time is the satellite shortcut files for GPS were never updated for weeks and went stale, so GPS took minutes to lock instead of seconds.
However it is well known now after years how to create the GPS files for mediatek chipsets.
What's never been documented is how to make them for the SONY GPS chipsets.
EPO.bin (mediatek) vs CPE.bin (sony)
this paper lists other potential sources for those files
https://fruct.org/publications/volume-29/fruct29/files/Vin.p...
ADDING:
aha! this is the url for direct download of CPE.bin which you should put into the \GARMIN\REMOTESW directory on your garmin watch/device that has SONY GPS (not mediatek)
#(save as CPE.bin into \GARMIN\REMOTESW )
# https://api.gcs.garmin.com/ephemeris/cpe/sony/lle?coverage=WEEKS_1&constellations=GPS,GLONASS,GALILEO,QZSSNot the case, I can see all the local data from my watch in the app and still sync the two, just missing cloud backups and online specific functionality
The “not FAA approved” isn’t a thing — there are devices that go in uncertified (experimental) aircraft, but those also don’t depend on live connections to Garmin services.
...like, in an emergency it's cool to be able to click a button on your watch and see the closest airport, but you're supposed to have paper maps, a flight plan, a checklist, etc, etc.
I guess it might need second refresh to properly fallback to local mode
They certainly can change that in the future but they haven't so far
Not necessarily, some (many?) of these watches are usable without being connected to a phone. Besides being a funcional watch, including timers and alarms, all the fitness tracking and activity recording features work fine, even those that use GPS, at least on my Venu 2.
I can still see and navigate through everything
Yes, I think it was so obvious from their UX/UI because it has lags when you use the application which is very common on basic UI front-end consuming remote APIs as its where local. I would say that it even feel slower than great web apps that also depend on remote services.
- Coordination of supply drops during multi-day backcountry ski tours.
- Weather updates in the Rocky Mountains where weather can change in an instant.
- Contacting a personal dispatch POC over messaging during an avalanche injury that required SAR without having to hit the SOS button.
Additionally, my wife relies on her inReach mini every day as a safety net as a biologist in remote areas of Colorado. Most people I encounter in the outdoors space rarely use their Garmin for navigation. Instead they use an app akin to onX, Gaia, CalTopo, etc.
It may just be mobile services?
Hopefully they were not hacked again and wiped out like last time where the had to do a full restore for a month.
Another option for syncing is the desktop app, or just manually copying the fit files to somewhere. I sometimes copy the fit files and convert them to gpx to upload GPS traces places. Also I can view the GPX files in e.g. gpxsee which shows them on a map.
Ransomware might be the underlying cause though.