Garmin Connect observation
Maybe this has been beaten to death elsewhere...sorry if so.
Some people had noted that GC was starting to give them TSS/IFNP data (even NP for each lap!) while others had not. I think I finally figured this out...I have a 910xt and an older Garmin 705.
I am pretty sure that I am getting the NP (etc) data from uploads of the 910xt, but not from the 705. I am guessing (total guess) that this is due to the file format (.fit vs .tcx) rather than the device, per se. But I am not sure.
The 310xt also uses .fit format I am pretty sure, but does not do on-board TSS/etc calculations. Is GC doing those for people with 310xt? If not, maybe GC is just taking those data off the device instead of calculating it from the fit file itself.
Still waiting for the day where you can zoom in and select (a la Training Peaks)...
William
Comments
GC has some other nice features, like the easy route mapping, etc. Another reason I don't ignore it entirely.
@William
I'm almost positive GC does not calculate the power metric (TSS/NP/IF) on its own and instead just displays the data calculated on-device. GC has displayed TSS/NP/IF for almost a year now for my Edge 800 and not for my 310xt, quite simply because the former supports those metrics on-device and the latter doesn't.
Of course there is no technical reason why they could not calculate and display these metrics in GC through post processing for all devices, they simply just won't for the same reason they backtracked and decided not to bring on-device support to the 310xt; to create artificial product differentiation and drive sales to their higher end units.
The relevance and use of GC vs WKO is a seperate topic, but GC serves a distinct and seperate purpose for me than WKO based primarily off of the fact that it is automatic and no effort invovled on my part. Meanwhile, as a Mac user I would be required to start up my VM of XP, start WKO, start device agent, import my workouts (not always easy for devices like the 310 where you can't mount the device storage as a disk), etc. Frankly, I'm just finding myself less and less convinced that it's actually worth the hassle.
However, as a SW developer I was contemplating what a strange position the GC dev team is likely in. As a provider of a SW service, I would want my service to be full featured and competitive with other offerings. However, to do so requires staff and funding, and you ultimately have to ask what would Garmin get out of this investment? GC does not have ads, other than for other Garmin products, GC has no subscription model, GC really provides no additional revenue stream at all. In fact, I'm sure it costs Garmin quite a bit of money.
So why does it exist? It's a convenience that enhances the subjective desirability of Garmin products. In other words, it's nice to have, and it's just one more thing to dissuade you from going to a competing fitness device.
But that raises an interesting question, Garmin's competition, it's real competition, are your Polar's, Timex's, etc, not your TrainingPeak's or Strava's. However, the better these 3rd party fitness logging services get the more they render GC's competitive advantage irrelevant, I'm not going to sweat losing GC if I buy a Polar device if I can just use Strava or TP instead and be much better off for it.
So in a strange way GC does have some incentive to compete with these other web offerings, albeit for somewhat obfuscated reasons.