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
Service is back up, so just testing real quick, at least on IOS , turning off wifi/cellular (not airplane mode) - my fenix at least seems to still be streaming heart rate data to the app. Not entirely sure what else will update from local data though (if anything).
Turned off WiFi and put phone into Airplane Mode. Verified that Bluetooth is still connected to the watch.
Go into the Connect app. There's a big red box that says "No Internet Connection."
Heart Rate is transmitting to the Connect App in real time.
However, if I try to run a Sync from Connect, it hangs and then fails.
Turn on WiFi and take phone out of Airplane Mode. Run a Sync from Connect. It completes successfully.
Confirmed - If you complete an Activity and want to sync your watch to your phone with the Connect app, your phone must have an Internet connection.
...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.
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.
That argument makes no sense, other than a red herring saying “durr, glass cockpit bad”.
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.