Garmin Workouts Can Now Sync to Peloton

The Peloton app and its fitness equipment offer plenty of workout options, but they can’t do everything. If you track some of your workouts with other devices, like a Garmin watch or bike computer, they wouldn’t appear in your Peloton workout history, until now. A new Garmin integration is rolling out and here’s how it works.

How to link your Peloton and Garmin accounts

The new integration allows Peloton to import workouts from Garmin Connect. Garmin Connect is the name of the Garmin app, so it means that workouts you do on a watch (for example, your Forerunner 570) are synced to the Garmin Connect app, and from there to Peloton. This makes not do not require a paid Garmin Connect+ subscription or a paid Peloton subscription. I have neither, and I was still able to set up this integration. Here’s how to do it:

1. In the Peloton app, go to the You icon in the bottom right.

2. Tap the hamburger menu at the top right.

3. Select Connected apps and devices.

4. Tap the Garmin icon and follow the instructions.

You can choose to automatically import activities (you’ll probably want to say yes), and you can also select specific activity types. For example, you can tell it to only import running and cycling, or you can tell it to import everything except hiking. Peloton says imported workouts will count toward goals and challenges, but not your Peloton streak.

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Once you’ve set this up, new activities you do with Garmin will appear in your workout history. Some information stands out, but not necessarily all. For example, I did a short Pilates workout with named exercises. The Peloton app shows me its duration, calories, and a heart rate graph including zones. But it doesn’t include exercise names, even though the Garmin app has that information. My treadmill running workout showed the above, along with pace and speed graphs, but didn’t mark laps or give any of the advanced data collected by Garmin, like running dynamics.

How to sync both ways

Unfortunately, this new integration only goes one way. Garmin workouts appear in your Peloton app, but Peloton workouts don’t sync with your Garmin history.

A popular way to sync Peloton workouts with your Garmin account is to use a third-party app called SyncMyWorkout. This service isn’t affiliated with either company, but you can sync it with your Peloton and Garmin accounts so it acts as an intermediary. When you set it up, it will import your workouts from last week for free, in demo form. To continue using it, there is a subscription fee of $7 per month or $25 per year. This assumes you have an active Peloton subscription but does not require a paid Garmin subscription.

For a more expensive but more DIY approach, there’s also the DFC, a $125 box that plugs into your Peloton bike and transmits workout data via Bluetooth directly to your Garmin device. No Peloton account is needed and I was able to get it to work perfectly with a bike without a subscription.