Using the watch app
Once paired, your next three days of sessions are on your wrist. You train from the watch, it records a normal Garmin activity, and the result comes back to your plan.
What reaches your wrist
The next three days of sessions, each broken into its blocks with the target, a short cue line, and a picture on the first exercise. Rest days come through as rest, so an empty day never looks like a missing one.
The watch fetches this itself. Nothing is pushed from the phone, so there is no syncing step to remember.
Training from it
Start a session and the watch guides you block by block, with countdowns, targets, a heart rate gauge and what is coming next.
It records a normal Garmin activity while you work, with heart rate, GPS and laps that line up with your plan, so it appears in Garmin Connect like any other session.
If you start the same session on your phone as well, the two share one position. Move on from the watch and the phone follows, within a few seconds, and the same for pausing.
A move done on each side is one block on the watch, for now. A stretch held 40 seconds each side runs one 80 second timer with an “Each side” note, so switch sides halfway. Reps show the count for one side. The phone splits the same move into a left and a right step, and follows the watch past both when you move on from the wrist.
When you save on the watch, the phone shows the workout as saved once the watch has sent it, with the watch’s time and effort. If the watch asks how hard it felt, that is after you answer. Any reps and weights you logged on the phone are kept.
What comes back
When you finish, the result returns to Smash Coach and the session is marked done, with the time, the heart rate data and the distance. That is where the heart rate and pace on a completed workout come from.
Finished somewhere with no signal? Nothing is lost. The result is queued and sent when the watch reconnects.
What is not on the watch
Full exercise descriptions. A Connect IQ app can only receive so much in one go, and the descriptions were more than half of it, which cost whole plans rather than just the descriptions. They stay in the app, and the watch shows the short cue for each movement.
Sessions still being written. A session with no exercises is not sent, because a watch cannot explain an empty workout and can mark it done.
Unlinking
You, then Settings, then Connected devices. You are asked to confirm and told what stops working. You can pair again later with a fresh code.
Common questions
- How many days does the watch hold?
- The next three. It refreshes itself, so what is on your wrist stays in step with what your coach has written.
- Why is there no full exercise description on the watch?
- There is a hard limit on how much a Connect IQ app can receive in one go, and full descriptions do not fit inside it. Trying anyway cost whole plans, so the watch gets the short cue line instead and the description stays in the app.
- Why is a stretch held each side one long timer on the watch?
- The watch does not have separate left and right screens yet, so a move done on each side is one block with an Each side note, and a timed one runs for both sides together: 40 seconds each side is one 80 second timer, so switch halfway. Reps show the count for one side. The phone shows the same move as a left and a right step, and keeps up with the watch.
- Can I train without my phone?
- Yes. Sessions are fetched ahead of time and a finished workout is queued if you are offline, then sent when the watch reconnects.
- Can I use the phone and the watch together?
- Yes. Start the session on either and the two stay in step within a few seconds, including pausing. When you save on the watch, the phone shows the workout as saved once the watch has sent it, and any reps and weights you logged on the phone are kept.
- A session is missing from my watch.
- Sessions your coach is still writing are not sent, because the watch cannot explain an empty workout and can mark it done. It appears once it is written.
Still stuck
Open the app, go to You, and tap the feedback row at the bottom. It reaches a person, not a queue. Or write to hello@smashcoach.app.