Strava vs. Garmin: the row splitting the running community

The running community has been caught in the middle of a bitter legal row between the twin titans of athletic technology.

Strava, the app widely known as the Instagram for exercise, is suing rival platform Garmin for allegedly copying its features, in a dispute that one runner on TikTok summed up as being “like Mom and Dad fighting”.

Segments and heat maps

Strava is a fitness tracking app with social features that allow users to record their times, race against others, find popular routes for runs or cycle rides, and share their progress. “Any tech-wearing athlete pushing themselves to the absolute limit just to get a ‘Local Legend’ wreath” on the app will “likely attest” that “if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen”, said CBC.

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Garmin, meanwhile, specialises in GPS-enabled devices, with its smartwatches particularly popular among runners. And while the Strava app offers its own GPS tracking, many users like to use wearable technology, such as Garmin’s fitness watches, “because they think they are more accurate”, said The Guardian.

Until recently, a truce had prevailed, with Strava allowing users with Garmin watches to record data from its app. But now Strava claims Garmin has infringed on two of its copyrighted features: segments, which allow users to track their time in a particular section of a workout compared to other users, and heat maps, a visual representation of the popularity of different routes in an area. Strava says these features breach an agreement the two companies made in 2015 for Garmin “not to reverse engineer some of the Strava app’s features for its own purposes”.

Freaking out

Dedicated runners aren’t taking all of this particularly well. Running is enjoying a boom in popularity – “and like any cultural phenomenon, it’s taking place both IRL and online”. For the most devoted, the Strava app is “almost a cult”, with branded coffee mugs and T-shirts and “even people uploading their wedding photos” to share with followers.

But while Garmin’s decision to force customers to watermark their Garmin data on Strava has been met with dismay, “a lot of the reaction has actually been against Strava for bringing the case” in the first place, with some runners “freaking out” about the impact of the row on their fitness routines.

However, in a Reddit post entitled “Setting the record straight about Garmin”, Strava’s chief product officer, Matt Salazar, accused Garmin of initiating the conflict. New guidelines issued for app developers “required the Garmin logo to be present” on all Garmin data uploaded to third-party apps, like Strava. Those who do not cooperate by November risk losing access to any data collected by Garmin smartwatches from being uploaded to Strava.

When and how the stand-off is resolved remains to be seen. For now, amateur runners who have yet to enter the fitness tracking world “might want to wait and see” how this “dispute develops” before they commit to buying any pricey tech, said TechRadar.