> From: solit...@mail.com > On Wednesday, 12 July 2017 11:07:39 CEST Joerg Desch wrote: >> I"m using a Garmin Edge 520 for my bycicle and a (new) Forerunner for >> running. How can I access Garmin Connect without installing the Windows >> tools? >> >> The Garmin Edge 520 is already registered to my Garmin Connect account. >> I"ve used an old Windows 7 notebook with isn"t functional anymore. Now >> I"ve tried to sync the Edge 520 > I have a Garmin Edge 520, and I use the Garmin Connect app on my smartphone to > sync it, not the Windows tool. I just needed the Windows tool during initial > configuration, but once it"s registered you no longer need it (except for some > rare events when you need it to solve weird sync issues). > I don"t know whether it"s possible to perform the initial configuration steps > without the official Garmin tool, I have a Windows 10 installation on a > libvirt > virtual machine, that I use just for Garmin and iTunes.
I think you need to read up to the NMEA183 protocol, which for a while it was the standard of i/o data ever since the first gps had wired connections on it. This is pre-USB era, we use to splice 9pin serial ports on our own before Garmin started selling wired plugs for 25x the cost. Worth it? Now it is even easier, here is what I found with a quick search https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-1.4.4/fmt_garmin.html But this pdf takes all the mystery out of the input/output of such devices. Nearly 20-25 years have passed and not much has changed https://www.garmin.com/support/pdf/NMEA_0183.pdf To communicate with a Garmin GPS serially, use the name of that serial port such as COM1 or /dev/cu.serial. To communicate via USB use usb: as the filename on all OSes. Thus, to read the waypoints from a Garmin USB receiver and write them to a GPX file: gpsbabel -i garmin -f usb: -o gpx -F blah.gpx If you have multiple units attached via USB, you may provide a unit number, with zero being the implied default. So if you have three USB models on your system, they can be addressed as usb:0, usb:1, and usb:2. To get a list of recognized devices, specify a negative number such as: gpsbabel -i garmin -f usb:-1 When reporting problems with the Garmin format, be sure to include the full unit model, firmware version, and be prepared to offer debugging dumps by adding -D9 to the command line, like: gpsbabel -D9 -i garmin -f usb: -o gpx -F blah.gpx Custom icons are supported on units that support that. Neither GPSBabel nor your firmware know what is associated with any given slot number. They don't know that the picture you placed in the first slot is a happy face, they only know they're in the lowest numbered slot. GPSBabel names the them consistently with Mapsource, so they are named 'Custom 0' through 'Custom 511'. For models where the connection on the GPS is a serial interface, be sure the GPS is set for "Garmin mode" in setup and that nothing else (PDA hotsync programs, gpsd, getty, pppd, etc.) is using the serial port. For models connected via USB, we recommend use of the usb: filename. For this to work on Windows, you must install the Garmin driver. For Linux, this will fail if you have the garmin_gps kernel module loaded. See the Operating System Notes for details.
