Track your runs live from your Garmin

livedot is a free data field for Garmin: the Forerunner 265, 265S and 965, the Fenix 7 range and the Fenix 8, and the Edge bike computers. Once it’s linked to your RunFast account, every run you record on your Garmin is a Run live: live tracking for your followers, your race’s map when you’re in a race, verified kilometres for the RunFast 200, and a private copy in Past. You keep Garmin’s own run screens; the field sits inside them. (Rides record for Windline, with a Windline code: livedot takes one of each.)

Set it up once

1. Install the field. In the Garmin Connect app on your phone, open the Connect IQ Store, search for livedot and install it on your watch.
2. Get a link code. Sign in at runfast.tech/app, open Account and, under Connected apps, choose Link a Garmin. You see an 8-character code starting with R, such as RK7Q-4M2X. It works once, for 10 minutes.
3. Type the code into the field’s settings. In the Garmin Connect app, open your watch, then Connect IQ apps, livedot, Settings, and type the code as the Link code. Save. (Linking Windline too? Its code, starting with W, goes in Second link code.)
4. Add the field to a data screen. On the watch, hold Menu, then open your Run activity’s settings, Data Screens, a screen, a field, and choose Connect IQ, livedot. Any screen works, from one field to four.
5. Start a run with your phone nearby. Within 5 minutes the field links by itself: the Account page says the watch is linked, and the field shows Recording.

Run as usual

Start, pause and save runs on the watch as you always do. Keep your phone with you, Bluetooth on and the Garmin Connect app running: the watch sends through the Garmin Connect app on your phone.

• While Garmin’s timer runs, the field keeps your position every 10 seconds and sends it in batches every 5 minutes. A pause on the watch pauses the Run live.
• Without your phone, the watch holds up to 2 hours of the run and sends it when the phone is back.
• When you save the run on the watch, RunFast finishes it. If the watch doesn’t say so, the run finishes by itself 30 minutes after its last batch, with everything sent kept.

Live on your race’s map

Tap I’m in on the race, then just press Start on your Garmin: you’re live on the race map. When your club’s race is on (from an hour before the gun to a few hours after you should be in) and you’re on its course, your run is your race entry’s live tracking too: you’re on the race map and the club’s live map, with your time against your goal, exactly as if you’d gone live on the race in the app. The field says Live on and the race’s name.

On a club race you said you’re running (I’m in), with live tracking on, a Garmin run joins that race once you’re on its course (from an hour before the start). You’re then shown as the race shows you: to your followers, and to anyone if you made yourself Findable on that race. Never your first kilometre or anything within 1 km of where you started. Stop sharing on the race’s page to keep a Garmin run off it. I’m in creates the entry with live tracking on and Findable off.

• Only races you tapped I’m in on, and only when you’re within 2 km of the course. Entered but running somewhere else? It stays your own Run live.
• Your run still counts toward the RunFast 200 and is kept in Past, as always.

What followers see

A Garmin run is a Run live, with exactly the same privacy rules. Followers see your dot only while you’re running: not while you’re paused or stopped, never in your first kilometre, and never within 1 km of where you started. Your line never shows the first kilometre, and after the finish it never shows the last one.

Who can watch

The watch has no Start screen, so a Garmin run shares the way your last Run live did:

• Your first ever run starts with sharing off: only you see it.
• After that, it takes the Followers can see me choice from your last Run live in the app. If that was on, anyone with your follow link or your livedot link, and the people who follow you in the app, can watch.
• Never Findable by anyone on its own: nobody can find a Garmin run by your name, and it’s never on the challenge map. On a race you’re in, the race’s own choices apply instead (see Live on your race’s map, above).

To change it, start and finish a Run live in the app with the choice you want. See your followers.

The RunFast 200

If you’ve joined the RunFast 200, every Garmin run from 16 to 31 December counts by itself, as verified kilometres, exactly as a Run live from the phone does. See joining the RunFast 200.

Count my rides and runs for the challenges is a setting in Garmin Connect (Connect IQ apps, livedot, Settings). It’s on when you install. Switch it off and the watch stops sending your runs: nothing is recorded, counted or kept, and the field still shows the conditions. Your Garmin stays linked.

Saved to Past

Every finished Garmin run goes to Past, as your own run: private, with its track, like any Run live. Rename or delete it there. A deleted run that counted toward the RunFast 200 keeps counting: only its date, distance, time and sport are kept. See Past.

Running with the phone app too

If you start Run live on your phone and record on the watch at the same time, the phone counts. While the phone is sending, the watch’s points are taken and set aside, so the run is never counted twice. If the phone stops sending for over 10 minutes, the watch’s next run records as usual.

Conditions ahead, too

The field also shows the heat and the wind on the road ahead: the heat stress (Low, Moderate, High or Extreme) and an arrow for the wind against the way you’re running, from RunFast’s forecast, every 5 minutes. It works linked or not.

Unlink

In Account at runfast.tech/app, choose Unlink next to the watch. It stops recording within a minute. Runs it already sent stay counted and in Past. You can link up to 5 Garmins. Deleting your RunFast account removes every linked Garmin, its codes and its records. See what RunFast keeps.