Almost exactly one year after Strava began a campaign to reel in 3rd party apps, the company itself had to comply with new rules placed upon it, as a direct result of that very campaign last year. Rarely has there been such a pristine example of the phrase “what comes around goes around”. Except of course, it ended way worse for Strava once you account for the lawsuit fiasco.
In any case, Strava began marking not just Garmin activities, but all activities with the data source. This was to comply with new rules that Garmin announced as of July 1st, 2025 in reaction to Strava’s 3rd-party app changes last fall. These updated Garmin API rules required most apps to comply by November 1st, 2025. Note that these rules only impact apps that have a direct connection to Garmin’s data synchronization service. They do not affect you as a consumer directly, or you simply upload your files elsewhere.
These new API rules were, according to Strava itself, the reason why they filed a lawsuit against Garmin 30 days ago for patent infringement, only to then ultimately drop the lawsuit last week. We’ll set aside the fact that they spent those 21 days becoming the laughingstock of the financial & investor world, sports tech world, and legal folks alike. Let alone what consumers thought, and the subscriber losses there.
Unquestionably, filing that lawsuit hardened Garmin’s November 1st API policy deadline for Strava, one that the company has previously said they were flexible on for other companies (if they showed they were working on it). Had Strava not complied with the updated API terms, Strava claimed Garmin would cut them off. That move would have meant no Garmin user data flowed to Strava automatically, nor things like Strava Routes back to Garmin. Effectively giving no reason for any Garmin user to pay Strava, and almost certainly would have caused Strava to have massive business difficulties in a matter of days.
In any case, Strava had to simply attribute any activities coming from the Garmin API as being Garmin-sourced. Despite Strava’s executives misunderstanding the one-page PDF document with illustrations, it did not require a Garmin logo. It merely had to say the word ‘Garmin’ in cases where data was sourced. Note that previously Strava already listed the device type in a number of places. This just put it in more places.
Here’s an example of a screenshot I just happened to take two weeks ago of Shane’s seemingly dumpster fire of an activity (ok, maybe it’s a car, but either way, seems appropriate here), which notably does not show the device type. Whereas as of yesterday, you’ll now see the device listed (Garmin Edge 850), in the header:
(Before at left, after at right)
Beyond that, the device is still shown where it always was, once you open up a given activity, directly below the main block of stats. Here are some relevant examples, showing non-Garmin devices as well. Strava had stated they will be complying with not just Garmin’s requirements, but also adding in attribution for all data sources (ironically, it does seem to be missing in the headers from their also-orange friend, Zwift):
Additionally, attribution doesn’t seem to show on any other data pages, such as these data pages:
Apparently, Garmin & Strava came to some agreement there (temporary or otherwise), as the above is a bit different than the attribution examples Garmin has, which show it below most charts (example from their PDF below):
In talking to a number of smaller apps over the past few weeks, all of them have said that discussions with Garmin have been quite good and reasonably flexible. All of the ones that have talked to me have said the requirements, while not exactly something they wanted to put on their to-do lists, weren’t onerous, difficult, or a big ask.
That said, all of them (every single one of them) expressed the same concern, which is what happens when other companies start asking for attribution as well. For example, Garmin covers multi-sourced data charts, to a degree, here:
The problem comes, though, when you have an app that uses multiple data sources to provide unique insights. Does it become: “Insights derived in part from Garmin device data, Whoop device data, Apple device data”. And per Garmin’s API, that in theory means every single chart, which is just over the top ugly.
I fully get that Strava started this fiasco, and now everyone else has to live with the repercussions of it. All of which sets aside the fact that it’s ultimately the user’s data – not Strava, not Garmin, or anyone else. Sure, the apps are using that API connection, but I’m not convinced that long-term this is going to work, once other companies follow the lead (which they invariably will). It just becomes alphabet soup then.
In any case, until then, thanks for reading!
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My “garmin connect” and Strava are not linked. I upload my fit files manually, and the activities are also attributed with “Garmin Edge 530”. So it does not seem to be a special garmin-Api attribution.
It’s in the fit tile that you upload
Correct. Strava is (logically) making their life easier here. The fastest path to get this done (after delaying for 4 months), would have been to simply take the existing device name attribution they’ve had in place for half a decade or something, and just enumerate it other places.
That existing attribution looks at the source file itself (the .FIT file, etc…). The naming of devices there is actually manual, interestingly enough, where it has to be on an ‘approved’ list to show up. Meaning, if you were to manually modify your device to show “Garmin Edge FOMO” instead of “Garmin Edge 550”, it won’t show “Garmin Edge FOMO” on Strava, but will instead show nothing at all.
It’s how you can see whether a device is released or not, when various sports tech folks upload it. As unreleased devices aren’t added to the Strava device registry until a company manually requests Strava do it. ;)
Unless I’m missing something, there isn’t a device name (as a textual string) per se in the FIT file, there’s a device numerical ID.
The device ID needs to be mapped to a human-friendly name on Strava’s side. This is why it takes a while after a new Garmin device is released for Strava to start attributing it.
So you couldn’t literally change the device in the FIT file to be “Garmin Edge FOMO” unless there was an actual numerical ID corresponding to that hypothetical device. You can change the device in the FIT file to any numerical ID, including an IDs that is unassigned and/or Strava doesn’t know about.
You can verify what I’m talking about by exporting an activity FIT file and opening it in fitfileviewer dot com. In the File ID table, you will see a human-friendly rendering of the product (device) field. In my case, it says “fr955” (for activities recording with my Forerunner 955). But if you click on the toggle in the upper right hand corner to change to Developer Mode, you will see that the actual value for the product field is a number (in my case, 4024 for Forerunner 955).
So it goes beyond “approving” device IDs – Strava needs to know the human-friendly / textual name corresponding to any numerical device ID it sees in a FIT file. Strava obviously can’t just display the numerical ID which would mean nothing to users.
You will also see that various tools for changing the FIT device ID always ask you to select from a *list* of devices, rather than entering a free text name. Again this is because it’s just a number, it’s not actually a free text string.
One such tool for changing the device in a FIT file is at fitfiletools dot com.
You will see there are 2 dropdowns for the device changer tool: manufacturer and device type. These correspond to 2 *numerical* fields in the File ID section of the FIT file.
The combination of manufacturer and device type is should uniquely identify a product from some company such as Garmin.
So to clarify my example above, for my FR955:
– the manufacturer ID is 1 (Garmin)
– the device type is 4024 (FR955)
Presumably any other manufacturer could use 4024 for a different model as long as they also use a different manufacturer ID (which ofc they would do).
In Strava’s defence: it is just extra, useless text/clutter that feels like mandatory frontpage advertising. At least the way it’s implemented now.
You don’t understand then why this was done. Last year STRAVA demanded that all of the applications pulling data from Strava follow extremely strict rules for what Strava was terming as “Strava Data”. But most data on Strava is not FROM Strava. Its from everywhere else. So why should Strava dictate what other applications do with, say, my Garmin data.
This makes it abundantly clear that the data that they are trying to claim as their own, is not in fact, theirs.
Is it possible to hide your device info from appearing on other people’s feeds? I guess it’s not hugely personal, but even so given all of Strava’s various privacy options, it seems odd that you can’t make device info private.
My fear is that all devices will be listed…
My GPS is a Garmin, my heart rate monitor is a Coospo…
Mercy…
“I fully get that Strava started this fiasco, and now everyone else has to live with the repercussions of it. All of which sets aside the fact that it’s ultimately the user’s data – not Strava, not Garmin, or anyone else. Sure, the apps are using that API connection…”
I totally agree with this, except maybe it was Garmin that started this fiasco. Strava, like you and me, just didn’t like it. 😉
Oh, this was definitely Strava starting it. Strava started it last fall, which upset Garmin. Garmin then started working on an attribution plan immediately after that, which was presented to Strava earlier this year (along with other apps), they went back and forth a while, and ultimately led to Strava suing Garmin.