Track your rides live from your Garmin

livedot is a free data field for Garmin: the Edge 540, 840, 1040 and 1050, and the Forerunner 265 and 965 and Fenix 7 and 8 watches. Once it’s linked to your Windline account, every ride you record on your Garmin is a Ride live: live tracking for your followers, your race’s map when you’re in a race, verified kilometres for the Windline 1000, and a private copy in Past. You keep Garmin’s own ride screens; the field sits inside them. (Runs record for RunFast, with a RunFast 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 Edge.
2. Get a link code. Sign in at app.windline.tech, open Account and, under Garmin, tap Link a Garmin. You see an 8-character code starting with W, such as WK7Q-4M2X. It works once, for 10 minutes.
3. Type the code into the field’s settings. In the Garmin Connect app, open your Edge, then Connect IQ apps, livedot, Settings, and type the code as the Link code. Save. (Linking RunFast too? Its code, starting with R, goes in Second link code.)
4. Add the field to a data screen. On the Edge: Settings, Activity Profiles, your profile, Data Screens, a screen, then tap a field and choose Connect IQ, livedot. Any screen works, from one field to four.
5. Start a ride with your phone nearby. Within 5 minutes the field links by itself: the Account page says Garmin linked, and the field shows Recording.

Ride as usual

Start, pause and save rides on the Edge as you always do. Keep your phone with you, Bluetooth on and the Garmin Connect app running: the Edge has no internet of its own, so it 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 Edge pauses the Ride live.
• Without your phone, the Edge holds up to 2 hours of the ride and sends it when the phone is back.
• When you save the ride on the Edge, Windline finishes it. If the Edge doesn’t say so, the ride 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 start to a few hours after the last riders should be in) and you’re on its course, your ride 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 riding (I’m in), with live tracking on, a Garmin ride 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 ride off it.

• Only races you tapped I’m in on, and only when you’re within 2 km of the course. Entered but riding somewhere else? It stays your own Ride live.
• Your ride still counts toward the Windline 1000 and is kept in Past, as always.

What followers see

A Garmin ride is a Ride live, with exactly the same privacy rules. Followers see your dot only while you’re riding: 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 Edge has no Start screen, so a Garmin ride shares the way your last Ride live did:

• Your first ever ride starts with sharing off: only you see it.
• After that, it takes the Followers can see me choice from your last Ride live in the app. If that was on, the people you approve, and anyone with your follow link or your livedot link, can watch.
• Never Findable by anyone on its own: nobody can find a Garmin ride 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 Ride live in the app with the choice you want. See who can see you.

The Windline 1000

If you’ve entered the Windline 1000, every Garmin ride from 16 to 31 December counts by itself, as verified kilometres, exactly as a Ride live from the phone does. See entering the Windline 1000.

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 Edge stops sending your rides: nothing is recorded, counted or kept, and the field still shows the wind. Your Garmin stays linked.

Saved to Past

Every finished Garmin ride goes to Past, as one of your own rides: private, with its track, like any Ride live. Rename or delete it there. A deleted ride that counted toward a challenge keeps counting: only its date, distance, time and sport are kept.

Riding with the phone app too

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

Wind ahead, too

The field also shows the wind on the road ahead: an arrow for where it meets you, the speed, the gusts and how the next stretch rates (Good, Fair or Tough), from Windline’s forecast, every 5 minutes. It works linked or not.

Unlink

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