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Garmin Device Timezone & Time

Garmin devices automatically adjust for Local Time, Timezone and Daylight Saving Time (DST), but this depends on how the device is set up and synchronized:

Bluetooth Synchronization ✅

Whenever a Garmin device is synchronized via Bluetooth, either with the participant’s smartphone (Garmin Connect App or Fitrockr Sync App) or via a multi-sync tablet (Fitrockr Hub Multi-Sync App), it will receive the smartphone’s or tablet’s time setting and update device’s local time, timezone and daylight saving time. 
 
Regular Bluetooth syncs will ensure accurate time settings on the device and thus in the data collection. 

USB Cable Synchronization ❌

Whenever a Garmin device is synchronized via USB cable, either via a multi-sync tablet (Fitrockr Hub Multi-Sync App) or a laptop (File Upload), it will NOT receive the smartphone’s, tablet’s or laptop’s time setting. The Garmin device’s local time, timezone and daylight saving time will not be updated in this case. 
 
This can become problematic if a device is used for several weeks or months without a Bluetooth sync. In this case, device will never be updated in terms of time and will miss daylight savings time changes. As a result, data collection will be stored with a wrong timestamp.
 
As a workaround, time can be adjusted manually on devices. Go to 
(a) Setting > System > Time > Time Sync (this will do a one-off time sync via GPS). This is only available for GPS compatible devices. 
Alternatively, go to (b) Setting > System > Time > Set Time.

On most Garmin devices, it is not possible to manually adjust the date. If date has become off, a Bluetooth sync is necessary to adjust the date.

GPS compatible devices will NOT update their time or date automatically, even though they have GPS built in!
 
We recommend that USB cable sync projects analyze UTC timestamps in their data collection instead of local timestamps.
 

Turned off Devices and Empty Battery Impact

When a device is turned off for longer periods of time, it may lose its date and time settings even if the battery has still energy left.

If the device powered down due to empty battery, it will still maintain the date and time clock for some time (days). If device is not charged, the date and time will become off.

We recommend checking date and time for all devices that have not been used for a while before handing them out for USB cable synchronization projects.