Josh, there’s a lot of commentary online from runners and cyclists over Strava suing Garmin. I am a runner, but I must confess I run to get away from the world – not participate in more online discourse. What’s it all about?
Miles, Strava is the go-to app for runners and cyclists to track their exercise. It has a lot of social features that allow users to race against the times of other users in a sort of social competition, and find popular places to exercise.
It’s the Instagram for exercise – if you feel like boasting about your workouts to the world.
You can track your workouts with your phone and Strava’s internal GPS tracking, but a lot of people are wearing fitness watches because they think they are more accurate. That’s where Garmin comes in. Strava allows Garmin fitness tracking watches to record workout data on its app via its own platform, Garmin Connect.
It’s been a fairly good partnership for both companies for several years, but Strava is now taking Garmin to court in the US, alleging Garmin has infringed on two of Strava’s patents: segments and heat maps.
Segments and heat maps … I’m already lost.
Segments allows users to track their time in a section of a workout on a particular route compared to other users, while heat maps allows users to see where popular routes are across the globe.
Strava claims Garmin has copied these features in breach of the patent, and an agreement the companies made a decade ago for Garmin not to reverse engineer some of the features of Strava’s app for its own purposes.
But why are runners so exercised (see what I did there) about this? Why is my Reddit feed filled with runners freaking out?
You may have heard your insufferable friend say the words “if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen”. Runners are obsessed with their numbers, trying to have the fastest segment times. It’s almost a cult. There are coffee mugs, T-shirts and even people uploading their wedding photos to Strava.
The rise of Strava is happening alongside a running boom – and like any cultural phenomenon, it’s taking place both IRL and online. Strava makes it extremely easy to share data, making it the natural home for fitness influencers.
So while there has been a bit of an outcry over Garmin forcing people to watermark their workouts posted on Strava with Garmin device information from the start of November, a lot of the reaction has actually been against Strava for bringing the case – and potentially making it harder for people to share their runs.
Some users are freaking out that the case will mean their planned workouts are no longer tracked. Some users are saying that while they like the Strava app, they’re more tied into the Garmin device for tracking workouts.
One user pointed out that much of the data included in heat maps on Strava is derived from Garmin users, and Strava stands to lose out more if that data suddenly disappears.
So what does Strava want Garmin to do? Or stop doing?
Strava’s chief product officer Matt Salazar took to Reddit earlier this month to address some of the online discourse about it. He said the case was launched after Garmin ordered Strava to comply with this new watermarking requirement, or face being cut off from being able to use Garmin data by 1 November. The case is in part an attempt to resolve this issue.
In the court docs, Strava is seeking to stop Garmin from selling devices that have the alleged infringing features.
Salazar’s Reddit post was titled “setting the record straight on Garmin”. But in the comments underneath his post, users are saying they won’t keep using Strava if it is cut off, and have accused Strava of hypocrisy over claims they’re trying to protect user data.
At the moment, Garmin has not responded to the claims or to our request for comments. The company has an investor call at the end of the month – crucially before the 1 November Strava cut-off deadline – so I imagine we will hear more then.
What should runners do? What side of this battle should they be on?
Remember that if you go for a run, and it is not on Strava or Garmin, it did happen. Log off, go for a run, and touch the grass.
