Fitness watch privacy

I'm wondering if anyone has deep insights on maintaining relative data privacy when using a fitness watch. In my case I'm looking at Garmin and Coros watches with GPS capabilities, mainly for use for Uphill Athlete training programs (using heart rate for monitoring zones, GPS for tracking vert and distance) and maybe for tracking long ridge traverses. I've looked at both of the companies' privacy policies and am not convinced of really what data ends up where.

Ideally for me I would keep my data on my laptop, run some basic algorithms in their apps for inference, and that would be it. Now I realize that by using GPS features, I'm sharing some data, but my aim would be to keep biometric data locally, or if offsite, have it encrypted.

Now we can have the discussion (preferably not here) about whether it really matters about keeping your data private or not, and what privacy really means, but I'm hoping someone will share their insights on how to configure Coros or Garmin watches to keep biometric data local, still use GPS, and hopefully not lose out on too many features. If one company is better in this sense, I'm all ears.

Thanks!

I use the Coros Apex and as far as I know you cannot use the watch without the app and the data is automatically uploaded to the server. For the sake of your question I plugged the watch into my Windows pc and the device does not have local storage exposed.

Its been a few years since I used Garmin, but I think you may be able to use the Garmin Express desktop app for firmware updates and to get your gpx data for whatever purpose you want without it going to Garmin Sync (cloud). I think you can also look at the device on the pc and mange the .fit workout files yourself. At the minimum you will probably miss out on watch face customization and metrics provided by Garmin. Im not sure you can block cloud upload for either device once its in the app as you almost certainly need to make an account to use the apps. You would need to also use your own offline tool to manage your gpx/hr/gps workout history and metrics if that is important.

The final thought is that HR data and any bt peripheral biometric data is stored in the GPX file with the GPS data for a workout, and in terms of cloud sync the watch app wont untangle those and send only the gps data to server. For me personally though, the gps data is probably more of a privacy leak than HR data and downstream metrics from HR data.

Don't know about Coros, but with a Garmin device like a Fenix or Forerunner you can connect it to a PC (not a Mac) as a USB mass storage device. All your workouts are stored in the device's Garmin\Activity\ folder as .fit files, and you can copy them manually to your PC. You could also delete them from your device to prevent uploading to Garmin Connect (their cloud platform) next time you sync your device (which you'll need to do from time to time to keep its firmware current with the latest bug fixes).

Alternatively, you could sync the device with Garmin Connect, download your data to your laptop in the form of .fit files, and then delete the data from Garmin Connect.

Having said that, I don't know of any apps than you can run locally on your laptop that will allow you to make sense of the HR data in your .fit files. (The watch itself provides minimal information). I think you're pretty much obliged to use a cloud platform like Garmin Connect, TrainingPeaks or Strava if you want to do anything like calculating TRIM scores or monitoring cumulative progress.

Someone on reddit found that Coros sends data to China. I still use mine because of the battery life, and I suppose I am resigned to the fact that CPC will see my amazing PR's on Cable Line trail.

Martin le Roux wrote:

Having said that, I don't know of any apps than you can run locally on your laptop that will allow you to make sense of the HR data in your .fit files. (The watch itself provides minimal information). I think you're pretty much obliged to use a cloud platform like Garmin Connect, TrainingPeaks or Strava if you want to do anything like calculating TRIM scores or monitoring cumulative progress.

Don't know much about the privacy aspect, but re: the last point, I do believe there are options for analyzing data locally. I came across one when I was trying to fix a corrupt .fit file: 

https://www.goldencheetah.org/

Can't speak to its use as I didn't end up using it very much. Also, it appears to be geared towards cyclists. But it seems to have a lot of analysis features, so it may be useful for analyzing data locally.

Thanks for the insights everyone. Definitely useful to know about Coros not exposing the data files when plugged into a computer, and also that bit about China.

It does seem like there should be a push for desktop compute or encryption of data if it's done on a company's servers. Maybe it's viewed as just another drop in the bucket given all the data we share from browsing, carrying our phones all the time, etc., but I think there are existing solutions in use for healthcare data.

I'm going to look more into Golden Cheetah. Will report back if I find it useful!

You can set up geo fences to not share start/end points near home, work, etc addresses with followers or strangers.

You can make your profile private.

... Thats all I have to add, sorry lol.

Sean Anderson wrote:

I'm wondering if anyone has deep insights on maintaining relative data privacy when using a fitness watch. In my case I'm looking at Garmin and Coros watches with GPS capabilities, mainly for use for Uphill Athlete training programs (using heart rate for monitoring zones, GPS for tracking vert and distance) and maybe for tracking long ridge traverses. I've looked at both of the companies' privacy policies and am not convinced of really what data ends up where.

Ideally for me I would keep my data on my laptop, run some basic algorithms in their apps for inference, and that would be it. Now I realize that by using GPS features, I'm sharing some data, but my aim would be to keep biometric data locally, or if offsite, have it encrypted.

Now we can have the discussion (preferably not here) about whether it really matters about keeping your data private or not, and what privacy really means, but I'm hoping someone will share their insights on how to configure Coros or Garmin watches to keep biometric data local, still use GPS, and hopefully not lose out on too many features. If one company is better in this sense, I'm all ears.

Thanks!

I urge you to free yourself from the tyranny of wrist tech. What can this data do for you besides distract you from what's really happening? 

I wore one of the damned things for a little bit, got sucked into upping the numbers and what have you, but nothing really changed, it was just a distraction.

Back in my day is was "Kill your television", now who's watching who?

Bill W wrote:

I urge you to free yourself from the tyranny of wrist tech. What can this data do for you besides distract you from what's really happening? 

I wore one of the damned things for a little bit, got sucked into upping the numbers and what have you, but nothing really changed, it was just a distraction.

Back in my day is was "Kill your television", now who's watching who?

While I try to minimize tech during my workouts (no headphones while running or biking for example), and I’ve long shied from a fitness watch, I do think better zone, vert, and distance tracking would help me to train smarter, as I tend to go too fast on slow days and resultingly slow on regular workouts.

Sean Anderson wrote:

While I try to minimize tech during my workouts (no headphones while running or biking for example), and I’ve long shied from a fitness watch, I do think better zone, vert, and distance tracking would help me to train smarter, as I tend to go too fast on slow days and resultingly slow on regular workouts.

If you want to see how far you went, and elevation, you can map it out on sites like: gmap-pedometer.com/

That doesn't get saved anywhere if you don't want it saved. You can also use a HR monitor watch that doesn't have a GPS in it. They're cheap these days. You also don't need to connect them to a computer and upload the data. I do like using a cheap HR monitor when doing speed workouts because max HR and cooldown laps are important for that. But I don't track it. No need to. I also don't like having all the stuff (headphones/phone/other gadgets) on me when going out for a run. Its a nice period of time where I'm not being bombarded by media where I can clear my head.

I've heard good things about goldencheetah, but have not used it myself.

AaronJ wrote:

Don't know much about the privacy aspect, but re: the last point, I do believe there are options for analyzing data locally. I came across one when I was trying to fix a corrupt .fit file: 

https://www.goldencheetah.org/

Can't speak to its use as I didn't end up using it very much. Also, it appears to be geared towards cyclists. But it seems to have a lot of analysis features, so it may be useful for analyzing data locally.

Golden cheetah is an incredible piece of software, but pretty overkill for simple tracking. And as you said not so great for anything outside of cycling, but you can modify your screens to make it work.

I've never used TurtleSport, but it's an opensource project for simple logging. turtlesport.sourceforge.io/…