I’ve been using the the Amazfit BIP smartwatch for sometime now. In my opinion, if what you need is just a simple activity (running, walking, cycling) tracker so you can leave your phone at home, this is the best option. It does not have fancy look or functionality, but it has a working GPS, useful heart-rate sensor and a super long battery life (up-to a month) only for around IDR 880,000 (USD 63) in Indonesia.
So what’s the catch? Unlike popular smartwatches (Garmin, Polar and Android-Wear-OS-based brands), Amazfit BIP does not provide straight-forward way to sync our activities to fitness assistant apps such as Nike Run Club, Endomondo, Strava, Google Fit .etc. Its official app, Mi Fit, does not even provide activity export feature (to common .TCX format). ?
Luckily, after browsing around, I found a cool app, Notify & Fitness (currently only for Android), and cool website, Garmin Connect, that can help us sync Amazfit BIP activities easily and affordably (sorry, no free lunch, guys ?). There may be some other ways to achieve this, but the strategy (shown in diagram below) is currently suit me best.
Before get into the sync flow, here are some prerequisites:
- Create an account (free) in https://connect.garmin.com. Don’t worry, we can create an account even if we don’t have any Garmin device.
- Login to your fitness assistant apps (Endomondo, Nike Run Club, etc), then connect them to your Garmin Connect account. Since Garmin is very popular, most fitness assistant apps should have this feature.
- Install Notify & Fitness app and pair it to your Amazfit BIP using bluetooth
Now we can sync our Amazfit BIP activities to all apps connected to Garmin Connect using these two simple steps:
- Open Notify & Fitness app, connect to Amazfit BIP, sync latest activities, then export each activity in .TCX format to your phone storage. Exporting to .TCX is a premium feature that requires one time small payment of IDR 28,000 (USD 2). Free trial option is also available for limited time. Trust me it’s worth the price! ?
- Once you have the .TCX file(s), login to https://connect.garmin.com, then upload the .TCX file(s) from “Upload or Import Activity” menu. Done!
In few seconds, your activities should be synced to fitness assistant apps. If they don’t, you may want to reconnect them to Garmin Connect and/or simply relogin each of them.
Happy exercising!
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