Re:Under Armour dumped an app
by 762236 on Friday February 07, 2020 @12:31PM
(#22268414)
It is tough. One of the nice things about the Garmin universe is that they have a foundation of open standards that help with interoperability and forward continuity if parts of that universe close. The FIT file format is open. The ANT+ protocol is open I believe, but devices can also use BLE which is open. If I preserve all of my FIT files, and Strava decided to close down, I could upload them all to Training Peaks or an alternative site. I've already written my own analysis software which didn't require permission from any website for access to my data. My Garmin device gives me access to the FIT files without requiring a cloud service.
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The ANT+ protocol and FIT file format are sort of open. They are well documented and available to everyone. Multiple independent companies do contribute. But ultimately they are controlled by Garmin; they aren't true open standards like WiFi, TCP/IP, or HTML.
Agreed. When I have tried to work with it [1], the format has been anything but open. It's been a mixture of other people's libraries and reverse-engineering to make Garmin files work for my needs.
There is an SDK with a license agreement that is probably more descriptive, but the license terms are not what one expects from measurement instrumentation.