January 8, 2022

Old versions of Garmin Connect

I now have two Garmin devices, and Instinct watch and a GPSMAP 66i. It would be nice to be able to run "Garmin Connect" on my phone.

This page documents what turned out to be a total dead end and a waste of my time. The various old versions of Garmin Connect I have managed to locate either don't run on my phone as they should or they don't support my devices and tell me to update to the latest version of Garmin connect which of course I cannot do.

The problem with bad software support from Garmin

If you want to pair your Garmin Instinct watch with your Android phone, you need a piece of software called "Garmin Connect".

I have an old Samsung S4 phone running Android 5.0 and Garmin has decided for whatever reason that it isn't worth their trouble to support older versions of Android. The rule of thumb seems to be that nobody keeps a phone longer than 5 years or something of the sort.

This sort of means I am screwed. Maybe -- Probably -- Apparently. I can live without the ability to have notifications forwarded from my phone to my watch. And I can do OK without the ability to send text messages while I am showering (I typically take the watch off anyhow when I am showering).

What would be nice though is to install any new firmware for the Instinct (if there is any) and you need Garmin Connect to do that. Also, Garmin Connect is needed to support my Garmin 66i. On top of all that, Garmin Connect provides a way to download GPS tracks without fussing around with a USB cable (or so I am told).

Hope is not lost

There are sites that keep archives of old Android APK packages. So just because old versions of Garmin connect are not on Google Play doesn't means that there is no hope. I downloaded Garmin Connect 4.29 from "APK4Fun" which was listed as a safe and wholesome site in the first link above. This yielded to following file, which is 42594594 bytes in size (43M). 
com.garmin.android.apps.connectmobile-4.29-APK4Fun.com.apk
They say it requires Android 5.0 and up (my phone runs Android 5). Any newer versions of Android Connect require at least Android 6.0, so this is apprently the last version that supports my phone.

Let's install 4.29

I grab my phone, fire up the "chrome" browser, and navigate to this very page on my site.

This isn't my first rodeo, so before even trying to install it I do the following. Find "Settings", then go to "more" -- "Security" -- "Unknown sources" and check the checkbox (you probably want to go back when you are done and uncheck this).

After that I click on the link below. It downloads the file and offers me an option to "Open" the download. Clicking on this gives me the choice to look at app details or look at the app installer. App details fails. The installer works, informs me of several dozen capabilities the app needs to use to run. I agree and tell it to install. It is busy for quite a while and I get a progress bar. Eventually I get a check mark and the message "App installed". I click "Done" and I am back to my page on Chrome.

I exit Chrome, look under "Apps" and I see "Connect" in blue with a familiar Garmin logo. This of course means almost nothing. I try opening it and get the message "Unfortunately Connect has stopped". So this ends up being quite literally a "non-starter". I restart my phone and get the same result.

Let's try Connect version 3.22

I just happen to have this laying around also, so why not?

First I uninstall 4.29. Then it is basically the same process, albeit with a variety of buggy and confusing business with the Chrome download mechanism. Somehow, all the confusion ended up installing 4.29 yet again. I go to downloads, find and delete 4.29, then try again to download 3.22

In any case, use the link above for 3.22. It seems to download it now and offers the "Open" link for the 3.22 download. I select the package installer, agree to let it do anything and everything, and click INSTALL.

This looks better. It launches and brings up a window that wants me to create an account or sign in. I dig up my account info and password and sign in. Now it warns that I need to turn on bluetooth. I set it next to my Garmin 66i. It tells me I need the latest version of connect to work with the 66i, which is just what I would have expected.

This old version of Connect does know about my Instinct watch, however when I select it, I get the same message about needing the latest version of Garmin connect.

So this is a dead end.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's home page / tom@mmto.org