Start with a real Soccer activity
Using Garmin's native activity recording preserves the standard FIT session, route and device metrics in Garmin Connect. Additional fields should complement that record, not replace native distance, speed or heart rate.
Marking periods manually is often more reliable than inferring them from motion. A lap/period button lets you separate halves, drills or repeated efforts without guessing what happened on the field.
Wait for usable GPS
A binary GPS icon hides too much. Before interpreting speed, distinguish between unavailable, searching, poor and usable signal. Poor, stale or implausible samples should pause estimates rather than generate a precise-looking sprint.
- Unavailable: the profile or device is not providing outdoor positioning.
- Searching: wait before starting if route and speed matter.
- Poor: record may continue, but derived sprint estimates should pause.
- Usable: estimates can resume, still with normal wrist-GPS limitations.
A sprint threshold is not sprint detection truth
A single GPS spike above a threshold is not a sprint. A more defensible estimate requires sustained speed, hysteresis around the threshold and a cooldown before counting again. Even then, field position, turns, obstructions and sampling affect results.
Watch Garmin Auto Pause
Native Auto Pause can trigger while walking during corners, goal kicks or other stoppages. If that breaks the session you want, turn Auto Pause off in the watch's Soccer activity settings and use manual pause instead.
Indoor and futsal need different honesty
Without a valid indoor position/speed source, the app should not invent GPS distance or sprint estimates. An Indoor/Futsal profile can still retain time, periods, heart rate and manual markers while clearly showing GPS-derived metrics as unavailable.