No coding needed. If you're a developer who wants Garmin data in your own app, see Build with Garmin data instead.
If you wear a Garmin watch, you have months or years of data about your sleep, heart rate, recovery and training sitting in the Garmin Connect app. It's all there, but asking it a simple question, like "Am I sleeping worse since I started marathon training?", means a lot of tapping through charts.
This series is about asking that question in plain words instead, using Claude and a free Garmin connector I built. You don't need to be a programmer, and there's nothing to install.
In this first part:
- Adding the connector (about two minutes)
- What it can see, what it stores, and how to remove it
- The first five questions to ask
A real answer from the connector. The numbers have been changed for privacy.
What you need
- A Garmin Connect account. If you use a Garmin watch, you have one.
- A Claude account at claude.ai. The connector works in Claude on the web, in the Claude phone apps and in Claude Desktop.
A quick but important note: this connector is unofficial. It isn't made by Garmin or by Anthropic. It's open source, and it talks to Garmin the same way the Garmin Connect app does.
Step 1: add the connector
You add it once on the web, and it then follows your Claude account to your phone and computer.
1. Go to claude.ai and click Customize in the left sidebar, then Connectors.
2. Click Add at the top right, then Add custom connector.
3. Name it Garmin, and paste this address into MCP server URL:
https://garmin.ficdev.xyz/mcp
4. Click Continue.
If you don't see Add custom connector, custom connectors may not be available on your Claude plan, or your organisation's admin may have turned them off. Claude's help center lists which plans include them.
Step 2: sign in to Garmin
A Garmin sign-in window opens. Enter the email and password you use for Garmin Connect.
- Two-factor codes work. If Garmin sends you a code by email or text, the window asks for it next.
- It takes a few seconds. Garmin's sign-in has several steps behind the scenes, so a short wait after you press the button is normal.
When you've signed in, the window sends you back to Claude, and the connector shows a tick in your list:
Using the Claude phone app? You don't need to do anything there. Once the connector is on your account, the app picks it up automatically. The same goes for Claude Desktop.
Step 3: ask your first question
Start a new chat and ask:
How did I sleep this week compared with last week?
Claude works out which Garmin data it needs, fetches it and answers. Above the answer you'll see a small line like "used Garmin MCP integration". Click it to see exactly what it did: here it looked up the right tool, then called getSleepDaily for the two weeks.
This is worth a look now and then. It shows you which dates Claude actually asked for, so you can tell a careful answer from a guess.
The first time, Claude may ask your permission to use the connector. You can allow it once, or always.
Five good first questions
- "How did I sleep this week compared with last week?"
- "What has my HRV done over the last month? Anything unusual?"
- "Am I ready to train hard today?"
- "What were my last five runs? Compare their pace and average heart rate."
- "What do my race predictions say, and how have they changed since the summer?"
Plain questions work best. You don't need to know what any of the Garmin data is called. Follow-up questions work too: "Why do you think Tuesday was so bad?"
What it can see and store
This is your health data, so here's exactly what happens to it.
What Claude can do. Through the connector, Claude can read your Garmin data, and it can also save some things for you: workouts, weigh-ins, and changes like renaming an activity. Anything that deletes or overwrites data is marked as destructive, so Claude asks you before doing it. You'll see the workout features in Part 3.
What the connector stores.
- Your password goes to Garmin once, at sign-in, and is never stored.
- Your Garmin session isn't stored on the server either. It's encrypted inside the connection token that your Claude account keeps.
- The server keeps one small record per connection: a random id, a scrambled reference to your Garmin account, the app's name (for example "Claude"), and timestamps. It's deleted after 35 days without use.
- Your Garmin data passes through to Claude and isn't kept.
What Claude sees. The data the connector fetches becomes part of your conversation, the same as anything you paste into a chat. How Claude handles conversations is covered by Anthropic's privacy policy.
The connector's full privacy policy states all of this as facts about the code, which is open source.
Removing it
Either of these disconnects it:
- In Claude, go to Customize → Connectors and remove Garmin.
- Or, the next time you sign in to Garmin through the connector, tick "Disconnect my other Garmin connections".
To end the session on Garmin's side as well, change your Garmin password.
If something doesn't work
"Sign-in failed" or "too many attempts." Garmin limits how often you can sign in. Wait 15 minutes and try again. You only need to sign in once; after that the connection keeps itself alive as long as you use it at least once a month.
Saving fails, but reading works (European accounts). If you're in the EU and Claude says Garmin refused to save something, your Garmin account hasn't granted upload consent yet. It's a one-time setting in your Garmin Connect account's privacy settings, and Garmin requires it for every app that saves data to your account. Grant it there, then try again.
Claude says there's no data. It can only see what your watch recorded and synced to Garmin Connect. A night you didn't wear the watch, or a feature your watch doesn't have (some don't measure HRV), shows up as no data.
Claude didn't use Garmin at all. Start your question with "From my Garmin data, …", or check that the connector is switched on in the chat's tools menu.
What's next
In Part 2 we'll go deeper on asking questions: comparing weeks and months, checking whether you're recovering well, reading race predictions sensibly, and how to tell when Claude's answer is solid and when it's guessing.
- Set-up guides for every Claude app: garmin.ficdev.xyz/claude
- How it's built (for the curious): my first post
What was the first thing you asked? Tell me in the comments. I collect good questions for the next post.
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