Why can't we just connect a garmin watch (or edge or gps) to our ai machine, have it extract all the data with MTP or garmin format, and keep it local. Then ask questions.

Honestly I've been wondering if in the near future I can basically have a big machine and some sort of "ingest" program.

Then keep connect my devices to it, where it will backup all the data, and mine the backups for information I want.

Mine my iphone backups for text messages or contacts

mine all my devices for photos or videos

mine my watch or bike computer or gps or whatever else for where I've been and how I've exercised.

instead, everyone wants your data and imposes themselves in the middle.

Just connect your garmin to intervals.icu

I highly recommend GadgetBridge for anyone wanting to avoid Garmin's cloud services: https://gadgetbridge.org/

I've been using the unofficial Garmin APIs as well, but instead of an MCP I wrote an app that waits until my watch syncs after I wake up and then grabs all of yesterdays data and puts it into a Notion db.

It's been working great. The Claude morning brief compares my sleep, HRV, training status, calendar, and weather and then tells me when and how hard to workout that day.

SparkyFitness has an MCP and you can connect Garmin to it:

https://github.com/CodeWithCJ/SparkyFitness

> Imagine how great an Instagram MCP would be. You could create your own feed algorithm (such as the OG algorithm: just pictures from friends based on when they posted). Users would be able to filter out all the influencer content and ads Instagram throws on them. But Instagram would never do this.

See also: the OG App : https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/27/og-app-promises-you-an-ad-...

This is why I don't understand why MCPs (or in other words open documented APIs right?) are being pushed so much.

What's the value in e.g. Amazon opening up their APIs to competitors, lowering the cost of scraping their data? Or allowing their consumers to more easily analyze dynamic pricing? Isn't the whole point to steer people towards closed proprietary apps that work in walled garden that prevent reverse-engineering and any kind of modification?

I sync Garmin activities to Strava then use the Strava API in Claude Code. Although I think Strava just came out with an MCP. This works great but doesn't access things like sleep which I didn't need anyways

Its funny because I literally just used it, opened HN, then saw this post

I've recently done something simliar but for creating strength workouts via Claude.

The web and mobile based workout builder has a terrible UI if your workout changes between sessions so I've lifted some features from an app called liftosaur and got it to send activities to my watch. Unfortunately Garmin don't seem to care very much about strength training, so are missing a lot of pretty key exercises from their list, with no ability to create custom ones

The idea of letting an LLM anywhere near my finances (and actually initiate transactions) terrifies me. And I like using LLMs.

Many people actually try to use Garmin or other trackers/smart watches for things they aren't good at.

For example, if you want to track your maintenance calories (TDEE, total daily expenditure), Garmin isn't going to be much useful.