“Is it necessary to have a smartphone to sync the Garmin with or can it be synced to the software on a laptop? I would like to purchase one for my Dad, but he does not use a smartphone.”
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No you don't have to use a smart phone. You can sync it with a pc. You loose the nice notifications without a smart phone but you still have the other features. I run with mine and don't take my phone with me.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.We have two devices in our household, but only one smartphone. So one of our devices is synced to a laptop. It's a fairly new laptop, running Windows 10. Originally, I installed the Garmin app using the "Computer" selection. For that to work, we had to use the (provided) charging cable and plug it into a USB port every time we wanted to upload data. It worked ok, but my husband found it cumbersome. And we both worried about wearing out the charging cable quickly. So I uninstalled the "Computer" version of the Garmin app and reinstalled it as the "Mobile" version (the choices on their website) since Windows 10 is essentially mobile on a laptop. Now it's just a matter of turning on Bluetooth for the device and the laptop, then opening the app to synchronize it. We did try syncing to an older laptop in our home too. It's running Windows 7 and doesn't have Bluetooth capability. That worked briefly; the app is still fine, but the device only was recognized a couple of times when plugged into USB port. Not sure why. The laptop has four ports and it stopped recognizing the device on all of them. So newer laptops and newer computers probably work best, without a smartphone option.
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