- Strava has released a new feature for Apple Watch, allowing you to view and follow a pre-generated route map
- This allows you to view a map on your wrist and follow a route, ensuring you run a precise distance and don’t get lost
- This is a feature other apps like AllTrails, and other watches like Garmin, have had for years
As Techradar’s Senior Fitness & Wearables Editor, I test smartwatches of all kinds. However, in my day-to-day, I’m generally a Garmin-wearer. There’s a couple of reasons for this, but a big one is that I’m a regular runner, and Garmin has one of the most comprehensive suites of running features out of all the different wearables categories. Notably, many of the best Garmin watches allow you to generate routes in the Garmin Connect app, sync them to your watch and follow a full-color map on your wrist.
Users of even the best Apple Watches can’t do this, at least not natively within Apple’s own Workout app. You need to switch apps from Workout to Maps, running Workout in the background, and have a destination or route pre-loaded in the Maps app. It’s frustrating and annoying.
Alternatively, the easier option is to download a third-party app, such as WorkOutdoors, Footpath or AllTrails (if you’re hiking), all of which allow you to follow maps of a pre-planned route while recording a workout.
Strava has just released its own version of this feature. Spotted via Gadgets & Wearables, users can now pick from their saved Strava routes when recording a workout such as a Walk, Run or Ride in Strava’s Apple Watch app, and it’ll show a route overlay onto a Dark Mode map.
Unfortunately, there’s reportedly no Garmin-style breadcrumb trail or rerouting if you stray from the path, but I hope that gets added in a future update as it’s dead useful. During marathon training in busy London, Garmin’s instant rerouting when I went off-course helped me focus on staying on pace during my long runs.
As most regular runners and riders are likely Strava users anyway (even though they might not be Premium members) this is a worthwhile integration that allows users to cut a few apps out of their stack. If you’re using WorkOutdoors, syncing that to Apple Fitness, then uploading to Strava from there, doesn’t it make more sense to record on Strava directly?
I’ll be sticking with Garmin for now, due to a combination of Garmin’s superior routing features and a desire to keep everything under Garmin’s singular ecosystem, including fitness metrics, routes and training plans. However, Strava’s acquisition of mapping software company FATMAP and AI-powered coaching platform Runna indicate that Strava’s also looking to become a one-stop shop fitness umbrella platform to rival Garmin Connect.
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