Garmin has rolled out support for offline YouTube Music on its watches. This allows you to download music and podcasts from YouTube Music in exactly the same way you would for Spotify, Amazon Music and others. Like these, it also requires a subscription to these platforms in order to download music.
For those familiar with Spotify and other platforms on Garmin watches, you’ll find that it’s pretty much the same. You link your music provider account to the watch, then use WiFi to download the music you want to play, and then access that music anytime (no cellular or WiFi required).
Requirements:
I thought I’d do a quick guide on how to set it up as it’s pretty easy and simple. But first you’ll need four things:
1) Garmin Connect IQ app installed on phone
2) Garmin Connect Mobile app installed on your phone
3) Some kind of Bluetooth headphones/speaker
4) Compatible Garmin watch, see below
As for which devices are compatible, the full/updated list is here, but it basically boils down to:
– Garmin D2 Mach 1 Pro
– Garmin Epix and Epix Pro series
– Garmin Enduro 2 series
– Garmin Fenix 7 and Fenix 7 Pro series
– Garmin Forerunner 255/255S/265/265 Music, Forerunner 955/965
– Garmin Tactix Series 7
– Garmin Venu series 2/2S, 2 Plus, 3/3
There are a number of very musical devices that aren’t on the list (that support Spotify and others), which I find strange. Things like the Fenix 6 series or the Forerunner 945, or, or, or… I asked Garmin why so many missing devices and they said, “More devices are expected to be added after launch! No set date, but I can let you know when I know more.” So…there’s hope.
Quick Setup Guide:
The first thing you do is install the YouTube Music Connect IQ app on your watch. This requires you to open the Garmin Connect IQ store.
1) Open the Garmin Connect IQ app and make sure your watch is selected in the bottom right corner (especially if you have another Garmin device like the Edge cycling computer). On your home page, you’ll likely see the YouTube Music app:
2) If you don’t see the YouTube Music app on your home page, simply search for it. Once opened, tap to install it. Clicking ‘Allow’ will also grant permission.
3) The watch will take a few seconds to install, then you will see a page saying that it is installed and continue with the setup:
4) The Garmin Connect website will open on your phone. If Garmin Connect wasn’t open at the time, open Garmin Connect again and then on the watch (if the error appears) simply open the Music app again and this time you’ll be prompted.
5) Enter the code on the watch in the above form and then click on the link agreement above.
With this, you are ready to start using it:
Downloading and playing music:
1) This probably opened the app on your watch, but in case it didn’t, you can scroll down in the widget previews to find it:
2) Once you have, you will find yourself here:
3) You can open “Library” to see things in your library (things you’ve previously saved to the YouTube Music app on your phone), or click “Music” to see more general music recommendations like workout playlists. Podcasts are for…well..podcasts. Here are some exercise recommendations:
4) In my case, if I select Podcast, it shows me the podcasts I have and I choose to download that episode:
5) The same goes for other music playlists that I can then select to download.
6) Once you select the things you want to download, it will start searching for WiFi (the networks you set up earlier):
7) And from there it will start downloading them:
8) Once downloaded, you can choose any music playlist (or podcast) to play using your paired Bluetooth headphones:
9) As before, you can play/pause/skip/back/shuffle/repeat as you see fit from the menus.
All of this is in line with how other Garmin watch-enabled music sources work today.
Pack:
In the end, I’m quite surprised to see that it happened. I remember hearing about it many, many years ago, but assumed it was eventually shelved when Google decided to push music more heavily on its own/partner devices. Maybe it was, or someone in YouTube’s music department has now decided that perpetual subscription income is worth more than one-time hardware income. Or that it was more likely to get subscription revenue versus product revenue. Either way, it’s good to see!
As for other sources of music, of course many people have asked for Apple Music. Keep in mind that this really isn’t Garmin’s choice. Garmin has repeatedly said that it would be more than happy to support Apple Music on Garmin devices, but I’m going to guess that Apple is in no rush to help the competition. The same way Garmin said they’d like to sync Peloton workouts natively with Garmin Connect. If and when such things happen, it will be more at the initiative of Apple or Peloton than Garmin.
Still, as he showed with YouTube Music this week…never say never.
With that – thanks for reading
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