How does Dog tracking with Garmin work? (beta)

Tutorial Garmin

Welcome to the MyHunt Garmin Connect Beta. With Garmin Dog tracking, you will be able to see the live location of your dogs in the MyHunt App and share this location during a hunt with your other hunters* (currently in development).

To join the Beta on iOS, join the Beta test track on TestFlight. 
You will be asked to install TestFlight first on our iPhone, to be able to download beta versions. 
Click here, to join the beta track:
https://testflight.apple.com/join/gAhUD9w1

 

 

 

Settings the rest of Dog tracking up, requires a bit more effort, as the system consists of multiple parts. It's important to setup each part individually, to be able to spot any errors instantly.

To start with, you need the following four Devices: 

 

Devices needed:

  • Garmin Dog collar (e.g. T20K, K5X)
  • Garmin Basestation (Alpha 200i, Alpha 300i k, Alpha 10k)
  • A Garmin Smartwatch with Bluetooth (currently we support only fēnix® 6, and Instinct® 2.
  • And the MyHunt App

Connection of Dog Tracker to Base Unit

In case you have never used the dog tracker before, you need to pair the Dog collars with the base station first. If you have done this already, then you can skip this step.

To pair your collar with the base station, on your Garmin handelt, navigate to Add devices, and follow the instructions. 

You can check for the added devices, in the dog list, in the base station, where it should show an active list of dog trackers, with color and name. In our example we have 2 dog collars in the list.

 

Active Basestation Dog sharing:

Make sure this button is activated, or no data will be transferred between the base station and the watch. You find this in the settings on your Garmin handheld.
Here is a video how to navigate there:

https://share.cleanshot.com/QMD0CC1F

Connection of Mobile Phone to Garmin Watch

To get things going, and to be able to establish a connection between the watch and the mobile phone, the watch needs to be paired with your phone. For this you need to download and install the Garmin Connect App. If you are already have done this, you can skip this step. If this is your first time, you need to first download garmin connect. You can download Garmin connect for Apple device here (https://apps.apple.com/de/app/garmin-connect/id583446403), or here for Android devices (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.garmin.android.apps.connectmobile&hl=de). Then open Garmin connect and follow the instructions of Garmin Connect to add your watch as new device. You will also need to create an account for Garmin. Which you later will need again, if you want to download apps to the watch. These are a couple of steps and this will take a bit. Once you have successfully connected your watch, you should see sth similar to this screen, where it shows the watch in the top right corner., next to the sync-button. When you watch has a green dot, next to it, then you are ready to go.

Notice:

This connection between the Watch and your phone, is sometimes instable (at least during our tests) and sometimes, you become disconnected without notice. If you notice errors, where we can’t find the watch, or the trackers, always check here first, if you watch is connected (shows green dot) and in sync.

Connection of MyHunt with Garmin Connect & Watch

Now that you added your watch to Garmin Connect, now MyHunt needs to be able to access the watch trough Garmin Connect. To be able to do that, you need to setup Dog tracking in the MyHunt app.
To start, go to Profile, slide to the right and choose Dog tracking.
Then select Add Device
And then follow the instructions. You will be guided to also install the MyHunt watch App from the Garmin Connect IQ Store. If for any reason the forward to the Garmin IQ Store doens’t work, you can also manually install the MyHunt Watch App in the Garmin IQ Store from here:

https://apps.garmin.com/de-DE/apps/87848777-53e0-4ff2-b0f3-258c45620bfe

Eventually, you will need to select your Garmin Watch from the list, and then test the connection.

To test the connection fully, you would need switch on the base station and have it close to your watch. Then open the MyHunt watch app either by tapping on “Open MyHunt App”, or by navigating on your Garmin watch to the Apps folder, and selecting MyHunt there.

 

Connection of MyHunt with Watch App

When you have successfully launched the MyHunt Watch App, you should see the following on device: “Scan for handheld”.

Select ok, and make sure the base station is close to your watch and switched on, and also has the option to Broadcast Dog Data activated.

The watch App will then scan for your Garmin base station, and will show you a list of IDs, usually Numeric ( the same as in the picture above).

Now select Ok again, and then confirm the watch will connect to the base station.

 

You then should be presented with this view. Attention, what also happens, is that the Garmin watch will try to fetch the tracker and connect it to Garmins’ own Dog tracking app. If that happens you will see the following:

It is crucial, to select “No” in this step. If you select yes, Garmins Dog tracking app will fetch the signal, and you won’t see anything in the MyHunt Dog tracking App.
If everything went well, the watch will soon find the trackers connected to your base station.


With this step, the MyHunt App on your phone will now also be able to discover the watch and the connected Dog collars will be transfered. You can now select Finish, and save the setup.

 

Press again “OK” on the watchand you switch to the compass mode, in where you will see an overview of all Dog collars, with the distance to you.
if you want to zoom in or out to have a better overview, use the “up” and “down” buttons of your watch and the view will zoom in or out.

 

You will see then your connected watch in the devices List.

In case sth went wrong, and you want to start over from scratch, you can press for a long time on the connected device, and you will be able to delete the watch from your phone.

Start Dog tracking

 

To start Dog tracking navigate to the map, and open the new Dog tracking icon.

When the modal opens start Dog tracking. Open the modal again to stop it

Now you should be able to see your dogs location on the map

General issues when dealing with dog trackers

Checking if the trackers are sending correctly to the base station:

https://share.cleanshot.com/NTvD2Lfp

 

No devices found, Garmins own Dog tracking is active

A video of how to solve them problem, when there is no base station found, because the tracker was added to Garmin's tracking app. 

https://share.cleanshot.com/rZNkTPyf

 

 

 

No device found, handheld doesnt Broadcast Data

A video of how to solve them problem, when there is no base station found, because the broadcast of the handheld was not activated.

https://share.cleanshot.com/QMD0CC1F

 

 

Dogs are shown on watch, but not send to mobile phone

Sometimes the broadcast from watch to mobile phone might stop for reasons only Garmin can tell, the only way to reset it, is if you switch you watch off and on again. Happend to us in testing from time to time.

 

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