Fitbit, OTHER RING, Apple and many others have various tech ‘solutions’ to menstrual cycle tracking, essentially trying to understand and predict monthly cycles. There are many complexities in this area ranging from ‘simple’ variations in cycle length between individuals to the irregularity of an individual to perimenopausal disruptions for older women.
#ItsComplicated
– List of Fertility/Cycle Apps (here)
Yet the benefits can be life-changing – for example to aid conception through more accurate tracking of ovulation/fertility.
To cut to the chase, Garmin has clearly invested a significant amount of effort into a flexible, logging-based ‘solution’ for cycle tracking. Here are a few screenshots from CONNECT on the web and the app version works for this too.
The truth of the usefulness of this will come from several months worth of data logging. Ultimately YOU have to decide if you are the sort of person that will be bothered to religiously log data on a regular basis. To me, there seems to be just a little too much data required. Nevertheless, I had been waiting for Garmin to make this announcement for over a year, it’s clearly a way of locking in a significant part of the population to Garmin’s products and ecosystem with this potentially useful & free add-in.
My personal suggestion would be to use a more ‘hands-off’ product like the OTHER RING which, for example, also measures takes into account fluctuations of basal body temperature throughout the night.
Still, if you already have one of the supported Garmins then give it a go with a Forerunner 645 Music, vívoactive 3, vívoactive 3 Music, fēnix 5 Plus Series and the following compatible devices will follow soon fēnix 5 Series, fēnix Chronos, Forerunner 935, Forerunner 945, Forerunner 645, Forerunner 245, Forerunner 245 Music
To Use: In Garmin CONNECT go to the Health Stats and select Menstrual Cycle from the drop-down.
INFO
The best women’s smartphone apps in this area include Clue ( iOS & Android), Natural Cycles, Eve (iOS & Android), Flo and Dot (iOS).
Or you could try this Garmin CIQ app: Period Tracker