14 June 2024
Garmin has rolled out support for offline YouTube Music on their 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 those, this also requires a subscription to those platforms in order to download music.
For those familiar with Spotify and other platforms on Garmin watches, you’ll find this basically the same. You’ll link up your music provider account with the watch, then use WiFi to download the music you want to playback, and then you can access that music anytime (without cellular or WiFi needed).
The Requirements:
I figured I’d do a quick walk-through on how to get setup, as it’s pretty easy and simple. First though, you’ll need four things:
1) Garmin Connect IQ app installed on your phone
2) Garmin Connect Mobile app installed on your phone
3) Some sort of Bluetooth headphones/speaker
4) Compatible Garmin watch, per below
As for which devices are compatible, the full/updated list is here, but basically it boils down to:
– Garmin D2 Mach 1 Pro
– Garmin Epix & Epix Pro Series
– Garmin Enduro 2 series
– Garmin Fenix 7 & Fenix 7 Pro Series
– Garmin Forerunner 255/255S/265/265 Music, Forerunner 955/965
– Garmin Tactix 7 Series
– Garmin Venu 2/2S, 2 Plus, 3/3 Series
There’s are a number of very-much music-capable devices that aren’t on the list (which support Spotify and others), which is odd to me. 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 post launch! No set date but I can keep you posted as I learn more.” So…here’s to hoping.
Quick Setup Guide:
The first thing you’ll do is install the YouTube Music Connect IQ app to your watch. This requires you crack open the Garmin Connect IQ store.
1) Open the Garmin Connect IQ App, and ensure your watch is selected in the lower right corner (especially if you have another Garmin device, like an Edge cycling computer). You’ll likely see the YouTube Music app on the homepage:
2) If you don’t see the YouTube Music app on the homepage, simply search for it. Once opened, tap to install it. Also tap ‘Allow’ to grant permissions.
3) The installation will take a few seconds to your watch, after which you’ll be shown a page that indicates its installed, and to continue setup:
4) On your phone, it’ll open up a webpage via Garmin Connect. If Garmin Connect wasn’t opened at the time, re-open Garmin Connect, and then on your watch (if you got an error), simply re-open the Music app, and it’ll prompt this time.
5) Enter the code on your watch, in the form above, and then tappity tap through the linking agreement above.
With that, you’re ready to start using it:
Downloading and Playing Music:
1) On your watch it’ll have likely opened up the app, but just in case it didn’t, you can scroll down in your widget glances to find it:
2) Once you have, you’ll find yourself here:
3) You can open ‘Library’ to see things in your library (stuff you’ve previously saved on your YouTube Music app on your phone), or hit ‘Music’ to see more general music recommendations, like workout play lists. Podcasts is for…well..podcasts. Here’s the Workout recommendations:
4) In my case, if I select Podcast, I’ll see the podcasts that I’ve got, and even choose to download a given episode or an entire series:
5) The same is true for other music playlists too, which I can then select to download.
6) Once you’ve selected things you want to download, it’ll go search for WiFi (networks you’ve previously setup):
7) And from there, it’ll begin downloading them:
8) Once downloaded, you can choose any music playlist (or podcast) to playback, which will use your paired Bluetooth headphones:
9) As with before, you can play/pause/skip/back/shuffle/repeat as you see fit from the menus.
All of this matches how other Garmin watch-enabled music sources work today.
Wrap-up:
Ultimately, I’m kinda surprised to see this happen. I remember many many years ago, hearing this was in the works, but presumed it eventually got canned when Google decided to make a stronger push for music on their own/partner devices. Perhaps that was the case, or perhaps now someone in the YouTube Music department decided that forever subscription revenue is worth more than one-time hardware revenue. Or, that it was more likely to get subscription revenue versus product revenue. Either way, it’s good to see!
As for other music sources, many people have of course asked for Apple Music. Keep in mind, this isn’t really Garmin’s choice here. Garmin has repeatedly said they’d be more than happy to support Apple Music on Garmin devices, but I’m going to guess Apple isn’t exactly rushing to help out a competitor here. In the same way that Garmin has said they’d be happy to sync in Peloton workouts natively to Garmin Connect. If and when those types of things happen, that’s going to be at the initiation of the likes of Apple or Peloton, rather than Garmin.
Still, as this week proved with YouTube Music…never say never.
With that – thanks for reading