Fitness app Strava and sports watchmaker Garmin usually go hand-in-hand, but the two fitness tech leaders are now in competition in a US lawsuit.
Strava is suing Garmin, claiming it copied Strava's patented ideas and that Garmin is operating outside of a long-standing agreement.
Here's what we know about the lawsuit.
What is Strava?
Strava is a combined fitness tracker and social media platform founded in the US.
Users can track activities such as running, cycling or swimming based on time, distance and routes, along with other data such as heart rate and effort.
Workouts can be shared on a public or private feed, where other users can comment or give "kudos" on posts.
Workouts are recorded either directly into the phone app or through a third-party device such as a smart watch.
As of August 2025, Strava had more than 150 million users worldwide.
What is Garmin?
Garmin is a technology company that specialises in GPS-enabled products, also founded in the US.
Its smart watches are popular among athletes due to the range of metrics measured (such as pace, elevation, cadence, stride length, heart rate) and their accuracy in GPS tracking.
Garmin's own platform, Garmin Connect, allows users to sync with Strava so workouts are automatically recorded onto Strava.
Why is Strava suing Garmin?
Strava is claiming Garmin has infringed on two of its patents: one regarding segments and the other heat maps.
Segments refer to parts of routes that users can compare their times with other users.
For example, a runner could compare a 1km segment on their 5km run with how fast other runners ran that particular part of the route.
According to the lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Colorado, Garmin approached Strava to collaborate on an official integration of Strava's segments on Garmin's devices, leading to a Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA) between the companies in 2015.
The agreement banned Garmin from adapting, reverse engineering, copying, or distributing the Strava segments without express agreement.
Strava alleges Garmin breached that agreement by expanding its "Garmin segments" feature and that the Garmin Segments infringe on their patent.
According to the lawsuit, Garmin has also been accused of copying Strava's heat maps feature.
Strava uses colour gradients to show users how popular routes are for different sports at different times of day and year.
Similarly to the segments, an MCA is in place for the heat maps feature.
Strava claims Garmin has copied this feature with its own heat maps and therefore infringed Strava's patent and breached the MCA.
What does Strava want from Garmin?
Strava is trying to stop Garmin from selling products that use these features through an injunction.
That injunction would include Garmin's Connect platform along with its most popular fitness tracking devices.
Strava claims the lawsuit is off the back of another issue — Garmin is requiring its logo to be included on posts shared to Strava under new API (Application Programming Interface) guidelines.
Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar said on a post on Reddit they had been actively trying to stop this requirement.
"We have until November 1st to comply, and if not, Garmin has threatened to cut off access to their API, stopping all Garmin activities from being uploaded to Strava," Mr Salazar said.
He said he considered the new API requirements to be "blatant advertising".
"If you recorded an activity on your watch, we think that is your data," he said.
"We believe you should be able to freely transfer or upload that data without requiring logos to be displayed alongside it or have that data be used as an advertisement to sell more watches."
What does this mean for Strava and Garmin users?
A lot of users online are asking the same question — but at this early stage, it's unclear.
So far both the app and Garmin devices remain unaffected.
A Strava spokesperson told DC Rainmaker: "Our lawsuit is between two companies; we do not intend to take any actions that would disrupt the ability of Garmin users to sync their data with Strava and hope Garmin values our shared users in the same way."
But Garmin is yet to respond to that claim or the lawsuit.
The ABC has contacted Garmin for comment.
