What Garmin’s Mylaps Acquisition Will Mean for Your Racing Performance
Garmin has announced the acquisition of sports timing technology company MyLaps . This comes after the company announced the Garmin Marathon Series this spring, which was Garmin’s first foray into running its own races. Unsurprisingly, MyLaps specializes in comprehensive timing tools, real-time tracking, and performance analysis. These two moves by Garmin could bode well for the quality of race data sent directly to your Garmin watch .
What Garmin’s Acquisition of MyLaps Means for You
According to a press release , MyLaps will remain a standalone company and, together with Garmin, hopes to “set a new standard for performance-based training and competition technology in motorized, action and equestrian sports.” But what does that actually look like?
Simply put, MyLaps products are divided into the following core timing system technologies:
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Transponders/Chips : Each competitor wears a transponder or racing chip with a unique identification number.
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Detector Mats : These are mats that you cross during the race that read your transponder.
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Timing Decoders and Software : Their products allow you to set up, time, create and publish race results as readable information.
So, from the outside, the acquisition of MyLaps and the launch of the Marathon Series seem like a perfect match. Currently, athletes face a constant problem: discrepancies between their personal devices and the official race times. Whether it’s hitting the start button a few seconds too late, missing a lap marker, or stopping the clock too early at the finish line, these types of human errors can be incredibly frustrating.
Instead, imagine a world where your Garmin device receives a signal from the MyLaps timing system the moment the race officially starts, eliminating the need to press the start button. Your lap times will also be more accurate, and each time you cross the MyLaps mat, your watch will automatically record split times. At the end of the race, your watch will stop timing the moment you cross the finish line, matching your official time to the millisecond. This integration will give athletes much more accurate data about their performance. I would love to eliminate the common post-race process of manually adjusting my watch to match the official results.
Bottom line
Garmin now has both the hardware ecosystem (watches and fitness trackers) and the professional timing infrastructure to ensure that your official race times and the times tracked by your personal device are accurately matched. The results of this integration can bring real benefits to the entire running community. With aggregated, anonymized performance data, Garmin can help improve pacing strategies, route design, and training plans based on real race results, not just training data.
The first Garmin Marathon Series races this fall could be a testing ground for all of this. Registration for the Garmin Marathon Series is now open for all races in Toledo and Tucson .