Garmin devices deliver precise, detailed data for our activities. We can see live data during an activity and deep dive into our performance after an activity. However, instantaneous metrics, like power and speed, don’t represent the big picture, and averages don’t work well for real-world courses with hills, descents, corners and technical challenges. So are there better metrics for adjusting pace and tuning our performance in real-time?

For lap-based activities, a compelling alternative is the time delta. This tells you the time difference (the delta) between the current lap and a previous lap. It updates in real-time and tells you whether you are faster or slower, and by how much. It motivates you to maintain your pace and gives instant feedback on seconds lost versus seconds gained. Time delta is heavily used in motorsports, particularly when setting the fastest lap in qualifying or optimizing race pace.

Lap Delta Pro brings this capability to your Garmin ConnectIQ device. Lap Delta Pro is ideal for runners and cyclists, but also applies to any sport where you want to optimize your performance by reducing your time to cover the distance. Lap Delta Pro adds a new data field that provides a real-time comparison between the current lap and a previous lap. This is presented as the time or distance delta between those laps and is updated continuously on a second-by-second basis to give real-time feedback. For example, a lap delta of -10 seconds means that you are currently 10 seconds faster on this lap compared to the previous lap. Using Lap Delta Pro you can see exactly where seconds are gained or lost in a course, or use it as a pacing and motivation tool for your workouts and events.

Lap Delta Pro supports a wide range of Garmin ConnectIQ devices, such as cycling computers and watches, and integrates seamlessly with the device user interface. Laps are triggered using the lap button, or any of the existing advanced lap triggers such as time, distance or position. A lap could be a circuit race or criterium, a segment, a hill climb, a downhill course, a lap around a running track, an interval in a workout, or each individual mile of a marathon run.

Lap Delta Pro supports lap times of up to 24 hours and timing precision of 0.1 seconds. Subsecond timing is very useful for identifying marginal gains on a course. These fractions of a second accumulate over an activity to give meaningful gains.

Lap Delta Pro is compatible with Garmin devices that support ConnectIQ 3.2.0 and at least 64KB of memory per data field. No setup is required: just install, add the Lap Delta Pro data field to a screen and go! Optionally, Lap Delta Pro is also highly configurable through the settings page of the ConnectIQ app or the Garmin Express program.

What are you waiting for? Every second counts!