Garmin Chat Desktop v4.0.4 Is Here — Free Local AI, New Claude Models, and Richer Fitness Data
March 2026
If you’ve been using Garmin Chat Desktop to have natural language conversations with your Garmin Connect fitness data, this minor release packs a meaningful punch. Version 4.0.4 brings free local AI through Ollama, the latest Anthropic Claude models, and a significant expansion of how much fitness data the app pulls from Garmin Connect — all without changing any of your existing settings or API keys.
Here’s everything that’s new.
Run AI Completely Free with Ollama
The headline feature of v4.0.4 is full Ollama integration. Ollama lets you run open-source AI models — Llama, Mistral, Phi, and more — directly on your own Windows PC, with zero API costs, zero subscriptions, and zero data leaving your machine.
This is a big deal for a few reasons:
It’s completely free. No pay-per-use charges, no monthly subscription. Typical cloud AI usage through Garmin Chat runs 1–5/monthforcasualusers,butOllamabringsthatto1–5/monthforcasualusers,butOllamabringsthatto0 — forever.
Your fitness data stays private. When you use a cloud AI provider, your activity data is sent to an external API to generate a response. With Ollama, everything — your Garmin data, your questions, the AI’s answers — stays entirely on your computer.
It works offline. Once you’ve downloaded a model, you don’t need an internet connection to use it. Great for travel or situations where you want to review your training data without a network.
Setting it up is straightforward: install Ollama from ollama.com, pull a model (ollama pull llama2), then select “Ollama (Local)” in Garmin Chat’s Settings and hit “Test Connection.” The app automatically detects which models you have installed and presents them in a dropdown. See the included OLLAMA_SETUP_GUIDE.md for full instructions and model recommendations based on your hardware.
This was a BIG feedback ask and I’m happy to be able to provide it.
Latest Anthropic Claude Models
The Anthropic Claude provider has been updated to include the newest Claude models. If you’ve been using Claude for your fitness analysis, you’ll get improved response quality, better reasoning, and stronger context handling — particularly useful when the app is now pulling a lot more activity data (more on that below).
5x More Garmin Data: 50 Activities Instead of 10
This is the change that will have the most visible impact on response quality. Previously, Garmin Chat pulled your 10 most recent activities from Garmin Connect when building context for the AI. In v4.0.4, that limit has been raised to 50 activities.
That means when you ask questions like:
“How has my running pace trended over the last month?”
“Am I recovering well between workouts?”
“What’s my average heart rate during cycling sessions?”
...the AI now has a much deeper pool of real data to work with. Trend analysis, training load patterns, pace comparisons — all of these get meaningfully better with five times the activity history.
One thing to be aware of: because the app is fetching and processing significantly more data, the initial Garmin Connect login and subsequent AI prompt responses will take a bit longer than in previous versions. This is expected behavior and a worthwhile trade-off for the richer insights you’ll get in return.
Bug Fixes
Fixed emoji and character encoding issues that were causing garbled symbols to appear throughout the UI
Improved error handling when AI provider connections fail
Everything Else Still Works the Same
v4.0.4 is a drop-in upgrade. All six AI providers remain fully supported:
Your existing API keys, saved chat sessions, Quick Questions, dark mode preference, and window position are all preserved when you upgrade.
Download
Installer:
GarminChatSetup_v4.0.4.exe— available on the GitHub Releases pageSource code:
garmin-chat-v4.0.4-release.zip— also on the Releases page for anyone who wants to build from source (Python 3.11+,pip install -r requirements.txt)
What’s Next
The roadmap includes voice input, visual trend charting, workout recommendations, and a potential mobile companion app. As always, feedback and bug reports are welcome in GitHub Issues.
Garmin Chat Desktop is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Garmin Ltd.