Cycles and Gear
After a hotel room update on the road, I ended up with an XT2 that would restart every five minutes. I was convinced it was related to the FW, and Garmin just needed to push an update or let me roll back the update to fix the issue. Took a week of troubleshooting, and a lot of back and forth with Garmin Support. They we just about to send me an RMA number (return material authorization) when I got last ditch instructions on how to reset the Bluetooth connection. I'm not going to lie, everything listed was something I had already done. However, it got me to thinking that maybe my issue wasn't with the device itself, it had to do with how the Tread App interfaces, Android (Apple could have the same issue to be honest) Bluetooth prioritization, setting conflicts, or just strange bugs that hide in code.... So the inner Test Engineer in me came out to troubleshoot. Here are the steps that resolved my issue. I have an Pixel 8 Pro phone, so you will have to adapt to your own device if you are having a similar issue.
Remove the Tread App from your Phone
Open the app properties
Force Stop the App
Delete the Cache
Delete the data stored in memory
Uninstall Tread from your Phone
Unpair your Zumo XT2 from your Phone
On your phone, open Bluetooth settings and select the Zumo XT2. Then select "Forget".
On the Zumo, go to Settings > Phone> then Forget or Unpair
Restart Both Devices
Long press the power button on your Zumo XT2, then select Power Off
Hold the Power Button on your phone, then select Restart (note, in general restart is always preferred if you want to clear RAM)
Power back on the Zumo XT2
Reconnect Both Devices
On your phone, open the App store, search for Tread (by Garmin), then select install.
Once installation completes, open and sign into your account.
Open Bluetooth settings and search for a new device (make sure the Zumo XT2 is trying to pair with Tread), add the Device. You can probably use the QR scan to sync it all up, but this is the method I used and it worked.
On your Zumo XT2, make sure you phone paired with the device and it is now connected.
Fix your Settings
The above steps fixed the problems I was having, but I lost access to see and control the music streaming from my phone. I thought I could live with it, turns out I couldn't.
I set the Zumo as a trusted device in my phone settings - may not have helped
On the Tread App, go to Settings, then Notifications. It will kick you over to your phone notification settings. Add Tread to grant access to your phones notifications. I immediately saw the album art and gained control over the music playing.
I hope this helps someone out there. If nothing else, yes the XT2 is worth it. You can't use Basecamp, and I know that freaks out legacy users. Garmin still has a long way to go to shed the shackles of their legacy software, but this is a decent first step.