Yesterday Garmin held their annual developer conference, officially called the Garmin Developer Virtual Conference (GDVC). This event is the successor to the Garmin Connect IQ Summit, which in turn is somewhat the Garmin-focused sibling to the once ANT+ Symposium. Albeit, there was an ANT+ section included this year in the Garmin Developer Conference.
The conference is traditionally an event where Garmin makes their 3rd party developer-focused announcements, but rarely new product announcements. Instead, these announcements – when viewed with just the right lens – give insight into what’s ahead on Garmin’s product roadmap for the next year. Sometimes that insight is overwhelmingly clear, like in the early days of Connect IQ. And other times, it’s a bit fuzzier. This year is closer to the fuzzier end of the spectrum, but there are clear hints on where things are going.
As with most years, Garmin did not announce any new consumer products this week. As noted, that rarely happens. And if/when it does, it’s more just a case of coincidental timing with other events occurring the week of the conference (such as the cycling-focused Sea Otter in the past). In terms of products remaining for 2021, looking at the history here, we’re likely past the chance of anything new occurring. Garmin has only once in the last 5 years released a watch after this point in the calendar (the Descent MK1 in 2017, to coincide with a scuba industry event). But at the same time, everyone is running behind this year, so…shrug.
In any event, this post is mostly geeky. Except the future-looking tidbits that aren’t.
And for those looking for my annual State of Sports Tech 2021 Keynote that I delivered as part of the event, DCR Supporters now have early access to that right now, following which I’ll release it to everyone else. Supporters can find that here, as well as the ability to sign-up.
What’s New in Connect IQ:
First up, at a high level for those not familiar – Garmin’s Developer platforms are basically two components. The first piece is the web API platform piece. This is for doing things like pushing structured workouts (think TrainingPeaks) or routes (think Strava/Komoot) to Garmin devices. Or for apps that want to pull data (like your workouts) to their apps (like Strava or Today’s Plan). Last year Garmin did a big consolidation effort for all these platforms to put them under one API roof (both technically as well as process/logistically). They noted that the legacy Garmin Connect API will have support ending soon, and to convert to the new platform.
Over the past few months, Garmin has made three new sets of data available for developers via the API (meaning platforms can receive this automatically from users’ accounts, if authorized by the user):
Sleep Scores: This is now available via the Health API (including sleep score and quality of sleep)
Health Snapshot: This two-minute manually triggered snapshot includes the snapshot data including heart rate, HRV, Pulse Ox, respiration rate, and stress.
Pregnancy Tracking: This has been included within the larger Women’s Health API, allowing apps to receive that detailed pregnancy tracking information if the user authorizes it.
Next, we get into the Garmin Connect IQ platform changes. Connect IQ are the bits that run apps on your watch or other Garmin device, such as a Garmin Edge. This is where the bulk of the updates were centered this year, though I wouldn’t consider this a major update year. That was last year. Like most developer platforms, the more mature they get (in terms of size and user base), the less significant the changes get each year. Most developers appreciate stability, as it makes long-term planning easier.
For this year, it was the announcement of Garmin Connect IQ System 5. This follows with the annual incrementing of the system each year (just like iOS or watchOS increments once per year).
Improved App Settings: This allows app developers to do far more in terms of allowing users to configure their app settings. Meaning, if you’ve got a Connect IQ app, now the app can have more detailed app settings like groups and toggles. This is applicable across GCM, Garmin Express, and the CIQ App.
Revamped CIQ Device Simulator: This allows developers to playback a .FIT file workout, and now developers can specify an exact point in the workout using the skimmer, and control the data field events.
Display Improvements: If there’s any line item here that gives you insight into the future, it’s this one. Garmin is essentially creating a new class of devices that have greater allowances/tolerances for the always-on watch faces. At the moment, that’s only the Venu 2 devices. However, the exact wording used in the event was “On the Venu 2 series, and future AMOLED devices, we are loosening the rules for making always-active watch faces to make it easier to make watch faces on AMOLED”.
Specifically, Garmin will now allow Venu 2 series (and future unannounced AMOLED units) to skip the per-pixel burn detector, as long as less than 10% of the pixels are on. Garmin noted that the Venu 2 has different hardware than the Venu 1, which makes this possible without concern of burn-on on those displays. I asked for a bit more clarity on this, and rather than re-write everything, here’s the notable bits from Garmin’s CIQ lead, Nicholas Kral on how this differs from the original Venu:
“The ultimate goal is to allow the user to have always-on watch faces, keep high battery life, and protect the lifetime of the AMOLED display.
With [the original] Venu, when a watch face went into always on mode we change the watch face update rate to once-a-minute and have two rules:
- You can only have 10% of the total pixels enabled (not black)
- You can only have a pixel on for up to four minutes
If the developer violates one of those rules at runtime we turn off always on mode, and we provide tools in our SDK to validate a Venu watch face can meet the rules. Rule #1 is meant to maximize the amount of disabled pixels. Rule #2 is meant to prevent static elements from staying on for extended periods. What we find in practice it can be difficult to implement simple things like always on analog minute hands when even something of a single pixel width can take more than four minutes to turn off.”
I know this sounds geeky, and it is – but it seems like Garmin may be settling on AMOLED as the technology going forward for higher-end displays. That’s somewhat notable because Garmin also flirted with LCD screens, in their Venu SQ units last year.
Adding New Profiler: This new profiler will help developers measure app performance, and works in both the simulator and the device. This means that developers can start to dig into what calls are taking the longest, and figure out out to fix them.
Updated documentation: Garmin says they’ve updated the documentation to help developers try and make more native looking apps, giving details on how each of the different Garmin product ranges and models have their own “personality” (their words, not mine). My watch has its own personality too, especially when it thinks I’m lazy. I’d call that sassy.
Expanded CIQ data metrics: Connect IQ apps can now access Body Battery, Stress, Recovery Time, VO2Max, and Activity History. However, at this time neither Training Load nor Training Status are included unfortunately. I note that specifically, as I think it’d be great to have that accessible for watch faces, as that’s a core reason why I use the FR745 over the higher-end watches (I like the Training Load default watch face). In addition, they’ve added support for accessing gyroscope (plus the previous magnetometer and accelerometer support).
Deeper App Store Analytics: Developers can now get further details about which devices are downloading their apps, including % based charts. This is going to be super useful for developers to figure out where to spend time. It’s also, of course, pretty much waaaaay overdue. But hey, better late than never.
Before we get to the last item, here’s which platforms are getting Connect IQ System 5, though as with before, there are certain features within the family that only apply to certain hardware (such as the fancier display bits and features on the Venu 2)
New On-Device Connect IQ Store: This is the second ‘Poke your ears up’ item, which is that Garmin is launching a Connect IQ store on the device itself. This will have recommended apps from Garmin, which are then downloaded and updated via BLE and now also WiFi. This will be fairly basic at launch, for example, you won’t be able to search for apps yet, rather it’s just Garmin’s suggestion of new things to grab, or apps that you might want to update. Historically apps have only updated over BLE, so the expansion to WiFi is notable.
Of course, we’ve seen app stores come on-device to both Wear OS and watchOS, so this is a natural evolution for Garmin as well. However note, this will only be available for devices launched in 2022. Meaning, devices that aren’t announced yet, but not current devices.
Phew. Got all that? Good.
Wait, no? Well, then go read the developer documents here. which dive into it in more detail than my ice cream imposed timeline allows.
ANT+ Changes:
There’s been a handful of minor changes to three ANT+ device profiles, they are:
ANT+ Bike Lights: The profile documentation has been updated, and certification has been made easier. Further, SimulANT now supports this – part of making the certification easier.
ANT+ Heart Rate Device Profile: Improves performance for the profile in dense gym environments
ANT+ E-C Profile: This isn’t an ANT+ thing per se, but they noted that Garmin now includes rowing machine support with selected wearables
Generally speaking, there’s nothing as a consumer that you’ll need to know about these. Companies will incorporate these changes into products and sensors over time. For example, on some random day in the future, you might see your Garmin device say it has an update for your heart rate sensor. It’ll take a few minutes, and that’ll be that.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen any sweeping ANT+ device profile changes (such as when they introduced ANT+ FE-C). In some ways, stability is good. But as I discuss in my State of Sports Tech Keynote, numerous companies have noted the lack of fitness-specific device profile standards innovation/movement from both ANT+ & Bluetooth has caused erosion of standards following. We’ve seen plenty of evidence of this especially within the indoor training space over the 1-2 years.
Further, in their section of the presentation, ANT+ noted that there was activity in the shifting & control TWG’s (Technical Working Group). They said that one could find the exact schedule within the thisisant.com site, though I was unable to find it. This may be because while I was logged in, it wasn’t as an annual (paid) member, and instead as a non-paid member. Either way, I could see value in at least having the schedule available, so smarter/startup companies could decide if it was worthwhile to upgrade their ANT+ membership to join those TWG’s (meaning, to know those TWG’s are actually still alive and doing something).
Finally, the Nordic Semiconductor team had a section discussing their products, including that ANT+ is coming to the NRF5340 in 2022H1. Historically speaking Nordic and Texas Instruments had been pretty involved in the previous ANT+ Symposium. Also, all the most outlandish ANT+ Symposium moments were spawned by the Nordic crew. If it involved getting lost in the woods with Viking hats and beer, or perhaps on a horse with a dress…then the Nordic crew was involved. Anyway – if you’re at the chipset level, you probably have this information from Nordic directly.
Ok – there ya go, a complete wrap-up of things. Gamin also had live developer breakouts, which they say should be posted shortly to the developer conference page. And then my State of Sports Tech 2021 keynote will also be released shortly as well – though as noted is now available for DCR Supporters in early access here.
With that – thanks for reading!
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Once again, a lot of great improvements on the wearable side, but still missing the most basic watch functionality. No way to access / display next alarm time on a watch face or widget.
Agree, it would be helpful to have that option as a watchface datafield. In the meantime, while there is no widget, I can see/set/adjust alarms on my Fenix 6 with the press/hold of a button by setting a Hot Key to Alarm Clock.
and have two countdown timers!!!!!
Ob my 945 I can set even more than two timers.
+1 to configuring a fenix Hot Key for alarm clock edits. Borderline life changing.
And Body Battery level is still not accessible for watch face I assume?
Interesting, but I sure wish they’d spend some of their dev resources on a phone app that configures their devices. Long overdue, and one that consumers would immediately appreciate.
I was about to post this. Considering the changes to allow improved app settings – you would have thought they’d be able to include changes to the standard activity apps. Doing this on the watch is painful!
+1000, would much rather be able to configure watch (especially activity datafields) and save profiles on my phone than download CIQ apps on the watch
Yes! I’d also love to be able to save, in Connect, a few different saved setups that I could near-instantly use to reconfigure the watch without pressing a button.
Any mention of VSCode replacing Eclipse? Announced last year and kinda progressing but not very quickly from what I can see. I really think a better IDE would drive things forwards as every time I reopen my project I have to relearn how Eclipse works, and that’s after installing new Java, updating the IDE, updating ConnectIQ, and resetting the various profiles in the tool, then re-downloading the watch profiles I need.
Good to see the other updates too, ConnectIQ is maturing quite well. A fenix with Amoled will be a nice step forwards even if ultimate battery life suffers, let’s face it for most people we’re long past battery life worries. I’m also noticing they seem to be fixing bugs more consistently and quickly which is nice.
I wonder if part of the point of the Enduro line is that it will eventually be the non-AMOLED Fenix.
They now recommend VS code over Eclipse:
link to forums.garmin.com
They are up to 1.0.0:
link to marketplace.visualstudio.com
No language server yet though for real autocomplete and other functionality :(
link to code.visualstudio.com
The Garmin comments provided in Ray’s Enduro review implied that an new platform was created, and the first released product on the platform was the Enduro. I imagine it implies five button products in the near future will take advantage of the new platform despite the display technology used for each. I guess we’ll find out eventually. They don’t generally talk too much about what is inside the case.
I don’t know I would expect anything other than another Enduro to be a close match to the existing Enduro. The Fenix crowd wants their maps.
Thanks Eli, hadn’t seen that and it’s great news. It’s a shame Ray isn’t more into coding I feel like ConnectIQ could use the boost from posts on here for news like this. Now I’m going to lose a few days learning how the VSCode integration works and probably come back to rant about why Visual Studio isn’t more trendy :D Then I might set about the IoT Hub SDK project I’ve been meaning to get done…eventually
Yes, it’s already there. Under extension, search “Garmin” or “Monkey C”.
>> let’s face it for most people we’re long past battery life worries.
Let’s face it, Garmin is years behind in the smart watch business. Apple is years ahead with their touchscreen, watchOS, on-device appstore etc. This Connect IQ 5 release is a baby step and no catch up by any means.
However Garmin is very much leading in the fitness watch segment. For a fitness watch, it’s a regular and usual use case to record a few hours of activities on a day, with GPS. This needs battery life. Ever ran a marathon with an Apple Watch? A triathlon? Gone on a week’s hike without a smartphone or charger? Nah, many people are not “past battery life worries”. Those are things you simply cannot do with an Apple Watch.
I’m not a fanboy of either of the products (they’re both amazing). I wish that one day we’ll have products that come *both* with an amazing touchscreen and touch feeling like Apple’s, with buttons, and a long battery life. But for now, we have to choose – and for a fitness watch, I’d always choose battery life.
Any chance that there will be an option in the future to track HRV over the course of a night and then report to 3rd parties, much like the Oura does?
This is partly what body battery does, is it not?
That’s also what i miss most.
One thing I really would like to see is that Garmin make a loaded course and course points available to ciq data fields. I think a lot of interesting helpful data fields could be done with it for us that following a route often..
Have you heard anything about that?
Thank you for the update. “…at this time neither Training Load or Training Status are included unfortunately.” It is unfortunate. And inexplicable. Is it a technical problem for ConnectIQ? I don’t understand the only halfway integration of metrics for TacX and Garmin.
Thanks for this. I had registered for the conference, but got tied up at my day job and couldn’t listen in. “That’s okay”, thought I… “Ray will post a nice summary in the next day or so”. You’re getting rather predictable. :)
Alas the ANT+ LGT Bike Lighting standard is still not an official ANT+ Profile and is effectively a closed shop.
The entire LGT Share Channel Profile is an over complicated mess.
I’ve been beating this drum a bit, and I think Ray covered this in his keynote nicely about standards fracture. He’ll post that shortly to his youtube channel usually for those who didn’t attend the virtual event.
The Lighting is actually on 2.0 but members only which is not how this was suppose to work at all. Once it was ratified to a x.0 it was suppose to be available to adopters. Yet products secured by garmin’s patents (radar) were given the express train to ant+ adopter. When Cycling dynamics went “public” it took Ray calling out Garmin’s press release to them I believe to actually make it public. The PR said it was available, but adopters couldn’t see it.
You’re right about the complexity. Which is what might have killed aero.
I’ve implemented an LGT Profile for the nRF52 with some degree of success however I still have shared channel bugs and disconnection issues. I parked this project for a while as I have found it was just an overly complicated mess to debug on the shared channel side. The Controller implementations by different Garmin computers also left a lot to be desired and some didn’t follow the Profile Document.
Someone needs to go into the profile and cut-out all the unnecessary crap like the sub-light stuff. I wrote a letter to the working group on this (suspect it is just Garmin and Bontrager) but was ignored.
I implemented against, ANT+ Managed Network Document – Bike Lights Device Profile, Rev 2.0_M.001 but my ANT+ membership has lapsed. Is there a new rev of this doc?
Still no word on using running power as a native metric, which would make the Stryd footpod less dependent on third party datafields (like I have created myself)? Really a pity, it would make life easier
Until I can have a hi/low alert, like pace and HR, Running Power doesn’t do me any good.
any word yet on the fenix 7 release?
The sport of Fenix Stalking has crept into a wide variety of blogs & websites.
Out of curiosity, what specific new goodies are we all looking for in the F7?
Will someday own another in the Fenix line, but for now the I find cousin FR945 to be fairly awesome.
Answer in the 3rd paragraph of this post
My wish list is short but specific:
Reduce or eliminate the wasted black screen bezel, and use that real estate for larger screen and/or a more effective solar panel
10+ bit color depth (currently 8-bit)
400+ ppi pixel density (currently 283ppi)
64GB+ storage space (currently 32GB)
Remove the 32 installed apps & 2 datafields per activity limitations
Elevate 4 sensor
Other upgrades that I don’t necessarily need, but would still be welcomed, might include:
An even bigger battery and/or efficiency upgrades to increase battery life
Dual-band GPS chip (although the effectiveness of dual-band in smartwatches has so far proven to not really improve anything much)
A touchscreen to supplement (but not replace) the 5 buttons, especially for map pan/zoom functionality
The only thing I’m really hoping for from a new Fenix is LTE, and some colour combos that don’t suck. I am seriously over jet black. I’m about to start working with a new coach, and as I’m coming out of the early parenting phase (where I was primary carer for most of the last 4.5 years due to my wife’s insane medical work schedule), I need to get a new proper training watch. AW Series 5 just isn’t going to do it. This is exciting, but also infuriating…because although I could get a 945 LTE right now and would probably love it, what I really want is the 6 Solar in mineral blue/white with LTE so that I’d get the other maps and Fenix goodies. I might try to bridge the gap for a while with AW apps.
10-bit color, really? You want to watch HDR content on your watch?
The new goodie I’m waiting for is a training feature (Firstbeat?) that I didn’t know I needed or existed and is blowing everybody’s mind. That said, I think what Ray wrote is a very strong indication that there won’t be a new F7 this year. Otherwise he would have it on his wrist by now and would have written something a bit more nebulous. Maybe take advantage of the good F6 offers at the moment after all…
Maybe teaching different gestures to the watch instead of the built-in one(s). l am not speaking of special, non-official kinds of swim styles :-), but it would be awesome to have more than the present 2 device statuses (before gesture and after gesture statuses) of the watch. It could be used practically for anything.
As an example, it’d be possible to switch between datascreens during an activity just with a hand movement, shaking etc. Gesture 1: step forward, Gesture 2: step back
Another example is to activate a function with a pre-taught gesture like buttons do in Control now. Wild Hand shaking = flaslight etc.
Or to have watchfaces with 2 pages using the gestures. It is possible right now, too, I mean to define 2 pages, but with one pre-defined gesture it is very tough to avoid the switch to the 2nd page when you have a glance at your watch. Practically saying you will always see the same page unless you make intentionally a clumsy move with your arm.
I have a data field which allows you to “scroll” / switch between pages using an application-defined “gesture”: Press UP, DOWN (or DOWN, UP) quickly. The trick here is that the data field can detect when it is hidden and shown again within a short period of time. I use this technique to implement a fullscreen data field app which normally shows 6 metrics, but also has the ability to show a list of lap data with multiple pages.
It’s not the greatest UX, as it can easily be triggered by accident, but it’s also easier to intentionally trigger compared to the standard “turn wrist” gesture.
link to apps.garmin.com
I just want more lte functionality like some quick texts or some lte data for email apps. U can sorta do it via the emergency screen but a less severe way would be better. Otherwise I like my 945lte and the battery life…
This sounds like “I don’t need much but just give me more of everything!” … Seriously, why would most of us need more colours or pixels? It’s a watch and in most cases I look at it very briefly.
Bigger display and solar panel would be very preferred, of course. Or smaller watches as anyone enjoying 745 would confirm. And the last 3 you mentioned would be useful too. More precise GPS is always welcome as is longer lasting battery. And touch-screen would be useful occasionally too, but we must have an option to turn it off (and just use the 5 buttons).
And more sensors and more precise data out of them and better insight for us, that’s always exciting and something I expect other platforms and brands will keep working on.
I know it Will, use it, too, actually I was the one who asked for 2 more clones (C and D) under the nickname Tisztul_A_Visztula.
I meant not pre-defined button sequences as gestures, but wrist-turn-wise gestures.
“I know it Will, use it, too, actually I was the one who asked for 2 more clones (C and D) under the nickname Tisztul_A_Visztula.”
Oh hey. Glad you like the app! (I know it’s pretty niche).
“I meant not pre-defined button sequences as gestures, but wrist-turn-wise gestures.”
Yeah, I get that, but I was just pointing out there’s another alternative which no other dev seems to have used. (Although I totally get why not — it’s pretty nonstandard and unintuitive.)
Erm… Am I missing something? Last year no watches except the Venu 2 were said to get CIQ 4, now a lot of devices are getting CIQ 5…? Not that I’m complaining, I’m just not sure I understood this properly.
Correction: no watches except new devices from 2021 were said to get CIQ 4, sorry
Yes. Nothing is getting System 5 that didn’t get System 4 over the last year. There’s a distinction as of last year between System (single-digit designation) and API levels (x.y.z designation). So System 4 covered units running API 3.2.x and running 4.0.x, but there were a handful of things that only worked on the 4.0.x units (that is, the Venu 2 and 2s), almost all to do with graphics and only really applicable to the AMOLED units anyway. The exception is the Super Apps, which I think needed better multitasking than older units could manage. Everything else in System 4 worked on Fenix 5 plus, 6, Forerunner 945, 245, 745 and a list of others I don’t recall offhand. System 5 will cover the same units, and again there will be some things that only work on 4.0.x hardware, and in 2022 there will be units which support the on-device app store, which won’t work on 3.2.x units or the current 4.0.x units. It is a bit confusing, not least that System 4 covers some 3.x.y units as well as 4.0.x! I think what they are trying to do overall is improve the backwards compatibility of new versions a bit while accepting there will be some specific features that can’t be back-implemented on older hardware.
Thx Dom. I hadn’t realized the difference between “System” 4 and “API” 4. Good to know, was a bit confused before.
Hi, good news re body battery and stress, but no news on Garmin sit about whether they will be available to existing devices or only new devices (they’re listed as compatible with API 3.3.0, however no current watches can meet that requirement!
Oh man, was looking/hoping for news on the ant+ aero profile stuff (wind speed) for on-device CdA real-time calculations. And native running power.
Unless I missed it : Still no support for more than two custom data fields per activity. Bit of a shame, that.
Agreed, either more than 2 CIQ datafields OR more native datafields like running power.
I rencently tried to write an app for my fr945 that connects to my continuous glucose monitor. Aside from the fact that you basically reverse-engineer the protocol, the project ultimately failed because the watch chopped off everything after the first 20 bytes of all recieved bluetooth messages ([1]).
Do you have any insight why there are no standardized ANT+ or BT device profiles for these CGMs yet? Shouldn’t those Supersapiens-people be interested in that? In your experience: Any Chance Garmin could/would fix an issue like the one I was facing?
[1]: link to forums.garmin.com
There is a new oficial CIQ app for Dexcom. I don’t know if you can use it.
link to garmin.com
Very interesting set of updates. I hope as well that some day-to-day/smart features will be implemented or improved, at least in the upcoming models: e.g. why the “do not disturb” mode is not synchronized with the smartphone one?
Looking at the CIQ5 device list, again Garmin somehow forgot they ever made the Forerunner 645(M). Poor lonely watch, left by the side of the road…
I agree. Disappointing. I realize that the device itself is several years old, but it would be nice if Garmin maintained consistency across the x45 series of forerunners. Hopefully this is something that they pay closer attention to in the future
Garmin fudged up naming it 645. It’s based on the *35 hardware like the 935. It’s not a bad watch per se besides the “ok” battery. That and mine seems to have bugs with detecting gps signal. But looking at DC’s review and you’d think it was the best thing since sliced bread.
I’m not exactly sure you’re reading the same reviews I’m writing.
If you go back at look at that nearly 4yo review, you’ll very plainly see in the summary that I basically say the jury is very much still out.
Notes from the summary:
“So what’s the wrap-up on Garmin’s first music enabled watch? Honestly, it’s probably too soon to tell.”
“Shifting focus, once you get into the music realm, the jury is somewhat out depending on how you typically listen to music. For me personally, I’m more about streaming services. And in Garmin’s case, even once iHeartRadio comes online in the next week or two, that won’t really solve my problem because it’s not a platform I use and it’s not a platform available to me outside the US”
” I also think that we’re probably going to see a lot of folks realize just how finicky Bluetooth audio headphones are when connected to watches (as has been the case for years). Garmin will likely catch some flak there, even when not entirely deserved (perhaps they should have followed Fitbit’s lead in making their own headphones that were guaranteed to work).”
Literally, 75% of the summary of that review is me pointing out problems.
So again, what reviews are you reading?
Your reviews are top notch Ray. Lots of people, including Google trust your reviews. Consequently, a lot of people do buy watches based on your launch reviews years after a watch is released.
Yes it will be time consuming, but might it be a good idea to add a post review paragraph for major watch updates? Of the top of my head, the Vantage/Elemnt/245/945 have all received significant updates in terms of accuracy and features since release. Most will even say the 245 is better than the 645 thanks to the updates.
Oh yes, and the companies should take blame for this situation. Name the watches properly, and do not release half baked watches with bugs.
I hope that Apple Music comes as a music provider for Garmin watches, for me simply optimal and also the cheapest in terms of the offer, especially with the lossless formats, clearly not on the Garmin watch it will probably not work
Does anyone here know of a webpage or app, that uses the Garmin API to provide better graphs??? I
‘m thinking mainly on resolution or data points, when viewing longer time spans.
On connect www all the graphs have the same annoying behaviour, where you only get the average for a month, if you view 6 month.
E.g. link to connect.garmin.com
link to connect.garmin.com
Even for 4 weeks blocks, they add it together to an average for a week, so you get 4 points instead of the 28 that’s really there….
Or maybe there is a good reason for this???
Where there any talks of better integration with the phone voice assists???
I’d love to be able to say: “Google/Siri, set Garmin alarm to 7 pm.” or “Start garmin walk” etc.
Seems weird this support is not there. Alarms, timers, start activity should be straight forward…
Hi Ray!
Was there any announcement how ciq field could be used as target during wotkouts?
Let’s just focus on garmin power ciq for running power. What can i do if i want to train according to that specific ciq value?
I was hoping the Fenix 7 would be available this year but I am guessing Garmin is also struggling from the microprocessor shortage.
They had to pay a lot of money ($10M?) to decrypt their data.
“They had to pay a lot of money ($10M?) to decrypt their data.”
That was over a year ago, and a very small portion of their revenue. I sincerely doubt that fiasco hindered their production schedules at all.
Garmin is a large company, it seems unlikely to me that they would need to pull their R&D and production staff from what they were working on, to deal with a database hack that they have no expertise in.
In any case, Garmin has released several new products in the time since that ransomware attack, which kind of moots that argument.
Any news on the 955?
Exactly the same as the Fenix 7.
I am waiting on a Garmin watch with ECG. Presently I have a Fenix 5 Plus and a Samsung Galaxy Watch 3. I have a heart condition which I have to keep an eye on when working out. I would like an all in one device with the fitness capabilities of the Fenix line and an ECG that can record irregular heart rhythms. I will not be upgrading my Garmin till that becomes a reality. I am not in the Apple ecosystem or else I would already have an Apple Watch. Hopefully the next iteration of the Fenix line will include this.
Has any chance of Garmin adds support to connect IQ on instinct devices?
I don’t understand why they don’t do that. A lot o developers would make some specific apps for instinct models…
Does anyone know if in the past Garmin add support to an old model?
Regards!
I’ve been reading through the materials for the Connect Developer’s program. I’m deeply sympathetic to their perspective that supporting a general purpose SDK or API for everything from big platform customers to hobbyist developers is costly and can easily result in a program that’s expensive to run and support. That said, the application has some ‘chicken vs. egg’ problems. They’re largely pushing you to have an existing experience, privacy agreement and other material before you can get access to the platform to build the stuff that lets you have an integrated experience. It’s not ideal. It fairly clearly tries to exclude non-enterprise customers — again i’m sympathetic — particularly for the privacy issues.
What i’d like to see is a ‘hobbyist access my own data only ‘ tier — limited feature, w/request quotas, etc. This would provide a stepping stone maybe for folks to determine whether to build a business or not. Today, the next best option is to export your fitness history from Garmin — essentially every activity and interaction you’ve had with Garmin all in a big zip file and then manually uploading later activities This is functional for prototyping but clumsy for even early product.
I’m curious as to the second level screening for this program — what do they ask for next? Ray — a good follow on for next year’s conference is statistics on this program — applications, acceptances, queries, something.
regards,
Adam
Re “ Expanded CIQ data metrics: Connect IQ apps can now access Body Battery, Stress, Recovery Time, VO2Max, and Activity History.”
I dont understand what the present state is. This article was written like 5 months ago.
You used the following words, Ray:
“ For this year, it was the announcement of Garmin Connect IQ System 5. “
And afaiu only this piece was announced for the future:
“ Of course, we’ve seen app stores come on-device to both Wear OS and watchOS, so this is a natural evolution for Garmin as well. However note, this will only be available for devices launched in 2022. Meaning, devices that aren’t announced yet, but not current devices.”
So I happily asked a CIQ premium WF developer whether he would be ready to add Recovery time to one of his watchfaces as a choosable data. He answered that he would do it when it would be possible.
I got confused.
So all those news you shared,Ray, was just a plan? Or is the developer in question simply wrong, because Recovery Time has been available since last October?
Sorry, I forgot to add that I asked the developer this/last week.
For pretty much any developer conference (Apple/Microsoft/Google/Garmin/etc…), they’re always “just a plan”. Usually, there are multiple developer betas that occur over the months following, and sometimes features get added or cut.
For recovery time, according to Garmin’s CIQ 5 announcement page here (link to forums.garmin.com) – that falls under Toybox.ActivityMonitor
At present, that still requires the beta SDK’s, but it is there. There are a few threads on it, if one grabs the SDK 4.1 beta releases (the developer).
Cheers
Thanks for your explanation.
The developer answered to me in the meantime:
“ Currently it’s not possible to compile and upload in store with SDK 4.xx”
So he deems that beta is not good enough for an upload, just eg. for a development (internal) test.
Do you agree with his answer?
Partially.
The beta isn’t available for normal users in production at this point, so as a normal user you couldn’t use it. So in that sense, the developer is correct that they can’t publish it to the store with the development firmware.
However, as a developer they could develop/test it out with the 4.1 SDK beta, for their own testing purposes.
Hi,
Fenix 6 receive CIQ System 5 (with the CIQ 3.3.x API branch) Beta firmware 20.82
https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/290079/fenix-6-series—20-82-public-beta
Most of the older device received this enhancement through Public or Beta, F5Plus, Forerunner x45, Edge, VA4 Venu2, etc.
Thanks Garmin for software support :-)