Android Notification Channels

Controlling notifications from individual applications in Garmin Connect Mobile menu » Settings » Notifications » App Notifications works fine for me, and I can adjust the notifications as I want. Doesn't it work for you?

I can activate or deactivate notifications for entire apps using the settings you describe.

But Android apps can have more than one notification channel, as described in developer.android.com/.../channels - but even if an app has multiple notification channels in Android, I can still only enable or disable the entire app, not enable watch notifications for one channel and disable them for another.

But Android apps can have more than one notification channel,

Yes, they can, but the purpose of them is giving the user the control of notifications of each respective application. It was not designed for inter-application communication.

Notifications are working on the OS level, not on the app layer. It means the user can decide whether he wants to see the respective notification, and whether he wants to use also sound or vibration, and other details, but he cannot choose what other app the notification should be sent to. And oppositely, AFAIK, an apllication cannot access the notification channels of other applications directly, or subcribe them individually. An application can just read the OS notifications, not each channel selectively.

As far as I see, it could perhaps work to certain extent, if Garmin watches used Android WearOS (but I think nobody really wishes it, at the current state of the OS). And that only under the condition, that each of the concerned applications offered a separate option for WearOS devices.

trux said:

AFAIK, an apllication cannot access the notification channels of other applications directly, or subcribe them individually. An application can just read the OS notifications, not each channel selectively.

So the Garmin Connect app can see a list of all installed apps and use that to toggle which apps' notifications will be shown on the watch. But it cannot see the list of notification channels that, in Android settings, is 'behind' an app entry in the Android notification list, so it cannot offer toggles and filter based on those channels, if I'm understanding you correctly?

That's a real shame, because it would really help cut down on the number of unnecessary notifications. I hope there'll be an API for this purpose too at some point.

Thank you for taking the time to explain.

Yes, that's correct. You can control the individual app channels from within their application, and decide which will be suppressed, remain silent, show up or not. It should have impact on GC too.

Unfortunately the impact on GC is negligible.

All notifications result in the watch vibrating as soon as they show a notification icon in the Android status bar - it makes no difference if they are silent (i.e. only an icon in the status bar without popup, sounds and vibration) or intrusive (sound, vibration, popup).

The only way to have any impact on GC whatsoever is to completely disable a notification channel, but that's missing the point of notification channels, it's more akin to completely muting a chat. That way I actually have to go to the app to see if anything's happened.

Please don't take this as hostility or complaint - I do appreciate the discussion, I just disagree that notification channels have any (meaningful) impact on Garmin Connect.