How come no watch face around that includes compass data?

CIQ watchfaces don't have access to compass data except once every 5 minutes, which wouldn't be that helpful..

OK! Now I know! Thank you!

To my opinion, in many situations outdoor, you'd need to check compass, elevation and time at a glance, without having to touch a screen (take off your gloves and so on...). GARMIN should think this over...

Anyway, thanks for your quick et clear answer!

I just released a watchface that does all this.  After a wrist gesture the compass heading will update once a second for a while depending on what your backlight timeout setting is set to.  After that it updates once a minute.  Check it out here: https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/381450d5-c7c4-43dc-bc00-85fccc85c4f4

Cheers

trudelta

I'm trying to add a compass feature to my watch face as well.

I tried Activity.getActivityInfo().currentHeading and Position.getInfo().heading both with the same result which is that the heading data is only updated while an activity with GPS is active.

When I go back to the watch face while the activity is active the watch face will permanently stay in high power mode.

You did not mention that your watch face requires an active activity for the compass feature to work and and also the once per minute update does not seem to apply in this case when the watch face does not enter low power mode.

I'm testing on a Fenix7X.

I would be very grateful if you could clarify this.

Thanks!

GPS needs to be active.  A second way is to activate the auto activity start feature on some watches.  A few minutes after some activity, GPS will turn on, and in low power mode, the compass can be updated once per minute.

With GPS on, your battery will drain fast.  With the compass, that's used up until a certain speed and then GPS takes over. (about 2mph if I recall) 

Sensor,Info.heading is the compass, but can only be used in a background service in watch faces,

Thank you very much for your quick and helpful reply!

It's curious that GPS needs to be on. Can't the magnetic compass work without it? E.g. does GPS turn on when you access the ABC screen?

You don't need GPS to be on to use the compass.  Here's a widget that shows the compass without GPS:

https://apps.garmin.com/apps/fdecbeaf-7d99-45e4-80e5-b5f9c2e92365

The thing is you can't access the compass from a watch face except in a background service, so only once every 5 minutes at most.  Other app types, you can do it in the main app.