Good morning Garmin,
I have taken a look recently at the group / challange / leaderboard interface in Garmin Connect, and really like the direction it is headed, but it has so much unused potential , yet appears so close to be able to use it. I believe this expanded use would open the floodgates to widespread adoption in many sports, and signifiantly increase Garmin wearable device sales.
Here is my feedback, and if this is posted in the wrong forum Garmin please pass on to the relevant Garmin development team.
Group concept
The way the group is specific to a selected sport I think is fantastic, but what is currently lacking is data applicable to the specific sport. I have written a few applications that involve racing yachts / boats / windsurf etc.... and my users would love to see some basic additional data that is obtainable from the activity file, or alternatively from a custom IQ field from specific applications.
The Distance / Time / Calories / Map and post fields are great as a social media starting point, but if you are racing - the group page does not show any relevant performance metrics. My users would use the group currently to see that someone has, and perhapse where they went sailing, rather than to compare performance metrics which Garmin are renowned for having. This means many of them use alternative platforms and devices that do provide the metrics and the social aspect together at the same time. For example..... the WOO device and social media / performance comparison leaderboards.woosports.com/.../bigair
I would recommend group moderators be able to enable / disable additional group feed data on the group activity posts related to particular sports, and for me that means speed & time / distance such as:
1.Maximum speed.
2.Fastest 100/200/500/1000 metres.
3.Custom IQ fields that developers have spent hundreds of hours creating and testing, that right now are not able to be easily shared or compared without dedicated website hosting which very quickly costs more than the revenue recieved from applications generate. We are only talking about using something as simple as a specific IQ field title, and a single float value. This would open up the posts to become more competitive, and is a means to provide data directly relevant to the sport, the application used, and for the user the actual reason they purchased the application in the first place. I go back to my racing applications, right now there is no max speed, there are no fastest 100/200/500 meters, there is no group competition support, so although feeds of the sport feed in, the current purpose of the group is purely social, and because there are many other competing social groups that have this performance metric support and can display these metrics ( for example strava, or ybtracking f, or WOO leaderboards.woosports.com/.../bigair ), this remains an untapped potential for Garmin sales.
Regarding the group activity feeds, what would also take that to the next level would be the combining of group FIT files to display on an active map. Practically this is 2 people, lets say on 2 different sailboats, that are using the same or different watch applications but both have the sport of sailing selected.
A. If their posts are for an activity that overlapped in time and position, the page could auto-detect a group event, create a group post with both fit files against a map, and provide a playback option of the tracking of the two individual ( or 10 or 50 ), individual users on the same map on the group page.
B. Alternatively group members could create an event in that Group, and after the fact users could manually add their activity to the group event from their dashboard where A would then happen.
C. Events could also be live, where watches have 4G / LTE connectivity via hotspots, and users are pre-registered for the event ( they join the event in the group in GCM ), and what we are talking about here is more of an event tracker for a group event, so a group map would load with a key for the user, and some performance metrics like velocity would be available ( maybe heart rate ), the event should be stored in the group so it can be replayed back after the live event finishes also.
Leaderboards
Much like the group concept, the leaderboard concept I also think is fantastic, only let down currently by the lack of relevant metric support. Again back to my racing app, none of the metrics available are related to anyone who uses my app when racing others on the water, and as a goup admin, I can't really "use" the leaderboard because the data is not really relevant to most people. Right now, the only single metric I can select is weekly Total distance. I would suggest the following would be of great interest to competitive racers.
1.Top speed
2.Time over distance ( quickest 100 / 200 / 500 / 1km ) - which is used by many international speed record bodies to record top speeds
3.Custom IQ fields. I am suggesting the group admin be able to link a group not just with a Garmin sport, but also with specific Garmin watch applications ( Or alternatively link the leaderboard selection to an application, and to a connect IQ field ) , and the application having a Connect IQ field ( Title and float value for example ). This really needs to also get implemented into the activity feed, so that a Group Admin can create a leaderboard from any activity feed data point, that is displayed as part of the general activity feed post. For example - I would , and the users would love a top speed leaderboard and to see their top speed on their activity feed posts, and a or multiple time over distance leaderbaords ( 100 / 200 / 500 ). I also have other metrics such as kitesurf jump heights, or infact jump height for any activity ( motorcross / BMX / Dirt bike ) ... tennis racket swings, ping pong ball hits..... that users would also love to be able to see / compare and compete with each other socially within a group.
Challenges
I really like the concept of the challanges, but it is selling itself short. It is so incredibly limited in sport choice that it is un-useable for 98% of sports except for highest step count / longest run / furthest cycle / furthest swim. Right now it appears to be only relevant for extreme distance training, and completely irrelevant to time over distance / races / top speed training. I suggest that Challenges should be able to be created from any of the available sports, and at a minimum be based on selected metrics that are relevant to that sport, at a matured level actually be able to be based on custom metrics that would only be availabe through a select application's IQ data field, and again we are only talking connect IQ field title, and a single value that would need to be associated with the Group, and the Activity feed, the Leaderboard, and that you could create a challange for ( Like say the fastest 200 meters every week on a windsufer - anywhere on earth )
Connect IQ Dashboards and Activies
Aside from Golf, and I am sure everyone can see why - it is impossible even with a custom dashboard to easily find an activity that you did in the morning, if you did something afterwards. The number of questions and complaints I have recieved from users claiming the data is not in GCM is evidence to this fact.
The "Custom" Dashboard that users can create, needs to have the option by default to filter by the activity type. So if I perform several activities during the week ( strength, running, walking, swimming , Kiteboarding ), I would be interested in looking at 1 activity compared with my previous performances in that activity in the past. For example - Sailing dashboard, would only have my activities where the sport selected was sailing ?
BUG.....Right now if I create a custom dashboard, and click add group, and search for the name, it appears to open the group rather than add the group to the dashboard, and then if I click on my custom dashboard to see it again, and look at the group that I just added and searched for - it appears empty still. It is not until I then click on options and change the view to group or activity or something else that the data refreshes to show me that I did actually just add a group. Suggest that rather than opening the group page, once a group is selected from the search when adding to a dashboard, the group page should close and the group you added should update on the dashboard page to show you that it has indeed been added successfully.
I cannot figure out how to add a challange to a group page, I can see that the Dashboard summary allows you to select group feed, and seperately the group leaderboard / challanges appear ( challanges empty ) which I think is great. Now the challanges and the leaderboards need to be made relevant to the sports, and there needs to be a way to add a challnge to a group ( and therefore all the members within the group ). Right now it seems I can only create a challange with a single or multiple selected connections, perhapse group admins should also have the ability to select their group ( which in turn selects all members ) to offer a challange ? Then the Challange within a group page makes more sense.
Love what has been created so far.... and look forward to it hopefully becoming useable for more Garmin users and developers
Nick
