Third-Party App Ideas - Recent Threads

Garmin Connect IQ Data Field – Swim Pace Vibrator at each completed lap

markskuce — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:30:34 GMT

First time poster to the forum apologies for any errors ! Does anyone know if the following is available

Garmin Connect IQ Data Field – Swim Pace Vibrator for Epix gen2

Objective

Develop a Garmin Connect IQ Data Field for the Garmin Epix Gen 2 that can be added to a standard Pool Swim activity and provide pacing cues via vibration at fixed time intervals.

The primary use case is swimming in a 25m pool and maintaining a target pace of a selected number of seconds from 28 to 35 seconds per length.

Thanks

RE: Garmin Connect IQ Data Field – Swim Pace Vibrator at each completed lap

markskuce — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:11:10 GMT

Thats superb, thanks for taking the time to reply, much appreciated

RE: Garmin Connect IQ Data Field – Swim Pace Vibrator at each completed lap

trux — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:18:37 GMT

You can achieve it without any IQ app, with any Garmin watch supporting Pool Swim Workouts. Simply create a Pool Swim workout of N steps of the length of 28s (or whatever else duration you want). You will then get a vibration and sound alert at each step repeat.

RE: [Request] Soccer / Football Performance Tracking App

8946270 — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 11:52:24 GMT

I was able to use the scorza app on my Venu 2S for soccer, it comes with a vest too that I can put the watch in and then an app on my phone to see extra stats

[Request] Soccer / Football Performance Tracking App

Former Member — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:21:41 GMT

Hi, I just bought a Fenix 3 and am new to the Garmin Forum. I want to use the watch among other activities to track my (amateur) soccer / football performance. It would be great to record

- the distance run during a game or training
- number of sprints
- own goals scored (through pushing a hardware button for every goal)
- own assists made (through pushing a hardware button for every assist)

The screen can show 3-4 fields including the information above and maybe heart rate in addition. This app goes more to the motivational side and can be helpful to track the performance. It should be easily transferrable to Basketball or other Team sports.

Anybody interest in developing the app? I would be glad to contribute more although I am not a programmer.

Michael

How can I get access to the Garmin Health API and Activity API for app development?

2213395 — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 20:04:47 GMT

Hello everyone,

I am currently planning to develop a personal fitness dashboard web application and would like to integrate Garmin data into it. The idea is to retrieve fitness, health, and activity data from my Garmin account and process it inside my own application.

I have seen that some third-party apps are able to connect to Garmin by redirecting users to a Garmin login page, where they can authorize access to their data, including historical activity data. I would like to understand how this works from a developer perspective.

Specifically, I would like to know:

How can I apply for access to the Garmin Health API and/or Activity API?
Is access available for individual developers or only for companies/approved partners?
Is there a sandbox or test environment for development?
Can the API provide historical activities and health data after a user has granted permission?
What is the recommended authentication flow for this use case?
Are there any restrictions, approval requirements, or costs involved?

At first, this would only be for my own personal use, but I would like to build the project properly from the beginning and understand what is officially supported by Garmin.

Any guidance, documentation links, or experiences from developers who have gone through the process would be very helpful.

Thank you in advance!

AI Coach for Real-Time Adaptive Training Plans

7796462 — Sat, 09 May 2026 07:22:27 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have built a website CoachX.run because I’m tired of "static" training plans.

We’ve all been there: you miss a session, and Garmin Coach just ignores it. The built-in workouts can feel repetitive, and manually creating complex workouts in the app is a total pain. Without a pre-set workout, you’re stuck constantly checking your watch, trying to remember your intervals and current progress.

CoachX changes that. The goal is to create and modify your training plans through real-time conversation. It’s designed to be:

Flexible: If you miss a day or feel off, the plan adapts instantly.
Diverse: No more cookie-cutter workouts.
Seamless: It acts like a real coach, so you don't have to spend time manually building workouts or memorizing reps.

Would this solve a pain point for you? I'd love to hear how you currently handle missed sessions or "boring" plans!

RE: AI Coach for Real-Time Adaptive Training Plans

6162350 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:30:35 GMT

seems that "fascat coaching"allready has designed a solution

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

flocsy🤠 — Sat, 09 May 2026 08:34:14 GMT

No, the only way you can share data between 2 apps is via a web service

Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

RinseRepeat — Fri, 08 May 2026 13:35:18 GMT

one of my biggest peeves with Garmin is they round many things to stupid whole numbers even though internally they track to fine detail

vo2max, recovery time, etc. (remember when Strava finally added decimals and made their site 100x more functional?)

an experienced developer can probably whip this up in a weekend (maybe even share the code to teach others?)

but if no-one does I might eventually try to do it myself as a first app someday this summer to learn

assuming it's technically possible in the first place

previously the CIQ API only made recovery time available in whole integer hours

but I noticed the API for newest devices ie. Fenix7 and newer seem to have additional info with Recovery time in minutes?

If that is correct and accessible, I'd like to see a replacement for Garmin's useless Recovery time widget/glance

adding decimal point and the target date+time

something like this visual mockup?

don't even bother showing minutes or days, just state everything in hours with single decimal 0.1 - 0.9

possible with newest API?

NOT via timeToRecovery

but rather Toybox.Complications API 4.2.0

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/api-docs/Toybox/Complications.html

COMPLICATION_TYPE_RECOVERY_TIME

API Level 4.2.0

Value is a Number of minutes remaining in your recovery time

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

RinseRepeat — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:22:01 GMT

adding: apparently watch faces can have companion apps that can access Complications

apps.garmin.com/.../da48442e-184c-49ba-9a6b-9d4a9d1ed60b

forums.garmin.com/.../widget-universal-widget-universal-widget-light

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

RinseRepeat — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:06:04 GMT

gosh Garmin keeps shooting themselves in the foot

other watches are just going to race by in app development, Garmin API is so outdated

So instead

could watch faces write that data to memory or storage where another app could access it?

Basically a companion app to a watch face

Unless watch faces can have other "pages" accessible, but I've never seen that done

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

flocsy🤠 — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:20:18 GMT

According to the docs only watch faces can subscribe to complications

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

RinseRepeat — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:10:32 GMT

ah okay there is good logic to HH:MM, I was thinking old-school

but what are the new API "Complications" with recovery in minutes ?

can that data be captured by an app/glance?

RE: Recovery with Decimal + Date (glance/widget app idea)

flocsy🤠 — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:54:09 GMT

If you manage to do it, I think it would make more sense to display it in HH:MM format instead of decimal hours.

Unfortunately the SDK only gives full hours, and not even from "now", but since the last activity (which is not very useful, and also a bit odd, considering that it can be delayed by not enough sleep) https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/api-docs/Toybox/ActivityMonitor/Info.html#timeToRecovery-var

RE: Datafield pace for edge 530

AndiPl — Mon, 04 May 2026 18:00:05 GMT

Thanks a lot. Was not considered

Andreas

Datafield pace for edge 530

AndiPl — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:35:17 GMT

Dear All,

I would like to have a data field pace [min/km] for my edge 530. Could someone support me?

Greetings and thanks

Andreas

RE: Datafield pace for edge 530

flocsy🤠 — Mon, 04 May 2026 17:41:49 GMT

I wanted to create it for you, but all you need is to search for pace in the store, it already exists

RE: About elapsed time and temperature date field

flocsy🤠 — Mon, 04 May 2026 17:34:29 GMT

Now that you understand the complexity you can contact me in private message with an offer.

About elapsed time and temperature date field

3792573 — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:06:18 GMT

Hi everyone

I want a date field for the Garmin Edge 540 bike computer that displays elapsed time and temperature in the same column. They should be centered on two lines, with the temperature on top and the elapsed time below, and the font of the elapsed time should be slightly larger than the temperature.

I spent a long time writing it myself, but I didn't succeed.

Who cam help me,3Q.

Thanks for reading, Have a great day.

App Idea Game/Pokémon

Former Member — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 13:05:18 GMT

Hi everyone

During a training I got an idea. Do you know the Pokéwalker, it was a little gadget given when you buying a NDS game HG or SS.

It was simply to use, that was counted the steps you make with the PW (PokéWalker) and with and you could "use" your step to make some activity, like catch pokémons, fight pokémon or find objects. and you were walking with one of your pokémons. For more information about it, I advise you to search on the web because I don't know how to explain (sorry about it).

Then, my idea was to make that work like a widget on a Garmin watch, but like we know, it was work with a NDS game, so I think we could have a random weak pokemon at the beginning and, use other pokemon if we want after catching other pokemon. And I why not make this app with only one pokemon generation at the beginning (not necessarily the first gen).

Thanks for reading, and if you have question tell me in comment or message me. Have a great day.

RE: App Idea Game/Pokémon

Bitochi — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 18:02:43 GMT

Try out the: apps-developer.garmin.com/.../d61de4c6-10c7-417b-a326-2bf2c1d1b95c

I created a new app that will start an activity at a preset zone when HR reaches a certain treshold but I'd like to have a background aspect to it which would allow launching the main app when reaching a zone...

Enfedaque — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:28:44 GMT

The app is called 'Ready'

The SDK doesn't provide ability to use GPS in background and I was wondering if Garmin was planning to give some rough location estimate maybe based on cell phone location that could be queried in the background process.

Indoor Rowing Data Fields Idea – Estimated Distance, Split Pace & Distance per Stroke (Fenix 8 Solar 47mm)

Felipe Dalton — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:07:40 GMT

Hello Connect IQ Developers!

I’d like to propose an idea for an indoor rowing data fields:

Objective:

Provide more meaningful rowing metrics when training without a smart rower, relying only on watch sensors.

1. Estimated Distance (Calories-Based Model):

Even without connected equipment, watches already calculate calories and effort metrics. This means distance could be estimated using a physiological relationship:

D = ((C − 300) / 9.6367)^(1/3) × T

Where:

D = Estimated distance
C = Calories per hour
T = Elapsed workout time

This concept is similar to how rowing machines derive pace from power and would require:

Calories burned
Elapsed time

2. Estimated Split Pace (500m):

Using the estimated distance, split pace could also be derived:

Split Pace (500m) = Elapsed Time / (Estimated Distance / 500)

This would allow users to see a familiar rowing metric even without a connected rower (maybe even use it with the virtual pacer?).

3. Estimated Distance per Stroke:

If stroke count or stroke rate is accessible:

Distance per Stroke = Estimated Distance / Stroke Count or alternatively;
Distance per Stroke = Speed / Stroke Rate

Is stroke detection or stroke metrics accessible enough from a Connect IQ data field, or would this require a full Connect IQ app?

I’d love to hear thoughts from experienced Connect IQ developers.

Thanks.

RE: Indoor Rowing Data Fields Idea – Estimated Distance, Split Pace & Distance per Stroke (Fenix 8 Solar 47mm)

trudelta — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:27:28 GMT

You can find data fields for (1) and (2) now in the Connect IQ app