New Merchant, first update with pricing and buy buttons greyed out

Yeah, check the Compatible Devices tab.

For the first app, it does not contain the Instinct 2/3 MIP devices (despite what the description says).

For the second app, it is completely empty.

Here's the original list of products which support monetization. (Looks like it's out of date as it does not list Instinct 3 AMOLED)

[https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monetization/app-sales/#appsales]

This is the first I have heard that the Instinct /2/3 don’t support monetization! I can certainly set that the instincts wf’s to use the Garmin monetization and set a price. At no point does it say these devices are not covered.

i really hope this is not the case.

Perhaps someone from Garmin can comment?

There is an incomplete list of supported devices on the sparse Monetization page. There’s no  Instincts, Instinct 3 or Tactix 8 from a quick scan.

I have received reports that users of my Instinct faces (total downloads 100k +) reporting that my faces have been removed automatically from their devices and replaced with a standard WF. I really was not expecting that!

I submitted 11 Instinct 2 faces to Garmin with monetization selected and configured. They were all verified by Garmin!

What is going on with Garmin?

I found a new list (different to the the merchant list) here and the Instinct 3 Solar which is compatible with the Instinct 2 as far as I have read. They both use the same watch face. 

On that list is this link to these Instinct3 watch faces https://apps.garmin.com/devices/instinct3-45mm-s/apps

This list also includes Instinct 2 watch faces, including mine which are currently impossible to buy!

I heard back friom the IQ team.

Heres the crux:

GARMIN IQ has checks in place on the app store that prevent customers from purchasing apps for products incompatible with monetization. However, to have an app on the app store you must first have your Apps validated for monetization, that currently does not check for incompatible Apps to be validated.

Catch22 or what?

7780811 said:

This is the first I have heard that the Instinct /2/3 don’t support monetization!

To be clear he’s saying that Instinct 2 and MIP Instinct 3 don’t support monetization.

AMOLED Instinct 3 clearly supports monetization as you can see from the compatible devices tab in the first app link you posted.

On the flip side, do you have any reason to believe that Instinct 2 and all Instinct 3s support monetization? Or was that just an assumption? There’s a lot of devices that don’t support monetization (especially older devices and Edges)

7780811 said:

What is going on with Garmin?

i mean, we’ve already tried to explain it to you, but I guess it’s good to hear the official explanation from Garmin.

Not all products are compatible with monetization, so once you enabled monetization for your apps:

- the products that don’t support monetization disappeared from the compatible devices list

- users with the products that don’t support monetization are unable to buy the apps

- the 2nd app you linked that now has no compatible products also has a greyed out buy button, because nobody can buy it

It makes a certain kind of sense, although I do think Garmin dropped the ball in effectively communicating this to devs. Garmin should probably also prevent devs from creating an app that nobody can download / buy.

7780811 said:

There is an incomplete list of supported devices on the sparse Monetization page.

Yeah, that was mentioned above.

I think the best way for Garmin to handle this would be:

- for Garmin to keep that list up-to-date

- if a dev enables monetization for an app, the store should warn them if support for any of the app’s existing devices will be removed

I opened a couple of bug reports for you:

[https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/list-of-products-supported-for-monetization-is-not-up-to-date]

[https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/when-built-in-monetization-is-enabled-for-an-app-the-ciq-store-should-warn-dev-if-supported-devices-will-be-removed]

From Garmin IQ:

”Device support is not arbitrary—there is a technical reason related to the product firmware that prevents us from offering monetization on certain products, which includes the Instinct 2 family of products. We have checks in place on the app store that prevent customers from purchasing apps for products incompatible with monetization (this is why your apps don’t display any compatible products), but we do not yet have any checks in place to warn or prevent developers from uploading an app that only includes support for products that do not support monetization”

Thanks.

Good suggestions.

Here are some questions that illustrate the lack of clarity and joined up thinking in this whole process.

I have Instinct 2 watch faces that also work on Instinct 3 Solars before I signed up for the monetization.  Garmin decided to add in Instinct 3 Solars to my existing Instinct 2 WFs as compatible devices.  All good for Instinct 2 and 3 users. So can or should I2 watchfaces be seperated from I3 Solar and exist as 2 different devices?  Surely they must? I sense this has not been thought through.

When I added a Merchant Buy button for these I2 watch faces, all my Instinct watchfaces were removed from users devices who could not see them on IQ or download them again. I think that also should be changed and at least there should be a warning for customers.  It just looks to the customers that their device oir IQ has gone faulty.

I have now removed monetization from my I2 faces and they have all reappeared and are available for I2 and I3.

How therefore, can I add monetization to I3 devices?  That's effectively what I did and neither I2 or I3 customers could see or buy the I3 in the IQ list. If a monetized device (I3) is included in a list of suppported devices together with a non monetizable device (2), what will happen.

I have an I3 device almost ready to go monetised on IQ and I feel like I am going to be the guinea pig to see what happens here.

Can Garmin IQ please explain this? So to clarify the question, I want to create 2 versions of the same IQ face with different IDs, I2 free and an I3 monetised.  Is this possible? If so how?

Maybe we should open a new sub-forum. Name doesn't matter, but the goal is to have discussions there only about problems that only exist because of lack of transparency / lack of documentation / lack of communication from Garmins part. This would also clear 70% of the other forums up...