Modifying the Default Watch Face

I actually really like the default watch face. It's very clean and easy to read. ... However, I'd like to make a couple minor changes to it.

I downloaded java, eclipse, and started to program it. The largest font appears to be thai_hot. Which is not as large as the default font on the watch face. Are they using custom fonts to get the size? The hour is bold and the minutes isn't. (more custom fonts?)

If anyone has the default watch face project I could just import into eclipse, that would be a big help.

Many Thanks,
-Duugalas

Former Member over 9 years ago

The default watchface is not written with CIQ.
The best way to create a similar face is using custom fonts and yes, you'd need 2 fonts. The programmers guide explains how to use custom fonts.

jim_m_58 over 9 years ago

The default watchface actually runs on it's own chip and uses the bare minimum of power, but because it's on it's own chip, it's the only watchface that will display seconds all the time. With CIQ watchfaces, there is the "low power" mode where the face only updates once per minute, so you can only display seconds when you're not in low power.

douglasdraeger over 9 years ago

The default watchface actually runs on it's own chip and uses the bare minimum of power, but because it's on it's own chip, it's the only watchface that will display seconds all the time. With CIQ watchfaces, there is the "low power" mode where the face only updates once per minute, so you can only display seconds when you're not in low power.

In your experience, does a CIQ watchface running on "low power" mode still use more battery then the default watchface?

TheMbvt over 9 years ago

I have a few IQ watchfaces I choose from, a few hours per week GPS activity with elaborate IQ data fields, auto-backlight on and still get over a week of up-time from a single charge. Unless the IQ watchface is particulate elaborate or poorly written I don't think there's a big difference.

Nikeow over 9 years ago

Hi -

for some users, especially those on the VA watch, battery life has been the #1 item that has been fed-back on my apps.
CIQ runs on top of the native Garmin code/layer. It's running in it's own virtualised environment, supposedly sandboxed and can't interfere w/ the native garmin apps.

no matter what you say, impression to end-users are still that CIQ Apps are eating up battery life.
My take is that it eats up maybe 30min (I'm pulling numbers from the air) of the 10hr battery life (w/ GPS) and that's a bone that gets picked on very much.

CIQ Guys -
We need some help on how to to profiling of the CIQ apps to ensure that it uses the _least_ amount of battery life or has the _least_ amount of CPU impact to the watch. Can you let us / me know how this can be achieved?

I'm frankly getting annoyed over the questions I get asking about or comments about battery life.

Appreciate it

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 9 years ago

Watch faces specifically are designed to enter a low power mode to help preserve battery life, which causes the devices to update once per minute rather than once per second. A simple Connect IQ watch face should have fairly good battery life, though I think you'll always see better battery life from the native watch faces because they are highly optimized and run at a lower level than Connect IQ.

The best way to save battery life is to keep your watch faces as simple as possible. A watch face that is computationally complex will use more power since it requires more cycles from the processor with each update. That doesn't mean that watch faces need to be basic--you'll just have to decide whether there are ways to reduce complexity, or if you prefer to compromise on a little battery life to offer the features you've designed into your app.

teadriven over 9 years ago

I agree and this was part of the reasoning behind this question.

Hi -
CIQ Guys -
We need some help on how to to profiling of the CIQ apps to ensure that it uses the _least_ amount of battery life or has the _least_ amount of CPU impact to the watch. Can you let us / me know how this can be achieved?

Having spent some time optimising the onUpdate() function, my own watchface (Segment) on the VA can run for a few weeks between charges (without GPS use of course).

Older versions of the VA firmware would use a slide-in animation when returning to the watchface as it still does with the widgets, therefore the rendering could be optimised by trying to minimise the amount of jerkiness as the watchface was animated into view. Unfortunately recent versions of the firmware no longer animate the switch back to watchface which actually feels worse since it provides a disjoint in the user experience and also means that we can no longer use it to gauge rendering performance.

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 9 years ago

I didn't mean to gloss over Nikeow's question earlier about some kind of performance evaluation tool.

We have more developer tools in the pipeline, but the focus has been more on debugging tools, which I believe should be our priority right now (for example, File > View Memory in the Simulator to help identify circular references). Optimization tools are also important, but I'm not sure what's both practical and feasible within our simulator. The need is apparent, though, since it's unreasonable to assume developers will have every target device available to test real battery performance. :)

I've submitted a ticket to have us consider some kind of performance profiling tool for CIQ apps.

Former Member over 9 years ago

The thing is: everybody likes the stock watch faces but you simply can't reproduce them with the API. Apparently no anti-aliasing or graphics render differently. I was trying to mimic analog face but with battery info and I've got a little frustrated with that. Just my 50c.

jim_m_58 over 9 years ago

The thing is: everybody likes the stock watch faces but you simply can't reproduce them with the API. Apparently no anti-aliasing or graphics render differently. I was trying to mimic analog face but with battery info and I've got a little frustrated with that. Just my 50c.

You can probably come close with CIQ, it's just that it's not a "first project" type of thing, as with CIQ it might involve things like custom fonts, etc. There are ways to handle the stuff you mention, but a bit advanced for people learning the API.

And not everyone likes the stock watchfaces! In the last 9 months I've had a watch with CIQ, I've probably used the stock watchface less than 12 hours...