Can a Watchface and a Widget share parameters?

Former Member over 5 years ago

Hey folks,

I'm an absolute beginner with Monkey C.

I would like to have a watchface and matching widget "talking" to each other and share a few values/parameters.

Basically, I would like to set a timer on the timer widget (starting time, end time) and show a progress bar for this timer on the watch face.

Is it possible that I can store the widgets data ON the watch and read it out by the watchface, or do I have to do this as settings that can be configured with the Garmin app?

Sorry, english is not my first language so I hope my question is understandable on some level :-)

Thank you in advance for your answer and kind regards!

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago

Watch faces and widgets can not share settings or data.

Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

So no way to work around it? No way to create a setting field and read it out from the watchface? Any idea how I could solve it, maybe via web request?

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

You'd have to use a companion app on the phone or makeWebRequests off the watch to exchange data, and in the case of a watch face, comm can only occur at a minimum of every 5 minutes.

Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Companion App means the watchface could talk to a general app or does it have to be the Garmin App? If I have a widget that can be configured with Garmin Connect (IQ), can the watchface also not access these settings (data protection) or could the widget write to this and the watchface just *read* it out?

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

A watch face and widget are completely separate in that they can not share data or settings. You could write your own companion app on the phone so the two could exchange data. The data can not be exchanged on a watch itself.

Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Okay, thank you so far. Can the watchface actually communicate with the companion app? Or is this kind of communication limited to widgets and apps on the watch because of power consumption? Just trying to figure out if I should ditch the idea and get a wear os device...

jim_m_58 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

A watch face can do comm, but only from a background process. And background processes can only run at most every 5 minutes, and each time it runs, can run no longer than 30 seconds.

markdotai over 5 years ago

Give an upvote to this placebo bug report

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/allow-shared-storage-between-apps

Dacrosse over 2 years ago in reply to Former Member

We just released a service that enables secure communication between apps. Shared storage can be emulated using this. You can learn more at https://dacrosse.com