Running an App continously

Hello everyone!

I currently have designed an App for the Vivoactive 3 music that connects to a couple of sensors and shows the values on the watch. The problem that I am facing right now is that I am trying to keep the App running continously on the Background while the user may be reading foot steps or using another watch app or widget. The idea is that the watch keeps recording data and storing it. (I have an idea how to work with the storage but I am having trouble understanding how can I keep it running continously)

Will it be better to transform my App to a widget?

Can anybody give me a few tips and advise to achieve this continously running app goal?

Thanks!!

jim_m_58 over 4 years ago

The only way for a device app be continuous is to run in the foreground. In the background it can run at most every 5 minutes, and run at most for 30 seconds at a time. Widgets on watches have a time out, where they run for between 45 seconds and a couple minutes before returning to the watch face.

AdriMichael over 4 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

How do you program the App to be running in the foreground? I am trying to find something on the API page but I can't find anything useful. How can I keep the App to record the data the whole time when the user is using other apps on the watch?

jim_m_58 over 4 years ago in reply to AdriMichael

It's just your basic device app. You start it and it runs until you terminate it. That's the thing, is while it runs, you can't run other apps.

AdriMichael over 4 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

So if the user is running the Garmin Step counter app and then switches to the HR, it will not record the steps anymore and leave a gap in the data? How is the device able to record everything then?

jim_m_58 over 4 years ago in reply to AdriMichael

Steps are counted at the firmware level, as is heart rate. You're talking about a CIQ app.

AdriMichael over 4 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

So there is no other way to work this around? If my App is not constantly gathering data for longs periods of time, then it is not useful..

jim_m_58 over 4 years ago in reply to AdriMichael

If you don't want it to interfere with other apps, having a background process is the only way, and the background can run for at most 30 seconds every 5 minutes,

AdriMichael over 4 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

What if I do it on a Watch Face? A watch face is constantly running right? Then I may be able to adapt the watch face to act like a widget?

jim_m_58 over 4 years ago in reply to AdriMichael

As long as you aren't running an activity (say "run") or a widget. It only runs when it's active (if you have more than one), the same restriction with a background process, and very limited in what it can do (to save battery). Normally, a WF only updates every minute, and while here is onPartialUpdate, you're very very limited what you can do there.