Controlling the Varia UT-800

Hi,

I'm contemplating light control of the Varia UT-800 headlight connected to a Edge 530 device. Factors I'm trying thinking of using for the automatic light level is

Ambient light (apparently the Edge 530 has some sort of meter since it can adjust the brightness automatically but can this be read programmatically?)
If Ambient light can't be read, try to determine darkness based on sunset calculation through a web API with GPS coordinates and cloudiness factor from a weather service
Available battery level and route length
Speed (more light for higher speeds, or just when going downhill(?))
Perhaps one could add "light factors" to specific route segments if you know that there are no streetlight etc?

Has anyone else done anything like this for a standalone app?

maca88 over 5 years ago

Hi,

a little late, but in case you are still interested I created a data field that can be configured based on sunset/speed/battery...:

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/showcase/248492/smart-bike-lights-data-field-bike-lights-control-widget

Unfortunately the ambient light is not accessible programmatically, here is a user request for it:
https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/ambient-light-sensor-api-access

Nik over 5 years ago in reply to maca88

Thanks! I'll have a look at the source. The problem is really how to guess the current light level from all the data.

Hey, my feature request ;-) That would take the guesswork out of it

maca88 over 5 years ago in reply to Nik

Ups my bad, I didn't noticed that you posted it :)

For a solar powered watch that has CIQ 3.2 the "solarIntesity" (developer.garmin.com/.../Stats.html property could be used, but as stated in the documentation, when fully charged a negative value will be returned which is not useful. For other devices there is not much that can be done in order to guess the current light level. The only thing that you can do with the mentioned data field is to use the "Location" filter where you can draw polygons on the map for darker places like tunnels, deep forests etc.