Write Android App to display live Garmin watch data - how to start?

Former Member
Former Member

First time Connect-IQ developer would appreciate a steer.....

I would like to write an Android App that can display in real time data being collected on my Garmin Watch.....reading https://developer.garmin.com/ I can see that there's an Android BLE SDK, which sounds like what I need, but I'd appreciate any pointers in how to get started, and which IDE to use....

I'll obviously need to write an Android App, which I've previously done in Android Studio, but since there's a Connect-IQ plugin for Eclipse, I'm thinking I would be better to write my Android App in Eclipse....could anybody confirm, or redirect me?

I'm not clear on whether I need to write a Garmin App or not, the data I want to display on my Android App is the data currently available in the standard Activities....specifically the Rowing Activity, I want to get the Stroke Rate, and Pace currently recorded there, but will I be able to connect to that activity from my Android App, or do I need to write my own Rowing App for the watch?

Many thanks

David

  • Former Member
    Former Member over 4 years ago

    Hi David

    Did you get some pointers? I'm stuck at the same place... I try to create a companion app on android which gets messages from an app on the garmin watch.

    There should be a "comm sample" also for the android app anywhere... did you find that?

    any help appreciated...

    Regards, Marcel

  • Hi David,

    I think Android Studio is definitely going to be the best IDE to use to develop your android companion app, especially if you are already familiar with it. The Connect IQ plug-in for eclipse is meant for developing apps for Garmin devices. There's a helpful guide for getting started with the Mobile SDK here. One thing to note is that you need to target Android 10 or earlier. When I tried targeting Android 11, my app wouldn't recognize that Garmin Connect Mobile was installed on my phone. Once I learned that, I found the development process pretty straightforward following the guide provided by Garmin.

    As far as I know, you will have to write your own rowing app for your Garmin device. I believe Garmin doesn't have a way to send live activity data to external devices from native apps.

    Hope this helps,

    Dana