Complication Suggestions for Garmin

Where can I read about Complications? What is the basic premise? I know my EDGE has a hydration metric - what it thinks maybe I lost or consumed. But do Complications somehow allow, for example, a user to inform a device when and how much was consumed during an activity?

If I'm correct, Complications are not available in DataFields, so no.

Documentation and a list of current implemented Complications can be found when you select the beta 4.2 SDK and open the documentation via VSCode.

Regarding hydration I'd prefer to see this as a SensorHistoryIterator kinda implementation, a complication only renders one value and not a iteration/history of values which is what I would want to show in a widget/watch face. A complication could still be useful to launch a hydration widget (if it's implemented).

(Regarding the concept of complications I kinda have mixed feelings about this double function of complications, sharing data and launching apps, if I would've implemented this in the sdk I would have made it separate classes to clarify intent).

A complication I would like to see is Alarm Time, so that we can (finally) show the next alarm time in a watch face 

Having Hydration data like SensorHistory would be awesome as well indeed.

And I love your idea for an Alarm Time complication, would be very nice to display this.

And I'd like to see a good values in the history. Bug with SpO2 is not fixed for years but the funny thing is that on my f6p everything was ok to time of any SW firmware update when I've got the same bugged history.

DaveBrillhart said:

Where can I read about Complications? What is the basic premise?

In general, complications are basically pieces of information that are displayed on a watch face, other than the time. As the use of this word in Connect IQ suggests, I’m pretty sure only watch faces will be able to display information provided by Complications, although device apps and audio providers will be able to publish complications.

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/b/news-announcements/posts/welcome-to-connect-iq-system-6

Garmin devices collect numerous data points as users wear them. Many of these data points can be summarized and displayed on the watch face as a complication. The Connect IQ SDK offers multiple APIs to access user metrics, and has expanded the offerings with every release.

The Toybox.Complications module consolidates the specific metrics typically displayed by Garmin devices into a unified interface. This unified interface gives the developer access to the information typically shown on the watch face for the developer. The complications are exposed using a publish/subscribe model. In addition, device app and audio content provider developers can now publish up to four complications using this new framework. Complications have public, protected, and private visibility levels with the system. Finally, Face It will also be a consumer of Connect IQ complications in a upcoming release. This allows developers to create information that can be published on Face It watch faces.

…

At the heart of the complications system is a publisher/subscriber system. The system publishes complication data for subscribers to consume. Connect IQ device apps and audio content providers can publish complication data, but only watch faces can subscribe to complication information. If you are developing a device or audio content provider apps, you can publish up to four complications to the framework.

DaveBrillhart said:

But do Complications somehow allow, for example, a user to inform a device when and how much was consumed during an activity?

Can’t you already do this with the “on-device settings” feature of CIQ data fields? Afaict you can do anything you want with the settings view - it doesn’t literally have to be “settings”. You could provide a menu or some other UI for the user to indicate that they drank water and your data field could record this information to the FIT file or something.

The only thing is that the user experience might not be great (since the user has to press several buttons just to access CIQ data field on-device settings, at least on watches.)

I really don't like the naming of this thing. Complication, what.. why? Where in the English language is complication a sharing of data?

$ dict complication
3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Complication \Com`pli*ca"tion\, n. [L. compliasion: cf. F.
     complication.]
     1. The act or process of complicating; the state of being
        complicated; intricate or confused relation of parts;
        entanglement; complexity.
        [1913 Webster]

              A complication of diseases.           --Macaulay.
        [1913 Webster]

              Through and beyond these dark complications of the
              present, the New England founders looked to the
              great necessities of future times.    --Palfrey.
        [1913 Webster]

     2. (Med.) A disease or diseases, or adventitious
        circumstances or conditions, coexistent with and modifying
        a primary disease, but not necessarily connected with it.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  complication
      n 1: the act or process of complicating
      2: a situation or condition that is complex or confused; "her
         coming was a serious complication"
      3: any disease or disorder that occurs during the course of (or
         because of) another disease; "bed sores are a common
         complication in cases of paralysis"
      4: a development that complicates a situation; "the court's
         decision had many unforeseen ramifications" [syn:
         {complication}, {ramification}]
      5: puzzling complexity [syn: {complicatedness}, {complication},
         {knottiness}, {tortuousness}]

My first suggestion is to rename the thing to something more obvious and easy to understand.

From Apple:
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/components/system-experiences/complications/

It's also been used in native garmin watch faces for some time.

waterkip said:

My first suggestion is to rename the thing to something more obvious and easy to understand.

Complications is a standard term in both Apple Watch and Wear OS devices.

Complications is a nice concept - finally some sort of a communication between apps is possible. However, there is a glaring problem in the implementation. As it stands now, it is impossible to use App Settings to get all available complications. Garmin forces us to push user interface selecting a complication to be done directly on the watch ONLY. 

Given that many watch face apps have over 20 different settings (some have much-much more), doing them all on the watch not a good user experience. We need some way to let people choose complications from their phones...