Access to sensors while watchface is awake?

I get not having sensors running while the watch is sleeping to extend battery life, but the power budget is much higher while the face is awake running onUpdate. Would it really be a huge hit to be able to access something like the compass or accelerometer for a few seconds when it is awake, then turn them off when it goes back to sleep?

0 jim_m_58 over 2 years ago

You can't access Sensor at all from a watch face. Only from a WF's background service. Same with GPS. You might find some older data in Activity.Info - that's how a WF can get current Heart Rate, last GPS position, etc,

0 andyj713 over 2 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

This was directed at Garmin as an enhancement request, with the hope that maybe we could rally some troops to at least get one concession. Sensors while awake doesn't seem unreasonable. At least not to me.

0 andyj713 over 2 years ago

When the watch face is awake:

Watch Face Sleep

Watch faces spend the majority of the time in “Sleep Mode” in this mode, execution is restricted to updates once each minute, and cannot use timers or animations. When a user raises the watch to look at it, the watch face exits sleep mode. When this occurs, the WatchFace.onExitSleep() method is called, and updates will increase to once per second, and timers and animations are allowed until the WatchFace.onEnterSleep() method is call.

So, some features can be made available based on whether or not the watch face is sleeping or awake.

Also, SensorHistory for elevation, heart rate, O2 saturation, pressure, and temperature are also available so they are apparently working while the watch face is sleeping, and bluetooth is also working while the watch face is sleeping?

So, really, can someone say why the magnetometer and accelometer can't be made available while the face is awake? Do these really take more power than the O2 sensor or bluetooth. Does anyone from Garmin troll these boards?