Is it possible to unconditionally wake up my app from the background service?

Yes, but still they can desire features, especially some that most of the competitors have.

So what?

That something is desired doesn’t magically make it something that makes sense to provide.

Users often desire things that can’t be provided. 

Not sure what competitors you are talking about. 

But it’s clear Garmin isn’t trying to make an Apple watch clone. 

The ask here in my case is really just that we need a decent Alarm function. the abysmal functionality supported under the hood in the watch system is pretty much useless. (who wants to have 7 button presses to view/set/change the configured alarms? especially since they don't support days-of-the-week selection, so you'd constantly be changing them rather than just set-it-and-forget-it)

If Garmin won't enable some basic functionality to developers to deliver more general purpose apps, they could at least be responsive to user feature requests and build such basic extensions themselves...

Seeing as Garmin has *FINALLY* added purchase support to the Connect IQ store, it makes me wonder if they're not also moving towards enabling such functionality for developers to provide a wider selection of applications. Compared to Apple and Pixel / WatchOS, Garmin is clearly in 5th or 6th place in the 'Smart Watch' category, despite having a HUGE user base

If the basic alarm functionality is a problem, IQ isn't really a solution for it.

Still missing multiple points.

• Users want reasonable and unreasonable things. The mere fact that something is "desired" doesn't mean anything.
• Sure, the Garmin watches should have decent alarm support but needing an IQ thing isn't the correct way to do it.
• There is little chance that Garmin would add the feature described here to IQ.
• "Average users" are not likely using IQ (much) at all.
• If your "cheap Casio" does all you want, why are you wasting money on a Garmin watch?

dpawlyk said:

But it’s clear Garmin isn’t trying to make an Apple watch clone. 

Arguably the Vivo and Venu devices are DIRECTLY targeted at google/samsung/apple smart watch users...

Not what I said.

Neither of these are Apple watch clones (*). (They aren't Google/Samsung watch clones either.)

Clearly/obviously, there's some overlapping of markets. But the market focus isn't the same (it can't be).

People who want better health tracking and more battery life might tend towards the Garmin devices.

People who want better integration with their smartphone stuff are likely tend away from Garmin.

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(*) Garmin can't have the level of access/integration that Apple/Google/Samsung have with their other products. So, it's not really possible for Garmin to make clones. The people buying Garmin watches either don't care about this integration or there are features Garmin provides that are worth the trade-off (battery life is a big one).

It would be interesting to see how many watches Apple and Garmin sell. (The Android watch market has historically been a mess.)

dpawlyk said:

People who want better health tracking and more battery life might tend towards the Garmin devices.

Exactly! Thus it's a legitimate desire to have a smart alarm, that knows in which sleep phase you are and wakes you up when it's the least "hurting" you.

??? No one said it wasn't a legitimate desire.