Where to get data?

TheHuff 16 days ago

Hi, newbie question.

I am learning how to develop a watch face but I cannot find anywhere in the documentation where and how to access the data.

Can someone please point me to the documentation for this? I can see in the API docs there are specific API calls.. but zero mention or examples of this in the reference guide or even guidelines for how to deal with data resources (memory use, cleaning up/garbage collection, etc).

In particular I want to show the following data:

Time, date, day of week, battery level, tide and wind.

All of these I can see are available on standard, built-in watch faces.

I will target Fenix 7 and above. Also where do I find documentation that shows what watches have access to what data?

To Garmin... why is this not obvious in the reference guide? I would have thought accessing data was of significant importance to all developers??

Thanks in advance.

Tim

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FlowState 16 days ago +1 verified

TheHuff said:
even guidelines for how to deal with data resources (memory use, cleaning up/garbage collection, etc).

Monkey C uses reference counting. When the last reference to an object goes out of scope…

All Replies

+1 FlowState 16 days ago

TheHuff said:
even guidelines for how to deal with data resources (memory use, cleaning up/garbage collection, etc).

Monkey C uses reference counting. When the last reference to an object goes out of scope (or is changed to point to something else), the object is automatically deleted.

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/6257/garbage-collection-in-monkey-c

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/objects-and-memory/

TheHuff said:
In particular I want to show the following data:

Time, date, day of week, battery level, tide and wind.

As per the Connect API docs, there are modules/classes dedicated to different types of data, with functions to access said data.

e.g.

- Time, date, day of week: Toybox.Time

- Battery level: Toybox.System.Stats

- Wind: Toybox.Weather

Additionally, for devices with CIQ 4 and higher (basically all devices which are currently receiving major firmware updates with new features, including Fenix 7), watchfaces can use the Complications API to get various kinds of standard watchface data:

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/api-docs/Toybox/Complications.html

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/core-topics/complications/

This API returns data in human-readable and localized (translated) form, which is both a strength and a disadvantage. The strength is you can use the data as-is, but the disadvantage is that it can be impractical or impossible to customize the format to your liking.

TheHuff said:
Also where do I find documentation that shows what watches have access to what data?

Typically it's the other way around. You go to the doc which has a function/field you're interested in, and the docs says which devices support that function/field.

TheHuff said:
To Garmin... why is this not obvious in the reference guide? I would have thought accessing data was of significant importance to all developers??

can't argue with that

0 jim_m_58 16 days ago

Check out the samples in the SDK.

I posted a sample I did in this thread that shows a whole bunch of stuff you asked for, plus other things like a background service settings, and using a complication to get heart rate

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/349473/simple-example-wf-that-shows-a-bunch-of-things

0 TheHuff 15 days ago in reply to jim_m_58

Thanks for your sample. This will help a lot! In fact something like this should in included in the SDK samples - which TBH are not much more than empty stubs ie the two SDK watch samples only showed the time with little layout code or other data access.

0 TheHuff 15 days ago in reply to FlowState

Thank you for this - just what I needed to know.

Any idea how to get the tide data from the tide app - I notice that it is available on some of the stock watch faces, so it much be available.

0 jim_m_58 15 days ago in reply to TheHuff

Native watch faces can do things CIQ WFs can't.

Unless it's in the API or is an available complication you need to get it yourself. It can be done, but it's a bunch of work.

0 FlowState 15 days ago in reply to TheHuff

TheHuff said:
Any idea how to get the tide data from the tide app

Like jim_m_58 said, this isn't available from CIQ.

I guess you would have to do what tide apps on the CIQ store do (included the Garmin Tides app): download local tide tables from the internet and look up the data yourself.

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/8ef5a2ac-f87a-4001-bf47-439543ca4eea (Garmin Tides)

Speaking of displaying this information on a watchface, I found an app which retrieves and displays tide information, and publishes it as a complication so that CIQ watchfaces can (theoretically) display it.

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/870bcac1-ed6f-4fc3-9cd2-c815b62be5a8 (AK Tides)

- introduced complication, it's working for AK Weather Watch. If you are a watchface developer, please get into contact with developer (because you will need some decoding information).

If you get in touch with this dev, maybe they can help you.

Based on their AK Weather Watch app, it looks like they at least publish the following info as a complication:

https://apps.garmin.com/apps/abddf1a4-5b35-44a9-b087-8656f944e43c (AK Weather Watch)

- "Time Next Extreme Tide" requires AK Tides installed and started once