Data field size hack

9504990 1 month ago

I am creating a data field that is a hack to display data in multiple on-screen fields. I'm using the size of the data field to detect which one I'm in and am choosing layouts that consist of fields with different unique sizes in them. Having done some searches I can see this appears to be a fairly common feature request and that there is no way of determining the actual location of a field other than perhaps hints using obscurity flags on watches. I'm using an Edge 1040 to show two different types of data in two on-screen fields depending on the size of the field. I presume other people have done this. Are there any gotchas I might need to look out for? I already implemented an onTap() handler and realised that this is going to get called for each field and is somewhat problematic for what I want to do. Is there anything else I might fall foul of?

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flowstate 1 month ago in reply to dpawlyk +1

dpawlyk said:
Garmin is moving towards merging apps and widgets.

Garmin already did this 4 years ago, with the introduction of CIQ 4.

[The following applies to watches, although Edge devices have recently…

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dpawlyk 1 month ago in reply to flowstate

I knew this but I don't have a CIQ 4 device. So, I'm not sure how it works.

(I'm really glad I didn't have to write what you wrote.)

flowstate 1 month ago in reply to dpawlyk

Yeah, it's one of those things which sounds simple on its face - "we merged apps and widgets to make things simpler!" - but when you dig into the nuances and implementation details, it's not so simple after all.

I think it says something that when Garmin made this change, they made a point of calling this merger of device app and widget a "super app", and dedicated a whole section of the docs to super apps. But a couple of years ago, they removed all references to super apps from their docs. They don't want to discuss the history and nuances of this stuff, because they know it's confusing. They just want devs to know that a device app which has a glance view will also appear in the glance list (on modern devices).

I would argue that they should have put in a special note in the docs about the edge case I mentioned above (where porting an old widget to a CIQ 4+ device can cause it to lose its glance view), but I also think they don't want to spend too much time worrying about old devices (beyond keeping new SDKs compatible with old devices).

9504990 1 month ago in reply to mcinner1

I hope to keep the device running throughout the 5 days, obviously I'm going to have to charge it some times. I've done 600k rides without charging so for 1500k I hope I don't need to charge more than twice. Am curious about your comment about the 1050. What do you mean it's not possible to run for 3 days without loading?

mcinner1 1 month ago in reply to 9504990

9504990 said:
Am curious about your comment about the 1050. What do you mean it's not possible to run for 3 days without loading?

The Edge 1050 has a different display technique as Edge 1040:

Edge 1040 has a transflective liquid crystal display. It has a reflective layer which teflects the sunlight and therefore no backlight is necessary in bright surrounding. This is an advantage, but on the other hand it has poor dull colors in dark surrounding when a backlight is needed.

Edge 1050 has a “normal“ liquid crystal display (without reflective layer). The brighter the surrounding the more backlight is needed. Advantage is better visability and brilliant colors. But it needs a lot of backlight.

An Edge 1050 eats about 6% of battery per hour if backlight has to be bright - on sunny days.

9504990 1 month ago in reply to mcinner1

I see. My 1040 (solar) uses about 3% battery per hour and presumably a bit less when it's very bright, so that's a big difference. Then again, if the sun is behind me, I can't read the display at all.