Looking for Sabbath-Friendly Garmin App: Screen Always On, No Tracking

The only thing you can do is to switch to a MIP based device, then the display is always on -> you see the time, and no touch screen.

Half solution is to switch the AMOLED device to Always On Display and turn off both touch and gesture.

You won't be able to turn off heart rate and the step counting even from the system settings, but since that is on 24/7 on and it can be argued that it's a health device, maybe some rabbies will approve.

I was thinking of creating a shabbat watch face, but almost all the things that you want to disable are not possible from CIQ code. The features I wanted to have are more like reminders: you set your mincha time, and the watch face would remind you (not even sure it can trigger an alarm though, but at least it could gradually change color 20, 15, 10, 5 minutes before) and it would display the Parashah, and sunrise/sunset times (this one you can get in most watch faces, though mine would know a bit more about the halachic nuances) But I haven't started to work on it, because it would be lots of time and there wouldn't be even 10 righteous people who would use it. Now at least there are 2 of us 

Anyway, it's almost off-topic now, so let's continue here: https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/app-ideas/423822/shabbat-watch-face

Just out of curiosity, why would you want to wear a Garmin watch on Shabbat?

As for me I do wear the watch 24/7 and I do want it to both record the usual 24/7 data, like stress, steps (I'm not sure though how problematic those are on shabbat) and to display information about what's to come (i.e, next prayer time, what parasha it is, when shabbat starts/ends, etc) for which I guess any smart watch would be ok, but I have a Garmin, so...

However I can imagine that someone else would have other preferences (halachicly) but then as I think some of those things can't be disabled even from the system settings, probably they would be better with putting on an old Casio for shabat

Ah oke, I get it now.

flocsy🤠 said:

You won't be able to turn off heart rate and the step counting

You can turn off heart rate monitoring by disabling the optical HR sensor.

e.g. on fr955/965: settings > health and wellness > wrist heart rate > status > off

It is true that step counting cannot be disabled on modern Garmin watches. On older watches (FR245/945 and older, maybe), "activity tracking" can be disabled, which includes turning off step counting. Some people complained about Garmin removing the ability to disable activity tracking, because they want to avoid spurious steps when they're riding in a car or whatever.

It's funny that the Asia FR955 manual still has a reference to disabling activity tracking (although the feature has been long since removed via firmware update, and it doesn't appear in the US manuals). I guess it might still be available if you can get your hands on an FR955 with original firmware (and you never update the firmware ever). Ofc that would prevent you from using any CIQ apps that have been updated in the past couple of years :/

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals-apac/webhelp/forerunner955/EN-SG/GUID-3845FB69-7CE9-4C54-BF76-16B7BEF9DFE6-1748.html 

Since it's possible to change activity settings by editing FIT files, I wonder if activity tracking could also be disabled in a similar way, even for devices which don't have this feature in the UI anymore.

This might be realistic for someone who wants to disable some of these things for good, but I don't think it's realistic that someone would do this before and after every Saturday.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't disagree.

I guess it depends how much work you want to put into it. Like, how important are these requests actually? (By "you" I mean in the general sense of "anyone who is asking for this kind of thing".)

I created a website to fix the annoying "ghost alert" problem for FR255/955/265/965 which is pretty much a one-time permanent fix (I used it myself), but I think most people didn't use it, which is fine. At least 2 people used it though. I think it's interesting that most people preferred to complain about the problem for over a month rather than take 5 minutes to fix the problem (assuming that they have access to a computer, of course). I can ask the same question: actually how important was fixing this problem to these users? Important enough to complain about it, but not important enough to use a workaround which requires a bit of effort (like opening a website and following step by step instructions).

I do think it's somewhat ironic that you're suggesting changing the settings of your smartwatch to accommodate a religious observance is only feasible if it's easy. I mean, I'm not the one requesting this, I'm only suggesting ways that 2 of the requests can be fulfilled. I didn't say modding the settings file using a website was 100% practical for frequent use, which is why I said "if there's any interest" I would make the website.

There are people who exclusively sync their watch with Garmin Express regularly (more than once a week, I assume), which can be seen in the Garmin Connect forums topic which complains that Express doesn't sync anymore. Same with the topics about Express messing up settings or glances. If people were only using Express to download maps, there would be far fewer complaints. There's also a dev who regularly posts here who said they only use Express for syncing (and changing CIQ settings)

This is despite the fact they know they can sync with their phone (or wi-fi, if they have a supported model). So here's a case where people do things the hard way not because they need to, but simply out of stubbornness or habit.

Btw, I think asking users to change CIQ settings in Express to get around bugs in the Connect IQ app is almost as impractical, but devs do this all the time. Maybe it works with the same demographic that regularly uses Express anyway, but I doubt the average Garmin user would be willing to do this. At the very least they wouldn't be happy about it.

Lots of ppl don't use computers outside of work anymore, and I know several people who wouldn't use a computer (or a website) outside of work if their lives depended on it. Everything has to be an app on their phone. I have a friend who wanted a certain feature in Connect. When I told her it's available on the Connect website, she was all - "this is 2024, it should be in the app". She really wanted the feature, but opening a website (even on her phone) was simply too much to ask.

People have thought this way for 10+ years btw. I also know plenty of people who bought a laptop 5-10 years ago but it's gathering dust bc they use their phone for everything.

What I'm suggesting with a hypothetical website that mods your settings isn't really that much more annoying (imo) than using Garmin Express, especially if you have Windows:

- plug watch into PC

- copy settings file from watch to PC

- upload settings file to website

- download modded settings file from website

- copy modded settings file to watch

This shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, although it will feel a lot longer because of the annoying lag between plugging the watch in and having it appear in File Explorer (or OpenMTP). (Sometimes latency is much more important than bandwidth, for the user experience.)

If you never change your settings, you can reuse the same modded file every week. (Although that really wouldn't save much time.)

In fact it's probably possible in principle to create an Express-like app that would automate the process of copying the settings file back and forth - in that case it would really be no less annoying than using Express itself (except maybe for the fact that the user would have to make sure Express isn't running at the same time). Ofc I am not making such an app any time soon. But I imagine somebody could.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! I tried looking for the option to disable wrist heart rate monitoring on my FR265, but unfortunately I couldn't find it anywhere in the settings. It seems like this feature might not be available on that model, or at least not exposed in the same way as on the FR955/965. If anyone has managed to turn it off on the FR265, I'd love to hear how.

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation and for offering to help—really appreciate it!

I'd love to better understand what you mean by editing the FIT settings file. Is this something that needs to be done via a computer? Does it require any coding or general programming knowledge to pull off?

Thanks again for your willingness to assist—this could be a game-changer for Sabbath use.