FitContributor :nativeNum functionality

ThomasJohnLynch said:

I was responding to the tone and verbiage in your previous emails.  Fairly condescending with a sprinkle of superior intellect. 

A couple of years ago, my first replies to your initial rants were trying to be supportive and understanding. I also tried to figure out why Garmin would do this and give an example about how Stryd did the same thing. Your response was to downvote me and say I was "triggered" and "offended".

Like I said, I wouldn't be talking down to you now if you weren't rude to me in the first place. I also think you lack perspective on this issue regardless. I've reported and complained about a lot of Garmin issues, but I never act like Garmin is going out of business if they don't fix them. I also don't sign my comments with my personal email address and phone number as if I expect Garmin to contact me for advice. That's pretty weird.

ThomasJohnLynch said:

do you recall your quips and remedial instructions on my usage??

You said my comment was "bizarre", I pointed out how your own commenting is style is weird AF. Lots of people still use emoticons like ":)" although being unable to figure out how to use emoji on your android isn't really a great excuse. Maybe this will help:

[https://www.androidcentral.com/how-use-emoji-android]

ThomasJohnLynch said:

< insert smiley face because there is no button or short cut on my android phone>

Pretty ironic coming from someone who insults the technical knowledge of others. Yeah, the forum has its own (broken) emoji implementation, but it also accepts a subset of standard emoji and automatically converts them. So you can easily type ":)" from any keyboard or "" from a phone keyboard (android or ios). Typing out "<smile>" is just bizarre. You can do it if you want, but it looks weird.

It's also bizarre that you refer to "censorship" without giving any actual examples. As if you're trying to hyperbolically connect this issue to cancel culture or political correctness or something. It's just a simple Garmin business decision that we're all free to disagree with.

You're right, I was condescending and arrogant. I tend to respond like that when people are condescending and arrogant to me. Kind of a character flaw - I should just leave things alone tbh.

If you can dish out it out, you should be able to take it. Sorry if I hurt your feelings tho.

ThomasJohnLynch said:

Fairly condescending with a sprinkle of superior intellect. 

Speaking of condescending and pretentious comments:

ThomasJohnLynch said:

Pitiful NEVER a Reply from Garmin, just excuses.  They could easily QC and certify the code since their crappy inhouse code bangers write all kinds of lame apps that don't provide much value

ThomasJohnLynch said:

don't need to understand "things" any more then the scope of this problem and topic., I am addressing this issue only and its pretty simple and clear....I can explain it to you if you are having trouble with these "things".

ThomasJohnLynch said:

The kindest thing I can say is this is "stupid" and "dumb"

ThomasJohnLynch said:

good for you. sound like a great social gathering.  it solves this issue zero though right? 

ThomasJohnLynch said:

So let the REAL developers support and develop the watch

So many of the bloatware or canned Garmin apps are barely working shells or the authors fix nothing and its broken code just rambles on into uselessness. 

ThomasJohnLynch said:

It appears your technical knowledge is even smaller? 

That's a lot of personal insults aimed at Garmin employees and people who don't agree with you. But you want people to be nice to you, huh? You just don't like it when people respond to you in kind.

And self-importance:

ThomasJohnLynch said:

Please feel free to call, email, text, taser or whatever with any questions or requests but hopefully a meaningful reply/response!!!!

You're the guy who will fix all of Garmin's problems, huh? All they need to do is call you.

You can say whatever you want about me, I really don't care, but you will have to convince Garmin to fix this issue for you. See ya again in 2025!

<smile>  I must have hit a nerve or 'trigger'.  I have enjoyed our little discussion and volley.  Keep your day job.  Your failed attempts at psychoanalysis or getting anything about me were nothing but inaccurate.  It doesn't / didn't really move the needle on the discussion from your first comments?  You have proved I was correct and my labels and observations sound?

As to the topic, thank you for the bug report/feature request.  As you note a long shot or likely completely ignored by Garmin.  But it provided us some therapy and purpose!!   Be well and lets see what happens.  <not holding my breath>

ThomasJohnLynch said:

I must have hit a nerve or 'trigger'

Nope, I just like pointing out hypocrisy and irony. BTW, automatically accusing people of being "triggered" when they disagree with you and complaining about "censorship" in inappropriate contexts is hilariously stereotypical behavior.

ThomasJohnLynch said:

getting anything about me were nothing but inaccurate. 

Nah, I'm pretty sure you're condescending, arrogant and pretentious (in your own way) and a little unhinged. You also respond with insults when anyone disagrees with you, which looks a lot like being triggered to me.

Everyone else in the thread is making a simple feature request. You're the only one acting like the superhero who will save Garmin from themselves and posting your phone number. Not gonna lie, posting your phone number in a public forum is a really bad idea, but I know you hate it when people tell you what to do.

Good luck with your feature request. You'll need it!

--

EDIT: For visibility, here is the feature request:
[https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/please-allow-nativenum-fit-fields-to-override-native-fields-in-garmin-connect]

And the Garmin ideas page:

[https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/]

I don't think it's a bad idea, it's just not the only problem Garmin has, nor the most important one (in my opinion)

FlowState,

I submitted a feature request in the past and again today(at the time of this post).  

In the Garmin Environment NativeNum does work for other values as in Calories and Power, but not Distance.   Third party tracking apps as in https://runalyze.com/ or https://www.mapmyrun.com/ will utilize the NativeNum:distance, so I know at the developer level the Fit Contributor:NativeNum Session Distance is functional.

This is, by far, my number 1 complaint I receive from users.  

To resolve, spoke personally with several Garmin Engineers, Garmin Marketing and the CIQ CTO on this particularly matter.   I never really got a reason why it was this way.   My guess this policy is to prevent rogue CIQ developers making apps that can fake distance, speed, steps and floors that would disrupt Activity tracking Goal, badges, etc for other users.    My take "on my guess" is most users want empirical data not fake, but you will find others that will want the 1,000,000 steps per day badge. lol.  

There could be a formal issue with the built-in Garmin Lap Swim app and a CIQ app that use ActivityType LapSwimming.   Garmin allows the nonGPS distance from built-in Garmin app, but Garmin rejects the CIQ LapSwimming app nonGPS distance.  

My hope is to have it corrected or a statement Native Num:distance will not be supported.  The statement could simply be in the CIQ API Document. The API could state,"Fit Contributor NativeNum for Record, Session and Lap Distance is not supported by Garmin Connect".   Either way the issue would be resolved. 

Thanks,

Brian Brown

Owner F3b Software

F3b Software (Brian) said:

To resolve, spoke personally with several Garmin Engineers, Garmin Marketing and the CIQ CTO on this particularly matter.   I never really got a reason why it was this way.

Interesting.

F3b Software (Brian) said:

My guess this policy is to prevent rogue CIQ developers making apps that can fake distance, speed, steps and floors that would disrupt Activity tracking Goal, badges, etc for other users.    My take "on my guess" is most users want empirical data not fake, but you will find others that will want the 1,000,000 steps per day badge. lol.  

Yeah, I mean obviously there's still ways to cheat, but it would be far too easy to create an app that fakes data for various challenges. I mean, it could be part of the review process to try to weed that kind of thing out, but it's a lot easier for Garmin if they just ignore nativeNum fields.

F3b Software (Brian) said:

My hope is to have it corrected or a statement Native Num:distance will not be supported.  The statement could simply be in the CIQ API Document. The API could state,"Fit Contributor NativeNum for Record, Session and Lap Distance is not supported by Garmin Connect".   Either way the issue would be resolved. 

I feel like sometimes transparency is a bit lacking, whether it's in regards to known bugs or intentional limitations.

I can understand why Garmin wouldn't want developers to be able to override data.  There's another use case (adding data to fields where there is none, e.g. treadmill elevation) so here's a bug that phrases the issue slightly differently in the hope that Garmin pay attention.

F3b Software (Brian) said:

I never really got a reason why it was this way

The latest answer is to "avoid customer confusion".

[https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/nativenum-field-is-ignored-by-garmin-connect-so-accessories-can-t-be-integrated-properly?CommentId=bb3b3e5e-43bc-454a-bdfd-80e81e1c7e57]

Brandon.ConnectIQ

This behavior is by design, like has already been mentioned. The decision was made to not allow Connect IQ apps to override "native" activity data to avoid customer confusion. I understand and generally agree with your argument here, and the same argument has been made before in the past, but I don't anticipate this changing unless we can come up with another solution. Just off the top of my head, maybe Garmin Connect could handle :nativeNum intelligently by keeping the CIQ field data graphed separately but including the data in related totals (e.g. elevation gain you mention in your example).

I'll pass this along to see whether it's something that can be revisited for future enhancement.

It's fair but it seems like just another example of a CIQ feature that isn't really meant to be used.

I have done an application that takes Developer Fields and put data into Native Nums. Today, it deals only with Power and Heart Rate but I am happy to do more if there are suggestions... To get the app: https://bipr.fr/FitNativeFieldsOverrider.zip

What does the user see when it's used? I never understood what the nativeNum is supposed to achieve, and if I don't see whatever I am supposed to see because I am not looking at the right place or because there's another Garmin bug and it ignores the nativeNum.

flocsy🤠 said:

I never understood what the nativeNum is supposed to achieve

Connect IQ apps can't record true native FIT fields, so nativeNum is the closest thing we've got.

flocsy🤠 said:

if I don't see whatever I am supposed to see because I am not looking at the right place or because there's another Garmin bug and it ignores the nativeNum.

As discussed at length in this thread, it's not a bug, Garmin Connect ignores nativeNum on purpose.

However, that doesn't mean nativeNum is (wholly) useless. Some 3rd party sites will respect nativeNum.

For example, Strava respects developer fields recorded with a nativeNum that specifies the power metric, for running activities.

Before Garmin rolled out native running power, nativeNum was the only way to get power in a Garmin running activity (even Garmin running power was provided via a CIQ app). But even today, third party solutions like Stryd still need to use nativeNum to record running power. (In the case that both native power and 3rd-party nativeNum power are present, Strava will prefer native power.)

Of course, if nativeNum didn't exist, one could easily imagine an alternative heuristic where Strava would look at the name of the FIT field (e.g. "Power") and use that to recognize running power. But it's nice to have an "official" solution.

greg.cordier said:

I have done an application that takes Developer Fields and put data into Native Nums. Today, it deals only with Power and Heart Rate but I am happy to do more if there are suggestions... To get the app: https://bipr.fr/FitNativeFieldsOverrider.zip

flocsy🤠 said:

What does the user see when it's used?

According to the readme, it processes a FIT file so that the values of 3rd party nativeNum fields actually override their true native counterparts. (That's not quite what the quoted comment says, but it's what I would've guessed anyway, since CIQ apps already have the ability to record nativeNum developer fields.)

This is given "as is", it has been developped by "BIPR" company located 870 Rue Denis Papin in Ludres - FRANCE

The purpose of the app is to set Power and Heart Rate native native values with developer fields supposed to override native values. This is because not all softwares recognize such developer fields...

If you want to use it, just drop your '.fit' files in the same repertory as the executable and double click the 'FitOverrideUpdate.bat' file. Files starting with 'out_'+ name of the original file, will be generated.

You are not allowed to copy or distribute this app without our consent.

If you have any question, please contact us: [email protected]