Watch Developer turning App Developer: Quick Question

tonyb1969 over 8 years ago

Team,

First, thank you for the help while I developed the ProAn watch face. The Connect IQ SDK examples, the analog watch face example, and online ConnectIQ methods/functions docs were very helpful. Now I want to create an App that will update "real time" or once per second. Is there a sample app that could give me a quick boot camp into the App world? Also, is there an overview of the limitations of Apps we develop with regard to update frequency, etc.? Thank you,

Tony

jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

With an app it's simple. Create a 1 second timer, and in the callback for it, do a Ui.requestUpdate() You can play around with something like the recordingSample in the SDK for the basics of recording, and use a timer to update the screen. The fastest timer I use for the screen update is in a widget, and IIRC, I have it at 100ms right now.

Updating the screen is an expensive operation, so you'll want to keep that in mind. You'll burn more battery if you are doing it every 100ms vs every 1s.

tonyb1969 over 8 years ago

With an app it's simple. Create a 1 second timer, and in the callback for it, do a Ui.requestUpdate() You can play around with something like the recordingSample in the SDK for the basics of recording, and use a timer to update the screen. The fastest timer I use for the screen update is in a widget, and IIRC, I have it at 100ms right now.

Updating the screen is an expensive operation, so you'll want to keep that in mind. You'll burn more battery if you are doing it every 100ms vs every 1s.

As always, thank you, Jim_M_58!

jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

"Samples" is always a good place to start. You may not find one that does XYZ, but you'll find one for X, another for Y and a third for Z. One thing to keep in mind is that watchfaces are limited it what they can do (the battery), but widgets and watch-apps are similar in what they can do (no recording in widgets) when it comes to comm, sensors, GPS, etc, and you'll find things in widget samples that apply to watch-apps, and v/v.

tonyb1969 over 8 years ago

"Samples" is always a good place to start. You may not find one that does XYZ, but you'll find one for X, another for Y and a third for Z. One thing to keep in mind is that watchfaces are limited it what they can do (the battery), but widgets and watch-apps are similar in what they can do (no recording in widgets) when it comes to comm, sensors, GPS, etc, and you'll find things in widget samples that apply to watch-apps, and v/v.

Thank you!