Application: dwMap - Route Maps for Vivoactive and other watches

I have just published a route map app, dwApp, which I hope will fill a hole in the Connect IQ ecosystem.
Download from App Store

The primary goal was to offer a route map display and follow capability on the Vivoactive. The app however works on all Connect IQ devices and should be an very convenient way to send a route to the watch after creating it in MapMyRun, Ride with GPS, etc. It also offers an activity recording capability while you are using the routing feature.

I look forward to your requests, feedback, questions and bug reports, in this thread!

Features
- Uses a link code mechanism to link your watch to your account on http://dynamic.watch
- Your dynamic.watch account can be linked to Ride with GPS and Under Armour (MapMyRun/MapMyRide) to import routes automatically from those accounts, or you can import GPX and Garmin Connect routes
- Indicate which route is your current route, and you watch will automatically download it next time you start the app
- App displays a map view or a dashboard (data fields) view
- Map view has three zoom levels, and shows you current position and direction
- Dashboard view shows speed, distance, HR and other common activity stats
- App uses the normal built-in recording capability of the watch, and when you stop and save the activity it is sync'ed with Garmin Connect in the usual way
- App works without a data/phone connection, using the most recently downloaded route when offline

mappicus over 9 years ago

This looks great. I'm giving it a test on a 6.5 hour ride tomorrow. Sounds like leaving it in North-Up is the way to go to make it last the whole ride? I prefer track-up, anybody have accounts of long life on the vivoactive with track-up enabled?

One thing to try is to stay in track-up mode, but usually keep the app showing a data field screen rather than the map screen, as those take much less CPU to redraw.

I'll be skiing this weekend with dwMap which should be a tough test of how much battery life I can eke out.

mappicus over 9 years ago

One thing to try is to stay in track-up mode, but usually keep the app showing a data field screen rather than the map screen, as those take much less CPU to redraw.

I'll be skiing this weekend with dwMap which should be a tough test of how much battery life I can eke out.

On my Vivoactive, with dwMap set to north up, staying nearly always on a data page, and with Bluetooth turned off, I skied for 5.0 hours on Sunday and the battery life went from 99% to 42%, so not too bad given that it was cold.

Former Member over 9 years ago

I had bluetooth off, running in North-up mode mode and with it showing the map most of the time; my battery life was in the 5:45 range before it died.

I thought I had my route loaded properly, and it looked like it displayed at first, but it was obvious as I went along that I wasn't seeing the route and was just seeing my track. Very likely it was all user error as I was trying to implement this less than 24 hours before my first use. It took me quite a while just to figure out how to zoom even! Of course it could've been the gpx file I was using, I exported it from mapmyride and my Garmin Edge 500 refused to work with the file too, so might've been a bad file.

I play with it more since I have more time to do that now. I'll do another century in a few weeks and I'll try to have the stats displayed most of the time to see how that improves battery life.

mappicus over 9 years ago

I thought I had my route loaded properly, and it looked like it displayed at first, but it was obvious as I went along that I wasn't seeing the route and was just seeing my track.

You'll know if your route has been downloaded properly if it appears on the screen (as a fat dark-orange line) when you start the app. The map is initially shown at zoom level Z1 and will show all the map, so if it's not visible there (Z1 is blank), it is not downloaded. It takes about 10-15 secs to download a new map. The map is only downloaded again if it changes, and when you start the app the last downloaded map (if any) is initially shown.

Former Member over 9 years ago

You'll know if your route has been downloaded properly if it appears on the screen (as a fat dark-orange line) when you start the app. The map is initially shown at zoom level Z1 and will show all the map, so if it's not visible there (Z1 is blank), it is not downloaded. It takes about 10-15 secs to download a new map. The map is only downloaded again if it changes, and when you start the app the last downloaded map (if any) is initially shown.

Yeah, now that I've switched routes I see the orange route, before what I thought was the route was a dark blue line, which now was obviously not the case.

I'll keep playing around and familiarizing myself, seems like it'll be a good tool to have.

GaryMort over 9 years ago

I totally love this app!
For the past two long runs I've been able to map out a run to a specific distance, follow it and achieve what I wanted. Thankyou!

Can I just ask, what profile is used on the FR630 when the app is running? Is it the RUN profile?

mappicus over 9 years ago

I totally love this app!
For the past two long runs I've been able to map out a run to a specific distance, follow it and achieve what I wanted. Thankyou!
Can I just ask, what profile is used on the FR630 when the app is running? Is it the RUN profile?

Excellent, glad it's meeting your needs so well!

When we create the activity in the app we indicate it has activity type SPORT_RUNNING and we do some other run-specific things (like showing pace instead of speed) but never explicitly set or request info from the watch's profiles, so I am not sure whether it triggers anything specific to the RUN profile or not.

GaryMort over 9 years ago

Thanks for your quick reply.

I was out running on Sunday and paused my watch at the top of a landmark to take a few photos then resumed and carried on running.
At the end of the run both my Garmin file and the one transferred to Strava both showed me stood still for two minutes and didn't pause the run.
However, looking at both my RUN and RACE profiles on my FR630 I saw that I didn't have auto pause on so it's now been turned on. I was wondering if that would now help?

mappicus over 9 years ago

Thanks for your quick reply.

I was out running on Sunday and paused my watch at the top of a landmark to take a few photos then resumed and carried on running.
At the end of the run both my Garmin file and the one transferred to Strava both showed me stood still for two minutes and didn't pause the run.
However, looking at both my RUN and RACE profiles on my FR630 I saw that I didn't have auto pause on so it's now been turned on. I was wondering if that would now help?

Auto pause is an explicit setting in our app, as we did not see it being done automatically by the watch from the profile. It's on your main settings and route page on our website.

GaryMort over 9 years ago

Auto pause is an explicit setting in our app, as we did not see it being done automatically by the watch from the profile. It's on your main settings and route page on our website.

Of course it is. How on earth did I miss that?!
Thanks again.