Virtual Pacer

Former Member over 9 years ago

The Virtual Pacer data field helps you achieve your goals. Virtual Pacer shows all the information you need to cover the distance in the pre-set time. It's just as if you have your own personal pacer at your wrist.

You can get the Virtual Pacer here.

*********** Features ***********
- Allows you to set the required time and distance using the new App Settings features;
- Pace or Speed required to achieve your goal;
- Sliding bar showing you the percentage of distance covered;
- Option to change background color when you're behind;
- Shows achieved time, when finished.

Depending on the size you set the field, you can also have access to the following additional features
- Time or distance you're ahead or behind;
- Estimate of you end time;
- Remaining distance.

*********** Requirements ***********
Connect IQ version 1.2 or above

*********** Feedback and support ***********
Please consider this a beta version. I've tested this app successfully on Forerunner 920XT, Vivoactive and Forerunner 230, but since it's an advanced data field that's close to the boundaries of available resources, I'd like to do some more testing before I'll consider releasing v1.0. If you have any problems using this data field, please let me know.
General information about app settings can be found here.

*********** Version history ***********
v0.2: Included a lot of extra features, as described above.
v0.1: Initial version. Only shows required pace.

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Setting up your goal time and distance in Garmin Express

Go to "Manage Apps", a list of all your apps is shown;
Look for the Virtual Pacer data field and press the "..." besides the data field name, a page is shown where you can change the settings;
Change the settings to the appropriate values:
- Distance: set the distance. The number is interpreted as Kilometers or Miles, depending on your device settings
- Time (hh:mm:ss or seconds): Set the time in seconds or as mm:ss or hh:mm:ss.
- Show Speed in stead of Pace: The data field shows required Speed if set to true, else it shows pace
- Show ahead/behind as distance in stead of time: Show how much you're ahead or behind as distance if set to true, else as time
- Switch background color when behind: If set to true, the background color changes if you're behind => This setting has been removed in version 1.0 and is always true.
Press "Save" to save the changes. The new values will automatically be send to your device.

I you want to check whether the new values are saved to your device, you can simply go to the settings page again. Garmin Express will always load the settings directly from the device.

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Setting up the zones in Garmin Connect Mobile

The following explanation is based on GCM for Android. GCM for iPhone should be (almost) the same.

In the menu go to "Garmin Devices";
Select your device from the list;
Select "Connect IQ Apps";
Select "Data Fields";
Select the Virtual Pacer data field;
Select "Settings" (if your device does not have Connect IQ 1.2 installed, you'll get a message "An error has occured");
Change the values (as described in the Setting up the zones in Garmin Express section above);
Select "Done" to save the values to your device

Same as with Garmin Express, you can check the settings by going to the Settings page again.

Former Member over 9 years ago

integer distance

I have noticed that it is not possible to enter decimal places into the 'distance' field on the configuration page in GCM (to enter the exact marathon distance for example).

When entering the settings a value of '10.0' is preselected, and when you try to edit the field this value will also show in the editable field, but you can only modify this value and select OK if you remove the decimal point first and enter an integer then.

When trying to enter values above 1000 (just for evaluation purposes ;) ) a message says that only values between -9223372036854775808 and 1000 are accepted. So it seems the expected data type is a signed bigint indeed (with an additional reasonable upper limit for this purpose), which explains why decimal places are being refused. Negative values cannot be entered though (no minus sign in the keypad that shows).

I am using the latest GCM version on Android 5.0, the watch is a fenix 3 with FW 5.00 (including CIQ SDK 1.2.1).

Thanks a lot for the app, working fine so far otherwise, looking forward to the new features you announced!

Former Member over 9 years ago

I have noticed that it is not possible to enter decimal places into the 'distance' field on the configuration page in GCM (to enter the exact marathon distance for example).

When entering the settings a value of '10.0' is preselected, and when you try to edit the field this value will also show in the editable field, but you can only modify this value and select OK if you remove the decimal point first and enter an integer then.

When trying to enter values above 1000 (just for evaluation purposes ;) ) a message says that only values between -9223372036854775808 and 1000 are accepted. So it seems the expected data type is a signed bigint indeed (with an additional reasonable upper limit for this purpose), which explains why decimal places are being refused. Negative values cannot be entered though (no minus sign in the keypad that shows).

I am using the latest GCM version on Android 5.0, the watch is a fenix 3 with FW 5.00 (including CIQ SDK 1.2.1).

Thanks a lot for the app, working fine so far otherwise, looking forward to the new features you announced!

The value is actually a float and should allow you to set values with decimals. I've tested this on my phone and have not had any problems, until just now when I changed the language on my phone to Dutch (my native language). I'm pretty sure you just discovered a bug in GCM regarding regional settings (if you set the language to English (or another language that i used to using a dot for decimals) it will work). I'll get this reported.

You are right about the upper limit of 1000. I'll add a lower limit of 1 to the next version.
Thanks for reporting this.

Former Member over 9 years ago

Confirmed, works when switching phone language to English just before editing the field and switching back to German directly afterwards.

So at least we have a workaround until they fix GCM. Thanks for the info!

Former Member over 9 years ago

I've uploaded a new version of the app to the app store, with a lot of new features.

Some screen prints:

See the first post of this thread, for all the new features, or go directly to the store to get the Virtual Pacer data field.

Former Member over 9 years ago

A fix for the decimal separator issue in non-English locales is in the pipeline. It also uncovered an issue preventing negative number entry. Both fixes should be in the next release.

Former Member over 9 years ago

TeunMo, many compliments for your app, it's exactly what I was looking for (but I expected to find this function on FR235 by default, as they say...). But I can't understand how to obtain the watch looking like your screen print.

I'm still in the situation described by giam67:

"(...) i have in configuration fields a selection Private PAcer(now Virtual Pacer, my note) and a subfield Connect IQ 1/2 and Connect IQ 2/2 but the fields are the same, shows distance target and time.(...)

What's the solution that I can't see?
Thank you

Former Member over 9 years ago

TeunMo, many compliments for your app, it's exactly what I was looking for (but I expected to find this function on FR235 by default, as they say...). But I can't understand how to obtain the watch looking like your screen print.

I'm still in the situation described by giam67:

What's the solution that I can't see?
Thank you

The screen print is a picture of the data field displayed at full screen setup. The new version of the Virtual Pacer has a total of 5 metrics, but they're only shown in full screen. If you put the data field in a smaller field layout, you'll only get 2 or 3 metrics.
Before you start you're session, the data field shows the target distance and time you have set, no matter which layout you've chosen. I've added this so you can easily verify that you've set the correct target.
Once you start your session with a full screen data field, you'll see the layout similar to the screen print of the forerunner 230.

On a fr235 these are the steps to set a Connect IQ data field full screen:

Go to Menu > Activity Settings > Data Screens;
Select the Screen you want to use;
Make sure Layout is "1 field". If it's not:
- Select Layout;
- Press up/down until you see a one field layout
- Press select (top-right button)
Select Field 1;
Select Connect IQ;
Press up/down until you've selected Virtual Pacer;
Press select.

After you've done that you can back out of the settings menu and the field should be visible in your activity.

MikeDozer over 9 years ago

Somebody got this working on epix? I got only restart when trying to enter choose connectIQ field :/
Latest firmware. Tried via GCM and GC.

Former Member over 9 years ago

Great, thank you TeunMo, now I have what I was looking for. I tried to test it this evening, it seemed to be working as expected but I had to stop my training in the middle and I couldn't use it as I wanted. But at a first glance it was ok. I'll tell you if something doesn't work properly.
Thank you again!

Former Member over 9 years ago

Somebody got this working on epix? I got only restart when trying to enter choose connectIQ field :/
Latest firmware. Tried via GCM and GC.

The data field should work on an Epix.
What do you mean by restart? Does your watch crash or does the data field fail? When does this happen? When you select the data field or when you change the settings?