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.

DimitrisGiannopoulos over 9 years ago

First of all, congratulations on your work! This is an excellent and most useful datafield.

I tried it today. I configured it for 13kms @ 45mins. When I started running, the 'Pacer' field, somehow, picked up the distance of the first step of my workout, 3.22km. The sliding bar worked fine. At some point, while running, the data field crashed and it did never came back.

I'm latest 6.52 firmware.

Former Member over 9 years ago

First of all, congratulations on your work! This is an excellent and most useful datafield.

I tried it today. I configured it for 13kms @ 45mins. When I started running, the 'Pacer' field, somehow, picked up the distance of the first step of my workout, 3.22km. The sliding bar worked fine. At some point, while running, the data field crashed and it did never came back.

I'm latest 6.52 firmware.

The data field does indeed use the start time of the activity and the total distance. It does not take things like a warmup into account. If you want to exclude that part, you'll need to either add the warmup time and distance to your target, or split your training into two activities.
I've contacted you in a PM for more information about the crash. I'll try to fix that as soon as possible.

DimitrisGiannopoulos over 9 years ago

Hi TeunMo, I sent you a PM with the log file.

The workout I tried it in, was using different steps, based on distance and time. Warm up, repeats and cool off. So I had to calculate by myself what the overall distance would be. It would be marvelous If you could make it work in such a complex situation and I'm really ready to pay for it. It really completes the watch in an awesome way.

webvan over 9 years ago

Sorry to interrupt but what's the point of having a VP if you're following a structured workout? VP is only really needed in a race situation and can come in handy I suppose on long steady runs, but more for fun/testing.

DimitrisGiannopoulos over 9 years ago

You are right, I'm just exploring the possibility of using it for more than race/long runs.
It started when I realised that datafields, that I found important, such as Time to Go or Distance to Go, are missing from F3 while present on older devices like FR610. You did not have to configure anything, the data fields would pick up the values for all steps from any structured workout and work out of the box.
Virtual Pacer is a good candidate for this.

webvan over 9 years ago

I've been running intervals on the track recently with my FR235 so haven't bothered transferring structured workouts but when I tried the simple intervals feature I did get the countdown screen for each step from my my FR310. Maybe a temporary bug on the F3 ?

DimitrisGiannopoulos over 9 years ago

At present there is a bug(?) in F3. Actually, nobody knows if it is a bug or a feature, custom alerts don't work with transferred workouts at all. I wouldn't be surprised if these workouts break the functionality of the watch in some way.
In both your watches, you only tried it with the intervals feature of the watch, right? So we don't know if there is an issue with downloaded workouts.

webvan over 9 years ago

Alerts in workouts are broken on the FR235 too but that's different from the time and distance countdown you mentioned previously and VP can't help with that anyway.

Former Member over 9 years ago

Hi TeunMo, I sent you a PM with the log file.

The workout I tried it in, was using different steps, based on distance and time. Warm up, repeats and cool off. So I had to calculate by myself what the overall distance would be. It would be marvelous If you could make it work in such a complex situation and I'm really ready to pay for it. It really completes the watch in an awesome way.

It's not possible to access information about a structured workout in Connect IQ, so this is currently not possible.

nicolasneff over 9 years ago

"Ahead / Behind" field

Hi Mr Teumno,

I tested « Virtual Pacer » with all screen possible parameters :

Layout : 1, 2, 3 or 4 fields
Edit Fields : position on the “Virtual Pacer” field with 3 fields : first or second position;

If “Virtual Pacer” has only one quarter of the watch, you display the “Req Pace” data.
If "Virtual Pacer" has two quarter of the watch (second field on 3 fields), you display “Req Pace” and “Ahead / Behind” field.

My question.
If you display only one field, I would prefer to see “Behind / Ahead” field, rather then “Req Pace” field.
This would help me on long runs when I want to run at a specific speed. I would not be obliged to switch between the standard “Virtual Partner” screen and 1 of the 4 user screens.
Is this possible ?