Watchface: Geneva

Note: I've removed this watchface from the app store, for a couple reasons.

After putting many hours into it over the last month, I've decided that the "tip jar" approach simply wasn't working. Despite positive feedback, essentially nobody was willing to donate. I developed this watchface primarily for my own use, but I found myself increasingly updating it based on the preferences of others, few of which were willing to donate anything to support the effort. So I plan on releasing a paid version, with a free trial. If people like the watchface they can buy it, if not they can move on. Suggestions for improvement are welcome, but if they are suggestions from people unwilling to spend a modest amount to purchase it, I have limited interest in putting in the time & effort.
This was actually three watchfaces in one. That was an interesting technical achievement—it required an organized modular design to the codebase. But it's kind of pointless. If people want to change the watchface they should use the normal system menu to change the watchface. One of those things that's obvious in hindsight. So I will "split out" Geneva into at least two watchfaces available on the CIQ store.

Regards,
–nonparametric

Wow, nice work! I've heard CIQ doesn't yet allow 3rd party watchfaces to include Body Battery as a datafield, but how about recovery time and/or sunrise/set? And can you add an option for day/date (Tue 8, for example)? Is it possible to add Ultra Low brightness option (as available in watch settings in GCM) for low-power mode? Do you know how much more battery this watchface consumes vs stock?

nonparametric over 3 years ago in reply to acousticbiker

Thanks for the suggestions...

Added day & date as a complication
Added Ultra-Low brightness (I can make it dimmer... let me know what you think)
Recovery time and body battery are still not allowed, but are supposedly coming in the next API update to system 5
Sunrise/sunset is technically possible, but a huge pain. You would need to start an activity to get a recent GPS measurement, and then the watchface would have to figure out how to convert that to time... there's no simple lookup function call in the API. Maybe for a future release though

Regarding battery consumption, I have not conducted any experiments, but I have also not noticed a drastic difference from the stock watch faces. I assume there is some difference, but it depends on a lot of factors (what the AOD brightness is set to, which complications are enabled, etc.).

Update: Sunrise/sunset is now implemented.

webvan over 3 years ago

Nice watch face, thanks !

Could there be an option for a more minimalistic (and likely less battery consuming since I understand one white pixel consumes battery power on AMOLED watches) AOD/Low Power mode ? Losing the minute marks, complications and making the hour and minute hands brighter and/or larger ?

nonparametric over 3 years ago in reply to webvan

The current version now has an option for a simplified display in AOD mode. (No minute marks, complications off, and disables transparent watch hands). Thanks for the feedback!

Update: In the latest version, you turn off the minute/second tick marks by setting their color to black.

acousticbiker over 3 years ago

I've now tried this with Epix 2 8.13 and have a few thoughts:

I see your note in CIQ about settings not being saved through the CIQ app and to use Express. Using Express, not all settings seem to be getting saved - in my case, I can't get the left datafield to show sunrise/sunset (continues to show battery) and can't turn off low power AOD mode
If it is possible to configure settings for watchfaces in GCM (it is for datafields), have you considered allowing that option?
Is there a way for the watchface to use the general setting for display timeout? I have 4 seconds defined but Geneva seems to take about 10 seconds to transition to the dimmer AOD mode
Would you consider an option to reduce the size of the hour markers to the size of the minute marks when the minute marks are disabled and/or in low power mode? I do not use the minute marks (seem redundant to the marks on the glass/black bezel surrounding the screen) and the hour marks look large, especially without the minute marks
Would you consider an option for straight/non-tapering hands and/or a little graphic showing a central 'nub' around which the hands move (as a mechanical watch would appear)?

nonparametric over 3 years ago in reply to acousticbiker

Thanks for the detailed review!

Re: Settings not getting saved. So I believe the settings *are* getting saved... but it turns out that Garmin Express doesn't trigger the "settings have changed" notification event on the watch like Garmin Connect IQ does. So it simply doesn't update the display immediately. If you do something like go to the Activities menu, and then back to the watchface, I believe it will show the updated settings. This was news to me, but I believe that is what is going on. The next watchface update should fix this issue and make the extra step unnecessary.
Re: Settings via GCM. Not currently sure if this is possible, but I'll look into it (it would be good to have other options, given that CIQ is glitchy).
Re: Timeout settings. 3rd party watchfaces have zero control over when/how watches enter low power mode or display timeout. I'm not sure what's going on here, could be a bug with the 8.13 beta.
Re: tickmark size. I agree that the watchface looks ugly without the minute tick marks... which is why I resisted adding an option to remove the minute tick marks I'm not sure if adding lots and lots of customizations are the route I want to go—at some point, if people want a watchface that looks radically different than the default it's best to pick a different watchface. I'll consider this one though.
Re: Different watch hands & "nub". I agree a nub would be a nice touch. I tried just drawing a small black circle but it looked too artificial. I'll try a .png image overlay. Straight (non-tapering) watch hands should be straightforward.

acousticbiker over 3 years ago in reply to nonparametric

Thanks for your responsiveness!

On settings: I was able to get them to apply reliably only after power the watch off and then back on after a sync with Express (starting an activity didn't work for me); that said, after the watch powers back on, the watchface freezes after a few seconds and before it goes into AOD mode. A press of any button then 'wakes' it back up and it works fine after that. I also saw a weird thing related to this after unplugging the watch from a sync with Express where the second hands were only progressing every few seconds and without going into AOD mode. Again, a button press seemed to fix it.
Thanks for considering the visual adjustments and/or options! Appreciate avoiding complexity. For me, the current hour mark size is probably a deal breaker.
Now that I'm able to get the sunrise/sunset field to work: (1) even with CIQ5/8.13, it requires a GPS fix on the watch (vs phone location via GCM, as the stock watchfaces seem to use), so it seems to be using the watchfaces’s own calculation vs Garmin’s (which shouldn’t require a GPS fix with the watch), which would be preferred, (2) would you consider showing only one time at at time (only sunset after sunrise and then only sunrise after sunset), (3) if you do #2, then this point is moot but if not, I would suggest adding an 'a' or 'p' after the sunrise and sunset times or using 24h format (or offering the option) and (4) would you consider excluding the leading zero?

I know these are quite detailed points but I take the time to share them because I like your watchface (it's one of the only ones I'd consider above a stock one) and appreciate whatever among them you'd consider looking at!

UPDATE: on the first bullet point, I’ve noticed as I’ve been using it more today that the ‘freezing’ (second hand stopping and AOD not kicking in) and irregular second hand behavior (skipping one or a few seconds at a time) aren’t specific to a reboot or disconnecting from an Express sync but seem random (have experienced both at other times, can’t identify any other pattern/trigger). In all cases, still fixed with any button press

UPDATE 2: after sunset, the sunrise is still showing the time for the same morning earlier in the day and not the next morning, which is what would be useful (and which is how the stock watchfaces work)

msquared2 over 3 years ago

Chris, I absolutely love your work!! Would you consider posting the source code on github so that others (like myself) can collaborate to make further customizations? Several other watchfaces do exactly this, apparently without destroying the project owner's ability to still receive donations. Like many here, I am both an athlete and software developer with enough interest/ability to spend weekend hours building my own custom watch face and have NO ambitions to ever earn "revenue" through Garmin app store. Yet like many athletes, I have VERY particular ways of doing things and am VERY picky about all my gear, down to the very last detail on my watch face. I would much rather focus my time on the things that are most important to me (further visual customizations like variable length/width hands and ticks; low battery warning; adding fields for weekly running miles; today's planned mileage) versus the overall framework of a watch face. What do you think?

nonparametric over 3 years ago in reply to acousticbiker

Re: Settings. There seems to be general glitchiness with beta 8.13 that isn't present in the production software. I had the beta software installed for most of yesterday to test out on my Epix and nothing was working smoothly. Worse, it was impossible to tell what was due to the beta software and what was due to the watchface. I've since rolled back to the production software (ver 7.35). The app is updated and seems stable on 7.35. I hope it runs smoothly now on 8.13 as well, but if it doesn't I strongly suspect the problem is not mine.
Re: tickmarks. The original watchface is closely based on the Mondaine Swiss railway watch. I added another option, based on the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch. Screen captures below. It has somewhat smaller hour tickmarks, and in either version you can disable the minute/second ticks by setting the color to black. If you don't like the look of the watchface without the secondary tickmarks I don't blame you, I don't either!
Re: Sunrise/sunset (1). It is definitely using the CIQ calculations. As noted previously, the CIQ 5 API requires the watchface to specify a GPS location. CIQ 5 doesn't fill this in automagically. There is no way (that I am aware of) to get a GPS location from GCM. Note also that the built-in watchfaces don't actually use CIQ—Garmin doesn't have to obey their own rules, which probably explains the discrepancy.
Re: Sunrise/sunset (2). There's now an option to control what sunrise/sunset data to display. The two options are: Today's sunrise & sunset, or the next solar event (sunrise or sunset). The latter is what you are looking for.
Re: Sunrise/sunset (3). The watchface uses the System settings for time. If you prefer 24hr format just set it at the system level and it will be reflected in the watchface. For 12-hr format, indicating am/pm is redundant because the sun rises in the AM and sets in the PM.
Re: Sunrise (4). The updated version excludes the leading zero.

nonparametric over 3 years ago in reply to nonparametric

FYI, for posterity sake: On non-CIQ5 watches, sunrise & sunset calculations are based on NOAA's algorithm: https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/

It differs from Garmin's numbers by several minutes. The likely difference is that NOAA computes apparent sunrise and sunset—taking into account the refraction of the atmosphere. Garmin doesn’t specify what algorithm they use.