App: Hiker

[FONT=Arial Black]Hiker[/FONT]
https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/a230c855-7adf-415a-bb1c-289f27304563

Please use this thread for any questions and feedback.

Description
Hiker is designed for walking or scrambling outdoors. The app captures the hike data using the standard Garmin activities which can be uploaded via Garmin Connect. The activity is classed as a hike.

There is one main screen showing clock, timer, distance, steps, ascent and current heading. If a compass is present in the watch then the heading will display the current heading, otherwise it will display the direction of travel from the GPS trace.

Following this there are a number of graph screens:

Elevation
Pressure (Not available on the Forerunner watches)
Temperature (Using the Garmin Tempe temperature sensor)
Heart Rate

The data within these screens is sampled every 2 minutes which gives a history over the last 4 hours. The min, max and average values are taken from this sampled data. Any other data is read directly from the activity which you will see in Garmin Connect.

The last screen displays a trail as representation of the path walked. A data point is mapped down every 2 minutes when there's a good GPS signal. The start is represented by a green square and the current position is a red cross. Below the trail is the last known good position in degrees, minutes and seconds.

On starting the app it will wait for a good GPS signal which can bypassed. Use left and right swipes or the up and down buttons to move through the screens. Activities can be paused using the start/stop button. If you forget to resume the activity after a number of steps you will be asked if you wish to resume the hike.

Versions
v1.06

Added a breadcrumb trail of the hike.
Corrected the animation for up and down buttons.
Optimised the code to reduce the memory usage. This allowed the above trail feature to be added to all the existing supported watches.

v1.03

Added support for D2 Bravo, D2 Bravo Titanium, fēnix® 3 and fēnix® 3 HR.

v1.02

Added support for Forerunner® 230, Forerunner® 235, Forerunner® 630 and Forerunner® 735XT.
Added a heart rate graph. (Note: There is an issue with the vívoactive® HR firmware. This has been fixed in the beta release and will work in the next full release.)
Improved the display of the GPS status.

v1.00

Initial release for vívoactive® HR.

JohnD25 over 8 years ago

is it possible to use this app to follow a course (for example a .gpx hiking trail) from the watch?
I tried but I was only able to use the built-in hiking app of the watch, not this one.

No, it's not possible with Hiker.

John

cedge17 over 8 years ago

Accessing Widgets during Hiker activity

I emailed you as well before I saw that I could also post here. I have some widgets like compass/GPS co-ordinates that I can access from the watch screen; in Garmin apps, you can touch and hold the screen during recording to access these widgets. Is this possible within the Hiker app, if not is this something you can add to the app?

Thanks

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hi Paxis

I'm now very limited by the memory in older watches, so adding additional functionality is challenging. I'll see what I can do.

John

Thanks for adding!

der_Corso over 8 years ago

wrong calories?

Hi John,
I really like the Hiker App but I think the calories calculating may not work properly.
Today I tracked 7km in 1:40 and the app logged only 537 calories. I used two other apps on my smartphone and they said 700-800 calories.
May be the calculating is for walking not hiking?

Mirco

JohnD25 over 8 years ago

Hi John,
I really like the Hiker App but I think the calories calculating may not work properly.
Today I tracked 7km in 1:40 and the app logged only 537 calories. I used two other apps on my smartphone and they said 700-800 calories.
May be the calculating is for walking not hiking?

The calorie calculation is coming directly from the watch and is managed by the Garmin firmware. All Hiker is doing is reporting the calorie information that the watch is recording.

Calculating the energy consumed for a given activity is very difficult. Different companies employ different strategies and algorithms to achieve this, I'm not surprised by your findings that there are differences.

Regards

John

AWini over 8 years ago

Hi, the App ist absolute fantastic ! The only thing I miss is the descent. The App shows ascent, but no descent.

der_Corso over 8 years ago

Hi

The calorie calculation is coming directly from the watch and is managed by the Garmin firmware. All Hiker is doing is reporting the calorie information that the watch is recording.

Calculating the energy consumed for a given activity is very difficult. Different companies employ different strategies and algorithms to achieve this, I'm not surprised by your findings that there are differences.

Regards

John

Thank you for the answer.

I have two wishes:
Can you make it possible to go back to the "normal watch" by using the left button while Hiker is running in the backgrund? This is possibe in almost any other app I tried.
I would like to have one more information fileld on the first site of the app. may be you cann make the timer or the time smaller.

joshuabagley over 8 years ago

Can the elevation be shown in meters instead of feet?

cedge17 over 8 years ago

Hi, the App ist absolute fantastic ! The only thing I miss is the descent. The App shows ascent, but no descent.

If you swipe to one of the screens, it does show total descent I believe.

jbung over 7 years ago

Love your app, it is the only one I use for hiking.
Are you are planning on making this app Vivoactive 3 compatible?
I would love to see it on the new watch.

Regards,
Jeff