Data field: Flexirunner

I made a custom data field for myself, and then I found out I had to upload it to the store to be able to use settings in the Android GC app. So this thread is to support that, any questions/problems/comments, etc., let me know.

Flexirunner

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/ce1e0b46-7c83-4ddb-9d48-c93edadabe3d

Flexirunner is (yet another) all-in-one data field, for use in a single field layout. It is designed for running, with a native look and feel.
It shows time, distance, number of laps, heart rate, pace, and cadence. It also measures running economy (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Running_Economy), and records this and energy expenditure (https://www.firstbeat.com/en/science-and-physiology/energy-expenditure/) into the FIT file, for later display on Garmin Connect.

Please see the page in the Connect IQ app store (above) for the list of features and screenshots (to avoid re-posting the same thing here).

I have tested this field with my FR235, but it should perform identically on the FR230, FR630, FR735XT. Since version 5, Flexirunner is now also compatible with FR920XT, Fenix 3 & HR & Chronos, vivoactive & HR!
Since development is primarily focused on me having an FR235, the layout is currently most optimized for the semi-round watches.

Donations
If you use & like this data field and you're feeling generous, donations are gratefully accepted (but not obliged) here (give what you feel!): https://www.paypal.me/imgrant

Source code
The source code for Flexiruner is freely available on Github: https://github.com/imgrant/FlexiRunner
You can also raise issues there.

Acknowledgements
The Flexirunner icon incorporates elements by Freepik (http://www.freepik.com) from www.flaticon.com, which are licensed by Creative Commons BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

IMGrant over 8 years ago

I've just tested this with a short walk and it seems to work as expected — the graph was visible, and average and per lap values were also displayed in the summaries. I could see this on both Garmin Connect on the web and in the Android app. There was a small quirk in that a very large number was printed underneath the graph title in the Android app, but this didn't appear on the web. Not sure what it represents, but I will investigate with a longer activity (that is also a run!).
In addition, the Flexirunner logo appears at the bottom of the activity summary page in the Android app, so you can see that it was recorded with this data field.

Things to check are: what version of the data field do you have installed? (Should be 3.0.1), and did you have a heart rate monitor active? The economy formula relies on heart rate, I'm not sure what happens yet if HR data is not present (should record zero I think).

mickrobin over 8 years ago

Fit

really dont know what version it was - maybe the first one with running economy ?...

Now on garmin connect it says 3.04 but i guess it updated .

this was the fit - it also has a vo2 max data field that shows correctly

http://s000.tinyupload.com/download.php?file_id=83042775883033734326&t=8304277588303373432666382

will try again in a couple of days

tks for the great work

IMGrant over 8 years ago

Yeah, that FIT file looks good, it has the requisite fields in there. Perhaps it is a quirk with Garmin Connect, I went for a run myself yesterday and it worked fine. Let me know if it persists for you.

IMGrant over 8 years ago

I've released another update to this. New in version 4.0 is FIT recording of energy expenditure (haven't tested this myself with my watch yet, let me know if any problems and/or expect updates again soon if it's not working as planned!) and the ability to display current pace with 1-second precision, rather than rounded to 5-second intervals.

Note that the energy expenditure field is not displayed anywhere on the watch, only recorded in the FIT file.

Former Member over 8 years ago

running economy not showing

Hi

I too cannot see the running economy showing up on the connect website (or android app). I can see the value is recorded in the fit file as a developer field. The version of flexirunner showing on my android app is 4.0.0 this morning although don't know what was on the watch yesterday during the run. I am using a FR235.
Thanks for any suggestions.

PS - also, this may be entirely unrelated but thought i should mention it anyway but tapriik is throwing an error trying to sync this run with other sites. seems just this run. will do another short run now and see what happens

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hi again.

I have made some modifications to an earlier version of flexirunner to show speed rather than pace but by the sounds of it with recent enhancements you have made there may not be enough coding space to add the option to show speed (an option from connect app settings). I will have another look at this to see what is possible. I should probably just learn to use pace when running but having trained with km/h I am struggling to do so!!

Please could you explain how the target pace box works? I have the option set as 'overall average pace' but I am being a bit thick in not understanding how it is used when running!

thanks.

Former Member over 8 years ago

Compatible devices list

Great data field.
Will it ever be compatible with the Fenix 3?
Thanks. Regards

Francalberto

Former Member over 8 years ago

Just an update re the above. I uninstalled flexirunner and then reinstalled it again to hopefully have v4.0.0 on the watch.

I did a couple more dummy runs and neither of the runs displayed the running economy graph/data in garmin connect. Neither run would sync with tapiriik to strava etc.

I uninstalled flexirunner and did another dummy run and that did sync with tapiriik to strava.

It's difficult to know if the tapiriik issue is just a tapiriik issue that won't sync files with developer fields or whether there is some sort of corruption in the flexirunner data.

thanks.

IMGrant over 8 years ago

Hi again.

I have made some modifications to an earlier version of flexirunner to show speed rather than pace but by the sounds of it with recent enhancements you have made there may not be enough coding space to add the option to show speed (an option from connect app settings). I will have another look at this to see what is possible. I should probably just learn to use pace when running but having trained with km/h I am struggling to do so!!

Please could you explain how the target pace box works? I have the option set as 'overall average pace' but I am being a bit thick in not understanding how it is used when running!

thanks.

Hi, to address all your points (including I thought I saw another post from you but not showing on the thread now?):

If you can see that the values are being recorded into the FIT file, then you probably have the right version. However, I have come across a problem, with the GC Android app at least, where the version number for the field displayed in the mobile app is not the actual version installed, but simply the latest version available on the web (stupid, I know). To fix this and make sure you definitely have the latest version installed, uninstall and then reinstall the data field (others have had success with updating via USB sync with Garmin Express, also, I believe you did this so safe to say you probably have the app installed correctly).
The non-display of extra stuff like running economy on Garmin Connect is .. a headache. I can say that it works for me, but also that it is basically out of my hands – the data field does the recording and tells Garmin Connect what it has recorded, then it's up to Garmin to display it properly. I have noticed that there is (currently, for me) a problem with the information GC has about the extra data being out of date – e.g. v4.0 also records energy expenditure (EE), but my Garmin Connect activities only show economy, not EE. It looks like the information file that describes the extra FIT fields is out of date (despite that I properly uploaded it when updating the app). Perhaps you are suffering from something similar (no info file), as Garmin Connect probably operates via a vast content delivery network it could be that these files are out of date or not present for different people depending on what servers they access and what files are cached, or not. I have contacted Garmin about the issue, all I can do is hope this gets resolved, or that they can tell me why it happens and perhaps there is a workaround. Sorry about that.
tapriik syncing could be related to the extra FIT fields – I think adding this means using a newer version of the FIT specification and perhaps tapriik cannot yet support that (pretty rubbish in terms of backward compatibility of FIT though, isn't it...). I also use tapriik but I rarely check on what it's done, so I will see if it has choked on my files too.
Regarding pace vs speed. In v4.0, I added a configuration option to display pace or Rounded Pace (i.e. rounded to nearest 5-second interval). Unfortunately I haven't synced this version of the source to Github yet, but when I do, it should be relatively easy for you to take that and make it display speed. I cut some features and made some other memory optimizations to make room for this and the EE FIT field, as otherwise the app is close to the 16 kB limit. Although, of course, you should run with pace instead of speed – it's much easier to do the mental math with whilst running! But I guess if you're used to speed, it's hard to re-train that mental muscle.
Target pace: setting this controls the coloured indicator for current pace. The indicator shows whether you are currently running at, above, or below the target pace, whatever it is set to. So if you set target pace to average pace, then the current pace indicator shows whether you are currently running slower, faster, or about the same as the overall average pace. My favourite is setting it to moving (running) pace, then you can see whether you are currently above/below your average running pace, filtering out time spent stopped or walking (I leave the timer running and don't use Auto Pause). You can also set it to lap pace, perhaps this is more useful than an overall average when doing, e.g. intervals. Setting it to average pace can also be useful if you know what average pace you need to maintain for a race, for instance.

IMGrant over 8 years ago

Great data field.
Will it ever be compatible with the Fenix 3?
Thanks. Regards

Francalberto

Hi, thanks. It's unlikely, as I don't have a Fenix 3 myself; I have a FR235, and the reason it is also compatible with FR230, FR630, FR735xt is because they share the same screen size so there is not extra work to make it compatible with them. It would require reworking for the F3 screen and since there is not enough free memory to do this dynamically, I would effectively have to write two separate apps (there are provisions for doing this in Connect IQ, I think, bundling different versions for different products in one release, but it still means the extra work).

So, never say never, since otherwise the Fenix 3 has the same capabilities (memory, CIQ support), but I am, shall we say, not incentivized to do it. Sorry about that!