Data field: Flexirunner

Fenix 3 on beta firmware 7.64 - unfortunately no graphs from me (both web and android GC ).
Should I make some extra steps to make it work properly?

The graphs in GC does seem to be a bit problematic. Makes sure you're running the latest version of the data field (by uninstalling and reinstalling) is all I can say. I think Garmin are aware of the issue.

Vivoactive not running datafield

Awesome datafield. Working great on Fenix 3, but it is not working on my vivoactive hr. Any suggestions? I have already unistalled and installed again but the datafield only show its frames without any data inside.
Thanks for the hard working! Brilliant piece of art!

Awesome datafield. Working great on Fenix 3, but it is not working on my vivoactive hr. Any suggestions? I have already unistalled and installed again but the datafield only show its frames without any data inside.
Thanks for the hard working! Brilliant piece of art!

Are you using a black or white background? A few people have reported this issue, I think it is due to using white text on a white background, or black-on-black, but every time I ask what colour background they are using I haven't had a reply. However, each time I also suggested uninstalling and reinstalling to get the latest version (as I had changed this bit of code for the background colour recently), and they reported that solved the problem.

So, make sure you are running the latest version; unfortunately it is difficult to verify the actual version installed, hence why I recommend uninstalling and reinstalling. It may be that when you did this previously, there had not been an update and so you just reinstalled the same version. However, I have just released another minor update this morning, which should fix this issue, so please uninstall and reinstall again and see if that works.

I as using a Whittier background but I do not know if I selected a white font, either way the new update fixed this issue. Thanks! Good job!

Very interesting data field, thank you very much. So far I used a data field called Single Field which shows you five data fields and time and battery status. For me Flexirunner's two additional Pace fields are quite useful and, albeit being similar, they usually work better than the virtual pacer, preventing the usual pace degradation towards the end of the run.

There are some minor point’s I’d love to see:

- Any chance to sneak the time of day in there (probably not, already crowded I guess)?
- Some form of battery and GPS indicators should be possible but I guess you have to be clever
- User adjustable cadence colors – Single Field offers the feature and I understand that this is more of an OCD issue for me but I am way below a cadence of a 180 and I’d love to see something green if I manage to run between 160-170

Regarding the additional metrics: Everything works fine on my Forerunner 735XT and graphs show up just nicely, however, I understand how you calculate Running Economy based on fellrnr’s approximate formula and I can see how it can potentially be useful. But how on earth did you replicate Firstbeat’s Energy Expenditure? I glanced at their white paper but the algorithm seems to be far more complicated and I am not sure whether it’s fully described in the white paper?

Very interesting data field, thank you very much. So far I used a data field called Single Field which shows you five data fields and time and battery status. For me Flexirunner's two additional Pace fields are quite useful and, albeit being similar, they usually work better than the virtual pacer, preventing the usual pace degradation towards the end of the run.

I started with Single Run Field too! It is good, I ended up writing my own so I could customise it exactly as I wanted.

There are some minor point’s I’d love to see:

- Any chance to sneak the time of day in there (probably not, already crowded I guess)?
- Some form of battery and GPS indicators should be possible but I guess you have to be clever

Yes, there isn't really space for it (maybe on the round watches), my original plan was to have temperature where the lap counter is.
Moreover, there probably isn't enough memory for it, except perhaps on the newer CIQ 2.x devices (like the 735xt), although at the moment all the watches have the same features in Flexirunner. I have an FR235 myself, so that is my primary development target. I guess if I had an 735xt, then I would target that and do much more, since it has twice the memory available (perhaps one day PayPal donations will reach enough to buy one!).

In the end, I decided to leave time of day and battery status out as they are available on another, built-in data page. I have this turned on and Flexirunner in data screen 1, so if I need to see the time of day, it is just one press of the up button away.
As for battery and GPS status, I found that I tend not to be concerned with these during a run, and if they were a problem, I assume there is a low battery and GPS signal weak notification. Even for the latter, a) I use a foot pod and so might not see that alarm as the foot pod would take up distance duties, and b) I reasoned that if I saw I had a weak GPS signal during a run, I would be annoyed, but I probably wouldn't do anything about it — I'm not going to change my route for instance.

- User adjustable cadence colors – Single Field offers the feature and I understand that this is more of an OCD issue for me but I am way below a cadence of a 180 and I’d love to see something green if I manage to run between 160-170

I also usually run way below 180 — the green colour kicks in at 160-something if I remember correctly. I did consider customisable cadence bands way back, but it used too much memory. I also prefer it to match the Garmin colours so that it is 'mentally easy' when looking at the cadence graph after a run.
Of course, the source code to Flexirunner is freely available, and so you or anyone are free to take that and modify it if you wanted to code different cadence colours.

Regarding the additional metrics: Everything works fine on my Forerunner 735XT and graphs show up just nicely, however, I understand how you calculate Running Economy based on fellrnr’s approximate formula and I can see how it can potentially be useful. But how on earth did you replicate Firstbeat’s Energy Expenditure? I glanced at their white paper but the algorithm seems to be far more complicated and I am not sure whether it’s fully described in the white paper?

What colour do you see for the graphs by the way? I changed them a few versions ago but my run today still showed the old colours. I think this area of additional metrics on Garmin Connect is still a bit flaky (it relies on Garmin doing their bit, I've added the code correctly but they seem slow to update).

As for Energy Expenditure, no, I didn't replicate it — it is already present in the watch behind the scenes, even though you can't select it as a data field to show (at least, not on the FR235). It is available programmatically via Connect IQ though, hence it was simple to add to my app.

Good questions, and glad you like the data field. Happy running!

Thank you very much for your extensive reply. All points are well made, and I shall continue to be using Flexirunner - even without cutomizable colors and/or battery gages or time of day displays. As you said: These are all available via other pages.

It is a shame, though that the 235 is so memory constrained. I wasn’t aware of that. I did start out with a 235 thinking that I could cover the occasional triathlon with a 3rd party app, but quickly got hooked on triathlons and decided to go for the upgrade as opposed to always be slightly annoyed during a race.

The colors for me are, btw:

- brownish orange for Energy Expenditure
- turquoise for Running Economy

Excellent, thanks for the screenshot, that is how they should look (nice steady run, btw!)

16 kB is quite a lot for a normal data field, but obviously becomes restrictive for any of the 'single field' types, as they are effectively squeezing several fields into one. In some ways, it's a hack. Perhaps Garmin didn't see forsee that data fields would be used this way, a Connect IQ 'data screen' type of app would be the ideal fit.

On the other hand, if I had a 735xt and I was programming for that (32 kB per field), I would probably be much lazier at optimising my code and as a result it wouldn't run on CIQ 1.x devices at all!

IQ logo with Exclamation Point

Hi there. I'm using a Garmin 920xt. I placed the connect IQ data field on my run layout and field. It works up until I start the run. Then it stops and shows the IQ logo with exclamation point. But the watch still works. I scroll down to a different screen and it still shows my other data and distance. It's just in the screen where I have flexirunner data field. Would really be grateful for any advice.