Watchface: Heliocentric

Hi LDSLARON,

Can you make this feature compatible for the Fenix 3? My interest in astronomy has recently peaked and this info on my watch would be nice to literally have at my fingertips. Also, I was wondering if you could make a widget or app (similar to Garmin's Multi Time Zone widget) with solar "True" time and/or Mean solar time, or have the "Equation of Time" visible/accessible? That would be different, unique and very interesting info on a watch. Maybe, at the very least, there could be a way to see true solar noon according to one's time zone, longitude, etc. Finally, how about simply creating a widget with tide info including a graph, wind direction, tide times and heights, etc? Ive been perusing various Garmin watch forums and have noticed many people are interested in having tidal information on their Garmin watches outside of the Tactix and Quatix watches which have tidal information built in -- these people, including myself, feel this would be invaluable information for the Garmin "outdoorsy" functional watches. And with Connect IQ now available, all Garmin compatible watches can have this information if developers like yourself feel inspired to create them. Please do, many would truly appreciate it. Thanks in advance. Your truly, "A Fan!"

I can look into making Heliocentric compatible with Fenix 3, assuming everything fits well on the watch face. Would that be of interest?

Regarding the solar time widget, may I ask what you're looking to do with the information in the end? The reason I ask is that perhaps there is a way to design something that provides information more tailored to your end result.

I had thought about making a tides app. I doubt there is enough program memory to create a local database extensive enough to be useful, so the challenge becomes finding web services that provide the required information. Some other folks on this forum look like they have already headed down that path.

Hi LDSLARON,

I'd definitely would be interested in having the Heliocentric on my Fenix 3, if possible. Thanks!

Well, I have a recent interest in viewing and casually studying the various stars in the Milky Way (I'm a sort of weekend astronomical warrior) -- using my pedestrian telescope I would find it novel, fun, and maybe helpful to have sidereal time on my wrist for tracking various stars. . .AND, it'd be more fun than really useful to be able to view solar time at a glance and possibly the equation of time, just as a way for me to keep things in perspective of where I am in the grand scheme of things, and to stay in touch with the whole notion of time. You could call the app "Celestial Time", has a real ring to it! :)

Regarding a tidal data widget, I'm looking forward to welcoming and utilizing it from whomever makes it -- I'm grateful.

Do you think you'd be interested in doing some other astronomical apps? Such as:

* An app (or widget) that gives the current view of the earth from different planets in our solar system according to different times of day/month/year -- kind of a more amped up version of the Heliocentric.

* A planetarium app, that shows the real positions of the planets in our solar system orbiting around the sun in relation to one another, so that it reflects them as they really are present time. A macro view (all the planets at one time) and micro view (a specific planet, like the earth for example, displaying its location to the sun and the position of its moon).

* An app that shows a sort of personal view of the planets in our solar system, that gives basic facts about the planet and shows how the planet looks from different distances and where it is in relation to its other sister planets. (This would be just for fun, nothing you can't get from a computer, but with GPS it could make it more personal if data uses the viewers specific location.)

Thanks for all your time and cooperation, it's been a real pleasure!

Win

I was able to put together a Fenix 3 variant of Heliocentric, but it is prone to update problems when rendering the earth. The problem is that devices besides Vivoactive enter sleep mode after a few seconds and prohibit fast updates (see https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?244999-Vivoactive-Can-Update-Forever-at-1-Hz for details). It's not too bad since the earth renders eventually but I'd like to find a fix. There is a fair amount of math involved in the earth projection so this is why it takes a while.

As for the other items, some of what you suggest is feasible and I appreciate the ideas. Note that Heliocentric is a planetarium of sorts but shows only the four inner planets. It does show those planets where they are today though. I could have put more planets on but couldn't draw the interplanetary distances to scale in that case. Also I believe there is a Fenix 3 astronomy app available now but maybe you have already seen it.

Thanks! Please let me know when the Heliocentric is ready for the Fenix 3 so I can download it. I just checked Connect IQ and app's still only available for the Vivoactive. I appreciate all your hard work and ongoing assistance to make this app available for other Garmin watch models. I look forward to seeing the upcoming apps you have in store for us. Thanks again, and I look forward to sporting the Heliocentric on my wrist.

I went ahead and posted version 1.4 of the Heliocentric watch face that should work for Fenix 3 and 920XT, although the earth may not completely draw right away on these devices due to the issue I mentioned at https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?244999-Vivoactive-Can-Update-Forever-at-1-Hz. If you gesture to look at your watch or wait a few minutes, however, the earth should show up completely.

Thanks! I just downloaded watch face, looks nice, earth comes up pretty quickly but a little difficult to discern other planets. All in all I'm very happy, I love all things astronomical. I appreciate your time and efforts. Will provide you with feedback if any issues or thoughts arise and will post a review in about a week. Thanks again. :)

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback. When you say it is difficult to discern other planets, I'm assuming you mean that in the solar system view it is difficult to tell which planet is which? The scale of the watch makes things challenging here, but if you have any ideas for improving things then please let me know.

Cool looking watch face, however on my Fenix 3 is caused the watch to crash / reboot. Happened both times I tried it, then wouldn't let me uninstall it until I manually changed to one of the built in watch faces. Initial loading is also very slow.

Cool looking watch face, however on my Fenix 3 is caused the watch to crash / reboot. Happened both times I tried it, then wouldn't let me uninstall it until I manually changed to one of the built in watch faces. Initial loading is also very slow.

Please see https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?265814-Reboot-on-Uninstall-on-Fenix-3. I imagine there could be an issue with the firmware version you are running. I run Heliocentric most of the time on my Vivoactive with no significant issues.

Can you please help me understand what you mean by "initial loading is also very slow"?