Display Mode in the sim and MIP devices shouldn't have Always Active

I do think there's room for clarification in the docs and UI.

For example, the diagram and accompanying text I pasted from the docs (in the Low- and High-Power Modes section) implies but does not outright state that low power mode is synonymous with Always Active Mode / Always On Mode in the diagram. The diagram and text could use some clarification to make the connection explicit.

In the sim UI, the Display Mode, labels could be changed to something like:

MIP: High Power, Always-Active / Low Power

AMOLED: High Power, Always-On / Low Power, Off

I think that changing the term might be confusing to new folks that see the reference to low power in the 9+ years of comments in the forum.

Thanks for the clarification FlowState. I agree that this is a matter of semantics. I don't recall the specifics behind the decision, but it's likely that LPM was rebranded to follow the "Always On" terminology used for AMOLED products. Since there's no bug here, and the renaming was intentional, I doubt this will change.

In other words, just because Always On Display is a feature that can be turned on and off in AMOLED devices, and Always Active Display is *not* a feature that can be turned off in MIP devices, doesn't mean that the presence of "Always Active" in Display Mode for MIP devices) implies otherwise (especially considering that "Off" is an option for AMOLED devices, but not MIP devices.)

Clearly in the context of the sim "Display Mode":

- Always-Active means MIP low power mode

- Always-On means AMOLED low power mode

This should be clear since High Power is the other common Display Mode option for both MIP and AMOLED devices.

Maybe there's room for improvement in Garmin's communication here, idk. I feel like that could be said for a lot of CIQ things. (Like why are "devices" and "products" used interchangeably? Why not stick to one or the other?)

To be clear, for anyone else reading this bug report, the Settings > Display Mode menu item in the simulator currently has the following options:

- MIP devices (e.g. fr955): High Power, Always-Active

- AMOLED devices (e.g. fr965): High Power, Always-On, Off

> On a MIP display, it is always active.  They do have low power mode, which changes how often the display updates and allows for onPartialUpdate on devices that support it.
> I think for MIP devices, "Always Active" should be changed back to "low power"

Is the objection here simply to the name of the option ("Always Active" vs "Low Power Mode")? Or is there something wrong with the behavior of the "Always Active" option?

I tried both options on fr955:

- High Power causes onUpdate() to be called every second (and onPartialUpdate() is never called), as expected

- Always-Active causes onPartialUpdate() to be called every second (and onUpdate() is called once per minute), as expected

So unless I'm missing something, the behavior is correct.

As far as the name goes, according to the CIQ watch faces documentation, "Always Active Mode" is basically synonymous with Low Power Mode for MIP devices. I realize that you're thinking of "Always Active" as the feature which allows the watch to stay in low power mode indefinitely (as opposed to very old MIP devices, for example, which could not do this.) But Garmin is obviously using "Always Active Mode" a bit differently in this context.

I think the reason they renamed it is because they want to distinguish between MIP low power mode ("always active") and AMOLED low power mode ("always on"), since the behavior from the end user's POV is different (as there are different rules regarding what the screen can display in the two low power modes.)

Perhaps it would've been clearer in a way to call it "MIP low power" and "AMOLED low power" but I understand why they didn't do that.

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/user-experience-guidelines/watch-faces/