If there's one thing Garmin users love, it's more data. Watch faces should be a rich, easy-to-grok display of key information allowing the wearer to take in their current situation at a glance. For example, I would love to build a watch face for military users that shows them where they are and what direction they are facing at any given moment.
Obviously, running active GPS and sensor data in the background at all times would be a bad idea. But there are two other possibilities I would love to explore:
1. Pulling sensor data (magnetometer and accelerometer) only when the user is looking at the watch. This should be relatively low-power, even if done multiple times per second, since the watch isn't in this state often.
2. Allowing the user to toggle GPS on/off and showing them directly on the face whether GPS is on/off. Users know that active GPS requires power and will turn it on only when necessary. Add in, say, a 5 minute timer to automatically turn the GPS back off to minimize nasty little battery life surprises.
While on face value these features could be open to misuse by some developers who would wreck their users' battery life, Garmin could add some additional due diligence in their review process that is only triggered when developers request Sensor and/or Position data (pretty sure they already have this).
Please Garmin, give us the keys to the Toybox in 2025!
