I would like to request access to the barometric pressure sensor through the Connect IQ High Frequency Sensor API.
In particular, I would like Garmin devices equipped with a barometric pressure sensor to expose raw ambient pressure at a higher sampling rate than the standard sensor API.
Ideally, this would be available through the existing high-frequency sensor mechanism, with a configurable sampling rate (for example 10–25 Hz), in the same way high-frequency accelerometer data is exposed.
Use case
I am a software developer and I am currently developing a Connect IQ application for the Garmin GPSMAP 67i.
The GPSMAP 67i already contains a barometric altimeter, and Connect IQ exposes barometric pressure data. However, the standard sensor API does not provide the temporal resolution required for applications that need to calculate rapid vertical-speed changes.
One concrete use case is a paragliding variometer.
A variometer needs to detect relatively small and rapid changes in vertical speed and provide immediate audio feedback to the pilot. Sampling barometric pressure at approximately 1 Hz introduces significant latency and limits the responsiveness of the resulting variometer.
I would like to use the existing barometric pressure sensor in the GPSMAP 67i to calculate vertical speed directly from pressure changes and generate real-time audio feedback.
Proposed API
Rather than introducing a completely separate API, I believe the cleanest solution would be to expose barometric pressure through the existing High Frequency Sensor API.
For example, conceptually:
SensorType.BAROMETER
or an equivalent addition to the existing high-frequency sensor interface.
The API could expose:
- Raw ambient pressure
- Timestamp
- Sampling frequency
- Optionally temperature, if available
A configurable rate such as 10 Hz would already be a major improvement, while allowing devices capable of higher rates to expose them would provide additional flexibility.
Why this would be useful beyond paragliding
Although paragliding is the use case that motivated this request, high-frequency barometric data could also be useful for:
- Aviation applications
- Soaring/gliding instruments
- Vertical-speed measurement
- Altitude-rate detection
- Weather/pressure monitoring
- Experimental navigation applications
- Research and sensor-data applications
- Third-party outdoor applications
This would therefore make the existing barometric hardware significantly more useful to Connect IQ developers without requiring additional hardware.
Device
My primary target is the Garmin GPSMAP 67i.
The device already has:
- A barometric altimeter
- GNSS
- Accelerometer
- Connect IQ support
- Audio output
The missing piece for this particular application is high-frequency access to the barometric pressure sensor.
Technical question
Could Garmin consider exposing the barometric pressure sensor through the Connect IQ High Frequency Sensor API?
If this is currently prevented by hardware, firmware, power-consumption, sensor-driver, or architectural constraints on the GPSMAP 67i, I would also appreciate knowing whether the limitation is hardware-specific or simply an SDK/API limitation.
I would be happy to provide a prototype application and measurements demonstrating the limitation of the current API if that would help the Connect IQ team evaluate the request.
Thank you.
