Vivoactive 6 Simulator problems

Basically, they are forcing you to use touch pretty much everywhere. You cannot generally (in some cases you can), use the top right button to select anything anymore.

As annoying as this sounds, Vivoactive 3 only has one button and it's a lot like this.

- short press of the button from the watchface opens the activity list

- short press of the button does *not* select anything, not even an activity. (you have to tap on an activity to open it.)

- within an activity, short press of the button starts/stops the timer (or cancels the save/discard prompt after you tap Done while the timer is paused)

-- I noticed that when you open an activity, the watch displays a little hint: "press button to start/stop". This goes back to how Garmin probably thinks there's nothing intuitive about using buttons for anything

- everywhere else, short press of the button returns to the watchface

- long press of the button opens the controls menu

- long press of the screen opens a context-sensitive menu, like system settings or activity settings (speaking of unintuitive functionality with poor discoverability)

So in order to interact with any kind of menu (including the controls menu), you have to use touch.

For someone who is used to selecting things using the top right button, even on predominantly touch watches, I'm finding this behaviour very strange and hard to get used to. But I think this is the way Garmin is intending on going!

Yeah I'll just stick with my 5-button + touch watches for as long as Garmin makes em. They're not intuitive, but they're great once you take the time to learn them. (ofc this is the problem - even 10 years ago, many people were not willing to learn a shortcut such as "hold UP to open the menu"). And the selling point for me is that 99% of the functionality can be used without touch. I'm a runner: I've tried Garmin predominantly touch / touch-first watches in the past, and I always had issues with watch accidentally saving a running activity while it was paused, due to phantom touches (rain, long sleeves). I've seen complaints about this stuff for several generations of Vivoactive watches, and even for modern Forerunners. Even though touch is disabled by default for activities on Forerunner watches, some users like to have touch enabled, and phantom touches are still a problem. Since FR955/FR965 were released, Garmin has changed the design of the pause menu a couple of times to avoid saving the activity due to accidental touches.

I do agree this is probably the way Garmin will go on predominantly touch / touch-first watches.

Again, the thing with removing the menu "button" (or specifically, universal menu shortcut) seems like it was foreshadowed by various changes that Garmin made on 5-button watches to give you a different way to open a context-sensitive menu.

And I do think they are trying to simplify things and make them more intuitive/discoverable in some ways. Like any time that a context-sensitive menu is available, it will be in the form of an action menu with a visible indicator. (Again, system settings apparently don't count as a context-sensitive menu anymore)

But then again, now Garmin is giving you a way to open activity/app list from *anywhere*, isn't that just another kind of universal shortcut? I guess this is different in the sense that it's a short press which is arguably more discoverable than a long press.

Note that this does not happen every time you use the top right button. If you are on a standard view, the normal behaviour is seen and you can detect the button. This only happens on menus, e.g. on menu2 or I imagine, an action menu. I did not try the latter, but it would be consistent with the native behaviour.

Yeah, this is super inconsistent and i don't like it.

Note that this does not happen every time you use the top right button. If you are on a standard view, the normal behaviour is seen and you can detect the button. This only happens on menus, e.g. on menu2 or I imagine, an action menu. I did not try the latter, but it would be consistent with the native behaviour.

I'd suggest that it should do nothing.

The app does not immediately exit if you go to the activity loop. If you then press the bottom button or swipe right, you get back to your app where you were. But as soon as you do anything from the activity/app loop, your app then exits.

I verified this by running an app which makes a BLE connection and looking at when the disconnect occurs.

Seems they need to do some work in the va6 sim to give an idea what pressing the upper right button does on the real device.  Right now, it acts the same as it does on other devices.  onSelect gets called, etc.

I guess the the question is "what".  Sounds like exiting the app is one option, where on the real device, the app exits  and you go to activity loop.  Another option is to just do nothing, showing the app can't use it.

I'm not sure either is ideal and either can be confusing.

As someone with a va6, it is a very strange UI experience.

They have indeed removed the "menu button/key" functionality. Everything which was on the menu (that no longer exists) has been moved into the activity loop brought up by the top right button. And KEY_MENU is no longer available to CIQ. There is no menu key! e.g. changing watch face, and going into settings is now done from the activity/app loop brought up by the top right button.

But what is even stranger, is that the top right button takes you into the activity/app loop in many unexpected places.

Any time you have some kind of menu, or prompt or notification, you have to use touch to interact with it. If you press the top right button, you jump out of wherever you were into the activity loop! So, you get a notification on your watch, if you press the button to see the full notification, you don't you go to the activity loop. If you are in the watch settings, maybe to change the brightness, if you press the top right button to select the option, you jump to the activity loop. If an action menu is displayed, with some options on it, e.g. dismiss, if you use the top right button you jump to the activity loop.

Basically, they are forcing you to use touch pretty much everywhere. You cannot generally (in some cases you can), use the top right button to select anything anymore.

And, yes, this includes in your CIQ apps too. If you are buried multiple views into your app, and you push an menu2 or an action menu, you MUST use touch to interact with it. If you press the top right button, you guessed it, you get taken away from your app, and into the activity loop!

For someone who is used to selecting things using the top right button, even on predominantly touch watches, I'm finding this behaviour very strange and hard to get used to. But I think this is the way Garmin is intending on going!