Native Stopwatch Improvements?

I quite aware that this is a pretty minor issue with the F5X Plus, but is anyone else annoyed by the native Stopwatch not displaying the current time, the same way that the native Timer does? I tend to use the stopwatch a lot for work, and I either find myself not being able to check the time (due to stopwatch running in foreground), or accidentally leaving the stopwatch on for hours and hours (record is almost 3 days) because I went back to the watchface to check the time, and forgot about the running stopwatch.

I've tried a few stopwatch Apps from the ConnectIQ store, but for some reason, they tend to chew through a fair bit of battery. The widget versions have the 60sec display limitation before going back to the watchface.

Would anyone on the software team be kind enough to add this as a feature moving forward?

Also, is there a more direct contact that I can suggest this to in Garmin?

0 FlowState over 6 years ago

Hope you don’t mind me asking, but did you try my appStop and Go? It’s based on the look and feel of the native 935 stopwatch, with several improvements, including:
- clock
- black background (can be changed to white)
- optional recording as activity (native stopwatch has this, but no other apps do)
- optional lap pop up screen
- optionally view split total times instead of lap times in the lap list
- can easily/quickly stop and reset stopwatch with two button presses. (The 935 stopwatch has a menu when stopping and resetting, so it takes 4-5 button presses)
- has a simple mode with just the clock and stopwatch, no laps

As far as battery life goes, Stop and Go switches to a low power mode after 1 minute, where it only updates every second. (This resets on every lap.)

If you tried it, I’d be interested to hear what you did and didn’t like about it, as well as any battery life issues. I want my app to be the best stopwatch for Garmins, so I’d love to hear your feedback.

Thanks!

Here's what it looks like in simple mode. [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"https:\/\/services.garmin.com\/appsLibraryBusinessServices_v0\/rest\/apps\/38eddacd-e098-40ce-82d8-f45584b0a117\/icon\/6f81a6ca-d042-48ae-aaed-77451c99acc2"}[/IMG2]

(There is a widget version as well and it does time out, but the stopwatch keeps going....)

BTW, you can submit ideas to Garmin here:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/

0 jylong over 6 years ago

Hope you don’t mind me asking, but did you try my app Stop and Go? It’s based on the look and feel of the native 935 stopwatch, with several improvements, including:
- clock
- black background (can be changed to white)
- optional recording as activity (native stopwatch has this, but no other apps do)
- optional lap pop up screen
- optionally view split total times instead of lap times in the lap list
- can easily/quickly stop and reset stopwatch with two button presses. (The 935 stopwatch has a menu when stopping and resetting, so it takes 4-5 button presses)
- has a simple mode with just the clock and stopwatch, no laps

As far as battery life goes, Stop and Go switches to a low power mode after 1 minute, where it only updates every second. (This resets on every lap.)

If you tried it, I’d be interested to hear what you did and didn’t like about it, as well as any battery life issues. I want my app to be the best stopwatch for Garmins, so I’d love to hear your feedback.

Thanks!

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/3...8-f45584b0a117

BTW, you can submit ideas to Garmin here:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/

Not a problem at all. I do actually have your app in my watch at the moment. It is indeed very fully featured, but I did start to use it less due to a couple of small points:

1) Battery consumption is unfortunately a fair bit higher than the native Stopwatch. I think it was consuming something like 2% an hour initially, which is about the same as most other apps like Cycling, etc that have GPS. I'm not sure if this is just an issue of being in the 'App' section of the watch, where maybe GPS is turned on? Haven't tried it for prolonged periods to test the Low Power mode, so might give that a go and see.

2) None of the 3rd party Apps and Widgets can be assigned to the 'Hotkey' functions of the watch, whereas the native stopwatch can. Actually, I might suggest this to Garmin as well...

Hope this helps, and I'll certainly keep you posted with the low power test!

0 FlowState over 6 years ago

Thanks for the feedback! If you did like it or find it useful, I wouldn't mind a review in the store. I'd like to get more ppl to use it, so I can get more feedback on improving the app.

The battery usage difference could be due to being in the app section of the watch. However, GPS should not be on, as I'm pretty sure the app needs to turn it on explicitly (which it doesn't). I've recorded activities with it, and while HR is recorded, there is no GPS track. I'll have to double check that, though.

To clarify what I said about low power mode:
- In the first minute of every lap, the screen refreshes every 50 ms
- Afterwards, it refreshes every second. (So you don't see 100ths of seconds anymore)
- If you press a key, like scrolling through laps, high power mode comes back for ten seconds

(The 935 stopwatch goes to low power mode after 10 seconds, which I find to be way too short.)

So I'm not sure why the usage would be so high, unless you're taking a lap every minute, or alternatively, if you only ever use it for one minute at a time (*). I'll have to look at it. Sounds wrong if it's consuming as much battery as a GPS activity, for sure.

(*) If this is actually a common use case while battery life still being a concern, maybe I'll have to look at an option to tweak the low power threshold.

Let me know if there's any other things you would change about it (like cosmetics, UX, controls, etc.)

0 Odie21 over 6 years ago

All the current and future Garmin watches should have the time display during stopwatch mode AND take a page out of the the Garmin Instinct book and have multiple Timers. I can’t tell you how fantastic and useful that is...especially when you have a 3 year old ;D