When i put the altimeter/compass face on the watch, after a fairly short period of time(I'd say about 5 minutes) it reverts to the "time of day" face. Is there some options setting that i can say, if i put another face there, i do not want to revert to time of day, and for that face to stay put until i manually, myself, make the choice to revert to a different face? Thanks if you can help with this. What a hassle to have to keep scrolling to the face you want to see just by looking at the watch.
I haven't found a way to extend the ABC widget timeout. But you can create a new custom activity and configure it to do exactly what you want. You can choose the data screens to display. Choose to use GPS etc. to optimise battery life. Then after you save the activity you can analyse the data later in Garmin Connect.
TomCon3 Both of these come as either widgets, or device apps. The device apps won't close on you until you stop the app. Both show direction and altitude along with other info.
A device app will burn the most battery, and while a widget can burn more than a watch face, that's why they are for a "quick view" and time out. If a widget uses GPS, that can also take time to acquire GPS, but that's not needed for a compass. myABC doesn't use GPS for example, but the screen does update about 4 times a second for the compass to be a bit more timely.
A watch face could be done that shows ABC (many already show A and B and update that every minute at most times), with the Compass updating every second on most newer watches.
A device app will burn the most battery, and while a widget can burn more than a watch face, that's why they are for a "quick view" and time out. If a widget uses GPS, that can also take time to acquire GPS, but that's not needed for a compass.
If a device app burns more battery than a widget isn't the topic here. The OP wants to be able to view his direction and altitude without a widget closing on him and having to reopen it again. To do so requires to open an app with data fields he needs, or a separate device app that shows his compass direction and altitude. Your myABC widget may not use GPS for the compass and may use less battery consumption, but it will timeout as all widgets do and leave the OP in the position he's in now.
Thus my comment about the possibility of watch face, with the understanding that the compass would only update at most once a second! Seems you missed the second paragraph! :)
Update: I ran a quick test with a watch face, and there to see the compass change, it can only read it every 5 minutes. I thought there was a faster route, but there's not.
I'm not sure if the f5 behaves the same as the f3 but a long press on the Down key while in an activity will take you to the widget series and the timeout is extended and won't revert to another screen. It sounds as if you want to maintain the ABC screen outside of an activity and that doesn't behave the same way. As a test, the longest activity that I've recorded in this mode was shy of 11 hours and the battery was drained by about 25%. I'm not sure what you're actually trying to accomplish but if you simply want to review the ABC widget without it timing out, then this would be a potential solution.
