Suggestions to Enhance Fenix 5/Garmin Connect Interface and Options

Former Member over 5 years ago

Hi all, perhaps this is the wrong location for this.

I just switched to a Fenix 5X after many years on the Suunto Ambit3 Peak. The Ambit3 was becoming unreliable. It also had other shortcomings compared to the Fenix 5, but that's not the point. There were several features on the Ambit3 and the connected "Movescount" webpage that would be nice to see on Garmin wearables.

I've played around with different watch faces, apps, widgets, etc. and have a pretty good grasp on how everything is supposed to work. And I suppose worst case, I could try to learn and program my own apps, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

On the Suunto watches, all activities have the same "pages," and every layout and value is customizable. There is essentially no limit to the amount of custom fields. But you are stuck in the boxes provided.

The layout of the Fenix 5 is much nicer, but it has limitations on how much can be displayed without going through the many different potential apps/data fields/etc. I do a lot of outdoor sports (hiking, rock climbing, backcountry ski touring), and really like to see many graphs. As it stands, I've maxed out the ConnectIQ limitation of only 2 fields.

So here are some suggestions for both the Fenix series and the Connect webpage:

Fenix 5
-Have maximum recorded HR as data field
-Have HR widget available as data field or ability to add page to a custom app (same for elevation, temperature, etc.)
-Make Lap Calories a data field
-Allow more than 2 ConnectIQ data fields (this would fix some of the previous requests, as those are available as single data fields)
-Lock during activity locks start/stop/pause/lap but still scroll through the pages (this is default on Suunto watches)

Garmin Connect Website
-See HR zones per lap
-View all stats per lap

All that to say, if a developer is interested in working with me, I have page layouts/data fields already laid out from a previous effort in trying to standardize all of my screens on the Suunto watches. The things that rock climbers are looking for in feedback and data collection tend to be a bit different than runners.

0 razmichael over 5 years ago

Regarding data pages on the watch, there are a number of ConnectIQ data "fields" that actually contain multiple selectable data fields that only consume one of the two allowable in an app. DIY Data Field and All in One are a couple of examples - I don't use either so cannot really speak to how well they work.

If you need something that can provide multiple fields and actually calculate some simple or complex formulas then AppBuilder is fantastic as it provides a way to get data in ways that are not normally available in stock data fields without actually writing a ConnectIQ datafield - there are multiple versions of the app with one of them allowing multiple data fields in one watch datafield. Setting up complex formulas can take some testing to get right but I've used this to track time remaining on a loop during a backyard ultra based on distance left and rolling pace calculations (switching content to time to next loop each time I completed one), estimated time to meet cut-offs and aid stations etc. Lots of documentation and examples on the associated website. The limitation is that it can only get underlying data that is available to ConnectIQ.

0 Elbo over 5 years ago

You can ask anything you want, but it's not going to happen for an old watch.

But some requests puzzles me.

Maximum recorded HR. Why do you want to know? (and it's probably on outlier anyway)

Temperature? You do know it's neither your body temperature nor the outside temperature, but something in between. Why do you want something that is nog giving a geed reading.

Calories per lap? Why? It's not measured, but calculated, based on average persons and correct for weight and heartbeat.

Just wondering.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

@razmichael

I'm going to have to look into those a little bit more. Today's effort at watch face building proved to be more challenging than anticipated, and I imagine an app probably has another layer of complexity.

@Elbo

I have datasets going back many years correlating max HR to climbing difficulty. Interesting charts...but whether they mean anything is debatable.

Calories per lap are desired because each climb is a "lap". These go anywhere from 2-60 minutes, depending on the climb. Sometimes there are long breaks between lap. Similar to Max HR, I like to track average calorie burn/climb/difficulty. This has a stronger correlation. I know I can see this data after the fact, but the instant feedback is helpful as soon as I lower to the ground.

Temperature: sometimes I remove the watch and lay it down to get an idea of ambient temperature.

I've attached a guide I built for myself on the previous effort. The rectangles are data fields, and the circles are graphs. I'd like to replicate this into my Fenix in some capacity.

Thanks for the pointers!

SuuntoStandardizedHRScreens.pptx