Cast a Garmin smart watch screen to an Android device?

I have a fenix 6 pro. I suppose this question is more general but there doesn't seem to be a "General" forum, so this one is as good (or bad) as any other.

I work out on a treadmill regularly. I have an Android tablet attached to the treadmill. It occurs to me that the tablet screen would be a good place to display exercise metrics from the watch. I wonder if there's any way to cast the watch's screen to the tablet, or for that matter to a phone or even to a TV.

Perhaps this would require a third-party widget or some other special software.

Perhaps this is a feature Garmin could add to their watches.

Perhaps rather than casting just the screen contents, the data transmitted could be customized for the target device. After all the tablet screen is much bigger than a watch screen so it could display a lot more data. Likewise with a phone or TV. Or maybe show just the watch screen as a small picture-in-picture.

Comments?

Anyone else think this is a good idea?

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0 muppetman over 2 years ago

Cool idea but I highly doubt the CPU of the watch is powerful enough to support that, nor would you be happy with the battery life. Wifi usage on the watch drains the battery heavily, you'd be lucky to make it through a 60m workout I suspect without the device going flat.

I mean it's a cool idea in theory, but the practicalities of it mean it can't happen.

0 KrapfenKringel over 2 years ago

You can send it as request, but Garmin does sell a bike computer that actually does that in a limited fashion, that would be obsolete if they do that.

And no it would not be a power problem to transmit data, the watch is already broadcasting live heartrate and steps to Garmin Connect. It should manage to do that with other data fields (at least some selected few), but I don't think Garmin wants that.

0 Bylo Selhi over 2 years ago in reply to muppetman

muppetman said:
Wifi usage on the watch drains the battery heavily

Why WiFi? BLE is designed for exactly what I'm suggesting.

0 lustyd over 2 years ago

There's no reason you couldn't create an Ant+ compliant remote screen app for Android. The Fenix already supports remote screens so not a lot of work involved for someone with the skills

0 KrapfenKringel over 2 years ago in reply to lustyd

Isn't it only broadcasting heartrate that way? You already get that live in the Connect App.

And even if the API is open to broadcast whatever I want, that would still be a specialized app and not work with Garmin's activities.

0 nradov over 2 years ago

The Fenix 6 series supports the ANT+ Extended Display profile. Most Android devices also support ANT+, so in theory you could write a custom Android app that implements the sensor side of the Extended Display profile. This wouldn't be true screen casting or mirroring but it would allow the Android device to display the same data fields as on the watch.

NEW EXTENDED DISPLAY PROFILE FOR HEADS-UP DISPLAYS AND FITNESS DEVICES - THIS IS ANT

0 KrapfenKringel over 2 years ago in reply to nradov

So you would need a phone or tablet that supports receiving Ant+, that's not something every devices does. Why doesn't this already exist?

Sadly my Samsung S22u does not support ANT+.

0 Bylo Selhi over 2 years ago in reply to nradov

nradov said:
NEW EXTENDED DISPLAY PROFILE FOR HEADS-UP DISPLAYS AND FITNESS DEVICES - THIS IS ANT

That announcement is now almost 7 years old yet few phones or tablets makers have implemented ANT+ support. Notable by their absence are both Google and Apple.

ANT+ IN PHONES AND TABLETS

By contrast virtually all phones and tablets made in the past 5 years have BT BLE support.

0 eezytiger over 2 years ago in reply to KrapfenKringel

Samsung used to support ANT+. It was included on my Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S10+, I think possibly my Galaxy Note 3 too, but I haven't checked - just going on my vague memory.

Unfortunately Samsung (or Android) seemed to give up with it for my Note 20 Ultra and Tab S7+. I doubt very much that it's featured on many mobile phones. I don't suppose we'll see it again on Samsung hardware. Shame!

0 digstris over 2 years ago in reply to muppetman

Sorry I don't mean to be rude but aspects of your comment are pretty much just wrong.

>I highly doubt the CPU of the watch is powerful enough to support that

A: This would be trivial for the cpu of a phone. Phones today have 10x the cpus of desktop computers a decade ago. ANT+ is very low CPU and low power.

> Wifi usage on the watch drains the battery heavily, you'd be lucky to make it through a 60m workout .

A: First off Wifi has minimal drain, 2nd Wifi isn't included in the ant+ approach needed here at all. Wifi could be potentially be turned off.

Not sure your background, but you don't seem even remotely qualified to be making comments about technical specifications.

Sorry but I didn't want this to hang out there as an indication this suggestion for an ANT+ app connected to the watch data screens is actually gated by your off base comments.