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A plethora of questions about my new watch

Mitch Peplow
over 3 years ago

Hi all,

This is my first Garmin watch or any smart watch for that matter which I bought it to replace an old Casio Solar G-Shock.

I absolutely love the watch and having spent a couple of days going through the plethora of options and activities I have a ‘few’ questions around the settings and operation etc.

There’s quite a few, so I’ve grouped them into suitable categories. Hopefully you guys can either resolve or shed some light on them.

Any help would much appreciated! Here we go . . . .

Watch face and display

  1. I’d like the date to read two ways on the display, dd/mm as actual numbers, so say 01/12 and DDD/dd/MMM, so say WED 01 DEC. Is this possible? In the ring on the face, I can get, for example WED 1 or DEC 1 which isn’t good enough. On the bottom of the face, I have managed to get, for todays date as example, WED 1 1 DEC. You can’t seem to get the date either as full numerical or with the numerical day sat between the weekday and the month? The setup I have does work as I know the numbers are separate, but it’s very annoying that it doesn’t appear to be as customizable as I was led to believe.

  2. Can you get the face to continuously display the battery percentage rather than just the icon? Currently to get the percentage you must hold down menu then it toggles between the battery icon and the actual percentage. I’d rather have percentage than the number of days left as it’s easier to understand battery drain in my opinion, plus I like to see it as a numerical value.

  3. Can you customise what’s displayed on the widgets like you can the watch face? So, say on the Event widget, it shows WED 1 in the ring, can you modify this to show say DEC 1?

Battery and power

  1. You can make the watch automatically go to battery save mode when you enter the sleep window, however can you make the watch fully shut down instead of just going to battery save mode?

  2. The watch by default has two Power Modes which I can change the settings of. When/how do these modes get selected/initiated and how does this differ from battery save mode?

 Sounds and Alerts

  1. Is it possible to make the watch sound/chine on the hour rather than have it as an alert that display on the screen and vibrates?

  2. When I set the hourly alert to on, come out the menu then go back in, sometimes it says the option is off even though it does alert every hour. Why?

Controls and operation

  1. Why don’t my shortcuts seem to work? They are all set as default, i.e. ABC+GPS = shutdown and SET+CTRL = shutdown, however when I press these either together or one after the other, the watch doesn’t shutdown.

  2. When you use the controls, it seems to remember the last one used rather than reverting to the first in the list. Is this correct or is it time-based or can you select the desired operation?

  3. I get alerts when I’ve reached a goal, however is it possible to disable these alerts rather than having to edit the number and setting it sufficiently high that I’ll never reach it? Seems silly if you can just delete the goal or turn it off.

 App and website

  1. Can you get the watch serial number from connect app? You can get the device ID if you keep your finger held down on the image, but this isn’t the serial. You can get the serial from the back of the watch, via the watch software, via the online account if registered but seemingly not via the connect app?

  2. The watch can calculate my calories burn for the day, but you can add this to the app or online dashboard without having the MyFitnessPal app. Why is this when clearly the watch is capable without? I’ve signed up and linked but it seems pointless when all I want is calories burnt as a value on the app.

  3. Can you change the device alias via the connect app? You can online when you login, but seemingly not via the app or the watch itself.

  4. If I save a GPS location to the watch, can I modify the name via the app or must it be done via the watch? Typing on the phone keyboard would be much quicker and easier than cycling through the phone alphabet letter by letter.

  5. The app and website stated my watch software was up to date (v9.4), yet when I went to the watch settings and checked update, v16.00 was sat there ready for install! Why was this and where can I find more info as to what the update includes?

  6.  Can you upload the settings from one watch to another, just like you can for the Apple iWatch and other smart watches?

Thanks in advance,

Mitch

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  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker
    Dan.Boilermaker said:

    Connect IQ Link:  https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/

    Good day

    Got it cheers Thumbsup tone2

    Another question for you, do you know if it's possible to customise how the timers and stopwatch display the digits? I used the stopwatch today for the first time and noticed after 4 seconds the millisecond counter disappears? 
     

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow
    Mitch Peplow said:
    possible to customise how the timers and stopwatch display the digits?

    Nope.  Same with every Garmin watch I've owned.  It turns out that it's not really a big deal to me anyway.  100ths are displayed when you stop and on the lap times.  One cool thing you can do with the stop watch is to save the stop watch "session" and the time w/ lap times will get sync'd to Connect.  I've used this feature all the time to keep track of my kids' track/cross country splits for later analysis/performance tracking.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow
    Mitch Peplow said:
    So I've got Move IQ on already, are you saying if I purchased another watch I could sync the activities and the entire profile/user settings as well or would I need to move the .fit files around as D_Estes stated?

    If you have two watches, Move IQ TrueUp will sync the activities, the health data and you personal settings, such as height, weight, age and so on. And no, you don't need to copy any files or do any manual work whatsoever.

    But, anyway, all these are meant to stay in the cloud, not in the watch. Even now, when you have only the Instinct, it will not keep health and activity logs forever, but it will delete them whenever it decides there is not enough free memory.

    The settings of the Instinct itself will most likely be incompatible with the new watch, so I doubt it is even possible to sync them to a new one. There are too many differences between an Instinct and say, a Fenix or a Vivoactive.

    Edit: It mixed up the option name, so I corrected my post. It is not Move IQ, but TrueUp.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to sspanak
    sspanak said:

    If you have two watches, Move IQ will sync the activities, the health data and you personal settings, such as height, weight, age and so on. And no, you don't need to copy any files or do any manual work whatsoever.

    But, anyway, all these are meant to stay in the cloud, not in the watch. Even now, when you have only the Instinct, it will not keep health and activity logs forever, but it will delete them whenever it decides there is not enough free memory.

    The settings of the Instinct itself will most likely be incompatible with the n

    Hi sspanak,

    Ok that's good to know and at least the basics will transition over to another watch even if not all settings will. Like you say expecting a direct copy from one family to another is probably asking a little too much!

    Out of interest then should I ever go for one, why are the Fenix range so good and more expensive than say my Instinct Solar? I paid £200 and find it hard to see how a watch at say £800 could be worth the price difference having used the functionality the Instinct solar already has?

    Also, a couple of other questions/points:

    1. Can you save your current location without it being part of the activity group? i.e. set current location which is my parked car? I have the list of locations via Navigation for example, I just wondered if there's a better/easier way? I also have save my location as a control for quick access.

    2. Did you know if on the control page, holding menu changes the option menu to become more tailored to controls for easy adding/removing/reordering? If you do, are any other menus like this?

    3. Some web page said the watch had WiFi capability. I assume that's rubbish? Do the Fenix have WiFi?

    Cheers

    Mitch

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow

    Should you go for a Fenix? Well, use this one for some time, see what you like about it and what annoys you. Then, when you have a better knowledge about Garmin in general, just check the higher end watches and you should be able to make the decision yourself.

    Fenix series indeed have many more features, including Wifi, many more sports, better music player, real map navigation (like on a smartphone). Not only that, but you can use your own custom maps. These are all nice features that I would have used, if I had a Fenix, but on the other hand, I really prefer the simplicity and the black and white screen of the Instinct that I can see without my glasses. So... priorities. Slight smile

    Answering the question list:

    1. Yes, you can save a location without starting an activity and you can use it to find your car later, but unfortunately, I have not used this functionality, so I can't comment on it. Check the manual, I think it is described there.
    2. Yes you can change the controls and I have enabled only the ones I need. And yes, on the Controls screen you can hold MENU, then use Add/Remove/Reorder. Alternatively, you can access another menu starting from the watchface. Hold MENU -> Settings -> Controls. There, even though the menu looks different, again you have full control and you can rearrange the controls by your taste.
    3. The Instinct does not have WiFi, only some Fenix Pro series do, if I am not mistaken.

    Btw, you should probably read the entire manual. Many of your questions, even the ones you have not asked yet, are answered there.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to sspanak

    Hi sspanak,

    I'm certainly a fan of the Instinct, as you say it's simplistic yet far more powerful than what I had previously and for what I do 99% of the time, I can't really justify spending £500. Biggest thing for me was solar and auto time update.

    I have read the manual and to be fair I thought most of the questions I'd asked either weren't listed or not answered sufficiently but apologies if they are. I do like interacting on the forums though :  )

    I do have a few more observations/questions following that:

    1. When in stopwatch mode you can't see the current time without exiting (ok you don't have to stop the time). Is this correct? You get the current time with the countdown timer so why not stopwatch.

    2. Is GPS active all the time or only when you activate it either for time update or navigation etc?

    3. Does the watch automatically update the time for BST or do you manually have to update via GPS signal?

    4. If you go to another country/time zone, does the watch automatically switch to the local time or does it keep the original stored location and you add a new time zone/location?
  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to sspanak

    A minor correction:
    MoveIQ has nothing to do with that. What you mean is TrueUp which syncs a lot of tracking related stuff over several devices: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=EjPECQK58qA0xzJ5X74vm7 and https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=a2uguZzTQG4I2HTBvHa0gA 

    Height, weight and other personal data not tracked by wearables sync no mater what between everything in your Garmin account.

    Settings for the watch itself (data pages, alarms, brightness setting, IQ apps and so on) never sync, not even between watches of the exact same model.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow

    1.) Just set one shortcut to Widgets and you can see the widgets without ending an activity or the stopwatch/timer/whatever.

    2.) GPS is only active during GPS activities/navigation and so on. Yet the watch gets a new position every time the connect app syncs.

    4.) It should switch time zones AFAIR.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Mitch Peplow
    Mitch Peplow said:
    When in stopwatch mode you can't see the current time without exiting (ok you don't have to stop the time). Is this correct? You get the current time with the countdown timer so why not stopwatch.

    This is how it works.  Been at least one thread discussing this issue.  fenix show the TOD day in stop watch mode, but not the Instinct.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker
    Dan.Boilermaker said:
    This is how it works.  Been at least one thread discussing this issue.  fenix show the TOD day in stop watch mode, but not the Instinct.

    Cheers for confirming Thumbsup tone2