Tickets to reference if you care to have this fixed finally: TREES-6206 and << Ref: 21286260K1 >>
When the Fenix 7 got out one year ago whenever using IQ widgets during a tracked activity stopped the GPS signal (that's opening it to full screen, not just a glance). This is happening on all the Fenix 7 like devices, including Forerunner 955.
With upcoming firmware updates it varied if your recording resumes after being back in the activity or not, I felt it was always saver to stop and resume it in the activity menu after.
Later some people figured out that it works if the IQ widgets use "location permission", but you can't tell every developer "hey those 2022 watches have stupid bug, please create a copy of your widget/app with added location permission, even though it's not needed for it's intended purpose and works fine on the older devices without it (and will mess up memory on those older ones or make people suspicious why this needs access to location)."
And still if you get the developer of the apps you would like to use during an activity to do that, it's still odd. Because after starting it you get the message "GPS is ready" which is odd since you know it's ready, you have been recording an activity for a while. So I guess switching to the widget/app is still causing a short break in the GPS signal.
Now with the upcoming IQ System 6 update things get even weirder. Now you get one free pass on widget/apps without location permission, again you open it up, get the "gps is ready" message, recording resumes background. But after that you can't open it up again or use another one, second time you don't get a GPS ready message, this time like back when the watch was released in January 2022 it just stops recording your track.
I think its finally time for Garmin to fix this annoying mess.
forums.garmin.com/.../iq-system-6-using-gps-when-using-iq-widget-is-unreliable