Feature Requests and Suggested Improvements

Title

You're presuming that, as a user, you have (or ought to be accorded) a level of control of when, or under which circumstances, a 24×7 activity tracking system (including the device you wear, and the cloud-based service to which it connects) will make assertions about your activity, energy consumption, etc. on the whole, when in fact you don't have that control and are in no position to decide for yourself.

Perhaps giving you a choice that you don't actually have today is the feature request you should be making, instead of presuming to ‘correct’ the logic currently employed.

I have no idea what you're driving at. I'm pointing out an opportunity for a simple change that would make the device more accurate. That's all. Low hanging fruit.

I don't want more control. I want the device to be automatic (less control). It's basing it's sleep/no sleep call on accelerometer data only. I'm suggesting using the HR data too, so a better decision can be made. That's it. Simple. Better.

If you're not wearing the watch, the watch shouldn't take guesses about what you're up to.

I'm pointing out an opportunity for a simple change that would make the device more accurate.

Unless Garmin Connect is prepared to report (graphically or otherwise) “I don't know what happened between 1AM and 3AM”, it will have to make a guess as to whether the user was awake or sleeping while the watch is off his/her wrist and charging. Excluding that period from the sleep chart, or including it but representing it as awake time, is still taking a guess.

I don't want more control. I want the device to be automatic (less control).

You're declaring what the watch “should” (or, more accurate, “shouldn't”) do – according to your views, standards, expectations, whatever. The watch and Garmin Connect do not behave that way now, but you want them to behave in that way; how is that not wanting control? Not wanting control means the watch and/or Garmin can ignore what you want, do as they please, and you'll just passively let them be.

There is a logical difference between simply automatic behaviour, and automatic-but-conforms-to-your-expectations behaviour.

It's basing it's sleep/no sleep call on accelerometer data only. I'm suggesting using the HR data too, so a better decision can be made. That's it. Simple. Better.

We're talking about what happens when Garmin Connect does not have conclusive data, irrespective of whether HR is taken into account; I'd say it's even easier just to assume that when the watch is charging, then the user isn't wearing it, because that logic will apply equally well to the FR230, 235 and 630 models that share the same firmware. There is no conclusive data as to whether the user is asleep is he/she isn't wearing it during the specified normal sleep hours. Garmin has demonstrably decided to tend towards treating it as sleep. You want Garmin Connect to do otherwise and treat it as not sleep – and in a dichotomy, that means awake. It's just different, not objectively or logically better.

I would like to see the following functionality :
1. When in activity, if i raise my hand to my face or if I double tap the watch, garmin connect "speaks" all the data depicted on the screen (hr, pace, cadence what ever).

2.use the cadence accelorometer to count repetitions in some exercises. It could be as crude as adding a gym activity and it will count each dramatic movement as rep. Or more sophisticated as linking the rep with the selected workout. Even more would be to have a learn function (e.g. to teach the app how jumping jacks read om the sensors) but that would require more memory and should be linked to the phone app.

3. Garmin connect should have an option to display the activity data live. That would allow a coach to monitor the status of the athlete.

Ditto

I second that. This watch was working great before the 4.20 update hosed the HRM. Fix that problem before worrying about anything else.

Firstly Garmin should fix the OHR problem what we got with 4.20 version...!

There was not any problem before 4.20 and 4.30 update.

Maybe an update rollback would be good (e.g. back to 4.10).

1. When in activity, if i raise my hand to my face or if I double tap the watch, garmin connect "speaks" all the data depicted on the screen (hr, pace, cadence what ever).

The FR235 does not have a touch screen on which it could register a double tap. It also does not continuously transmit data to a mobile device (that is running a Garmin Connect Mobile app) to which it is connected via Bluetooth, and which in turn uploads the data to Garmin Connect service ‘in the cloud’ by way of Internet connectivity. Even during Livetrack, data is only sent once a minute. Getting the app to respond in real-time to user interactions with the FR235 during sports activity tracking, including providing reports or dashboard updates, is therefore logically out of the question I'm afraid.

(Ooh, the image verification panel is showing 666! Perfect.)

The watch wouldn't need a touch screen for a double tap. If the tap for quite strong you could use the accelerometer to detect the tapping I reckon. I would be an interesting feature but you could also just set the audio alerts to the quickest frequency (1 min?) and wait less than 60secs!)

CW

If the tap for quite strong you could use the accelerometer to detect the tapping I reckon.

That's an intriguing idea, actually. I wonder if ‘shock’ against the screen or chassis of the watch, without causing any physical displacement of the device itself, would register some discernible pattern in the accelerometer readings?

One thing that could potentially hinder that approach is that a double-tap of the screen isn't necessarily a vertically downward movement, because the user's arm could be at whichever position or angle, and the screen may not be facing up.

Extend Duration of call notification (Vibration/Tone)

Maybe a option of choice between one time (as it is) and additional as long as at smartphone call is active.

Double tap can work by using the accelerometer. I had an epson ps-100 which did that. You would tap 7 times for airplane mode or 2 times to display hrm zone etc.

As for the live data, since the watch is able to connect and send data to my phone, I would assume that garmin can make this happen every second, it is a software solution that could have some impact on battery life, but it is doable. Think about how the watch sends heart rate and lap data to the phone and the phone every minute.

… but it is doable.

Many things are achievable by today's technology, irrespective of whether or not the required modules have been implemented in a product that has already been on the market for most of a year.

Asking for a paradigm shift and making the Forerunner‑235 a real-time data feed and user interface for the Garmin Connect service (or as some users would prefer, bypassing the connectivity requirement altogether by having the Garmin Connect Mobile app perform analytics locally and report results immediately) while tracking an activity is simply not going to happen before the model is superseded – on that I'd happily wager the price of a Forerunner‑245, against someone who's prepared to cough up that amount for my benefit should my guess proves correct by the time the FR245 is available for purchase.

Are we requesting features and suggesting improvements for the FR235, or just what we'd like to see in its successor and for which we'll be prepared to upgrade our Garmin devices at a premium?