Customize Move Time? Or Set Non-Activity Alert?

I'm wanting a move alert that goes off every 20 minutes.

OK, that's clear.

Alerts only seem to work if you've got an activity running…

So what? It achieves the functional outcome you described above, doesn't it?

… and the Move time doesn't appear to be customisable.

And it shouldn't be, given that the Owner's Manual states, “The move alert reminds you to keep moving. After one hour of inactivity, Move! and the red bar appear.”

Any ideas?

Develop, install and run a Connect IQ app if you want something more customised to your requirements that go beyond alerting you every 20 minutes. Just like preset activities such as Run or Other, you'll have to keep the CIQ app running throughout the period you wish to receive the recurring alerts.

Here's how "move" works on the garmin devices, as I don't think I've seen it documented.

Garmin, I'm sure did this based on some medical theories and data.

You get the initial "move" after an hour of "not enough" movement. You could have walked a bit, but not enough (IIRC, you have to take 100 counted steps in an hour to keep it clear.)

Each of the additional 4 levels are for 15m/25 (IIRC) steps.

So when the movebar is full, that's 2+hours and about 200 steps. To fully clear it, you need to walk 100-200 steps (without stopping for any significant time)

Once you get used to it, it works well.

With the devices, I've used, there's a way to turn off the vibration/message for "move" ( I always do that BTW!), but I still see a "movebar" on the watch. If I'm tied up and get a move bar, I just clear it the next time I can. And the FW has the smarts to not give you a "movebar or alert" during your configured sleep times.

Doing this same kind of thing in a Connect IQ app would be a bit complex, as then you also have to worry about things like battery usage and access to other things on the watch.

I'll look into a timer app, I think that'd be less battery draining than running an activity all day. Thanks for the suggestion.