Core Body Temperature support on latest Garmins ..AND Apple Watch

I guess it’s not major news that a thermometer-of-sorts now works on the Garmin Enduro!

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However, it’s interesting to see sports sensor companies’ priorities gradually shifting. Obviously, a new sports sensor app needs to work on iOS and probably Android as well, though with the latter you might dread having to sort out various BLE pairing vagaries that will undoubtedly come your way. If you have limited resources, iOS often seems to be the go-to launch apps despite there being more constraints when publishing the app on the app store.

Next, with a new sport sensor, you obviously aim to support Garmin CIQ as that will cover a big chunk of more serious athletes plus many others who have the cash-to-splash on sporting toys.

Interestingly I’ve had some quite detailed dialogues with a couple of Garmin CIQ developers and it really is quite tricky for them to quickly support newly launched Garmin devices like the Garmin Enduro. The developers don’t have knowledge or access to the new device prior to its release (they use a device simulator for testing). After a new Garmin release, they have to do their best to rapidly modify, test and re-publish their existing apps – that will usually take several days. In the meantime, early-adopter Garmin buyers (me) of top-end kit (Enduro) are left grrrrring at their favourite CIQ apps simply not working. And it’s not always a case of simply side-loading an existing app/data field onto the new device, where there are larger screens and new underlying architecture (Enduro) then the existing CIQ apps don’t always work ‘as is’ eg not all the Fenix 6X CIQ apps work on Enduro as the 6X has twice the memory (RAM) than the Enduro.

CORE has introduced updated support for their CIQ data field and for their widget both of which now work on Enduro.

In the case of GreenTEG’s CORE temperature sensor, you need to perhaps also think about high-level cyclists who use Wahoo ELEMNT devices, although your chance of native Wahoo support for your novel sensor is limited to pushing your data over the seldom-used Muscle Oxygen ANT+ profile. That’s fine though for now. It kinda works.  I expect Wahoo to open up their ecosystem in the short- to medium-term.

Then you might think about piping your data through to STRAVA or, surprisingly, even to WHOOP. WHOOP has a reasonably large and high-quality user base…the sort of people that might buy your product but the WHOOP ecosystem is mostly closed to 3rd parties, so linking up there could be tricky.

Similarly, linking a new data type to STRAVA is not going to be possible either as it simply won’t be supported by STRAVA. BUT you could instead add an interesting textual note to completed workouts…not the sort of thing that CORE would be interested in but WHOOP,weather services and route services all do add descriptive data back to strava using the standard STRAVA API. If CORE was interested they could, for example, post stats back tot he strava workout description like ‘average core temperature’, ‘time over threshold core temperature’ and so on.

Evidenced by the Watch OS app, we clearly see that CORE is interested in Apple Watch users. Which is interesting. Apple comes before STRAVA.

The market for high-level athletes really is changing and incorporating Apple Watch – Please, I know that the Apple watch will never robustly support your 7-day navigation or Ironman! but it can support STRYD telling someone their power and accurate pace over a fast sub17 5k or impressive runners clocking sub3 for a marathon, Apple watch apps can support FE-C, power meters and structured workouts…ie some pretty advanced stuff that is more advanced than some companies you would typically associate with making pro sports devices.

Polar? Suunto? Enabling some support for 3rd party apps could make life easier. Just sayin’.

Return to: CORE Body Temperature Review