The Garmin CIQ5 software developer’s kit is now available and now lets 3rd party developers get at some new snippets of information to add to the data fields, apps & widgets they kindly deliver to us.
System 5 gives access to device metrics including:
| API | Description |
ActivityMonitor.Info.respirationRate | Get the current respiration value |
ActivityMonitor.Info.timeToRecovery | Get the current time to recovery |
SensorHistory.getBodyBatteryHistory() | Get device Body Battery history |
SensorHistory.getStressHistory() | Get device stress history |
System.Stats.batteryInDays | Get the amount of battery remaining in days |
UserProfile.Profile.vo2MaxRunning | Get the user’s running VO2 Max |
UserProfile.Profile.vo2MaxCycling | Get the user’s cycling VO2 Max |
UserProfile.getUserActivityHistory() | Get an iterator of the user’s past activities |
Weather.getSunrise() | Get the sunrise time for a location |
Weather.getSunset() | Get the sunset time for a location |
OK, so that’s a bit more techie than normal but I’m sure most of us can pretty much guess what the highlighted bits of text in the table above mean.
We can never second guess what some very clever CIQ developer will come up with next. Maybe using the ‘official’ VO2max figures on your Garmin can mean that a training plan can be better tailored to your ability? Maybe (IDK) it’s possible to determine at exactly what point during a good workout your VO2max is recorded as changed and perhaps someone can then infer vVO2max from that ? Maybe respiration rate changes can be used to infer VT?
Time-to-recovery and the stress/body battery data, although confusing and overlapping, will allow some nice snippets of info on watch faces.
Although some of these metrics can already be shown (see comments below), it might be more battery-efficient to use the information Garmin already has calculated.
Good stuff!
Availability
Connect IQ System 5 has rolled out on a number of devices with more coming. This table was sourced from Garmin today:
| Now Available | Public Beta Available | Coming Soon |
| Forerunner 245 Series Forerunner 745 Forerunner 945 Forerunner 945LTE Venu Series Venu 2 Series Venu 2 Plus Series Vivoactive 4 Series | Edge 530 Edge 830 Edge 1030 Edge 1030 Plus | epix (gen 2) fēnix 5 Plus Series fēnix 6 Series fēnix 7 Series Instinct 2 Series MARQ Series quatix 6/7 tactix 6/7 Venu Sq Series |
Note: These were announced some time ago but the news is that they can now be used for the devices above.
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Good news !
I wonder whether watches that don’t show recovery info (like the Venu series) will be able to show it…after all Runalyze is fed the info via the .fit after a workout.
🙂
i suspect then this is opening up a whole can of worms for garmin.
GWMaps for devices that can’t do maps and now your suggestion might also breathe life into watches like the Venu
interesting if anyone can test this
As soon as there is a first WF that implements the new metrics !
GWMaps ? Did you mean dwMap ?
yep, sy!
So there are some WFs now available with the new metrics, like Glance Pro or Summit Watch Face 2 and…”Time to Recovery” is not available on the Venu 2, just shows “blank” 🙁
LOL. Nearly half of those APIs are to totally dubious “information”:
– respiration rate
– time to recovery
– vo2max running
– vo2max cycling
These are interesting HRV metrics but overly processed with proprietary (undisclosed) algorithms:
– body battery history
– stress history
How did the Sun and Moon widget and CIQ watch faces and widgets get sunrise and sunset times all this time without an API for it?
Why do you think respiration rate is a dubious “information” And why is it laughable if people want the recovery time on custom watch faces can get it now?
Sun and Moon data needs no API because the CIQ watch faces take your position and calculate it themselves. .
@the5krunner: Where do you find the public betas for Edge devices?
https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=14955
because the data have proofed to be faulthy or are totally relative. To name a few reasons.
Maybe Garmin should start using speed as the indication for speed! Tempo being a relic from the past. Industry obstructing progress and coming up with nonsens for the sake of novelties…. Brainwashing the mass. But not me. (going back until very first Polar)
Respiration rate is dubious ecause the derivation of respiration rate from HRV has huge error bars. You can see how terrible this can be if you use the oHR at the wrist and the respiration rate will be a flat line for your entire workout. If you have a chest strap, it It roughly goes up and down correctly but the absolute value can off by as much as half.
The recovery time numbers are ridiculously long in my experience for years and years. If you do a long hard workout you might see 48 or 72 hours and then do a recovery run the same day or next day and have recovery go down to 12 hours or something. A lot of Garmin figures are based on generic assumptions and are not configurable.
In general the Firstbeat algorithms are simplistic and only valid within substantial error bars under specific conditions. You have to dig into the white papers to find out that the VO2Max estimate is only supposed to be valid to +-9%. It also needs a chest strap to have a reasonable chance or collecting good data and it clearly works better if you are running at close to or above threshold effort. A bunch of the other metrics are derivatives of the VO2Max one.
Another example is the training advisor telling you to do more high aerobic or low aerobic or advising particular workouts. The watch doesn’t know if you are training for a mile race, 5km, marathon, or ultra-marathon. It just has some generic algorithm and my impression is the algorithm is skewed for the fat part of the bell curve. Some of these features seem derived from their casual fitness products and not particularly appropriate for the high-end devices they land on.
I remember something about the ability to edit activity data fields from my phone. Will that be available at some point?
it’s available now on fenix 7.
if i recall, i don’t think this feature will be back ported but should be on most (all?) new sports devices
So not even 945?:( That’s too bad. Then what’s the latest on 955?
latest will always be published when corroborated !
So not even 945?:( That’s too bad. Then what’s the latest on 955?
Hi Fenix 5 Plus receive this update recently but in your table the family product is in the Coming Soon column
https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=14313
Changes made from version 15.40 to 17.10:
Brought in CIQ System 5 improvements and fixes.
thank you, yes I realised the table had some errors in it but the table is from Garmin at the time of publishing.
It’s very hard for me to correct all of Garmin’s mistakes. they have significantly more resources than me!
thank you again tho for pointing it out,
Hi, my english is not good 🙂
I really appreciate your work, so do not apologize for this !!!!
And Fenix 6 CIQ System 5 is under Beta as of today 🙂
https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/290079/fenix-6-series—20-82-public-beta
ty,
Thanks for the short and sweet article