Garmin Fenix 8 – supports 4 CIQ data fields
Whilst Garmin Edge bike computers have long had access to 10 CIQ data fields per sports profile, Garmin watches have been limited to 2 CIQ data fields per sports profile. This changed a bit recently when you were allowed to repeat one CIQ data field multiple times across two pages without counting it as a new data field.
With Garmin’s Fenix 8, the constraints have been further lowered with 4 CIQ data fields now allowed per sports profile and a maximum of 8 data fields per page.
- Fenix 8 43mm AMOLED: 8 data fields per page, 4 different CIQ data fields per sport profile
- Fenix 8 47mm AMOLED: 8 data fields per page, 4 different CIQ data fields per sport profile
- Fenix 8 51mm AMOLED: 8 data fields per page, 4 different CIQ data fields per sport profile
The caveat seems to be that the total memory available to CIQ is unchanged, thus if you use memory-hungry CIQ data fields like Stryd you may well encounter problems if you add other CIQ fields. Some CIQ data fields, like CORE Temperature, have lower memory options to help them work alongside Stryd Zones, so it’s worth doing a bit of research if you want to use lots of advanced custom fields.
Memory available per CIQ DF – Progression
- Garmin Fenix 6: 32 KB per CIQ DF
- Garmin Fenix 6 Pro: 128 KB
- Garmin Fenix 7: 256 KB
- Garmin Fenix 7 Pro: 256 KB
- Garmin Fenix 8: 128 KB
You will also have to be patient and wait for developers to test and release their work on the CIQ store. As you can see from the image above, side-loading DFs doesn’t always work as expected.
Take Out
This is a welcomed and useful improvement, one that I will regularly use.
However, this change is a mere tweak to existing capabilities and further supports the belief (image below) that Fenix 8 is pretty much the same core hardware as before…but at a higher price.
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You push a screenshot of my comment here
🙂
yup, many thanks for the info!
Thanks for that comment. The same CPU I think explains the lag that has been reported with the new watches – more complex UI, in same CPU parameters → slower.
What lag? Finding my Fenix 8 AMOLED to behave significantly better when navigating the UI. It feels like a new watch experience, even though specs are the same. I guess the new UI has been heavily optimised to create that false impression.
Otherwise it is all the same in terms of speed when using the map etc- no major difference vs Epix Pro.
Yeah. I think the main processor and GNSS chip is the same as a fenix 7 generation. The oHR is the same as the fenix 7.5 “pro” generation.
The changes:
– case and buttons derived from Descent mk3
– speaker / microphone
– software
– branding: the default fenix 8 is amoled; fenix 8 solar is positioned as a specialty version
These are legit improvements if you don’t have an epix 2 pro but pretty meager if you do.
I would say the button seal quality has been one of the weak points of the fenix 3, 5, 6, and 7. They rupture and you notice when the watch suddenly goes black without warning. The 7X start button on mine has always been worse than the previous generations and prone to sticking — sometimes failing to actuate on first attempt.
I think the limited differentiation with the 7 and 7.5 generation will drive Garmin to software differentiation. We already see it.
I think the firmware rewrite came in hot and we can expect a lot of stabilization but also a significant clip of feature adds. Whereas I expect the fenix 7 generation is now of maintenance and will have few to no new features going forward.
To be clear, I would rather it cost less.
edited/deleted as incorrect info
I thought rather it was MediaTek/Airoha chipset AG3335M for GNSS.
https://www.airoha.com/products/p/A0Dmm0pijWW3MScb
And NXP i.MX RT500 CPU.
https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-microcontrollers/i-mx-rt-crossover-mcus/i-mx-rt500-crossover-mcu-with-arm-cortex-m33-dsp-and-gpu-cores:i.MX-RT500
yikes! you’re right of course!
interestingly the next gen from both sony and airoha is a single frequency chip. i’ll have to look into that
Hi, i’m not sure regarding GNSS chip, because version is totally different.
And i was unable to find which other device could share the same chip (Edge 1050 ?).
Otherwise, most of the component come from F7/E2 (WHR Elevate 5 or 5 for FE) and FRx55/x65 (ANT/BLE/BT for example).
—
F8
Software Version: 11.60
GPS: 2.07
Wi-fi: 28.83
CIQ: 5.0.1
BMX: 17.0.9
WHR: 17.00.09
ANT/BLE/BT: 28.83
TSC: 0.19
Senor Hub: 31.11
F7/E2
Software version : 18.14beta
GPS: 10.01
Wi-fi: 28.17
CIQ: 5.0.0
BMX: 17.0.9
WHR: 17.00.09
NFC : 3.4.4 // WLT : 3.2.2
TSC: 3.05 or 3.04.1
Senor Hub: 31.10
hmm !
idk what gnss chipset it would be if not sony or mediatek/airoha. and the sony one is from the same kind of gen as the airoha so i cant see the benefit in garmin moving. (could be a pwoer thing, i did check the airoha site but couldn’t find the power consumption stats)
whatever is used it seems pretty dialled-in for accuracy – which you wouldn’t expect from a new piece of hardware integrated by garmin (or at least i wouldn’t)
There is one quirk with the number of CIQ data field. The forerunner 735XT supported 3 data fields. I was always jealous of my wife’s ability to have more apps than my Fenix 5 at the time
This is indeed a nice surprise. There might be a few fields where 128k is too limiting but probably not many. This would be a huge limiter if it were device apps. I don’t come close to using it all, even in some pretty data heavy fields.
One important note is that the fields and apps usually use a lot less memory than they used to because of the graphics pool. So you don’t get knocked for things like big custom fonts and bitmaps.
Edge supports 10 fields rather than 8.
Each CIQ field can be used on two separate pages, and within each page it can be used multiple times. I actually have data fields that display different data depending on location on the page – think a field like Core where it’s connecting to an Ant+ sensor so you can’t have multiple different fields making the Ant+ connection, but you want to different metrics from it. In my case it’s my dog tracker fields that use Ant+ generic channels to connect to the Garmin Alphas so I can only have a single field.
If you try to add a single field to 3 pages, it wipes it out from one of the other pages. There are also some further quirks around configuring.
what dog tracker do you use out of interest please
maybe you saw this comment from Flowstate
—
The data field memory limit they’re referring to is the amount of RAM available to any given CIQ data field, not the total storage available to all CIQ apps. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
Here’s some actual numbers:
– Fenix 3 data field RAM limit: 16 KB
– Fenix 5: 32 KB
– Fenix 6: 32 KB
– Fenix 6 Pro: 128 KB
– Fenix 7: 256 KB
– Fenix 7 Pro: 256 KB
– Fenix 8: 128 KB
These are absolutely tiny numbers compared to what’s available to apps on a mainstream smartwatch platform (Apple or Android), any modern smartphone, or even a computer from 30 years ago. For context, the build/file size of an Apple Watch app has to be less than 75 MB, which is 600 times as much as 128 KB. (This isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, as the amount of RAM taken up by an application is not the same as its file size, although the two are related.)
But in the context of Connect IQ data fields, I will say that speaking from experience as a CIQ dev:
– 16 KB is incredibly restrictive and you often waste more than half your memory just to support app settings
– 32 KB is “ok”, but still very restrictive
– anything over 32 KB is decent
However, if someone made a super feature-packed data field which absolutely pushed the limits of the Fenix 7 / 7 Pro, it’s possible they’d have to make some compromises to fit it into Fenix 8. Given that CIQ data fields can’t accept input or implement a fully-fledged UI (aside from on-device settings), the reduced RAM limit might not be such a huge deal.
Note that for Fenix 7, 7 Pro, and 8, some of the other limits are:
– CIQ watchfaces: 128 KB
– CIQ device apps (*): 768 KB
Given that the watchface limit is 128 KB, it’s not so crazy for data field to have the same limit imo. Ofc, device apps are expected to be able to do a lot more than a watchface or datafield, which explains the much higher limit in that case.
(* device app = fully-fledged app that can replace an activity or simply “app”)
hi
no i hadnt seen that. ty, good info.
the stryd app has problems staying in the memory constraints. was hard for the dev to do it
interestingly i remember talking to a dev on samsung, i think it was, he developed watchfaces to create sports logging features as watchfaces gave him quite a bit more memory to play with than the alternative methods
the annoying thing here with garmin is that there are CLEARLY better chipsets avaialble that would imrpove performance but garmin is milking us dry. at least if you’re going to have a minimum $1000 price tag then put a new cpu/gpu in it (and give it an extra 6 months to fix the new bugs that would introduce)
…and you know what it’s like with the Forerunner series?🤔
What about limit for Enduro 3? Was it also increased?
I assume so. It’s software dependent
The CPU not being upgraded stops me from upgrading. The Forerunner 955 has everything I want in the most recent update. The only thing I’d love is a quicker map refreshes/scrolling/zooming – and that requires a faster CPU.
I’m glad a community benchmark exists as otherwise we’d have no visibility of this. With the rate that Apple are improving I can see that I might jump in the future. I mean they can run a bloody AI model for noise cancelling your voice perfectly in an earphone chip & now Apple Watch. They’re way ahead here.
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