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hiker

A free data field for Garmin watches to provide stats for hiking and walking activities

Hiker

Hiker

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Donations are welcome and appreciated, but not required. If you’d like to show your appreciation for this app and keep me motivated to maintain it, please feel free to send a small donation to https://paypal.me/GavrielF. Hiker will always remain free and open source.

Features

A free data field for Garmin watches to provide stats for hike and walk activities. Built to provide more data in a more compact format than is typically available on data fields designed for runners (where too much information becomes impossible to digest at speed). Focused on data relevant to casual hiking and walking scenarios where step count, distance, pace and ascent, elevation are the predominant concerns rather than trail running where bearing, etc. are more relevant. Currently displays:

explanation
  1. Clock time
  2. Average pace or speed for the current activity (controlled by settings)
  3. Total distance for the current activity
  4. Current pace or speed (or rolling 5/10/30/60 second average by changing settings) *
  5. Current heart rate (or rolling 5/10/30/60 second average by changing settings) *
    Current heart rate zone and heart icon coloured by zone (if enabled in settings - disabled by default)
  6. Total time for current activity
  7. Steps for the current activity
  8. Total ascent for current activity
  9. Steps for today
  10. Altitude
  11. GPS reception level
  12. Battery charge level with colour changing battery icon
  13. Progress bar showing progress towards step goal (if step goal is set)

Black or white background (via app setting or watch setting)

Note: 10, 30 and 60 second modes disabled on some older devices due to memory constraints

Hiker also contributes step data to the FIT profile for your activity, showing total steps, lap steps, average steps per km/mile/hour, hiking difficulty, GPS quality and battery % in the activity summary in Garmin Connect. NOTE: if the app crashes uppon start, then disable as many of the recorded fields as possible. It is aware of and supports device settings for distance units (km or miles), background colours (black or white), and 12/24 hour clock mode. Feature suggestions are welcome and will be considered.

Settings

settings
  • Vibrate (Hiker App only): enable vibration
  • Beep (Hiker App only): enable beep
  • Pace / speed mode: decides how to calculate pace or speed in field #2 and #4
  • Heart rate mode: see explanation of field #5
  • Show heart rate zone: field #5: if enabled then inside the heart you'll see the zone
  • Use speed instead of pace: decides what to display in field #2, #4
  • Invert background color: black or white
  • Record ...: can disable recording some of the data to the FIT file.
    If the app crashes as it starts (IQ! icon) then disable recording of the less important data to be saved (Still will be displayed on the screen)

Screenshots

Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3 Screenshot 4 Screenshot 5

FAQ

Help Requests

Since Hiker was released I have consistently received 10-20 emails a week about the app, almost all of which are about difficulties with installation. I created Hiker for my own personal use and decided to share it for free in the hope that other Garmin fans would find it useful. Whilst I am very glad that it has become popular, I simply do not have the time to respond to the same questions over and over, week after week. In an effort to reduce the volume of these emails I wrote this installation guide and FAQ but it has barely made a dent in the volume of requests, so regretably I have now set up an email filter to delete all emails about Hiker that mention installation.

Garmin watches are functionally superb, but the installation procedure for Data Fields in particular (which Hiker is) leaves a lot to be desired. The installation process is different for each model, and I cannot reasonably learn and document the installation procedure for watch models I do not own. If these instructions do not work for you, please get in touch with Garmin technical support. Hiker is compatible with the watch models I have listed compatibility for - I have confirmed this through many interactions with users. If you are struggling with installation, please first read the installation guide below, which will probably resolve your issue. If it doesn’t, you will need to get in touch with Garmin technical support.

Installation

Installation and setup of data fields on Garmin watches is not as straightforward as one might hope, and unfortunately is not the same on every model. The following step-by-step instructions are based on the fenix 5X model and should be broadly applicable to most Garmin watches, but steps or button layout may vary by watch model.

  1. Go to the download page in the Connect IQ store in a web browser and (after logging in with your Garmin account) press the “Download” button.
    • You will be asked which device you want to install to.
    • Select the device from the dropdown list and press “Confirm Device”.
  2. Alternatively, search for “Hiker” in the Garmin ConnectIQ app on your phone, select Hiker by flocsy from the search results and press “Install”.
  3. Sync your device using the Garmin Connect app
  4. Once the sync is complete, the Hiker Data Field is installed on your phone, but you must also assign it to the sporting activities on which you want to use it.
    • Typically with will be for the “Hike” activity so the instructions that follow are for the “Hike” activity, but you may also want to repeat these steps for “Walk”, “Treadmill” etc. or for older watch models that don’t have the “Hike” / “Walk” activity you might want to use the activity type “Other”.
  5. Starting from the watch face, press the top right button. That should display the list of available activities.
  6. Use the bottom left button to scroll down until “Hike” is highlighted in bold.
  7. Press and hold the middle left button. You should see a menu with “Hike Settings” highlighted.
  8. Press the top right button to enter the “Hike Settings” menu. You should then be in a sub-menu with “Data Screens” highlighted.
  9. Press the top right button to enter the “Data Screens” menu. You should now see a data screen with a pencil icon in the top right.
  10. At this point you can scroll up and down through the data screens you already have configured for Hike activities using the middle left and bottom left buttons. Scroll down to the end of the list using the bottom left button and you should see a screen with a big green + and the words “Add New”
  11. Press the top right button to add a new Data Screen. You should land in a menu with “Custom Data” highlighted.
  12. Press the top right button. You should be asked to “Choose Layout”, where you’ll be able to scroll up and down through different layouts. You want the top one, which just has “Field 1” in the middle.
  13. Press the top right button to move to choosing the field. You should land in a menu with Connect IQ Fields highlighted and 0/2 Added underneath.
  14. Press the top right button. You should land in another sub-menu, where you’ll be able to select the downloaded data field you want to use.
  15. Scroll down using the bottom left button until “Hiker” is selected, then press the top right button to select it.
  16. You should now see the Hiker data field on your screen, but it will be the last data field in the list. You probably want it to be the first so that it shows by default when you start a hike.
  17. Press the top right button to edit the position of the field. You should land in a menu with “Layout 1 Field” highlighted. Use the bottom left button to scroll down to “Reorder”
  18. Press the top right button. You should now land in a sub-menu where “Hiker” is highlighted.
  19. Press the middle left button repeatedly to move Hiker up to the top of the list, then press the top right button to confirm.
  20. You’re done. Press the bottom right button three times to exit out of the menus, and you should be back to the activity selection menu with “Hike” selected.
  21. Press the top right button to select the “Hike” activity and you should find you’re ready to go for a hike or walk with Hiker shown on screen by default.

Other models

The following installation steps for other watch models were kindly provided by a users of Hiker. I have no way to independently verify these installation instructions since the Garmin simulator does not provide simulation of the installation experience, but I have every confidence that these instructions are accurate and succeeded for the users who provided them. Thanks to Tom and Gary for taking the time to provide this information.

vivoactive 3

  1. Starting from the watch face, press the button (Key). That should display the list of available activities.
  2. Scroll to the “Walk” activity and tap the screen to select.
  3. Tap “Settings”.
  4. Tap “Data Screens”.
  5. Tap “Layout” and scroll to the “1-Field” layout and tap the screen select.
  6. Scroll to “Screen 1” and tap to select.
  7. Tap “Edit Data Fields”.
  8. Tap the screen which should show the default/existing Data Field.
  9. In the list of Data Fields scroll and tap to select “Connect IQ 0/2 Added”. 10 Tap to select “Hiker”.
  10. The Hiker Data Field should now show as your default screen.

vivoactive 4

  1. Select activity list.
  2. Long press bottom button.
  3. Select “Manage apps”.
  4. Select “Walk”.
  5. Select “Walk settings”.
  6. Select “Data Screens”.
  7. Select “Screen 1”.
  8. Select “Layout”.
  9. Use finger to scroll up / down until a screen with 1 data field presents itself.
  10. Use finger to touch screen to confirm 1 data field.
  11. Select “Edit Data Fields”.
  12. Use finger to touch screen to choose data field.
  13. Select “Connect Fields”.
  14. Select “Hiker”.

Contact

Please use this link to get in touch with me directly through the ConnectIQ store. If you need to get in touch this way, please write in English. I have translated the app into many languages using online translation tools, but I only understand English and I am less likely to read your message if I have to copy it into an online translator first.

Supported Devices

Note: Only tested in on a real epix 2, fenix 5X and Forerunner 235 in the field, all other watches tested only in the SDK device simulator.

Supported Languages

Hiker (watch face text and settings) is currently translated into the following languages, which at the time of writing is every language supported by the Garmin SDK:

Note on language support in the Garmin simulator

Arabic, Hebrew and Thai supported by the Garmin ConnectIQ SDK but are not rendered correctly in the device simulator. The simulator also seems to throw an exception when a Thai string resource is used for the units of a FIT contribution. I have tested Arabic and Hebrew on a real fenix 5x watch and it seems to work fine, but my watch doesn’t support Thai. Due to these issues it is impossible for me to thoroughly test these languages on all devices.

Translation help

Help with internationalisation is appreciated. Current translations are based on Reverso and Google Translate. I’ve made an effort to find the correct translations but have no easy way of finding out if they are correct except through user feedback.

Source

Hiker is open source (MIT license) and it’s code resides on GitHub at https://github.com/flocsy/hiker

Credits

Forked from Walker by wwarby

Code and ideas borrowed from RunnersField by kpaumann and steps2fit by rgergely. Thanks for open sourcing your projects.

Icon Credits

Changelog

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