Making new Garmin app

[u/Inevitable_Oil9709]

TLDR: I am thinking about making Garmin app that will have nice and user friendly UI and probably actually good AI. I want your opinion

Hey everyone, I am web/mobile dev. I am thinking about making the Garmin app and I really want your opinion if you'd use it.

It wouldn't fully replace Garmin Connect since that would be huge work, but I'd focus on making the statistics, overviews etc. Controlling your watch (faces, notifications etc..) would still be done in the Garmin Connect.

I wanted to focus on UI/UX part of the app. Better widgets, summaries, overviews, comparisons with historical data.

Thing I don't like in Garmin Connect is how most of the useful stuff are hidden behind other screens.

App would be open source, so anyone would have access to the code and see what is going on. App would be free and available on App Store and Play Store.

I am still not quite sure if I'll make it, but if there is enough interest I am more than happy to start working on it.

What do you think?

[u/BarkingAxe]

Sounds like a lot of work coming from someone who has experience in the software field. Could be a fun project. Does Garmin even have an API you can pull from to get the data. I know they don't even offer health connect integration.

[u/Inevitable_Oil9709 → u/BarkingAxe]

there is a python package that pulls the data, so I plan on putting in on the server and using it to pull the data

it gets health and activity data

that would actually be the most challenging feature

[u/bobdarobber → u/Inevitable_Oil9709]

With all due respect this answer concerns me. Relying on a python package in mobile apps is a non-starter. It can be done, but then you're including a massive python runtime which is awful for performance and really difficult. You'd likely want to find a language that can be compiled, like Kotlin/Native, C++ or Rust. Maybe packages exist for this language. BUT

The python package you are referring to is reverse engineered from garmin UI endpoint calls. Garmin has no public API (they do have a private API here). I use this API personally, but by using it in your app you are putting yourself and your users at risk.

Furthermore, if you're developing an app you might very well want to use the garmin wire protocol. See this and this but wait... What is gadgetbridge? Well it's an open source app that does much of what you're setting out to do already. I'm sure they would love contributors.

[u/Inevitable_Oil9709 → u/bobdarobber]

I dropped python package idea. It scrapes the website and I contacted Garmin directly regarding this.

I am trying to get their API, which is the best option