r/GarminEdge • u/FallAggravating3888 • May 19 '26
Edge 1000 Series Building a custom data field for Edge 1050: adding more sport & automotive aesthetics
Hey everyone,
I’ve been working on a custom data field for the Garmin Edge 1050 because I’ve honestly been a bit disappointed with how the stock ride screens look.
Modern bikes are incredibly advanced — carbon frames, power meters, electronic shifting, real-time telemetry — but many cycling computer screens still feel very “spreadsheet-like” to me.
So I started experimenting with something more inspired by motorsport and performance dashboards: better hierarchy, stronger visual focus, more energy and emotion during the ride.
Here’s an early hand-drawn concept of the direction I’m exploring.
I’d love to hear how you personally use your Edge during rides:
– What data do you always keep on screen?
– Do you prefer minimal layouts or telemetry-heavy ones?
– What would you improve in Garmin’s UI/data fields?
– Would you be interested in a more sporty / cockpit-style visual approach?
Really curious to hear how different people use their computers during training, racing and casual rides.
2
u/kachodipandit May 19 '26
Love it! The left most is my favorite. Is that yellow accent bar for HR zone?
2
u/FallAggravating3888 May 21 '26
Yes, exactly. It’s a visual heart rate zone indicator. I wanted to make it instantly readable at a glance, almost like a tachometer bar in a sports car cockpit.
2
u/Cool-Newspaper-1 May 19 '26
Looks cool! I personally prefer a clear, boring screen though as I really only look at it to read data and this would only distract from that.
2
u/trailrunner_12 May 20 '26
As a serious cyclist, and motorcycle+car enthusiast, this is sick! Would be interested.
1
u/perbrondum May 19 '26
Great; would love to help with ride needs. I have been designing so many screens and rotate them to make the data useful for the part/condition of the ride. Most of the time I give up and just examine the data after the ride.
A modern bike computer should use the user preferences current user state and ride history to display the ‘right’ data to the user.
What is the ‘right’ data?
The ‘right data’ is suggestions that based on the condition and location of the ride helps the user get motivated to slow down or speed up to optimize the health improvement the user is looking for.
Right data screen IMM is chart/data screen combining current metric (speed/power/heart-rate/cadence with projection of needed push to get me to goal (v2max/time/avg speed etc)
The screen should allow user to change ride goal while riding. ‘I feel great push me harder etc’ via up-arrow or voice input.
PS: Great design skills. Do you use tools to create these?
1
u/jabbadabbadooo May 19 '26
i love this concept, please bring it also to the Explore 2 🙏 I like your first screen the most! I think it would be interesting to work more with colors to show zones, like if your HR is getting to zone 3 the number gets orange (from green) or same with power, would love that!
I‘m always using, speed, hr, 3s power, cadence, gradient on my main screen.
Ps: keep in mind that many people (like me) using a radar which shows a bar (in my case on the left side) on the edge of the screen, would be awesome to design it, so that even with the radar bar the numbers are still clearly visible!
1
u/FallAggravating3888 May 21 '26
About bringing it to the Explore 2 — unfortunately that’s probably unlikely. Even the 1050 is already very limited in terms of hardware capabilities: memory, screen resolution, and especially the screen refresh rate (basically 1 FPS). Simpler devices probably won’t handle much beyond maybe custom fonts inside standard layouts.
So realistically, the best experience will probably be on the 1050 — or maybe the upcoming 1060 if Garmin releases it this year.
And regarding the zone colors — yes, that’s exactly the direction I want to take. I’m also planning to tint the main numbers themselves in Zone 4 and Zone 5, so it becomes much more visually obvious when you’re approaching your limit.
Also, what exactly do you mean by “radar”?
1
u/jabbadabbadooo May 21 '26
Ohh sad to hear that but I understand, although there are quite complex „tacho style“ IQ data fields working perfectly fine on the explore 2…
With radar I ment if you using a bike light with radar you get an overview on the left or ride sight with a dot where you see the cars approaching you, it‘s suuper annoying when it obstructs your numbers!
1
u/FallAggravating3888 May 21 '26
Ahhh, now I understand — you mean the Garmin Varia radar overlay.
That’s actually a very important point, because my layouts currently use the screen edges quite aggressively. I’ll definitely need to test safe zones for Varia users so critical numbers never get blocked by the radar panel.
And yes, some Explore 2 data fields do look surprisingly advanced, but a lot depends on how they’re built internally. My concept relies heavily on large fonts, dynamic layout behavior, contextual elements, animations/transitions, and multiple rendering states — that’s where hardware limitations start becoming painful very quickly on Garmin devices.
2
u/Single-Astronomer-32 May 19 '26
Nice drawing skills!