Contents
Introduction
Description
Changing settings
Frequently asked questions
Layout
Data fields
Double gesture
Weekly steps/floors graph
Gauges
Activity bar
Live HR
Themes
Date format
Weather
Sunrise and sunset
Alternate time zones
Status icons
Seconds
Power save mode
Unlocking premium options
Venu support
Introduction
This manual describes all features of Spinner, but the availability of specific features may depend on your watch model. If you don’t find an option in your settings, this means that this option is not available on your watch. Some options (e.g. Solar charging or SpO2) may be present in the settings, but they will not work if your watch does not support them. In particular, Venu works quite differently from other models, so some topics discussed here (e.g ‘Power save options’) are not applicable. For more details on Venu operation, please refer to Venu support section.
NOTE: The screenshots may not reflect the most recent look of Spinner, they will be updated over time.
Description
A configurable digital face with:
- 12 customizable themes (themes 3 to 10 require unlock key)
- 4 configurable gauges/data fields with key metrics (options depend on what your watch supports)
- 6 configurable data fields
- gesture switching of different data display
- flexible date format
- next sunrise/sunset times and moon phase
- 2 alternative time zones with text description
- weather info (requires unlock key)
- battery saving mode with minimal display that can automatically kick in for the night or be activated by ‘do not disturb’
- weekly steps and floors graphs with min, max, current and average labels
- HR, atmospheric pressure or elevation graph with min, max, current and average readings (requires unlock key)
- Status icons – phone connection, do not disturb, notifications, alarms
Changing settings
If you are not familiar with adjusting Connect IQ app settings, please have a look at: https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/w/wiki/14/changing-your-app-settings-in-garmin-express-gcm-ciq-mobile-store
Frequently asked questions
For advice on frequently asked questions please have a look at https://vgfsyhcxft.wordpress.com/common-problems/
Layout
Data fields
Data fields are located above and below the center time box. They can be configured to show different types of information:
- Upper data field option 1 (below date) – sunrise and sunset times or two alternate time zones
- Upper data field option 2 (next to date) – activity bar or weather
- Lower data field option 1 (below time) – data box with 6 data slots, weekly steps graph, 4h atmospheric pressure, elevation or HR graph or 2 alternate times with zone labels.
- Lower data field options 2 and 3 offer the same choices as option 1, or can be disabled. When options 2 and/or 3 are enabled, a wrist gesture cycles through the active options.
NOTE: Gesture switching does not work on Venu during sleep hours (as defined in Garmin User Profile).
Double gesture
Gesture cycling through the lower data field options may have an undesirable effect that when you move your wrist to read the currently displayed option, it will switch and show you the next option instead.
The double gesture feature is meant to reduce this inconvenience. When it is enabled, the option switch will only occur if you repeat the gesture within the specified “Double gesture time”.
A lower value of this parameter will reduce unwanted switches, but it may also make it harder to switch when you want it. It may take some practice and fine tuning of this parameter for the best results.
Weekly steps/floors graph
The graph consists of 8 bars, each representing daily steps or floors count, arranged by time from left to right. So the rightmost bar is growing as you continue walking during the day.
The graph is described by 4 numbers:
- top left – maximum daily count over the last 8 days
- bottom left – minimum daily count over the last 8 days
- top right – today’s current count
- bottom right – average daily count over the last 8 days
Gauges
There are four gauges that display different types of information both as a numeric value and a progress arc. The type of data available includes (depending on what the watch can support):
- Battery level
- Solar intensity
- Daily distance
- Weekly distance
- Calories
- Active calories
- Steps
- Activity bar
- Weekly intensity minutes
- Floors
- Next sunrise or sunset
- Wrist HR
- SpO2
The type of data configured for each gauge is represented by an icon at the beginning of the gauge progress arc.
The numerical values associated with each gauge are displayed in the four corners of the screen, using the same color as the corresponding gauge/icon.
The maximum level of the progress arc is defined as follows:
- Battery level – 100%
- Solar intensity – 100%
- Daily distance – 1/7 of the ‘Weekly distance goal’ declared in the settings
- Weekly distance – ‘Weekly distance goal’ declared in the settings
- Calories – total daily calories for the declared ‘Active calories goal’
- Active calories – ‘Active calories goal’ declared in the settings
- Steps – Steps goal according to User Profile in Garmin Connect
- Activity bar – 100%
- Intensity minutes – weekly intensity minutes goal as defined in User Profile
- Floors – daily climbed floors goal as defined in User Profile
- Next sunrise or sunset – time until the next sunrise/sunset
- Wrist HR – maximum HR recorded over the past 4 hours (while the minimum corresponds to the minimum level of the arc)
- SpO2 – 100% (minimum level 90%)
Activity bar
This is an opposite of the ‘Move bar’ commonly seen in different watch faces, including Garmin’s own. ‘Move bar’ is 0 when you are active and it goes up to maximum 5 if you continue staying inactive for some time. Conversely, ‘Activity bar’ is 100% when you are active, and it goes down to 0% if you stop moving for a while. You can easily get an idea how it works if you enable ‘Move alert’ in the ‘Activity tracking’ settings of your watch. ‘Move bar’ grows in steps of 1 from 0 to 5, and ‘Activity bar’ shrinks in steps of 20% from 100% to 0.
Live HR
When this option is set to ‘Off’ (default), the HR reading is updated only once a minute. With unlock key, it is possible to select ‘On’ option (update every second), ‘Daytime’ (only during the day/awake hours declared in Garmin User Profile), or ‘On gesture’ (updated every second for 10 seconds after a wrist gesture or screen swipe/tap on some models).
Themes
The look of this face can be quickly changed using 12 predefined customizable themes. In each theme, it is possible to change the colors of the display elements. The colors are defined by 6-digit hexadecimal numbers, where the first 2 digits represent the ‘Red’ component, the middle 2 digits represent ‘Green’ and the last 2 digits represent ‘Blue’. Different Garmin devices may use different color palettes, and the watch will display the best matching color for the entered hex code.
For a more interesting look it is possible to use one of the 15 background patterns, with even more variations enabled by selection of different background and foreground colors. The example below shows the patterns applied to the default theme 1.
Date format
The date format is very flexible. It may require some effort to understand how it works, but it allows you to make it almost any way you like. To customize the date, enter a string of characters up to 12 in length, with this coding:
D = day number with leading zero
d = day number without leading zero
M = month number with leading zero
m = month number without leading zero
Y = 4-digit year
y = 2-digit year
N = month name
n = day name
W = ISO week number with ‘w’ in front
w = ISO week number without ‘w’
Any other character (e.g. – / : . ) will be displayed if it is available in the current character set.
For example, you can use the following formats:
“n N d” → Fri Aug 24
“n D.M” → Fri 24.08
“d/m W” → 24/8 w34
“Y\M\D” → 2018\08\24
“m-d-y” → 8-24-18
“n D [w]” → Fri 28 [34]
Weather
This option allows to display weather information from https://openweathermap.org/ for the location from your last activity recorded by the watch.
The information shown includes weather icon, current temperature and ‘feels like’ temperature.
The weather update interval is adjustable from 15 minutes to 6 hours.
Please note that the weather feature needs to know your location. If you see the GPS? instead of the temperature and the weather icon shows a question mark, go to some activity that uses GPS, like run or cycle, and get the GPS updated there. Then, when you return to Spinner, the weather should be updating at your set interval.
If after that you continue to see ‘…’ and a cloud with a question mark, this means your watch has not been able to connect to the weather service to get the update.
To avoid this, make sure the Bluetooth connection between your watch and your phone and the phone’s internet connection are both stable. You must also make sure that Garmin Connect app is allowed to run in the background on your phone/tablet.
Sunrise and sunset
After fresh installation, the watch face needs to retrieve from the watch system the current GPS coordinates which are necessary for the sunrise and sunset calculation. To update GPS coordinates, just switch to an activity such as run or cycle and wait until ‘GPS ready’ message appears, or the GPS indicator turns green. Then you can cancel the activity and return to the face. The sun times should now be shown. Note that you may need to repeat this procedure after you have changed your location for the sun times to be updated accordingly.
Alternate time zones
For alternate time option, you can set two separate time zones. The possible UTC offset ranges from -14 to +14 hours. The offset is a fractional number, so that half hour offsets can be taken care of as well. For example for India (UTC+5:30) enter 5.5. For UTC just enter 0.
In addition to the UTC offset, you can also add a text description for your alternate zones. Its length is limited to 12 characters. The text description is only shown if alternate time is selected as an option for the box below the time.
NOTE: Garmin apps tend to have problems with accepting special character input (for example minus ‘-‘ or decimal point ‘.’). To get around this problem, you can try to:
-start from the default value “-5.0” and edit it as you need, without deleting the characters that you want to keep, or
-use another app to write the offset, then copy and paste into the Garmin app.
-if you have problems with one of the Garmin apps, try another (there are 3 choices – Garmin Connect, Garmin Connect IQ or Garmin Express on a PC).
Status icons
There are 4 status icons that appear in the 4 corners of the time box. They are:
- Bluetooth / phone connected (Appears when the watch is connected to a phone.)
- Notifications (Appears if there are notifications pending on the phone. For enabling/disabling different types of notifications, please refer to ‘smart notifications’ setting in Garmin Connect app.)
- Alarms (Appears if one or more alarms are set on the watch.)
- Do Not Disturb (Appears if the DND mode is activated on the watch.)
Seconds
Seconds can be set to always on (except on Venu), but since they are probably the biggest battery hog, there are several options provided to reduce their impact on battery life. They can be switched off completely, switched off for the night, or activated by gesture for a short period of about 10 seconds.
While the seconds are off, it is possible to display something else instead:
- two dashes (‘–‘) as placeholders
- activity bar
- battery level
- ’10s bars’ that increment only every 10 seconds. This is useful if you don’t want the battery drain caused by the always on seconds, but still want to have a rough idea where you are in the current minute
In the example below, time is somewhere between 13:43:30 and 13:43:40.
Power save mode
In power save mode only time (hours and minutes), status icons and battery level are displayed:
This mode can be activated permanently, for the night/sleep time (as declared in Garmin Connect User Profile), or on activation of the Do Not Disturb status of the watch.
The DND method is handy for quick toggling between normal and power save modes, if the DND switch is assigned to a hot key or present in the shortcuts menu.
Unlocking premium options
Some of the available features require an unlock key. These options are marked by a key icon 🔑 in the settings.
To obtain an unlock key please visit https://vgfsyhcxft.com/spinner-unlock/
The key icon in the settings will not disappear after entering the key – this icon is meant to mark the options which require the key, not the lock/unlock status. If you try to activate a locked feature without a valid key, a key icon will be displayed on the watch instead of the time to indicate that this feature is not accessible.
When you receive the key, you need to enter it in the settings in the ‘Unlock key’ field, and press ‘DONE’ or ‘SAVE’ button (depending which Garmin app you use). The ‘Key status’ field will only be updated after you exit and enter the settings again, but you can proceed to adjust the locked settings right away.
FOR VENU USERS: After entering the key and saving the settings, you may need to ‘wake up’ the watch from its ‘sleep’ state (show the full watch face) for the key to be validated.
Venu support
Venu operates in two distinct modes – short ‘wake up’ after gesture, button press or double screen tap, and ‘sleep’ otherwise. Wake up mode allows bright full screen updated every second, but in sleep mode the screen is only refreshed once a minute and the display has to be reduced/dimmed to conserve power and prevent burn-in.
Because of this, some of the features present on other models do not make much sense on Venu and so are not available:
-Options to control the display of seconds and live HR,
-Power save modes.
On the other hand, Spinner provides 3 different options for the ‘Always On’ mode display:
-Off (blank screen)
-Dimmed time (hours and minutes)
-Dimmed full display (complete information except seconds, updated once a minute)
If the background colors of the current theme are black, the Always On display will show in the theme’s colors:
Otherwise, it will be displayed in a monochrome black and white theme:
Full screen Always on mode requires unlock key.