— Connect IQ · Watches · Bike computers · Handhelds
Garmin device apps
Garmin app development on Connect IQ: device apps, data fields, widgets and watch faces, written in Monkey C and built for the devices they ship to. One of ours, Sauna Sessions, is built and submitted.
01 — What gets built
What kinds of Garmin app can you build?
All of the kinds Connect IQ supports. Which one you want comes down to where the person has to look, and that is decided from the brief before any code is written.
- Device app. Runs full screen and owns the session: its own buttons, its own settings, its own recording.
- Data field. Puts your numbers beside Garmin's own, inside a native run, ride or swim.
- Widget. A mini-app for a quick read without starting anything, opened from the home screen on a wearable and from a side view on the bike computers and handhelds. The handhelds still rely on them; the newest watches and Edge computers have dropped them for glances.
- Watch face. Redraws the home screen, so it is on show every time the wrist comes up.
- Audio content provider. Puts your own audio library into the media player, on the watches that carry music.
Two more things sit inside those rather than beside them. A glance is the one-line summary the newer devices show in their glance list, and it rides on a widget, or on a device app where the device no longer takes widgets. A background service keeps working on a schedule while the app is closed. Support for both varies by model.
02 — Devices
Which Garmin devices does this cover?
The supported range, and not only the watches. The current Connect IQ device set carries build profiles for more than 170 devices, and the target list for your app is picked from those.
- Watchesfēnix, Forerunner, epix, Venu, vívoactive, Instinct, MARQ, Enduro
- CyclingEdge bike computers, across the current and older bar-mounted range
- HandheldsGPSMAP, Montana, Oregon, eTrex, Rino
- SpecialistApproach for golf, Descent for diving, D2 for aviation
Not every device runs every app type, and the older ones work to a memory budget measured in kilobytes rather than megabytes. We read the profile for each target before it goes on the list, so a device is only claimed once the app actually fits and runs there.
03 — Proof
What has Outlap shipped to a Garmin watch?
Sauna Sessions, a device app for sauna, steam and plunge work. It times every stage, writes each one as its own lap, and saves the session as a FIT file that arrives in Garmin Connect with heart rate and wrist temperature attached.
The awkward parts are done as well: pause and resume, a checkpoint that survives the app restarting part-way through a session, a site tag from GPS, and a settings layer that reaches both Garmin Connect and the watch itself. It was designed, built, tested and submitted from here. See what Sauna Sessions does.
— Both panels are drawn from the app's own screen layout and its own default stage table, not traced off a screenshot.
04 — The difference
How is a watch app different from a web build?
Memory and input. A Connect IQ app works to a fixed memory budget, from 16 KB for a data field on the oldest watches to a couple of megabytes for a device app on the handhelds, and the person using it has a handful of hardware buttons or a small touch screen, often with wet or gloved hands.
Monkey C is the language. The SDK ships a simulator that runs the real device profiles, so a build is exercised there before it goes near a wrist.
Permissions are declared in the manifest, so an app that reads your heart rate or your position has to say so out loud, and Garmin checks that against the listing before a store release.
05 — Pricing
What does a Garmin app cost?
There is no list price on this one. A single data field is not the same job as a full session app that carries protocols, a settings layer and a paid unlock, so you get a fixed quote from your brief instead of a tier.
Email hello@outlap.studio with what the app has to do and which devices it has to run on. The quote comes back within 2 business days, and it does not move once you accept it.
The web tiers are listed on the pricing page. Garmin work sits beside them and is quoted the same way.
06 — The other half
Do you build the web side as well?
Yes, and it is usually the same job. An app that sells an unlock also needs a page to sell it on and something to hand the codes out, and that half is web work.
Outlap builds marketing sites, online stores and production web apps. If your Garmin app needs a landing page, a checkout or an account area, the same studio builds it to match. The homepage shows the other builds, drawn the same way as the panels above.
Pit lane
On the wrist
Start your build
Tell us what your Garmin app needs to do and which devices it must run on. Email hello@outlap.studio with your brief. We'll reply with a fixed quote within 2 business days.
Send a Garmin app brief