User manual

WorldFace is a watchface for Garmin devices. It features a dynamic map and highly customizable information fields that can update regularly via internet.

Default configuration

Upon first installation, WordFace shows the following screen.

If red triangle is not displayed, it means that the watch face doesn’t have your GPS location. Refer to the FAQ to get a GPS location.

After first contact with server, the screen is updated as follows. This may take 5 to 30 minutes. The watch face indicates days remaining in your trial period.

If “Trial pending server” stays for more than 30 minutes, ensure GPS location is recorded by watchface (refer to the FAQ) and internet is available.

Example customization

You are able to fully customize WorldFace. Here is an example.

All fields can be fully reconfigured in user settings (read below).

To get instructions on how to access user settings, see Garmin’s tutorial.

Map

Static map

The map’s static part includes:

Background
Latitude/longitude grid
Continents

These map features can be set to different colors in user settings.

Dynamic map

The map’s dynamic part includes:

User location
Sunrise and sunset (located on the map for the user latitude)
Sun with day/night terminator
International Space Station (ISS) and its orbit
Status icons on either side of the screen

User location is only displayed if the watchface has successfully captured the user location. To capture a user location, go to a separate app or widget that uses GPS, and get a GPS fix. Once this is done, go back to the watchface. It should now show the user location on the map.
Should that process fail, there is a manual workaround: in user settings, set Location Source to Manual, and set Latitude and Longitude to your selected location.

Sunrise and sunset are only displayed if user location has been captured by the watchface.

Sun with day/night terminator shows the location of the sun and of the separation between day and night on the map.

International Space Station and its orbit are represented on the map by a satellite icon and a curved line. Either item can be deactivated in user settings. ISS orbit line color, width and length (in minutes) can be set in user settings. The ISS takes 90 minutes to orbit the Earth, so a setting of 180 minutes shows 2 orbits.

Status icons

Battery icon and charge percentage can be displayed on the left side of the map under certain conditions. A battery icon is displayed if the battery % is below a certain threshold set in user settings. Furthermore, a battery percentage in numbers is displayed alongside the battery icon if the battery % is below another threshold set in user settings. Recommended: icon below 40% and percentage number below 20%. This helps declutter the screen while still effectively warning the user about battery charge.
When charging, a lightening icon and the charge percentage is displayed in place of the battery icon.

Other status icons can be displayed on the right side of the map, or near the seconds number, under certain conditions. These icons include Phone Not Connected, Notification Count and Do Not Disturb.

Fields

13 different fields are available for user customization. Any combination of information can be displayed in these fields.

Fields Top 1, Left 1/2/3 and Right 1/2/3 can be enlarged from tiny to small font in user settings. This disables Left 2 and Right 2 as there is not enough screen real estate to accomodate them.
Field Top 2 changes its size automatically depending on content width.
Field Map Left, Center and Right colors can be set in user settings.
Field Right 1/2 is only displayed if Show Seconds is disabled in user settings. This also moves the Phone Not Connected icon to the right side of the map.
If Field 3 is empty (as set in user settings), Notification Count and Do-Not-Disturb icons replace Field 3. Otherwise, Notification Count and Do-Not-Disturb icons move to the right side of the map.
Field Map Bottom Line completely disappears when empty, giving the watchface a cleaner look.

User settings

In the future, this section will have detail for each user setting.

This is a snapshot of user settings applicable for version 1.3.0.

Below image is outdated for 1.3.3. An update will be provided as soon as possible. Changed: some fields have been removed for memory management purposes.

User settings can be found in the Garmin Connect app on your phone, or in Garmin Express on your laptop.

To get instructions on how to access user settings, see Garmin’s tutorial.

Colors

In any color field, you can input a number from 0 to 333 to select the color of your choice.

In case you are interested, the code is “RGB” (Red, Green Blue), with each number going from 0 (no color) to 3 (full color).

Datapoints

Inserting Datapoints in fields

In user settings, in any given field, input the Id number of the required datapoint. For example, if you want to set Bottom Field to “Second clock”, then set Bottom Field to “2”.

Datapoints

Visit settings codes page for full list of datapoints.

Concatenation

Any field can contain more than one datapoint. To achieve a string of datapoints, use “+” to concatenate datapoints Ids. For example, to get Altitude (Id is 30) and Altitude unit (Id is 62), input in the field “30+62”. This field will display “1252m” if the sensor altitude is 1,252m and the watch altitude unit is set to meters.

Any field can also contain manual text. For example, to display the date in a given field, it is necessary to insert spaces (to get “Mon 5 Oct” and not “Mon5Oct”). You can insert manual text separated by “+”. For example, to get “Mon 5 Oct”, set the field to “3+ +5+ +6”.

Services

Weather

Current weather at user location is provided for a yearly fee (purchase here). The refresh rate is 30 minutes. If your watchface fails to get fresh data, it will retry 30 minutes later. However, if stock service is also active, it will retry 5 minutes later.

Forecast service will be coming up but is not yet available.

Stock market

Stocks for selected tickers is provided for a yearly fee (purchase here)

Stocks and Foreign exchange are included. The refresh rate is 5 minutes.

ISS

The ISS service is free of charge and includes the ISS orbit and current location, as well as launches to the ISS, which are displayed from 24 hours prior to a launch planned date to 15 minutes after a launch planned date.

Orbital elements will be updated twice per day. If the watchface is unable to get fresh data for about 3 – 5 days, the ISS location and orbit will no longer be accurate.

Battery life

Battery life may be affected due to the following factors:

Any downloaded watch face runs as on a virtual machine on the watch – this additional layer requires more energy than the stock watch faces that run natively in the OS code.
WorldFace is a complex program and might take a little bit more energy than a simple watchface
It normally runs only once per minute unless you use gesture (in that case, it runs once per second for 8 seconds), like any other watch face
Background processes have a high refresh rate (5 minutes for stock, 30 minutes for weather).

It is estimated that battery life may be reduced by a factor of 2 compared to a native watch face.

Energy saving mode

In order to mitigate this issue, an Energy Saving mode is available in user settings. It enables a minimal watch face to be displayed when user is not looking at the watch. Upon gesture (bring the watch in front of your face), the normal display appears.

As a result, almost no computation power is used when the watch face is energy saving mode.