navCenter Watch Views

Apple Watch Companion App

The navCenter Watch app is a powerful extension to an instance of navCenter running on an iPhone or on an iConnect Server.

The Watch is able display a boat's navigation data and control the autopilot even when the paired iPhone is being used to check eMails, make a phone call etc. or is just simply sitting in your pocket

Running an app in Background is at the discretion of iOS. So if your iPhone battery is less than 20% or your phone is very busy running a foreground app iOS may occasionally decide not to allow navCenter to run in the Background.

Because the Watch is unable to directly access TCP or UDP it must be paired with an iPhone or on an iConnect Server to do the heavy lifting and share navigation data with the Watch.

We find the Watch so useful that we are working on ways to remove, or at least alleviate, this restriction. There is more information on our thoughts here.

Watch Views

Watch views are organised into Stacks, each of three Pages. There are a maximum of five Stacks available making a maximum of fifteen Pages that can be defined. Organising Pages in this way ensures that movement between Pages may be accomplished very quickly and easily; a maximum of four swipes are required to move from one Page to any other.

However, by organising Pages into adjacent Stacks one swipe is often all that is required to display a range of relevant navigation data.

The first view is showing the current depth and this View is occupying all of the data space available. At the top left of the Watch face are four blue circles indication that there are four available Stacks of Pages. The first circle is filled which indicates that we are focused on the first Stack.

At the right of the circles is an upward pointing arrow indication that we are looking at the top page in the Stack. On the far right is the current time.

The second Page is showing Depth and Speed. We are still on the first Stack and the blue diamond indicates that we are viewing the middle Page in that Stack of three Pages.

Swipe left or right to move between Stacks and up or down to move between Pages in the Stack.

Top page of First Stack

Middle page of First Stack

The compass Page in this implementation is in the middle Page of the second Stack. Current heading is displayed in the centre. The orange boat on the dial indicates the curent course over the ground and the yellow ellipse our destination waypoint. So we can immediately see that we are pretty much on course 😀.

The button top left of the compass displays the current COG. Tapping this button pops up a View showing COG and BTW which is much easier to read. The other buttons at the corners of the Page also display their relevant pop up Views when tapped.

Compass

Compass with COG/BTW Popup

The button below the heading switches the display between magnetic and true values.

Staying with the second Stack, swiping down on the compass displays the pilot status Page at the top of the stack; note that the diamond has been replaced by the downward pointing arrow indicating the Page is at the bottom of the Stack.

From this Page the pilot can be switched between Standby, Auto and Track mode. The windows showing the current state of the pilot and the Lock/Unlock button are enabled; indicating that the Watch is in two way contact with the Pilot.

Swiping up on the compass displays the pilot direction control page as shown in the second image.

Pilot Status

Pilot Direction

The Watch provides audio and haptic feedback when it detects a change of pilot state or direction. Thus providing immediate confirmation that a command has been received and acted on by the pilot. This feedback is provided whether or not a pilot page is being displayed so that the Watch will also alert its wearer of a change to the pilot that has occured from any source.

If the pilot status window and the Lock/Unlock button are orange this indicates that the Watch is not currently in two way contact with the Pilot. However commands can still to be sent to the pilot and alerts will be raised for any pilot information the Watch receives.

Swiping left from the compass displays a guage showing apparent wind direction and angle (middle Page in the third Stack). While swiping right will display Speed and Depth from the first Stack.

Thus the compass View makes a very powerful display. As well as the graphical representation of Heading, Course over the ground and Bearing to waypoint, a tap on a corner button will display additional digital data. A swipe up or down will immediately display the desired pilot control. A swipe left or right will take us to the adjacent Stack.

Shown here are the wind guage from the middle of the third Stack and pilot tack control from the bottom of the same Stack.

Apparent Wind

Creating and Editing Stacks of Pages for the Watch

Stacks and Pages for the Watch are created and edited on its paired iPhone.

Swipe down in the top half of the iPhone to reveal the navigation bar.

On the right hand side of the bar is the settings icon and to the left of that is the icon for the watch. Tap the watch icon to navigate to access the views for creating and editing watch Stacks.

The second screenshot shows an iPhone ready to create and edit Stacks. Working from left to right on the Navigation Bar the items on its right are respectively:

Create a new Stack
Edit the current Stack
List all Stacks

The items on its left are respectively:

Send Stack data to the watch
Exit Stack editing mode
Settings

At the bottom of the screen we can see that we are viewing Stack two of 4. The Refresh icon is currently set to Orange indicating that changes have been sent to the Watch but not yet applied. The refresh icon will be set to the apps default Tint colour, normally blue, when iPhone and watch's Stack data is fully synchronised.

Watch icon left of Settings

Stack 2

The first screenshot is the View presented when creating a new Stack and the second is presented when editing an existing Stack.

The buttons to Remove and Add Windows work exactly as they do when creating or editing a Page for the iPad or iPhone.

Tapping on a Window will bring up a list of options to select a View for that Window. The Cancel and Done Buttons operate as standard.

If there are already five Stacks in existance then the 'create' icon will not be displayed.

The first Page can be reduced to only one Window while Pages two and three can show no Windows at all.

It is possible to display up to four Windows in a given Page but utilising a maximum of three Pages works well for most Views.

Create a New Stack

Edit an Existing Stack

The first screenshot shows the fourth Stack. Within the Navigation Bar the Refresh icon, to the left of the watch icon, is colored orange. As soon as the app detected that changes had been made to the Stack layouts this Refresh icon would have been coloured red.

Tapping the Refresh icon initiates the transfer of the Stack layout information to the paired watch. The Refresh icon being coloured orange indicates that the icon was tapped and that data has been transferred to the watch but not yet to the navCenter app.

Launch navCenter by tapping it's complication on the watch face or locating it via the "All Apps" button. Once the app is running the data will be immediately consumed and confirmation sent back to the iPhone which will then set the Refresh icon back to the apps default Tint Colour (normally blue).

The second screenshots shows the result of tapping the 'List' icon. On this View Stacks may be renamed, reordered or deleted.

Tap the phone icon to return to normal operation of navCenter.

Stack Data Sent to Watch

List Stacks

The final screenshots show how the top and bottom Pages of the fourth Stack are displayed on the watch.