RainSoon

Garmin tells you today's forecast. It doesn't tell you whether it's about to rain on you, or when. RainSoon is a glance. Swipe to it, read it, move on. TWO SCREENS Press UP or DOWN to switch. Two dots show which one you're on. • NOWCAST - radar, minute by minute, covering the next 15 minutes to 2 hours. You choose. Netherlands and Belgium only. • 24 HOURS - hourly bars, total rainfall, how many wet hours are coming. Works worldwide. Radar is accurate for two hours and useless past that, so the day screen uses a forecast model instead of stretching the radar. WHAT YOU GET • The answer as a headline: RAIN 15 MIN, or DRY 1H. • How hard and how long, in words rather than mm/h. • The minute rain starts, marked on the chart. • Wind speed and direction, taken from the weather your watch already has, so it costs no extra request. Reads WIND -- when your phone hasn't synced one. • Dark by default, light background optional. IT SAYS WHEN IT DOESN'T KNOW The forecast counts from now, not from when the reading arrived. Every screen shows how old its data is, and says why when there is none: no phone, no location, or outside coverage. FINDING YOU It uses your last GPS fix, or the location attached to your phone's weather sync. If neither works, set your home coordinates once in Garmin Connect and it works indoors without GPS. WHERE THE DATA COMES FROM • Nowcast: Buienradar. Netherlands and Belgium only. Outside that it says so rather than inventing a forecast. • 24-hour outlook: Open-Meteo. Global. Both receive your coordinates rounded to two decimals, about a kilometre. Nothing else is sent, there's no account, and nothing is stored off the watch. WHAT IT COSTS TO RUN One nowcast is about 240 bytes, every 15 minutes by default, adjustable from 10 to 60. The day outlook fetches only when you open its page, hourly at most. With no phone in range it skips the fetch instead of waking the radio. GPS wakes only if nothing else can locate you. SETTINGS Forecast window, both refresh intervals, light background, and backup coordinates. Works on fenix 6, 7 and 8, epix, Enduro, MARQ, Forerunner 55, 165, 245, 255, 265, 570, 745, 945, 955, 965 and 970, venu and vivoactive. On fenix 6 and older there's no glance, so open it from the app list. MORE FROM ME • GymFlow, one-press strength logging: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/92e625ad-9916-4f3f-a249-ec8499cc6313 • FuelCoach, eat and drink reminders: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/50d4f5cd-f7c6-4908-aa9b-e813981598e7 Free. No account, no subscription, no ads. If it saves you a soaking: https://ko-fi.com/olkokoval

New look. The screen now answers in colour before you have read a word: a ring and a cloud that go blue when it is dry, orange when rain is coming, and violet while it is falling. The verdict is two lines instead of one shouted phrase — "Rain in" over "18 min" — and the rain chart takes the same colour. Wind now works on watches that have never had a weather sync from the phone. It falls back to the forecast, which carries wind in a request the app already makes, so it costs nothing extra. Your watch's own reading is still used first when it has one.