Deadreckon

Deadreckon exists because of a four hour afternoon on the canals of North Holland that left no trace. I toured, dropped anchor, carried on. When I got home and closed the app I was using, the day was simply gone. No route, no distance, no record that it happened. I knew what I wanted instead: an app that shows speed, time of day, distance run, and time underway, enough to keep a rough count on fuel, and a trip that still exists when the day is done. So I built it. Deadreckon is a marine speedometer for your Garmin watch. One instrument face, read in a glance, then eyes back on the water. THE FACE • Speed on a 180° gauge with big bright digits you can read at arm's length in sun and spray. • Heading in degrees with cardinal letters (138° SE) over a compass ribbon. • Time of day, distance traveled, and trip time, always visible. • TOP and AVG trip speeds. The average only counts time on the move, so an hour at anchor does not water it down. • One red mark on the whole face: your peak speed on the gauge. THE TRIP • Press START as you cast off. A green ring confirms recording, then fades away. • Drop anchor, have lunch or cast away, carry on. The trip rides along. • Press BACK while the timer runs to mark a lap. A short buzz, a LAP flash, and the recording carries on. Each leg of the day shows up as its own lap in Garmin Connect. • Save when you tie up and it syncs to Garmin Connect as a Boating activity: your route on the map, distance, speed in knots (or kmh/mph), and time. The day exists afterward, every time. THE DETAILS • Knots (nm), km/h (km), or mph (mi). • The gauge scale fits your boat: per unit presets from a slow canal cruiser to a fast hull. • Auto Lap, off unless you want it, closes the lap on its own when you stop for a while and opens the next when you get back underway, so anchor stops become their own legs. • Units, dial max, Auto Lap, and Color Mode change on the watch (hold MENU) or in the Connect IQ phone app. • Day, Dark, and Night color modes, changed on the watch or in the phone app. Day remaps the whole face for direct sun; Night dims everything to red to protect your night vision. Day's white ground costs more battery than Dark, most noticeable on the AMOLED watches. It works the same whether you motor, sail, or paddle a kayak. And the name says the rest: dead reckoning is navigating by speed, heading, and time, which is exactly what this face shows. Comments or feedback: https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/showcase/440106/app-deadreckon-boat-speed-on-your-watch-trips-saved-to-garmin-connect Requires: GPS (Speed, location) & Fitness & Sensor Data (Logging activity)

Exit without saving. Stop the trip and you now get a fourth option at the bottom of the menu: Exit, "leave without saving." One tap and you are out of the app, with the trip dropped. No saving, no confirmation screen, nothing left in Garmin Connect. Before this, backing out of a trip you did not want meant Discard and then BACK, and "Discard" reads harsher than it should for what is usually just "never mind." This came from a request on Reddit. The other three are unchanged. Resume keeps recording. Save syncs the trip to Garmin Connect and puts you back on the speedometer, because the speedometer is the point of the app and saving a leg should not throw you out of it. Discard drops the trip and also leaves you on the dial.