Is it possible to receive email notifications on my Garmin Smartwatch

[lkippen]

Hi,  I was able to receive email notifications on my Garmin Smartwatch when using the native email client and K9 Mail on my Samsung Note 4.  Unfortunately once my phone updated to Marshmallow, K9 Mail stopped working properly.  I have installed AquaMail and purchased the unlocker.  It is working well but I don't get email notifications on my smartwatch.  I see where you developed an app specificaly for a Sony smartwatch.  Would it work with my Garmin?  If not is there another option?

Thanks.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

AquaMail supports *the* standard for smart watches -- Google's own, called Android Wear.

I don't know if the Garmin device is based on this Android Wear standard.

If it is, it should just work as long as you install the official Android Wear app from Play and enable AquaMail settings -> message notifications -> smart watch enhancements.

If it's not based on Android Wear, then maybe Garmin has their own app for their watches, and this is able to "emulate" Android Wear, so that AquaMail's enhancements will get sent to this watch by this app. This is how Samsung's Gear 2 watch works.

I don't own any Garmin smart watches, please check with Garmin support.

If it's the latter case -- Garmin is not Android Wear based, but they have an app that "makes it look" that it is -- please let know, I will add code to detect this app and show the "smart watch enhancements" setting.

PS - looks like this may be it, but not sure if it's able to emulate Android Wear, which is what AquaMail needs:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.garmin.android.apps.connectmobile

Garmin support should know.

[lkippen]

Hi Kostya,

Thanks so much for your fast reply.  First I want to tell you how much I like your app.  It has a very nice interface and it's easy to set-up and use.  I didn't hesitate to buy the unlocker.  I'm very satisfied.

I was unaware that there might be a setting in my watch's app that could give permission to access new apps.  I had to do a deep dive into the settings options on Connect and I did, indeed find a setting option that allowed me to add you to my notifications list.  I did so and it appears to be working.  No sooner did I change the setting that a new email came in and my watch gave me the heads-up.  Fantastic!!!

I carry a pursue and I'm a bit older so I don't walk around with my smartphone in front of my face all the time like some younger people.  However, I run a business and it's important that I get my emails and phone calls in a timely manner.  I used to miss calls all the time because I didn't hear the phone ring.  Now I get notifications on my watch for emails, texts, and calls.  It has literally revolutionized my life.  I was beyond disappointed when K-9 Mail couldn't keep up with the changes in Android Firmware and started to quit syncing whenever it felt like it.  As you can imagine, that's not very helpful.

I am hopeful that Aqua Mail will continue to provide reliable service.  Thank you again for your response.

Laura

[entheh]

Hope it's OK to resurrect an old thread.

My experience is that Aqua Mail's notifications are picked up by Garmin Connect, but they're interpreted wrongly. I have a Vivoactive HR, and it can show a list of e-mails, which works with GMail and Maildroid (I haven't tried others yet). With Aqua Mail, it interprets notifications as e-mails in all cases. That means, if there's a combined notification telling me there are 2 or more new e-mails, the watch shows one and presents me just the sender names and subjects. I also get to see sending progress notifications as if they're e-mails.

I've been playing with a few potential apps to replace GMail's stock app, and honestly Aqua Mail is my favourite in most ways. Is there a chance of investigating this problem?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

As I wrote above, Aqua Mail only has code for Android Wear.

If the Garmin watch is able to intercept "enhancements" in Aqua Mail's notifications that are intended for Android Wear then it should work, how well depends on Garmin's software.

Is this their app?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.garmin.android.apps.connectmobile

I can add a check in Aqua Mail for this app and make it possible to enable Android Wear enhancements in its notifications.

And so with this in mind please:

- Confirm if that is the right app

- Maybe ask Garmin support if they're able to intercept Andorid Wear information in notifications posted from (various other) apps and present those on their devices.

[entheh]

Thank you for the very quick reply!

That is indeed the app that picks up notifications and forwards them to my watch. I also have some good news: I tried installing the Android Wear app, and suddenly all the e-mails went through to my watch fully itemised. I assume the presence of the Android Wear app triggered your app to publish the relevant information, which Garmin then picked up.

I'm fortunate enough to have enough storage to be able to leave it installed for now, but for the long term I think your proposed improvement will work.

Thanks again - just checking one more thing, then off to Play to purchase the unlocker

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Good!

Although I'm not sure if Garmin's app will work on its own without the Wear app installed --

-- I will add a check for it.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Done in 1.9 dev build 300:

https://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=5583.0

Now the "Smart watch enhancements" setting in Aqua Mail will check for the Garmin Connect app.

Would be interesting to see if this config (Garmin Connect app installed, Android Wear app not installed) + Aqua Mail setting enabled => would still produce "enhanced" notifications on Garmin watches.

Just in case:

Aqua Mail settings -> message notifications -> Smart watch enhancements

[entheh]

Works

To make sure, I uninstalled Android Wear first and verified that the notifications went bad - then I installed the dev build of AquaMail and verified that the notifications went good again. Garmin Connect seems to have the functionality built in.

Your app is a real pleasure to use and I can confirm I bought the unlocker

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Thank you for the additional testing

[entheh]

One more thing I've been noticing about the smartwatch notifications:

At any given time, my watch has a list of current notifications (one per e-mail, plus others like SMS). I can navigate to it when I want to, but most of the time it's just there in its memory. The list might already have one or two messages in it when another one comes in. When that happens and I'm not doing anything with my watch, it would normally vibrate and give me a preview of the new one (this happens with SMS for example).

With AquaMail, however, if a second or later e-mail arrives, the preview always shows the first current e-mail again. This makes me wonder if AquaMail is always rebuilding the list from scratch when a new e-mail comes in, and whether there are any prospects of changing that functionality?

Let me know if you need any more information.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: the preview always shows the first current e-mail again your watch a Garmin too?

Aqua's smart watch notifications are: 1) grouped by account and 2) within each of those, sorted by date/time (descending).

So are you describing a scenario where you receive a message that's older than those already received - but you receive it after those ones?

[entheh]

Yep, it's a Garmin (it's me again)

In describing the bug, I assumed that the smartwatch app somehow knows how to observe e-mails as they come and go from the list of 'currently being notified about' e-mails. When something is added to the list, that one gets a buzz and a preview. All the others which were already in the list just stay there and don't play a part. This used to happen when I was using the stock GMail app, whereas with AquaMail, it's always the earliest new one that gets a buzz and a preview whenever another new one comes in.

To answer your specific question, I'm pretty sure the messages are in normal date order, and in the same account, and I think it always happens.

Here's an example scenario that's pretty realistic for me :

Initially, nothing being notified.
E-mail "You buy Octopus now!" comes in. Watch shows preview "You buy Octopus now!" for 15 secs or something. Afterwards, if I navigate to notifications, I see that one listed by itself.
Later, "[SPAM] you bank acount is locked" comes in.

Expected behaviour:
Watch shows preview "[SPAM] you bank acount is locked" for 15 secs or something. If I navigate to notifications, I see "You buy Octopus now!" and "[SPAM] you bank acount is locked" both listed.

Actual behaviour:
Watch shows preview "You buy Octopus now!" for 15 secs or something. If I navigate to notifications, I see "You buy Octopus now!" and "[SPAM] you bank acount is locked" both listed.

Relatedly, when I was initially setting it up (telling the Garmin app which app to take e-mail notifications from), I noticed that I got a lot of buzzing notifications whenever I added an app, and then the notifications immediately got removed from the list visible on the watch if I removed the app again. That's what makes me think there's some logic for remembering which ones already existed and which ones have just appeared, which AquaMail is somehow falling foul of.

Hope something in there makes sense - sorry it's a bit rambly

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: In describing the bug

Thanks.

Re: makes me think there's some logic for remembering which ones already existed and which ones have just appeared

There is.

And in the case you describe - unless you cleared the "buy octopus" notification - Aqua will know that the "octopus" notification is already there and will only add (create) the "you bank acount is locked" notification item.

And each smart watch notification posted by Aqua has a "sort key" which is derived from the message's date/time stamp.

Anyone seeing this (what's being described here) on an Android Wear watch?