Apple Watch Integration Coming Soon Says Software Chief Wassym

[JM.]

Can it go a month before charging it? My Garmin Fenix can.

Since that's not useful, no. Can your Fenix unlock your Rivian? My Ultra can.

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[TTedP]

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think the Garmin watch is more aligned with the fitness and adventure themes of Rivian than the Apple watch where even the Ultra is a bit of a toy vs Garmin.

Garmin has bluetooth, payment methods. Maybe it would be possible?

CEO of Rivian wears an Ultra btw

 

[theonetruestripes]

No, I said earlier I've never owned an ultra. Its more expensive than the Garmin, and the features Apple (all that connectivity stuff) has are less important than the health/fitness and basic notifications I get with Garmin. I can wear the garmin and track activity for 8 days straight. It has offline maps and nav if I get lost. That's more suitable for real adventures vs a day or two that that the ultra lasts. But no cell service etc.

But anyway, I hope you all enjoy the Apple watch support when it comes. Even if I had an apple watch I wouldnt use it, I found that out with the Tesla flavor.

It is cool that the Garmin’s focus alines with what you want, I’m not sure you can say that is generally true for Rivian owners, and more over you may have accidentally made a compelling argument that people that have chosen the Garmin wouldn’t want a Rivian remote app anyway (last sentence does make it seem that way, although maybe I took the wrong meaning from it?).

You can be cool and “not the common case”. Even in the subpopulation of Rivian owners.

As a practical matter though having an iOS app already gets them pretty far down the road towards having a watch app (I half assed an iOS Rivian app earlier this month, and squeezed it onto the watch in a day, which might be unfair, I was focused on doing just the parts I cared about for the watch anyway), so this may be a matter of them not wanting to invest the substantial effort into building on a new platform. (NOTE: I’m not talking about the “real” watch app, I wrote one as a hobby using the reverse engineered protocol people have up on GitHub). I also cheated pretty heavily, I use the iCloud shared keychain (one of the last projects I worked on while I was at Apple) to store all the chalange/response tokens so the watch doesn’t even have any real UI to do the login logic, it just tells you to use the phone, and picks up from there once you login using the credentials from the phone. Even knowing how it works it is kind of magical...but entirely missing on other ecosystems.

I also expect the things Garmin does to hit a nine day battery life would make it hard to be a good platform to put a car remote on.

I hate being the WearOS guy in the room... No love for Pixel/Samsung.

I wouldn’t say that. After leaving Apple I went to Google for a decade, one of my close friends worked on WearOS. I have a little bit of a soft spot for it...no actual WearOS devices though.

 

[Liverit85]

It is cool that the Garmin’s focus alines with what you want, I’m not sure you can say that is generally true for Rivian owners, and more over you may have accidentally made a compelling argument that people that have chosen the Garmin wouldn’t want a Rivian remote app anyway (last sentence does make it seem that way, although maybe I took the wrong meaning from it?).

You can be cool and “not the common case”. Even in the subpopulation of Rivian owners.

As a practical matter though having an iOS app already gets them pretty far down the road towards having a watch app (I half assed an iOS Rivian app earlier this month, and squeezed it onto the watch in a day, which might be unfair, I was focused on doing just the parts I cared about for the watch anyway), so this may be a matter of them not wanting to invest the substantial effort into building on a new platform. (NOTE: I’m not talking about the “real” watch app, I wrote one as a hobby using the reverse engineered protocol people have up on GitHub). I also cheated pretty heavily, I use the iCloud shared keychain (one of the last projects I worked on while I was at Apple) to store all the chalange/response tokens so the watch doesn’t even have any real UI to do the login logic, it just tells you to use the phone, and picks up from there once you login using the credentials from the phone. Even knowing how it works it is kind of magical...but entirely missing on other ecosystems.

I also expect the things Garmin does to hit a nine day battery life would make it hard to be a good platform to put a car remote on.

On a related note, if you're looking for expert help in building sports or fitness software — whether it’s smartwatch apps, mobile apps, or integrating complex sensors — companies like https://www.cogniteq.com/sports-software specialize in delivering tailored solutions. Their experience can really speed up development and help create a seamless user experience, which is exactly what ambitious projects like this need.

I wouldn’t say that. After leaving Apple I went to Google for a decade, one of my close friends worked on WearOS. I have a little bit of a soft spot for it...no actual WearOS devices though.

Interesting observation! Indeed, Garmin's audience and Rivian owners are not always overlapping groups, and not all Rivian owners are necessarily interested in a Garmin app. But from a practical standpoint, having a full-fledged iOS app does make it easier to create a watchOS version, especially if you already have access to the keys and iCloud authentication logic, as you described.

Plus, I agree that Garmin, with its outstanding battery life (up to nine days!), is a unique platform, but perhaps it is precisely because of this battery optimization that it is difficult to make a fully functional remote control of the car. It is more a question of trade-offs between functionality and power consumption.

And your hobby-developed app, built on reverse engineering of the protocol, is a great example of how enthusiasts can expand the capabilities of existing platforms, despite the limited official functionality.

Thank you for sharing your experience and views - it is always interesting to learn how such projects are implemented from the inside!

 

[theonetruestripes]

it is always interesting to learn how such projects are implemented from the inside

FYI, I’m not inside Rivian, I’m working for a single person LLC that takes on contracting jobs. The Watch app was just something I wrote for myself because I wanted something to fill the empty complication in my watch face where the Tesla battery level use to live.

(and I wrote it on my own time none of my clients paid for a Rivian watch complication...)

 

[Rade]

I have a One+ watch that is rather remarkable; it runs the Android OS.

I have a Motorola RAZR-2023 phone that is not remarkable; as a matter of fact, it f king sucks when it comes to interoperability with the R1T (2nd Gen). It's a crap shoot when I approach the truck with the RAZR; will it wake and open the truck? Do I need to open and unlock the phone first? Do I need to reboot the phone before it will wake the truck?

Note: It's the phone, not the truck. I have an older Microsoft Surface Duo that works GREAT as a PaaK, but the phone is no longer supported and the shattered case is being held together by Gorilla Glass; I'm afraid one more drop and the beloved device will be morte.

My husbands Apple 16 iOS works flawlessly. I would go back to Apple, but me and iOS have a well documented "hate-hate" relationship.

So... glad to see that they are going to use NFC on the Apple watch to open the truck. Husband is already checking his software for updates daily. Any idea when that will expand to the Google Playstore for use on the Android watches?

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