The other day when I was browsing G+ communities related to my watch, I came across a custom face that some guy had created based on his fondness for BMW motorcycles. The logo caught my eye and got me thinking that I could probably make my own themed watchface as well. He mentioned that he had made his in an app called "Watchmaker". I started doing a bit of research into that app and found some truly amazing faces that people had created. The app not only has incredible flexibility in design, but also includes a focused version of the Lua programming language; it's pretty much like Tasker for your watch.
I went to the Google Play Store and saw the app was currently 50% off. That pretty much clinched the deal right there, but when i saw this in the feature list:
• Tasker - Full tasker integration to set watchface, change variables, run tasks
I was hooked. I had the app on my phone within minutes.
The watchfaces in this picture (shown in both their bright and dimmed states) are the first things I did with Watchmaker.
If you're one of the 26 people who read my post entitled "A Few More Changes" you know that I added a feature to the Digital Dash that allows it to know which vehicle it's connected to and display the appropriate logo on the tablet's main interface. Given that I already had that code in place, it wasn't hard to add a single line that sent an AutoRemote direct message to the phone with the formal XXX=:=Face (where XXX is either BMW or JAG).
A Tasker profile on the phone recognizes this command and uses the parameter to call an appropriate task that sets my watch to full brightness and activates the proper face so that my watch is themed appropriately to the vehicle I'm driving.
I thought about adding an exit routine that would automatically revert back to my regular watchface when the Digital Dash shut down, but decided against it. I'd rather have the watch stay themed if I stop for lunch or something during a roadtrip and shut the system down.
Instead, I used Watchmaker's "Tap" function to set up a manual reversion. If I touch the vehicle logo on the watchface, it sends a command to run a Tasker task. That task uses AutoWear to create a simple confirmation screen:
If, however, I don't touch the icon, the screen will dismiss itself automatically after five seconds without making any changes. I did it this way to avoid accidentally changing face with an inadvertent touch.
The one other thing I did was extend the system's brightness control to include the watch. Now if I dim the tablet screen for night driving, it also dims the watch as well as the phone. Setting the tablet back to full brightness restores that setting to the other devices as well.
I realize that this is a pretty pointless enhancement, but it's also kind of fun and I'm glad I did it.
