Fenix 8 Microphone SDK and voice memo issues – Connect IQ App Development Discussion – Connect IQ

I own a Fenix 8 and I really love the built-in Voice Memo (voice recording) feature. However, I’ve run into the following issues and would like to suggest some improvements:

Background recording / return to watch face: After starting a recording, there is no convenient way to go back to the watch face to check the time. Using the shortcut to return to the watch face immediately stops the recording. I would love an option to keep recording in the background while returning to the watch face (showing a small recording indicator on the watch face would be totally fine with me — I just don’t want the recording to stop).
Compressed recording formats: Currently, recordings can only be saved as high-bitrate WAV files. I would really appreciate an option to record in a compressed format such as MP3 or M4A at a lower bitrate (e.g., 128 kbps). This would allow much longer recording time with the same amount of storage.

if Garmin decides not to implement these features officially, that’s completely fine — but I noticed the current Connect IQ SDK does not expose any microphone/recording API to third-party developers either. If such an API were made available, I would be more than willing to develop a “Better Voice Recording” app for the Connect IQ store myself as a third-party developer.