Every mushroom hunter has places that “always deliver” — and forgets half of them by next season. Houbař remembers the spot for you and walks you back to it next time, even deep in the forest with no mobile signal.
SAVE A SPOT IN SECONDS
- one tap on the home screen starts saving; the watch waits for an accurate GPS fix and averages several samples before it stores the place
- the button ring shows GPS readiness: grey is waiting for signal, amber a usable fix, green an accurate one
- START saves immediately if you are in a hurry, BACK cancels
- name it from presets (spruce wood, clearing, by the creek, beech wood), type your own, or keep the automatic “Spot N”
FIND YOUR WAY BACK
- straight-line navigation: a big arrow toward the spot and the distance left, from GPS and the compass — no maps needed, so it works on every supported watch, deep in the forest, with no phone
- arrival is detected automatically (within 15 m), the watch vibrates and shows “YOU’RE HERE — look around”
- while navigating, START logs a find on the spot
FIND DIARY
- for every spot: what you found (bolete, orange bolete, birch bolete, chanterelle, parasol, slippery jack, milk cap, honey fungus, knight, cauliflower, oyster, other) and how many
- each spot remembers when it was founded, how many finds it has and when you were last there
- missing a species? add your own right while logging (+ add), in Settings › My species, or in the phone app; they sit at the top of the list
- logged the wrong species or count? press DOWN on the spot detail, pick the find and fix or delete it; the season stats follow
- „What’s growing?“ stays open after saving, so several species from one spot take a few presses
THE TRIP AS AN ACTIVITY
- hold UP and pick Start trip: the watch records your route, time, distance and heart rate as an activity (a hike called Mushrooming) that syncs to Garmin Connect like any other
- every find you log and every spot you save starts a new lap, so the map in Connect shows where things grew; the number of mushrooms is in the summary and in each lap
- BACK asks Save, Resume or Discard and then shows a trip summary
- recording is optional; with Always record it starts as soon as you open the app
SEASON AT A GLANCE
- finds this year by species, how many of your spots you visited, how many new ones you added, and your top spot
- season = calendar year, counted on the watch as you go
GLANCE
- the widget carousel shows the nearest saved spot and its distance — without opening the app
YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS
- spots and finds are stored on the watch only; no internet permission, no account; only a trip you choose to record goes to Garmin Connect
- spots are never thrown away because of a missing name — coordinates are saved first, the name can wait
CONTROLS
- START or tap — action (save a spot, log a find)
- DOWN or swipe — spot list; on a spot, its finds
- UP — season; hold UP — menu (trip recording and settings) or the spot menu
- BACK — back
WATCHES AND BACKGROUND
- 50 watches with Connect IQ 5+ — fenix 8 (incl. 8 Solar) / 9 / E, epix 2 and epix Pro, Instinct 3 AMOLED and Crossover AMOLED, Forerunner 70/165/170/265/570/965/970, Venu 2/3/4, vivoactive 5/6, MARQ 2, Descent Mk3 and G2, Approach S50/S70, D2 Air X10 and Mach 1/2, tactix, quatix and more
- background automatic, dark or light — set it on the watch or in the phone app; automatic means black on AMOLED watches and light on the fenix 8 Solar, whose reflective display is brightest when it shows white
1What Houbař does
Every mushroom hunter has places that „always deliver“ — and forgets half of them by next season. Houbař is a spot diary that lives entirely on the watch.
Save the place where you found something with one tap, log what grew there in two presses, and next time the watch walks you back with an arrow and a distance — GPS and compass only, no maps, no phone, no internet. All data stays on the watch.
„Houbař“ is Czech for mushroom hunter.
2Install & first launch
- Open the Connect IQ Store on your phone and search for „Houbař“.
- Install it and start it from the watch’s app list (long-press START, or add it to your favourites).
- The first launch shows an empty home screen — just head for the woods and save your first spot.
There are 50 supported watches (Connect IQ 5+): fenix 8 including the 8 Solar, fenix 9 and E, epix 2 and epix Pro, Instinct 3 AMOLED and Crossover AMOLED, Forerunner 70/165/170/265/570/965/970, Venu 2/3/4, vivoactive 5/6, MARQ 2, Descent Mk3 and G2, Approach S50/S70, D2 Air X10 and Mach 1/2, tactix, quatix and more.
3Saving a spot
Stand at your find and press START on the home screen (or tap the ring). The watch waits for an accurate GPS fix and stores the place — a couple of seconds once GPS is warm.
The ring around the button shows GPS readiness before you even press:
- grey — waiting for signal (wait for green for best accuracy),
- amber — usable fix,
- green — accurate fix, saving is instant.
On the saving screen, START saves immediately (once any fix exists) and BACK cancels. Then pick a name: the automatic „Spot N“, one of the presets (editable from the phone), or free text on touch watches. Coordinates are never thrown away — even BACK keeps the spot under the automatic name.
4Logging a find
Right after saving, the app asks „What’s growing?“ — pick the species, adjust the count, and START logs it. From find to diary entry in about four presses. Just marking a spot for later? Press BACK and nothing is logged.
Species: bolete, orange bolete, birch bolete, chanterelle, parasol, slippery jack, milk cap, honey fungus, knight, cauliflower, oyster and „other“. Missing one? Add your own with „+ add“ — your species then sit at the top of the list. The grid scrolls (UP/DOWN or drag) with a position indicator on the right.
After saving, „What’s growing?“ stays open so you can log the next species straight away; press BACK when you are done. The same species at the same spot on the same day adds up in one row.
You can also log a find later: from navigation (START), from the arrival screen, or from the spot detail (menu → Log a find).
5Navigating back
Pick a spot in the list and hit NAVIGATE. A big arrow points straight at the spot, with the remaining distance below. Standing still the arrow follows the compass; walking, it follows your GPS track.
Within 15 metres the watch vibrates and shows „YOU’RE HERE — look around“ with the last find at that spot. START opens the find log right there.
If the signal drops (dense canopy, a valley), the arrow dims, the distance gets a „~“ and „searching GPS…“ appears — navigation resumes by itself once the fix is back.
6The trip as an activity
Houbař can record the whole foraging trip as an activity in Garmin Connect: route, time, distance and heart rate. On the home screen hold UP and pick Start trip.
While recording, the home screen shows a red dot and the trip time at the top, distance and mushrooms at the bottom. Navigation shows the trip time and distance instead of the GPS status. Everything else stays the same: save spots, log finds, get guided back.
Every find you log and every spot you save starts a new lap. The message after logging shows its number, e.g. „Saved: bolete ×2 · lap 2“. Several species logged at one spot in a row make one lap.
Ending the trip
Press BACK on the home screen (or pick End trip in the menu). The app asks:
- Save: the trip is saved and the app shows a summary – distance, time, speed, top species, mushrooms and new spots. After the next sync it is in Garmin Connect as a hike called Mushrooming.
- Resume: the trip keeps recording. BACK does the same.
- Discard: after a confirmation the recording is deleted. Your spots and finds stay in the diary.
If the system closes the app, for example because you start another activity, the trip is saved automatically.
In Garmin Connect
The activity map shows your route and the laps. Each lap ends where you logged a find or saved a spot. Houbař adds its own fields to the activity: Finds (for the whole trip and for each lap) and New spots. Connect does not show species names, those stay in the diary on the watch.
If you record every time, switch on Always record in the menu (or in the phone app): the trip then starts as soon as you open the app. Recording needs the activity permission, which you confirm in Connect IQ when installing or updating.
7Spot list & detail
From the home screen, DOWN (or swipe up) opens the list. In the detail, the menu button (long UP) offers more actions: Log a find, Finds (fix or delete single finds, quicker with DOWN), Rename, Delete — see the step-by-step guides below. The diary holds 100 spots; each remembers its last 50 finds.
8Step by step
The most common tasks, picture by picture. Buttons are for fenix; on touch watches just tap the item.
Log a find
From the spot detail; START in navigation and right after saving a new spot work the same way.
Done? Press BACK. The same species logged at one spot more than once a day adds up in one row.
Fix a find
Wrong species or count? Fix the find, its date stays. Quickest: press DOWN on the spot detail and the list of finds opens straight away.
The season stats are corrected with it.
Delete a find
Logged something by mistake? Remove it from the list of finds (DOWN on the spot detail, or via the menu).
The find disappears from the diary and from the season it was logged in.
Add your own species
A mushroom missing from the list? Add it right while logging.
Your own species sit at the top of the list. On watches without a keyboard add them in the phone: Connect IQ › Houbař › Settings › My species (names separated by commas).
Manage your species
Rename or remove a species in the watch settings.
Logged finds keep their name even if you rename or remove the species.
Rename or delete a spot
Deleting a spot deletes its finds too.
9Season
UP on the home screen opens the season overview: finds this year, your top 3 species, how many of your spots you visited, how many new ones you added, and your top spot.
A season is a calendar year, counted on the watch as you log finds — it has nothing to do with activities in Garmin Connect. The spots themselves are permanent and carry over between seasons.
10Glance
Add Houbař to the glance carousel: it shows your nearest saved spot and the approximate distance from the last known position — without opening the app. Tapping the glance opens it.
11Settings
On the watch (long UP on the home screen — elsewhere a long UP opens the spot actions). The menu is called Houbař because trip recording sits at the top:
| Item | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Start / End trip | record the trip as an activity, see chapter 6 |
| Always record | the trip starts as soon as you open the app |
| Vibrate on arrival | on/off for the „YOU’RE HERE“ and save vibrations |
| Background | Automatic / Dark / Light — see below |
| My species | your own mushroom species: add, rename, remove |
| Delete all spots | wipes the whole diary, with confirmation |
On the phone (Connect IQ app → Houbař → Settings) you can change the same things (Always record too) plus the 4 preset spot names offered when naming a new spot. The My species field takes names separated by commas, e.g. „puffball, ink cap“.
Background
Automatic follows the display: black on AMOLED watches (a black pixel is simply off there, so it costs no battery) and light on the fenix 8 Solar, whose reflective MIP display is brightest when it shows white and reads best in direct sun. Prefer the other one? Switch to Dark or Light by hand.
12Controls
| Screen | START / tap | UP / DOWN | BACK |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | save a spot | season / spot list | exit (during a trip: Save / Resume / Discard) |
| Saving | save now (with a fix) | — | cancel |
| Naming | confirm name | select | keep the automatic name |
| List | spot detail | scroll | home |
| Detail | navigate | — / finds | list |
| Navigation / You’re here | log a find | — | back |
| What’s growing? | next / save (stays open) | species / count | step back / done |
| Finds | edit / delete a find | scroll | detail |
Long UP = menu (trip and settings, spot actions). On touch watches, tapping and swiping mirror the buttons.
13Tips & FAQ
Why does the first save take a while?
GPS starts with the app and needs to warm up — the first fix under trees can take tens of seconds. After that the receiver stays on for the whole session, so every next save takes ~2 seconds. Watch the ring colour on the home screen.
How accurate is navigation in the forest?
GPS is typically off by 5–15 m under dense canopy and the compass can wander briefly. That is why arrival says „look around“ — the watch gets you within metres, the last step is yours. Spots are stored from an average of several samples for best accuracy.
How much battery does it use?
GPS runs while the app is open — comparable to recording an activity. Recording a trip adds next to nothing, GPS is on anyway. Close the app (BACK from the home screen) and GPS turns off.
Can I record a trip and a native Hike at the same time?
No, the watch records one activity at a time: either Houbař or the native activity. That is why recording in Houbař is optional.
Where is my data?
Your spots and finds stay on the watch. Houbař has no internet permission and no account. Only a trip you choose to record goes to Garmin Connect, like any other activity. Removing the app removes the diary.
Missing a species or a feature?
Use „Contact Developer“ on the app’s store page.
1.4.0 2026-10-08
- NEW: Record the whole trip as an activity. Hold UP for the menu and pick Start trip. The watch records your route, time, distance and heart rate, and the saved trip shows up in Garmin Connect as a hike called Mushrooming.
- Every find you log and every spot you save starts a new lap, so the map in Connect shows where things grew. The number of mushrooms is in the summary and in each lap.
- While recording, the home screen shows a red dot and the trip time at the top, distance and mushrooms at the bottom. Navigation shows the trip time and distance instead of the GPS status.
- When you leave, the app asks: Save, Resume or Discard. After saving it shows a trip summary.
- Always record (in the same menu or in the phone app) starts the trip as soon as you open the app.
- The app now needs permission to record activities – please confirm it when updating.
1.3.5 2026-09-18
- NEW: Edit or delete a logged find. On the spot detail press DOWN (or pick Finds in the spot menu) and choose the find. The season stats are corrected with it.
- NEW: Your own mushroom species. Add them right while logging a find (+ add), in Settings › My species, or in the phone app. They sit at the top of the species list.
- Faster logging: after saving, „What’s growing?“ stays open for the next species – BACK when you are done. The same species logged at one spot twice in a day adds up in one row, and the message shows both numbers, e.g. „bolete +2 · today ×5“.
- Renaming a spot starts from its current name. A spot saved with your own name goes straight to logging finds.
- Long spot names and species scroll, so you can read them whole.
- Fixed: on touch watches, tapping + and − on the count and tapping a species works, and tapping a spot in the list opens that spot.
1.2.1 2026-09-05
- Fixed: on watches without a built-in vector font — venu 2, 2S and 2 Plus, vivoactive 5, Instinct 3 AMOLED, Instinct Crossover AMOLED, Approach S50, D2 Air X10 and Descent G2 — the text was too big and ran outside the round display. The app now measures the fonts the watch actually has and shrinks any label that would not fit.
- Fixed: on the same watches the distance in navigation showed as „213“ between two empty boxes — the system number font has no letters, so the unit and the „~“ had nowhere to come from.
1.2.0 BETA 2026-09-05
- 16 more watches — 50 supported devices in total. New: fenix 8 Solar 47/51 mm (the first memory-in-pixel display), Instinct 3 AMOLED 45/50 mm, Instinct Crossover AMOLED, Forerunner 70, 170, 170 Music, Approach S50, S70 42/47 mm, Descent G2, D2 Air X10, D2 Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach 2 Pro.
- New „Background“ setting (Settings on the watch, or the phone app): automatic, dark or light. Automatic keeps the black background on AMOLED watches and picks the light one on the fenix 8 Solar, whose reflective display is brightest when it shows white.
- Every colour has a second, hand-picked variant for the fenix 8 Solar’s 64-colour display, so nothing shifts hue there.
1.1.0 2026-08-27
- First production release: everything from the 1.0.x beta run – one-tap spot saving with GPS accuracy check, straight-line navigation back, automatic arrival detection, a find diary with 12 species, season overview, glance, always-on GPS while the app runs, and support for fenix 9 (incl. the 466×466 display).
1.0.9 BETA 2026-08-26
- Saving screen: „START = save now“ shows only once a fix exists; without signal it says „BACK = cancel“ and START gives a short vibration instead of doing nothing silently.
1.0.8 BETA 2026-08-26
- After saving a new spot the app jumps straight to „what’s growing?“ — log the find in two presses, or BACK to skip.
1.0.7 BETA 2026-08-26
- fenix 9 support: 9 / 9 Pro 43-51 mm AMOLED incl. the new 466×466 display (5 devices; Pro Solar MIP variants postponed).
1.0.6 BETA 2026-08-25
- Four more species: honey fungus, knight, cauliflower, oyster (12 total, „other“ stays last); the species grid scrolls with an arc indicator.
1.0.5 BETA 2026-08-25
- Save-button ring shows GPS readiness by colour (grey/amber/green, replaces the status dot); spot list has an arc scroll indicator on the right edge.
1.0.4 BETA 2026-08-24
- Third typography enlargement (labels 28, rows 31-34, buttons 35-36, distance 100 px); spot list shows 4 rows, season top 3 species.
1.0.3 BETA 2026-08-24
- GPS stays on while the app is open (instant second save), faster save confirmation (2 s good / 45 s timeout), GPS status dot on home.
1.0.2 BETA 2026-08-23
- Even bigger typography after the second fenix 8 test; shorter hints.
1.0.1 BETA 2026-08-23
- Bigger, higher-contrast typography after the fenix 8 test; hints shortened.
1.0.0 BETA 2026-08-22
- First public beta: save mushroom spots with one tap (GPS accuracy check, averaged fix), name them from presets or freely, straight-line navigation back with arrow and distance (GPS + compass, no maps), automatic arrival detection with vibration, find diary per spot (8 species + count), season overview, glance with the nearest spot. Everything stays on the watch — no internet, no account.
