Hi folks! Some updates here.
GIFs Loading as Stills
A customer did some investigative work and was able to root cause the issue! It’s a permissions issue - if the Tidbyt mobile app does not have permission to use a GIF selected, it will render a still. To work around the issue, go to Settings > Tidbyt > Photos and either select All Photos or Edit Selected Photos and ensure the GIF is selected.
We’re working on a fix to ensure only images we have permission to use show up in the gallery and appear on the device.
Optimal GIF Settings
We’ve gotten a few questions regarding optimal GIF settings or specific animations not rendering as expected. The short version:
- Design your GIFs to be 64x32 pixels from the start
- Ensure the finished GIF is 128KB or less
- Make sure your GIF is 15 seconds in length or make sure it loops cleanly if it’s less then 15 seconds.
The longer version is that there are a few limitations on our end that serve as a forcing function here. The first one being the most obvious - our display is 64x32 pixels. If there is a GIF that’s larger than 64x32 pixels, we have to scale it down. In practice, we’ve found that images scaled down to this resolution don’t look near as crisp as when images are designed for 64x32 from the beginning. So if you’re creating GIFs for the Tidbyt, make sure they’re 64x32.
The next limitation is slightly less obvious - we’re limited by the number of bytes we can send to the Tidbyt and the Tidbyt is constrained by how many bytes it can store locally. To get around this, we limit the size of the GIF to 128 Kilobytes and if it’s larger than this after downsizing to 64x32 pixels, we drop frames until it fits the size requirements. This means if you want your GIF to look great on the Tidbyt, make sure it’s 128KB or less before adding it through the mobile app.
Finally, the length of time the GIF loops should be around 15 seconds. The timings for applet cycles are 15 seconds, 10 seconds, 7.5 seconds, and 5 seconds depending on the setting in the mobile app. If your GIF is less then 15 seconds, ensure it loops cleanly to avoid an interrupt.
@Perfectionisht to answer your question more directly, I don’t think we’ve found good guidance on frame rate just yet, would love to hear what you discover! I suspect the bigger issue around too many frames is the size of the GIF becomes too large and we’ll end up dropping those frames on our end.