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Hi all. I just got a Captivate after using Mattc on my HD2 and I used an Aria for a couple weeks as well. I used Mattc on the HD2 for a couple months and really liked it. I understood it was running from the SD and lived with the other issues like slow wake up and occasional goofiness.
So when I got my Captivate I was thinking, wow, I'll have one of(if not the) fastest Android phone on it's native hardware. Everything should rock. I should be blown away... Not.
HELP!
The brightness settings. WTF! Why did they implement like 10 ways the brightness screws with your day. On my HD2 w/Mattc I set the brightness in settings to where I wanted and it stayed. Forever. Also when it hits 10% it kicks the brightness all the way down. 10%? Com on maybe 5%. But what is worse is when it does kick it down I kick it back up but it dims again at every percent it goes down. ANNOYING. Please let me control my phone... Oh and don't get me started on the Browser brightness. Huh? Even with the browser brightness set at max it's still dimmer than my regular brightness setting. Noticably. I only keep my brightness at like 75-80% too.
Also what the hell is with the lame Calendar notification settings? Are there any?
My question is this. Is there any ROM out there that will strip all that Samsung ideology and give me a stock Android experience. Especially without the brightness issues. Why do I need to slide my notification bar to change brightness? All it does for me is just cause my brightness to vary accidentally when I don't want it to.
Why must I add on programs for my Calendar alerts to function normally? Why?
So again. Is there a ROM out there that will strip all the Samsung goofiness? If I can't get this phone to work like I want I'm going to sell it and look for a Telus HTC Desire to use on ATT. HTC phones are the best man. IMHO
Thanks.
juiceppc said:
The brightness settings. WTF! Why did they implement like 10 ways the brightness screws with your day. On my HD2 w/Mattc I set the brightness in settings to where I wanted and it stayed. Forever. Also when it hits 10% it kicks the brightness all the way down. 10%? Com on maybe 5%. But what is worse is when it does kick it down I kick it back up but it dims again at every percent it goes down. ANNOYING. Please let me control my phone... Oh and don't get me started on the Browser brightness. Huh? Even with the browser brightness set at max it's still dimmer than my regular brightness setting. Noticably. I only keep my brightness at like 75-80% too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off auto brightness and pick a setting you like. Done.
Also what the hell is with the lame Calendar notification settings? Are there any?
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Click to collapse
I don't know what lame is, but I use my Google calendar and I can set notifications. I get notified. Is there a specific problem you have?
My question is this. Is there any ROM out there that will strip all that Samsung ideology and give me a stock Android experience. Especially without the brightness issues. Why do I need to slide my notification bar to change brightness? All it does for me is just cause my brightness to vary accidentally when I don't want it to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no stock Android experience. Android is just the core - Samsung, HTC, etc, they all add specific things in order for their specific hardware to function. If you don't want what comes on your AT&T Captivate, then you can root and uninstall the apps you don't like, flash one of the many, many cooked ROMs available on this forum (just look around - they are everywhere, and all with great pictures and descriptions and huge threads full of information), tweak settings to your heart's content, or anything else you want to do.
Why must I add on programs for my Calendar alerts to function normally? Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have any add-ons and I get my alerts. What exactly isn't working for you?
Auto brightness has been off. First thing I do-
I do not get audible alerts when a Calendar reminder goes off-(and there is no where in settings to change/check this)
I had to install "Calendar Snooze" to play an audible alert for a Calendar reminder-
Phone is at 10% now fully dimmed. Nice... Considering how bad the battery life is for this phone(for me) I'll be spending a lot of time with the screen fully dimmed.
juiceppc said:
Auto brightness has been off. First thing I do-
I do not get audible alerts when a Calendar reminder goes off-(and there is no where in settings to change/check this)
I had to install "Calendar Snooze" to play an audible alert for a Calendar reminder-
Phone is at 10% now fully dimmed. Nice... Considering how bad the battery life is for this phone(for me) I'll be spending a lot of time with the screen fully dimmed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try reading a little and you will see you can set the brightness at where you want it by un-checking the automatic brightness setting..Then you can swipe along the status bar to raise and lower the brightness..It will stay where you had it set IF the automatic brightness is unchecked..Where you have the slider at will be the brightest it will swipe to..
Set your alerts to something you can hear and turn up the volume..They work fine.
Battery life is not a issue provided you follow some advise..Bump charge it 1 time and then use it till it drains down to single digits before recharging...also make sure you back out of all programs and turn off wi-fi and gps and syncing when you don't need them. Loose any task killer program you have and run it stock..you will find your battery life is excellent..if not you may or may not have a bad battery..Lastly..if you are really dissatisfied with it..take it back..
Good Luck
Mac
In regards to the brightness, turn off auto brightness and the 'power saving option.', that should solve your issue.
As far as removing the AT&T bloatware goes, try Unleash the beast.
If you want to run Froyo try flashing a rom, I used the latest version of Cognition.
Run far away from this phone if you still have the chance.
MikeyMike01 said:
Run far away from this phone if you still have the chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Broad-brush damnations do nothing to help anyone.
Mac11700 said:
Try reading a little and you will see you can set the brightness at where you want it by un-checking the automatic brightness setting..Then you can swipe along the status bar to raise and lower the brightness..It will stay where you had it set IF the automatic brightness is unchecked..Where you have the slider at will be the brightest it will swipe to..
Set your alerts to something you can hear and turn up the volume..They work fine.
Battery life is not a issue provided you follow some advise..Bump charge it 1 time and then use it till it drains down to single digits before recharging...also make sure you back out of all programs and turn off wi-fi and gps and syncing when you don't need them. Loose any task killer program you have and run it stock..you will find your battery life is excellent..if not you may or may not have a bad battery..Lastly..if you are really dissatisfied with it..take it back..
Good Luck
Mac
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice. Although I have done all of those things. I'm kind of coming to one real main pain point that I can't seem to solve. The screen dimming at 10%. Does anyone know how to disable that? Even if I kick the brightness back up after it dims at 10% it will redim at 9% and so on...
Bitter. But hopeful.
Picsman said:
Broad-brush damnations do nothing to help anyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, running away from this phone does seem to be good advise. It doesn't mater how slick it is in theory. Uber display and kickass hardware are useless if the basic functionality suffers due to glitches most of the other options don't seem to exibit.
I decided to play the "mod and wait" game with this thing, and I'm regretting it. Broad-brush damnations would have helped me. At this point, enough issues have came up about this hardware that a "broad-brush" sticky may be warranted. The alert issues found by the OP, may be related to his speaker begining to fail. I had a similar issue. Calander and alarm notifications began failing in some apps, but not others. The phone would still ring. Some apps could still use the speaker. Within a week, nothing could use the speaker, and I had to do the "push-on-it" fix.
It's a forum. Posts are opinions. I've been impressed occasionally by the raw performance of this phone. Yet, I've also spent hours, hours, researching problems, applying fixes, flashing, pushing on the speaker, etc. And I've spent hours "waiting" for the thing to do something simple like send an email when it did fine the day before. With as much time and effort as I've put into researching and working on this phone, I feel like I (and others) have not gotten enough stability out of it.
I propose a broad brush damnation for this phone: "slick but intermittent".
fshalor said:
Unfortunately, running away from this phone does seem to be good advise. It doesn't mater how slick it is in theory. Uber display and kickass hardware are useless if the basic functionality suffers due to glitches most of the other options don't seem to exibit.
I decided to play the "mod and wait" game with this thing, and I'm regretting it. Broad-brush damnations would have helped me. At this point, enough issues have came up about this hardware that a "broad-brush" sticky may be warranted. The alert issues found by the OP, may be related to his speaker begining to fail. I had a similar issue. Calander and alarm notifications began failing in some apps, but not others. The phone would still ring. Some apps could still use the speaker. Within a week, nothing could use the speaker, and I had to do the "push-on-it" fix.
It's a forum. Posts are opinions. I've been impressed occasionally by the raw performance of this phone. Yet, I've also spent hours, hours, researching problems, applying fixes, flashing, pushing on the speaker, etc. And I've spent hours "waiting" for the thing to do something simple like send an email when it did fine the day before. With as much time and effort as I've put into researching and working on this phone, I feel like I (and others) have not gotten enough stability out of it.
I propose a broad brush damnation for this phone: "slick but intermittent".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha. Thanks for the ,.. opinion. I'm starting to feel the same way about this phone. I had super high hopes. But I'm really going to stick with HTC. They just get it. IMHO.
I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.
MikeyMike01 said:
I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm froyo is already leaked and OTA is on its way.
Lag has never been an issue.
And GPS is a software fix... proven on these boards over and over.
SHEESH... I'd say go tell somewhere else.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
yeah, 5 million people are completely dissatisfied because one guy managed to not know how to operate his phone.....
MikeyMike01 said:
I think most people regret buying this phone. Or they will, when FroYo never arrives, the lag gets worse and worse, the phone dies on them, and the GPS never come close to working, the market decides not to intall your app, this, that, or the other thing force closes, etc. etc. etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think your wrong. I think quite a few people got defective phones and haven't bothered returning them,thinking that if they root it and flash a different rom that would magically fix a broken phone. This is XDA and folks here mostly do this..thus the reason for most of the complaints. Problem is..it won't change much of anything to reflash if the phone is defective..If it is broken to begin with..it will be broken no matter what you do to it.. If yours is defective..quite *****ing about it and get one that isn't..or a different phone entirely. The working ones are great..just like they are supposed to be.
I have 2 of them built in September..both work and neither is defective.This tells me many of those built prior have some issues..perhaps not all of them..but some of them certainly. This certainly doesn't make it right by anyones account..just saying if yours is defective..return it and get one that isn't.
I honestly don't understand people who have the option of doing this,not doing it.The folks at my AT&T store opened 7 different boxes and checked every one of them for any blue tint on the screen and having the 3 button recovery option..for my second one bought at the same time,so I do know there are many out there that ain't working properly..The OP of this thread..is unhappy with it..damn..loose it and be done with it if you are that unhappy..or take that one back and get them to open up the boxes and show you one that works properly...If it was bought mail order..then you should just return it as defective and get your money back..and buy where you can see it first..It's your choice...and your money.
Mac
First off, I want to thank everyone who has posted about rooting, removing bloat and overclocking, my poor old OG droid is now twice as fast as stock and the tweaks were as easy as eating Skittles on the couch. Oh, and I loved the newb video, and after reading this site for a while I think it may not be harsh enough.
Anyway, I have had an idea for an app that I have searched extensively for, and have not come up with anything even close. I'm no coder, barely understand the concept, so I submit this idea to the community in hopes that if you like it, someone will write it, and it will be good. All I ask in return is that I don't have to pay for it later, if it goes viral.
Recently the driving laws of my home state and many others have changed, and the exact wordings differ greatly. In Nevada, the wording is such that I can answer my phone and talk on speakerphone, as long as I can do so in one button push. And before you say the word "blue-tooth" leme remind you how much battery power that takes, realize I use this thing constantly for business and can't afford a new device or devices. Plus, I only have one power outlet, and would have to charge my mp3 player (much more song storage than my phone, and no interruption from calls or lack of service out in the boonies) my phone and then a blue tooth headset. Talk about a distraction while driving!
Now, on to the idea in question. When the phone is in sleep mode and the phone rings, I would have to unlock the screen, answer the call, and push 'speakerphone', and this(according to the letter of the law) is illegal while driving in the great state of Nevada. After reading this I got to thinking (and that can sometimes lead to dangerous actions, so after putting my special thinking helmet on...) this is what I came up with.
The camera button doesn't have a function while the screen is off, at least not that I have found on my phone. Also, when receiving a call, the camera button does nothing. In fact it doesn't do anything on my phone unless I'm on the home screen.(and I changed that auto-run feature of the camera so I wasn't taking 15 pics a day by accident, now it only works when I'm IN camera) So, my thought is to tie the camera button in with answering a call directly into speakerphone, without unlocking the screen and pressing 2 buttons. This makes answering my phone while driving legal, and much, much safer. Instead of 3 actions, now I have only one, taking a third less of my focus off the road. Plus, I don't have to look around for a cop before answering an important call, or pull over to the side of a busy highway to avoid a ticket.
This seems like a no-brainer to me, I just don't know the first thing about coding or writing apps, other than I don't know jack about coding or writing apps! Wish I did, as I think this could be a very helpful app if done correctly. I'm a gear-head, so If you wana talk cars we could talk all day, but I only know smartphones by what I have read in the last few months. Granted, I am VERY interested... (See: Staying up all hours of the night reading about the subject and writing posts! LOL)
Leme know what ya'll think. I can take criticism, even insults, just don't call me stupid. I'm always coming up with hair-brained schemes, and every once in a while, this blind squirrel does find a good nut or two.
V.
"Know your enemy as you know yourself, and in 100 battles you will never know defeat." Sun Tzu - The Art of War
"Freakin' sweet! This place's got EVERYTHING!" Peter Griffin
[email protected]
(this is my junk-mail account, so if I don't get back to you fast, realize I WILL get back to you!)
Not even one opinion...
Over 100 views, not one opinion huh? maybe I'm in the wrong area, if so will someone please put this in the right area so I could get some feedback please? Thanks.
V.
ValyRebelz said:
Over 100 views, not one opinion huh? maybe I'm in the wrong area, if so will someone please put this in the right area so I could get some feedback please? Thanks.
V.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
send pm to mod for moving thread to right froum.
There really should be a pinned thread for utter disappointed features and/or people.
I am not returning my new SW2. Its too cool to have the lamest, inept and funtion-killing GUI cause me to give up. ** But I bought a Pebble watch the same day because (the SW2n currently):
- can not function as a watch. It does but it goes to sleep VERY fast. WAY too fast. This is completely unacceptable. If I want to drain my f*ing watch and be able to read it all day, I should be able to!!! Put a warning on the settings area.. like: WILL DRAIN BATTERY VERY FAST or something...
- Can not finish reading my incoming sms. Maybe you dont know the girl I am dating but she WRITES A LOT... and this may not be normal amounts ... I really mean a lot. And SONY clearly has NO IDEA about this.
- AND continuing from the above point, it goes back to the f*ing CLOCK in sleep mode. SHOULD dim and remain on my screen until I SAY OTHERWISE. NOW I have to press the power button and NOT make it power off buy accident (another STUPID DESIGN) and make it activate, press the home button and then the stupid function messaging button. NO LOGIC FLOW HERE. I have to read 5 or 6 TXTs by now.
- CAN NOT read the messages in order without going BACK and opening the messaging app again. At least that seems to be what I had to do. I might have missed proper procedure here but if that is true, shame on SONY for lacking a more intuitive operation.
The Poweramp app is cool when it works. It should STAY active. I DONT CARE about anyone else or what slogan SONY wants to claim about battery life. I want FUNCTION my f*ing way. I use Poweramp all the time. But it is not able to stay on my watch, active? Total shame.
The ONLY app I kept on my watch is the custom watch faces. It allwos me to keep the display on until the dumbwatch, overthinking watch disconnects from my RazrMaxx/4.4 Dhacker29 ROM.
So in conclusion, This watch completely fails at being a watch. Fails at running apps because it times out WAY TOO FAST. Fails at every possible area other than fitting well.
Maybe your accelerometer is faulty. It should not timeout when on hand, actually it dims and always shows time.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
jmaciak said:
Maybe your accelerometer is faulty. It should not timeout when on hand, actually it dims and always shows time.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.
deitiphobia said:
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...
jmaciak said:
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not a troll. At least I am not trying to be a troll. I do feel slightly underwhelmed buy my experience so far.
And maybe my accelerometer needs checking? If it is supposed to remain on (the screen) for more than 5 seconds when I am wearing it and trying to read something, then yes, something is wrong. Maybe the watch doesnt know when it is on a troll arm?
deitiphobia said:
I hate to be the guy to say it, but is the OP trolling us?
I have the smartwatch 2, just got it yesterday, and what the OP is saying makes no sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
What he is saying actually makes perfect sense, especially on this forum - we are not the average, marketing-targeted user and we like to use our devices any way we please, without being limited by design hickups. And we are more sensitive to design flaws and marketing bs than the average consumer.
Sony missed and even lied about basic features and is not allowing, at least so far, anyone to tweak with this product's FW.
In my experience the watch proved very useful ONLY IF YOU ARE NOT RELYING SOLELY ON IT for most of your work - i, for one, would not like to read my correspondence on such a tiny screen and prefer to use the phone instead - but it would sure be nice to know that I CAN use the watch if i wanted to.
Fortunately, while driving a motorcycle, for example, getting a hint of the message content usually suffices for me to determine if i need to pullover and get my phone out, provided i get to see the screen before it times-out, which is another awkwardly missing basic function.
I will, however, hold on to the SW2 for now in hopes that Sony will straighten things the way they should.
Sent from my LT25i using Tapatalk
i agree fully with the OP as well
if i didn't know better, i would suggest posting your opinions on talk sonymobile, but as i already did that and got NO reply from Sony, i guess it would be just a waiste of time
that's my biggest problem with Sony right now: no communication
(although i must admit most manufacturers suck at communicating with their customers, try finding out when the Butterfly s is getting 4.3/4.4, not a chance)
I actually agree with the OP, there are some features that could be included in the settings menu like timeout duration or stopping the watch default to the watch screen every time it goes into standbye especially useful if travelling and using features like poweramp - you need 3x button presses to bring the poweramp screen back on and if you have a messaging app open (reading messages) it should prevent the watch from sleeping
and how fecking hard is it to develop a few watch face designs with different colours etc
TBH I think Sony are in the process of designing a totally new Smartwatch for release in early 2014 and have completely dropped the ball with this one
well, there was an update today, so i guess they didn't drop it completely
update looked good at first, but disappointing anyway
-only 1 extra watch face that's usable, i still want the abilty to design/choose my own watch face
-the option to use the light sensor for brightness is nice, but i'm glad it's optional, don't like it
-music app update totally messed it up (used to work for me)
-camera app update didn't do anything for me, still does nothing
-still no selectable timeout, huge issue for me
---------- Post added at 06:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ----------
Find It for SmartWatch by AQ i purchased also doesn't work anymore
argh, their own Find Phone Smart Extension ALSO doesn't work anymore!
JarlSX said:
their own Find Phone Smart Extension ALSO doesn't work anymore!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK I suspect that problems might occur pairing the SW2 with a non-Sony smartphone.
But please let's keep the discussion in one place only, so we can better compare these findings:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554874
i think i know why the watch can't dim while still displaying an app
those apps don't really run on the watch, they're just displaying what's happening on the phone (that's where the app is installed)
so for a watch-app to work, the watch is constantly communicating with the phone
such a connection will probably drain the watch very quickly
only the watch part can run independently, so that's why it always goes back to that screen, to save power
this is of course just what i think
FWIW, the screen on time can be controlled by the app. I use and app called IPBike for cycling which runs on the phone. This app allows you to use the watch as a head unit on the bars. It has an option to keep the watch screen on for the entire ride.
jmaciak said:
Well it can timeout and go totally blank ... try it, put them on the table and do not move the watch/table and it will dim and then go completely blank after a while, because the accelerometer sees it's not on the hand. So if OP's accelerometer is faulty, it might behave this way ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should it really go totally blank/black? Mine is only dimmed out and showing clock face all the time, but really dimmy. And it is on the table...
Oh it does, took some time, longer than i expected...
Sent from my GT-N8000 using Tapatalk 4
I'll make no excuse for the title as it seems to fit quite well for how I feel about it.
About two weeks ago I purchased a Sony SW3. Lovely watch and kindof does what I want BUT.... Android wear seems little more than a proof of concept.
At the risk of infuriating AW fans, here are some of my observations:
- I turn gestures off, but the watch still turns itself on when I turn my wrist, this is intermittent behaviour but this can't be rocket science to fix and I'm on V5!
- Was travelling somewhere strange the other day and I routinely add the address of where I'm going to my diary entry (Google calendar). When I was reminded to leave, I was offer the opportunity to navigate there, but I was using a train for most of the journey so only wanted to use navigate when I got the the end station. Call up the 'agenda' entry on my watch, can see the entry, can see the address, but do you think I could get the navigate function to work... NO, touching the address didn;t work, voice commands didn't recognise the foreign restaurant name, and I had no way of entering the address manually! Arrgh
- Cards/notices appearing. What a lovely feature, each time I get a message, email or whatever, my watch lights up and buzzes. Really? Ok I can see that some will find this useful, but really I want to gentle reminder , eg a buzz and if it's convenient I'll see what caused it by switching it on. A bit like theatre/Cinema mode, but I need the vibration to alert me... What I don't need is the thing lighting up every time I get a 'notice', draining the battery and telling everyone who can see! I get quite a few messages and find it strange this feature has not been considered/withdrawn by now. In fact the only useful time the watch should light up is an incoming call so I can see who and accept/reject.
- Whilst on the subject of rejecting a call, why doesn't it offer me the option of rejecting and sending a text message at the same time, a bit like you can when you reject a call on the handset.... Seems an obvious feature really.
- OK Google, doesn't launch applications I've downloaded, eg: I downloaded from the apps store a compass application. OK Google, compass - it gets me info on a company called compass!
- OK Google, Natigate to (insert a name of a contact)... Brings up a linkedin profile....
OK, rant over and I'm happy to concede that it may be my ignorance that I am frustrated so I'm happy to be correctly by fellow early adopters.... Or am I not alone
You've done the same mistake as all wear beginners when it comes to gestures. Forget that setting in watch menu and instead investigate wear companion app settings closer.
Hi thanks for the advice. Just searched the store but couldn't find anything. Suggestions appreciated?
Iain
The wear companion app is the app on your phone which you connect to your phone via. Click cog wheel. Click watch name. Untick tilt to wake option.
When I tell my watch to navigate to somewhere, a beautiful Maps shows up and gets me there... I think you are too fast at judging A.Wear Take time to discover it!
Install Android wear mini launcher also.
Android Wear is built to be minimal - it compliments your phone, it's not supposed to replace it. It just decreases the amount of times you have to pull your phone out of your pocket.
The Apple Watch is the one that's supposed to "replace" your phone in more instances. It's more complicated.
Android Wear is for quick replies, information, and helpful tools.
Welcome to the team by the way!
Sent from my Blu using Tapatalk
So, the recommendation I have heard over and over again is in order to increase battery life, disable the features that make the watch useful. Tilt to wake is important, and disabling it on the sw3 does not significantly improve battery life. There are problems with this software. I am on my third watch, and still after a lot of tweaking only get 24 hours (when I am lucky) per charge. This watch is supposed to last over two days. When I am not lucky, I get two hours on a charge.
lekofraggle said:
So, the recommendation I have heard over and over again is in order to increase battery life, disable the features that make the watch useful. Tilt to wake is important, and disabling it on the sw3 does not significantly improve battery life. There are problems with this software. I am on my third watch, and still after a lot of tweaking only get 24 hours (when I am lucky) per charge. This watch is supposed to last over two days. When I am not lucky, I get two hours on a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. battery life was great on 5.0.2 We just have to wait until the next update, which both sony and google have said that they are working on.
Recharge once a day, and on unplugging, restart the watch. Many people have reported this gives the best results. FWIW I have all options turned on, and as long as I'm not hit with the bug, battery life is about what it was before 5.1.1.
Interesting, but...
Thanks everybody for your thoughts.
Firstly, I have tried switching off motion gestures using the Phones Wear application, but there wasn't an independent setting. I therefore downloaded a third party 'advance setting' application. It offered me more choices but didn't make a blind bit of difference.
Secondly, gestures are a personal thing so I'm not speaking for everybody. As I've already said I don't want the watch switching on every time I turn my wrist (my lifestyle is to active and I find it switching on when I'm doing something rather than when I want to read the time or message) or when I get a message (as I said before I want to choose when I read my messages and I don't want anyone close by to A) see I've got a message and B) be able to read the subject and who it's from). In addition battery life is, for the foreseeable future, a finite resource and all this switching on will reduce the battery life of the watch so it really annoys me that a simple setting 'Gesture OFF' is being completely ignored. I would also vote for 'Cinema mode, including vibrate'..
Thirdly, Yesterday, not for the first time, my battery drained itself in about half a day so I had to recharge the watch by about 3pm. But this time it was a little different. First thing in the morning I noticed the watch struggling to connect to my wifi, it would connect and then connect and then connect. Before anyone jumps on me saying there a problem with my wifi, there are about 10 devices that connect to my wifi and none of them get a problem. In addition I have more than one access point by different manufacturers and the watch has access to two different access points. Security is by password AND MAC address. This got me thinking. Is the wifi chip going into overdrive when it's not connected to an access point and draining the battery? I can't say for sure, but I did notice that the other days the battery suddenly drains is when I'm out and about so it may have been attempting to attached to all the access points when I'm walking about... Only a theory, but what does everybody else think?
Iain
Yea. Drain is somewhere between decent and awful depending on setup. I get two days out of mine.
Gestures is not the same as "tilt to wake". Gestures are let you interact with Google cards by flipping your wrist. Tilt to wake is what you're after. It does just what it says and is turned off in the wear companion app on your phone. The app is called "android wear" and in the app you press a cog wheel symbol, then press the name of your watch. They're you'll find three check box settings.
Always-on screen (eats your battery like omnomnom)
Tilt to wake screen (the one you're after)
Show Google cards (shows notifications on watch)
Two days?
Wow you're getting two days out of your battery, I can only dream...
Actually I'm not being truthful with the above. After my discovery with WiFi yesterday, I turned it off today. But for good measure, I switched screen on, to on.
It's been 18 hours off charge and the battery still has 56% left... OK it's not quite a day yet and as with all testing needs to be conducted over a few days but what a difference, even better considering your comment about the battery drain with the screen on!
Thank you for the tip re tilt to wake, I've now turned it off so in theory that should improve the battery life still further.
If today's results become consistent over the next few days it'll pretty conclusive that there's a problem with the WiFi.
I tried tilt to wake for a day. It went on all the time. Always on is so dim I can't see the watch anyway. I use tap to wake with highest brightness
I've just started to try gestures. I wanna see if it's a gimmick or actually useful.
WiFi to blame
OK, is been two nearly three days since I switched WiFi off.
In that time by the end of the day (with the watch face always on) I've been left with between 50% to 25% depending on actual use. Given that it sometimes would run out of battery by 3pm this is a great improvement and highlights that there are serious problems with the WiFi implementation.
I'm now happy I purchased
I like the tilt to wake but I notice it comes on a lot. Especially when I drive at night and my whole car lights up. I like the tilt features for scrolling through notifications. I wish there was one for dismissing, but that would probably lead to missed cards.
My LG G Watch is pretty much ready for a charge by the end of the day.
Sadly my hopes for a smart watch was to save battery life on my phone, but I am finding that bluetooth on all day tends to yield me the same battery life as if I just pull my phone out each time. Overall i love the watch for when I am in the pool and busy at work.
I agree!
Tilt to wake is problematic and poorly thought through as there are way to many scenarios where it activates when not required.
I can see the logic behind moving through cards via tilt but for me I continue to switch this off as well as I find it's very easy using my other hand and there are not many time I can't do that unless driving, but then, I shouldn't be reading my messages when driving anyway... : -)
Also since turning WiFi off, after 18 hours off charge I normally have between 30-40 battery left so the battery life has stabilised.
Now looking forward to the next Sony smart watch that should be release in November.
Latest update of the port to Samsung gear 2 allows for screen always on for two workdays. I can go with that. On my wishlist now is dismiss card gesture.
I actually like the gestures. With them on, I easily go through a day. On the weekends I can see me turning it off just to conserve battery. But I use it to turn on the screen and flip through notifications all the time, and seems pretty consistant. It always does what I want when I want. The problem is it comes on when I dont want.
If the watch had an AMOLED, you could fix this by using the same black face for both ambient and active modes.
I really like the Gear S, but hopefully the 2nd gen Android watches include some of the same features. Honestly all I need from the LG G Watch is a speaker and I'd be set.
1
I'm using Sony Z ultra and really want to buy SW3 for more option. Howere, when i see your review, i'm a little bit dissapointed:crying:
Depends
I can understand your disappointment, but I'm not disappointed as I consider it to be new technology and I was keen to get in early and I expected some issues.
For my part, I'm now very happy with my purchase and Amazon in the UK are now selling it at just under £100 so I also believe good value.
I am however, beginning to wonder if Wifi is the cause of the battery drain. Whilst I haven't had Wifi on since my first observation I'm thinking now it is probably a shirt sleeve activating the watch when I'm not aware and thats draining the battery very quickly. It's early days at the moment, but on two occasions I've been out and wearing a coat, on both occasions the battery was dead by the time I got home. Today I went out and wore a coat but switched cinema mode on... Battery perfect! Needs some more testing, but....
lekofraggle said:
So, the recommendation I have heard over and over again is in order to increase battery life, disable the features that make the watch useful. Tilt to wake is important, and disabling it on the sw3 does not significantly improve battery life. There are problems with this software. I am on my third watch, and still after a lot of tweaking only get 24 hours (when I am lucky) per charge. This watch is supposed to last over two days. When I am not lucky, I get two hours on a charge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When have ever beats any manufacturer of a watch our phone give realistic battery life specs.
Though many would likely call me nuts, I REALLY miss the interface/launcher of the old Windows Mobile/Pocket PC devices, largely in that I miss the ability to see reminders/appointments immediately when turning the phone on, especially those that don't need to be done at a particular time or date. Such as say, changing the oil in my truck. Setting an alarm or daily reminder doesn't really do it for me, as it's a situation of the reminder comes up, I think "oh yeah! I need to do that" then I forget about it 5 minutes later until the next day, lol. I forgot to change the oil in my truck last time for almost 6 months after the time I should have because of this.
The typical Android/Iphone launchers with the screen full of app icons doesn't do this for me. With the Pocket PCs, I pull the device out, turn it on to check something else, and I immediately see that I need to change the oil, go into work two hours early tomorrow, and half a dozen other things that need to be done, and I found that I actually got those things done in a timely fashion. I actually carried a HP iPaq for years after the things were beyond obsolete because of this until I broke my last one. I've spent years trying to adjust to Android and iPhone, and it just ain't happening, lol.
So, is there something I can add to my Android phones to get this functionality back? A launcher that mimics the Pocket PC would be awesome, but even an app that puts the reminders and such front and center instead of a screen full of app icons would work OK.
Unhappyly, This launcher may haves COPYRIGHT-ism
All trademarks are piggest-ed , i tried 5minutes of searching something like, but nope...
This is a good idea, may we have slaught this free pig
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