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So how's the Gear 2 wake up behavior?

One of the most annoying things of the Gear 1 is the motion to wake up the watch. Is it improved? I watched a bunch of hands on but they all tell the same story. No word about the fact that the display can't be lit all the time and that you have to do some abracadabra to wake the device. Most curious about any improvements in this department.

appelflap said:
One of the most annoying things of the Gear 1 is the motion to wake up the watch. Is it improved? I watched a bunch of hands on but they all tell the same story. No word about the fact that the display can't be lit all the time and that you have to do some abracadabra to wake the device. Most curious about any improvements in this department.
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well you can't have screen all the time due to technology used. AMOLED. if it would be LCD then you could have screen on all the time, but without background light (like in sony smartwatch 2). i already got used to blank screen, and i just turn the screen on/off with a single button.

hurdlejade said:
well you can't have screen all the time due to technology used. AMOLED. if it would be LCD then you could have screen on all the time, but without background light (like in sony smartwatch 2). i already got used to blank screen, and i just turn the screen on/off with a single button.
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I know. I'm wondering if they made the watch more sensitive for motions, introduced a new or better wake up motion etc . Definitely want to know more about that.

if samsung did not mention it, then probably it's the same.

hurdlejade said:
if samsung did not mention it, then probably it's the same.
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That would be a detail for people coming from the Gear1.
If the battery life is better they might have add a more sensitive option.
Btw personally I dont mind to charge the watch every night. Just some routine. I like it even better than checking the battery to see if it needs to be charged again. So if they made the wake up motion more sensitive and could still pump one day out of the battery, it would definitely be a reason for me to upgrade. Otherwise I see no compelling reasons.

I understand what OP is saying. I'm interested to know that answer as well. I actually had to turn motion off because the watch constantly stayed on while driving all day. It would kill my battery. With it off and me pressing the on button as needed, I get at least 3 days of battery life. A better motion sensor could possibly solve this issue.

alprazolam said:
I understand what OP is saying. I'm interested to know that answer as well. I actually had to turn motion off because the watch constantly stayed on while driving all day. It would kill my battery. With it off and me pressing the on button as needed, I get at least 3 days of battery life. A better motion sensor could possibly solve this issue.
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I noticed having non-TW launcher caused issues with the motion sensor. Using stock had better motion sensor.

Sepharite said:
I noticed having non-TW launcher caused issues with the motion sensor. Using stock had better motion sensor.
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what kind of issues did you have? i had none with nova.

I read a hand on today where the reviewer said it does turn on with the flick up of the wrist but that it doesn't turn on right away, like a couple of seconds delay. That isn't good. I want it to be quick like the pebble when you shake the wrist slightly the light comes on. Hopefully they tweak that before it is released....
Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

hurdlejade said:
what kind of issues did you have? i had none with nova.
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I haven't had any problems with it either.

everlast716 said:
I read a hand on today where the reviewer said it does turn on with the flick up of the wrist but that it doesn't turn on right away, like a couple of seconds delay. That isn't good. I want it to be quick like the pebble when you shake the wrist slightly the light comes on. Hopefully they tweak that before it is released....
Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk
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That's what I want. I move my arm to that wrist up position to much so the watch is almost always on. I wish it had the option to shake the wrist instead so I have better control.

Personally the only good thing about this watch is the motion thing. It works like a good 90-95% of the time. Wake up is excellent on it. However, it goes crazy when your driving.

[Q] Super Low Brightness Mode?

Is there a Super Low Brightness Mode on this phone or on the International version? I could have swore there was such a thing for the HTC ONE M8... Thanks in advance.

The closest thing I can think of is the "brightness settings" component of GravityBox (a Xposed Module)... I don't know if they work, as I have never fiddled around with them, but you could always give them a go.

I use the app called night mode to do this as well
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pt.bbarao.nightmode

I use Lux Auto Brightness (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux). It's the best automatic backlight adjustment app I've used (I had some problems with running out of memory on my Galaxy Nexus, but no such problems with my M8). It lets you set the backlight so low the screen is almost black.

Sevinex said:
The closest thing I can think of is the "brightness settings" component of GravityBox (a Xposed Module)... I don't know if they work, as I have never fiddled around with them, but you could always give them a go.
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d1ez3 said:
I use the app called night mode to do this as well
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pt.bbarao.nightmode
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Zieen said:
I use Lux Auto Brightness (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux). It's the best automatic backlight adjustment app I've used (I had some problems with running out of memory on my Galaxy Nexus, but no such problems with my M8). It lets you set the backlight so low the screen is almost black.
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Just wanted to say thanks guys! all these are great workarounds. I thought I saw a sense feature for Super Dimming mode or reading mode like the S5.

Zieen said:
I use Lux Auto Brightness (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux). It's the best automatic backlight adjustment app I've used (I had some problems with running out of memory on my Galaxy Nexus, but no such problems with my M8). It lets you set the backlight so low the screen is almost black.
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This app hasn't been working for me. It doesn't change brightness regardless of the light in the room. Yours has been working fine?

Yeah it's been working great for me. Are you using a screen protector? Lux relies heavily on the light sensor on the front of your devices (which on my M8 is seemingly infinitely better than my Galaxy Nexus was). A screen protector can interfere with the amount of light the sensor collects and mess up the very sensitive Lux app.

Moto Display - Not impressed

Firstly, let me preface this by saying I've never owned a Moto X phone before, so some of what I'm about to say may not be specific to the Moto X Play's implementation of Moto Display.
When I got my Moto X Play, I was excited to start using the Moto Display feature for displaying notifications. I know a lot of people really like it. Unfortunately, based on what I see on the Play, I can't see me using it regularly.
- The phone is "too" sensitive to motion when figuring out when to trigger Moto Display. Often times, any slight movement will activate it (such as when sitting on the armrest of my living room recliner. Now, if it did this only when notifications were present, I could tolerate it. Otherwise, the screen constantly wakes up briefly for no reason. Obviously, they had to make some concession here as there's no infrared sensors that wold sense a hand wave over the screen to wake it, but this approach just leads to a lot of false activations.
- The screen hardly stays lit up enough to do anything half the time when you DO pick up the phone. Pick up the phone, catch whether the icon shown is just the lock or an actual notification icon, then quickly swipe up before the screen turns off. Now, obviously it may have always been like this, but I have a feeling they may have shortened the screen on time to help compensate for the fact that this phone uses an LCD instead of AMOLED display.
Either way, the combination of both of these things has not led to a good experience for me.

I agree. Moto Display is a great concept but it really needs a few customization options:
a toggle option to have it only turn on the display when there are notifications
an option to set how long it wakes the screen when you move the phone
an option to change the sensitivity (it's just way too sensitive as it is)

Try changing from Moto Display to Ambient Display, it's a variation that I find works better for me YMMV.

Sevael said:
I agree. Moto Display is a great concept but it really needs a few customization options:
a toggle option to have it only turn on the display when there are notifications
an option to set how long it wakes the screen when you move the phone
an option to change the sensitivity (it's just way too sensitive as it is)
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There should be an option for the display to turn on when you reach for your phone in the Moto app under actions
Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

atistang said:
There should be an option for the display to turn on when you reach for your phone in the Moto app under actions
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The reason that isn't there is because this phone doesn't have the necessary sensor to recognize your hand above the screen.
It's unfortunate but I imagine it was omitted to keep the cost of the phone down.

It's funny, because coming from a Moto X (2013), I feel like the X Play is actually less sensitive! When I'm in the subway or the bus, I usually only to slightly raise it toward me to trigger it. Now I have to put it facedown then face up. I never used the power button on my good ol' 2013, so I actually liked that much sensitivity. I understand the IPS display couldn't handle it without draining the battery - though the X Battery could probably still have one good day of use, though. I'm actually annoyed when it's triggered at night, because instead of only seing the time and a lock, you see the time, a lock and A SUPER UGLY BLACK SCREEN whereas the 2013 screen was virtually invisible in the dark.
The 2013 Moto Display experience was better than the 2015 experience. I'm sad.
One thing I like is that you can pause music and skip tracks via the Moto Display though, whereas you could only open the app on the 2013.

the phone activating itself its the ''breathing'' feature so you can see the time. try android 5 ambient display.

[Q] Does the S7 have an active display setting similar to the Moto X?

I've just got my S7 Edge and I'm trying to work out if it has an active display feature, like the Moto X, where you can wave your hand over the display to turn a notification portion of the screen on, which displays the time and any emails or messages you've received?
All I've found so far is the Always on Display, but I don't really want to use this as i'm fearful it'll run the battery down unnecessarily and create screen burn.

no.
Try always on. The screen burn isnt an issue. The battery .. it uses a bit , not much really but its up to you to decide whether its worth it.
The theory is that it uses less than not having it on since you dont have to keep waking the phone to check time etc.
The practice is probably a bit different especially if it disables doze.
Try and see.

Simply awful software. Just me?

Hi,
Coming from a Moto Z and before that a 6P.
Ok... I didn't intend to hate this phone but... Why are notifications broken? Why dont PocketCasts playback controls work?
I know this is "1 aspect" but to me notifications are vital and i simply don't understand this phone.
- i receive a notification and screen lights up (i set that per app)
- but then I unlock phone
- notifications still in notification shade. I lock device.
- they are no longer on lock screen
Why?
That's not how any other device i have owned worked?
And lock screen music playback is... A disaster?
I consider this phone basically unusable... Yet reviews never mentioned this. Am I alone?

I agree with you, mostly. I'm coming from a Nexus 6P (and many Nexi before that since the One), so I'm used to the plain Vanilla and love it. I was able to rectify some of the notification issues by enabling banner and lockscreen notifications from the Settings >> Notification & Status Bar >> Notification Management area. It doesn't fix everything, and at times (especially the beginning) it was very frustrating. I have it for 5 days now and am at a point where I think it's usable and am waiting for LineageOS to come out with a vanilla-ish version.
http://lineagerom.com/huawei-mate-9-lineage-nougat-update/
The battery is what drew me to the phone and it doesn't disappoint. I can get about 24 hours and that impresses me.

Thanks, have that set for important apps. Feels like a massive part of Android (notifications) are basically missing. Rest is good/ok/great but.... Just feels like madness that this is acceptable in 2017.

yup, hw software sux. end of. waiting for stock-ed customs

Just you
Sent from my MHA-L29 using Tapatalk

Yea, that's what ended up being the deal breaker for me. I absolutely loved everything else with the phone, but notifications are the baseline of what a phone should be (at least to me), and this phone failed at that miserably. Not being able to reply to a text without unlocking the phone is a no go for 2017. I also kept hearing how battery life was amazing...I never really saw that either considering the size of the battery and a 1080p screen. I've got a Moto Z Play and I can tell you that this is truly amazing battery life. I'm now sitting at 53% with 4:39 sot and been off charger since 9:45a...It's now 1a the following morning. Not putting down Mate 9, as I really did like the rest of the phone...So much so that I'm on here looking to see if they have come out with an update for the glaring problem you guys are discussing. It looks as they Huawei doesn't even acknowledge the issue, so not counting on a fix. Oh well
Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk

I'm really surprised Huawei get a free pass on this. I read about 10 reviews, saw lots of YouTube videos and I had no idea how this phone handles notifications. I simply don't believe that someone coming from "normal" Android versions wouldn't find this different enough to warrant a huge rant?
Very frustrating. I like so many aspects of this device but the basic things are terrible. Madness.

for lock screen music playback -
settings> then uptop type in notifications> notifications panal> notification managment. then find the app you want to allow on the lockscreen. hope that helps.

Spot on! I'm 700 USD in on this phone. Only thing going for it on my side is the battery (so far) and dual sim as I travel a lot.
The rest is just unacceptable... At the very best. Likely the first and the last Huawei I'll own.

It's not just software that is bad for notifications. The hardware is poor too. The LED is tiny and almost invisible. The vibration is very weak so you can't feel it in your pocket.
This is a great phone underneath, but the little things really spoil it.
Huawei had a great opportunity to take business off Samsung, but they have blown it.
This has put me off Huawei. I'll be trading in the Mate for a Note 8. Or perhaps I won't wait for that. The S8+ is looking good.

Coming from a Nexus 6, the software has it's issues, but overall I like my Mate 9 so much more. Thought I would be missing the stock Android in a daily basis, but I seem to be very happy with my new phone.

-ErrorFile- said:
Coming from a Nexus 6, the software has it's issues, but overall I like my Mate 9 so much more. Thought I would be missing the stock Android in a daily basis, but I seem to be very happy with my new phone.
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Coming from the disastrous year of Samsungs (s7 Active, s7 Edge, Note 7) Im loving the mate 9. Getting 10 hours of screen on time, notifications havent been an issue at all (Ive had to unlock the phone to reply to a text on every single phone Ive used including iPhone). I prefer the lockscreen stay clean and the led flash when I have something unread. Out of all the phones Ive used this past year, this is the only one Ive kept. Ive got a Moto Z Force sitting on my table thats for sale and once its gone all Ill have left is my iPhone 6s plus and the Mate 9.

wingzfan said:
Coming from the disastrous year of Samsungs (s7 Active, s7 Edge, Note 7) Im loving the mate 9. Getting 10 hours fo screen on time, notifications havent been an issue at all (Ive had to unlock the phone to reply to a text on very single phone Ive used including iPhone). I prefer the lockscreen stay clean and the led flash when I have something unread. Out of all the phones Ive used this past year, this is the only one Ive kept. Ive got a Moto Z Force sitting on my table thats for sale and once its gone all Ill have left is my iPhone 6s plus and the Mate 9.
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Do you find the LED bright enough and the vibration strong enough? If so I have a different phone to yours

RR-99 said:
Do you find the LED bright enough and the vibration strong enough? If so I have a different phone to yours
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I have no issues with the brightness of the led at all, in fact I prefer it to the absurd brightness of the s7 series. My phone is primarily on a desk or table and I havent missied any notifications at all. Also my volume is always on so I hear my phone go off and never really pay attention to the vibration of it but I would say its right on par with my iPhone. Another thing is I use Textra and always have so Ive got the vibration set to "multiple short" and if the phone is for some reason on silent I still hear the vibration when a notification comes in. Honestly I have no complaints about anything with this phone especially now that Ive been able to change out the emojis without root (hate android emojis).

coming from a pixel
i really like the mate 9, the software could do with abit more though.
if it was pure vanilla, this phone would be the end all.

RR-99 said:
Do you find the LED bright enough and the vibration strong enough? If so I have a different phone to yours
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I use an app called Flash notificationn 2. basically on any missed notifications it keeps flashing the camera and lights up the screen( set every min or so). it works very well. coming from a note 4 i was also tossed. I do love this phone and at 599.00 seems a steal. does it have shortcomings , ya it does. but so does every phone. price to price with the s8+ or note 8 rumored at close to a grand makes this phone a steal. especially considering the list of shortcomings the galaxys 8 will have.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manzy.flashnotification2&hl=en

admorris said:
Not being able to reply to a text without unlocking the phone is a no go for 2017.
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That seems like an odd issue to me. All it takes to unlock the phone is touching a sensor. Unless the complaint is about doing it while sitting flat on a surface, then I agree the sensor placement isn't optimal. But if replying to a text without unlocking the phone is important, that's easily solved with a 3rd party text app, like Textra.
I also haven't noticed the issues with notifications in my usage that others have had. But I do agree the notification LED could be brighter, and the vibration stronger.

tommy281 said:
for lock screen music playback -
settings> then uptop type in notifications> notifications panal> notification managment. then find the app you want to allow on the lockscreen. hope that helps.
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This just doesn't work reliably. Spotify works 60% of the time maybe but PocketCasts about 5%. Totally rubbish.

Really mixed bag of opinions here.
I'm almost wondering if there are multiple software versions showing different behaviour?
The 2 notifications issues i have are :
1. Music playback controls. Dreadful. Seems like some apps whitelisted but even those don't work 100% of the time. PocketCasts (even latest version from 2 days ago) works basically never, meaning i need to unlock phone to pause. A total joke.
2. Notifications. Lock screen shows them once and once only. As soon as i unlock, all notifications are not shown again on lock screen, unlike normal Android.
For those that "don't have issue with the notifications"... Do you see what i see?

tommy281 said:
for lock screen music playback -
settings> then uptop type in notifications> notifications panal> notification managment. then find the app you want to allow on the lockscreen. hope that helps.
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That doesn't fix the issue...It's a known problem.
Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 PM ----------
RealEvil said:
Really mixed bag of opinions here.
I'm almost wondering if there are multiple software versions showing different behaviour?
The 2 notifications issues i have are :
1. Music playback controls. Dreadful. Seems like some apps whitelisted but even those don't work 100% of the time. PocketCasts (even latest version from 2 days ago) works basically never, meaning i need to unlock phone to pause. A total joke.
2. Notifications. Lock screen shows them once and once only. As soon as i unlock, all notifications are not shown again on lock screen, unlike normal Android.
For those that "don't have issue with the notifications"... Do you see what i see?
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Click to collapse
I think what you have are two types of people on here...Not two software versions. You have people that have given up on the phone and people who are justifying their purchase...lol
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