Leaving the phone at home and going solo with the S2 3G by itself doesn't seem to be very popular with people. This wasn't something I considered particularly of value either when I got the watch.
I'm 180 flipped on this issue now. I often operate with the watch only as my connection to the world, leaving my phone behind. Only if I'm going somewhere where I will be away long enough not to KNOW I can be without the additional features (mainly internet access), or know that I WILL need these features will I take the phone now.
That works out to about 50% of the time.
While the watch does have a convenient built-in call forwarding / remote connection option, and it's very helpful, there's a minor issue: It forwards unanswered calls to the watch, so the caller must sit through six rings before it gets forwarded and I even know they've called. I've had people simply hang up before it forwards, thinking I'm not hearing it ring.
The solution, of course, is to forward ALL calls to the S2 so a call to your phone rings immediately on the watch, and then turn off BT on the phone so the watch reconnects remotely. Actually, to ensure you don't miss a call that goes straight to your S2 voicemail, you need to turn off BT first, pause 30 seconds for the watch to turn on 3G, then forward the calls.
Tasker can do this. I've created a shortcut on my home screen using tasker to both turn on, and turn off ALL call forwarding as described above. I use this even when around the house doing stuff, by my phone's sitting in the charging cradle. A BT connection is limited when you're all around the house, inside and out, doing "stuff". I just punch the forward all shortcut on my phone, put it back in the cradle, and I'm good to go with only a watch on my wrist. No bulky phone in a pocket, getting in the way while working on the car, doing yardwork, etc.
I love 3G. My Classic 3G from Verizon arrives by 8pm tonight. YAY! I'll have a dark gray Verizon "sport" 3G version for sale, excellent condition, never locked to my phone. PM me if interested.
Can you post a how to on doing this in Tasker? I'm new and this seems like a great idea. I'm often in the same type of situations at work where I don't always want to risk carrying my phone on me.
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+1
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Anyone here using tmo with their S2? when in stand alone are you able to take/make calls and have them look like they're coming from your cell number?
(trying to figure out if tmo screwed my setup)
if you are connected via bluetooth, your calls made from the watch should look like your cell phone number
if you are in "stand alone" mode, with no phone connected, it should look like your watch phone number is making the call
how do text messages from your cell get to your s2 if in stand alone? (just on the s2 number?)
they dont get forwarded to your watch when in stand alone if the text is to your cell phone number, since your watch has a different phone number than your cell..
tmo mislead me then. good times. they told me in stand alone all my calls and texts would use the same number as my ph. thanks for the info.
If you have remote connection on, they do forward.
where do you enable that?
thanks
On your gear, go to settings-call-auto forward I believe will do it
I believe that just forwards calls, NOT texts..
I have mine linked with a moto x pure. Although it doesn't save them in the messaging app, I can reply and read, and get texts remotely
on my nexus 6. no matter what settings I use, I do NOT get texts forwarded to my watch; everything else, like emails, facebook, etc does get forwarded, but no texts..
Mine works in standalone with watch number and with cell number when connected with Bluetooth. When remote connected all calls forward after 4 rings on my cell and all text messages are forwarded. I had to call t-mobile to get it working properly. They said the had to change the way the auto forwarding was setup on the network. I would suggest calling them if yours doesn't function as mine does
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thats a good idea, since mine doesnt work that way now..
thanks:good::good:
wase4711 said:
I believe that just forwards calls, NOT texts..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On a Samsung Note 5 my text get forwarded to me when I am in stand alone mode. My phone is on Verizon, my Gear S2 is on T-Mobile. When I leave my phone at home (phone is on), my text are forwarded. If I turn the phone off the text do not come through. When I leave my phone on and am using the Gear S2 in standalone (physically separated from my phone), I get all notifications, calls, text, social media, etc...
good news/bad news.
I've got everything working as I'd hoped. I had to trade in my LG G3 and now have a samsung phone. I see more apps in the gear store, and I noticed when I reset the watch, I now have different options in the call forwarding area than i had before. I honestly believe that the watch was made to work with samsung gear only...and any other handsets are an afterthought.
Also, it works on it's own with autoconnect. I turn off bluetooth, and the watch goes to stand alone, and once remotely connected tells the handset to fwd calls/sms to it.
I am straying here from the original issue but I think this is related. I have a Moto X Pure (MXP) on AT&T. I have the AT&T Gear S2 (GS2) LTE. I am going to be verbose with this. Both have unique SIM's, IMEI's, phone numbers. I have successfully forwarded the MXP# to the SG2# when connected over the LTE network. MXP will ring 4-6 times, then roll over and ring to SG2 2-4 times. Voicemail goes to SG2.
I have used the watch's settings and S. Gear app settings to forward/unforward (so I thought). I have recently noticed I am not getting voicemails on my phone (doesn't happen much anyways as I don't get many calls I don't pick up). Odd part is that more than once, the voicemail on the GS2 only pops up when I disconnect bluetooth connection between devices. I have figured out this is likely tied to when the GS2 is connected via bluetooth to the MXP, it acts in headset/handsfree mode and controls my MXP dailer.
When I go into S. Gear app, under call forwarding, I see "Turn Off" as "Deactivated XX:XX". When I push Turn On, I see "a request has been made..." on the MXP and "Request has been made..." on the GS2. Toast on MXP after success is "Call Forwarding, Registration was successful". Turn On shows "Activated XX:XX". Then I push Turn Off, and see "A request has been made...." on the MXP, then a "Call forwarding, Connection problem or invalid MMI Code" on the MXP, and then a "A request has been made..." on the GS2. No error on the watch. Funny is that under Turn Off, it shows "Deactivated XX:XX" again.
Calls first go to MXP, then to GS2 and end up in GS2 voicemail. When to MXP Dailer settings, Calls, Call Forwarding. Interestingly, 3 of last 4 options for call forward show forwarding to the GS2. When I click on any of the 3 of the 4 forwarding, I can push Turn Off. Error toast shows up as "Your operator doesn't support disabling call forwarding when your phone is busy". What constitutes "busy"?...and why can't I turn this off?
---------- Post added at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------
UPDATE: I went to the Call Forwarding wiki and used some of the codes to help. ##67#, ##61#, ##62# were used successfully. All is back to normal. I can pick up via the watch, transfer to the phone, reject as needed. Voicemail goes to the MXP as expected. Network really wouldn't let go of the number. I am sure there is a good reason for that but don't get why.
...works!
This may be something documented somewhere, but I haven't come across it. It may be a "well, of course" sort of thing to some of you, but it wasn't to me.
In short, you can activate/deactivate call forwarding on the phone when connected remotely through wifi or the 3G network. For some reason, I thought you had to have a local BT connection to initiate the requests (dialing sequence), probably because that's how I've always done it.
Well, caught myself away from home without my phone today and thought, I wonder if it works remotely? Isn't any reason it shouldn't. So, I turned on forwarding, and it worked fine. Quite a bit longer wait with the spinning busy indicator on the watch display, but it did indeed invoke the forwarding codes on the phone.
On afterthought, this makes total sense -- that's the most valuable use of this function, of course -- when you've forgotten your phone. Still, it was cool to find that this capability is there, and you don't have to "plan ahead" to forward the phone to your watch.
It ups the value tremendously of the 3G feature.
Hey there, I was just wondering approximately how long did you wait for your "spinning busy indicator" to stop spinning and activate the function.
Thanks so much
addielthd said:
Hey there, I was just wondering approximately how long did you wait for your "spinning busy indicator" to stop spinning and activate the function.
Thanks so much
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Click to collapse
That threw me for a loop at first too. It's very quick with a BT connection (for obvious reasons).
All I can say is it takes quite a bit longer, and is not consistent. This is likely because the Samsung server that mediates remote connections is involved: Your S2 sends a request to the server via the internet (data), then the server forwards the request to your phone, again over the internet (data).
What I can tell you is that it only shows the "Requested (<time>)" under Turn On if it succeeds and receives a handshake back from the server. So, I don't both watching it any more... I just invoke it, then check in a minute or two to verify the request was received.
I've never had any problems. My only complaint, and it's very mild, is I wish we could select the forwarding mode. Right now, it forwards when no answer or unavailable (phone off or out of range). I'd like to be able to select "Forward all calls" so callers don't have to wait through 6 rings before it comes to me on the S2.
I have a Galaxy S7 edge on Tmobile.
1) Is there anyway to decrease the 30 seconds to a minute it takes for forwarding to turn on after Bluetooth disconnect?
2) When forwarding, My S7 will still ring a bunch of times before the call is forwarded. Anyway for the call to go directly to the Gear S3?
kronium said:
I have a Galaxy S7 edge on Tmobile.
1) Is there anyway to decrease the 30 seconds to a minute it takes for forwarding to turn on after Bluetooth disconnect?
2) When forwarding, My S7 will still ring a bunch of times before the call is forwarded. Anyway for the call to go directly to the Gear S3?
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Click to collapse
I have the same setup. I don't believe there is a way to change this at this point. There will be a delay
Gratchf703 said:
I have the same setup. I don't believe there is a way to change this at this point. There will be a delay
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Click to collapse
Yikes, it makes it virtually unusable as the caller has to wait almost ten rings before you pick up on your watch. Most people would hang up by then!
I'll have to look into Google Voice to see if there's a quicker solution.
kronium said:
Yikes, it makes it virtually unusable as the caller has to wait almost ten rings before you pick up on your watch. Most people would hang up by then!
I'll have to look into Google Voice to see if there's a quicker solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a solution that uses a 3rd party program. It is a program called "Automagic" for your android phone. If you are familiar with "Tasker" it is similar. Automagic runs in the background on my phone. I have 2 "Flows" set up in the program. The 1st one looks at the BT connection between my phone and the S3. As soon as the connection is broken (I walk away from my phone), it automatically has the phone dial call forwarding and turns it on. I have it set to dial the number for instant call forwarding so all calls to my phone are instantly forwarded to the watch number (there are usually 2 types of call forwarding on the different carriers, one for instant transfer of all calls, and another for allowing the 1st number to ring a few times before forwarding). A caller never knows they are calling my watch. The first ring happens instantly on my watch. If I call someone from the watch they will see it as coming from my watch number (numbersync doesn't do this)
I have the 2nd "Flow set up to watch for BT re-connection with my watch (when I walk back within BT range of the phone). It then has the phone automatically dial to turn off Call Forwarding.
Check with your carrier to see what numbers need to be dialed to turn on and off call forwarding. Also remember there are usually 2 types of forward, an instant, and a delayed. Post back in these forums if you try Automagic. I can share the "Flows" I set up to work with call forwarding. There is a free version of Automagic that allows you to have a couple flows. I ended up buing it since it worked so well and I wanted to support a developer.
ScottyKnox said:
I have a solution that uses a 3rd party program. It is a program called "Automagic" for your android phone. If you are familiar with "Tasker" it is similar. Automagic runs in the background on my phone. I have 2 "Flows" set up in the program. The 1st one looks at the BT connection between my phone and the S3. As soon as the connection is broken (I walk away from my phone), it automatically has the phone dial call forwarding and turns it on. I have it set to dial the number for instant call forwarding so all calls to my phone are instantly forwarded to the watch number (there are usually 2 types of call forwarding on the different carriers, one for instant transfer of all calls, and another for allowing the 1st number to ring a few times before forwarding). A caller never knows they are calling my watch. The first ring happens instantly on my watch. If I call someone from the watch they will see it as coming from my watch number (numbersync doesn't do this)
I have the 2nd "Flow set up to watch for BT re-connection with my watch (when I walk back within BT range of the phone). It then has the phone automatically dial to turn off Call Forwarding.
Check with your carrier to see what numbers need to be dialed to turn on and off call forwarding. Also remember there are usually 2 types of forward, an instant, and a delayed. Post back in these forums if you try Automagic. I can share the "Flows" I set up to work with call forwarding. There is a free version of Automagic that allows you to have a couple flows. I ended up buing it since it worked so well and I wanted to support a developer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks so much for writing that up. I may check it out in the future. I called T-Mobile up and they reduced the 30 second forwarding lag to 5 seconds on the their end. That was the lowest they can go, but I'm able to answer the Gear by the 3rd ring now, and it only rings once on the phone.
kronium said:
Hey, thanks so much for writing that up. I may check it out in the future. I called T-Mobile up and they reduced the 30 second forwarding lag to 5 seconds on the their end. That was the lowest they can go, but I'm able to answer the Gear by the 3rd ring now, and it only rings once on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't know you could have T-Mobile adjust that, thanks for the info. I may also try the 5 second delay.
Ok, so Tmobile finally got my digits working and it's awesome to be able to leave the house without my phone. Now with spotify, I don't have to take my phone to the gym anymore. I just hook my BT ear buds and I have everything I need. I can even use it like a phone with a BT headset and when I call people see as if I'm calling from my phone.
Now with that being said, I have only had one issue so far but it's not a digits or tmobile problem. The way I figure I'll just live with it. The nature of having your watch share the same phone number means you get duplicate notifications. For example, if I'm connected to the phone through Bluetooth or I have call forwarding set to get my notifications from my phone and somebody sends me a text, I get the notification from the phone and I clear it. Now when I disconnect from the phone. My text messages and missed calls show up as notifications from the watch.
It makes sense. If the watch is sharing the same phone number, the phone will forward the message to the watch but the watch is also receiving the message to. I know there is an option to block but I want to be able to get my texts and missed calls if I turn off my phone and am using the watch in stand alone mode.
I figured a fix though for those who use the forwarding function and will always have stuff forwarded from the phone is to block the watch notifications. My solution it to just go to the text messaging app and clear them manually, ignore them or just delete the message conversation.
Just something to make people aware of when using Digits if you haven't signed up for it already. I personally like it so far and will probably pay for the service if it's reasonable.
I had a heck of a time getting tmobile to set it up right but when they finally got it working I like it now.
I'm having the same issue...wonder if there's a way to stop the dual notifications?
Just for my S3 frontier and having the same issue. Any fixes?
Got mine (LTE through TMob) a couple of days ago and immediately started with problems. I have a separate watch line with an S7 Edge. Essentially I can send/receive text in the stand alone mode but can not call out or receive. (Can on BT) Had the tech guys play with it (they thought it was a line issue) and they put a ticket in. That might get it working in a week. I thought I could bypass the problem with the line using DIGITS and my cell but nope. Turns out (according to the DIGITS guru) its a sim card problem so they are exchanging the watch. Not an impressive first start but I'm hopeful it'll get better. Hopefully...
Everything BT seems to work but its only been 2 days. I still need to check all the stand alone things when I get the replacement. And, of course, stand alone was the point of the watch.
Also make sure it works in remote connect mode, which is more useful than standalone mode.
How does remote connect work? Wifi?
The connection mode is shown by pulling down on the watchface. It will say "standalone", "connected via BT", or "remotely connected via carrier".
In remote connection mode, the watch doesn't communicate with the phone. Only calls and messages directly to the watch's number are transmitted. No notifications (ie. email, missed calls, Hangouts) from the phone are passed through. In remote connection mode, the watch communicates via it's LTE radio to the phone whether it be in different room or a different state. This allows all notifications to be passed through.
I keep WiFi turned off, it seems (inadequately) redundant for an LTE watch.
And the difference between that and Stand Alone is what?
afblangley said:
In remote connection mode, the watch doesn't communicate with the phone. Only calls and messages directly to the watch's number are transmitted. No notifications (ie. email, missed calls, Hangouts) from the phone are passed through.
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Click to collapse
I made a typo. What I meant to say is that in standalone mode the watch doesn't communicate with the phone.
afblangley said:
I made a typo. What I meant to say is that in standalone mode the watch doesn't communicate with the phone.
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Click to collapse
AHHHHH... That makes more sense. I'm going to use DIGITS. Do you know how that impacts? Or if it does?
rogerperk said:
AHHHHH... That makes more sense. I'm going to use DIGITS. Do you know how that impacts? Or if it does?
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Click to collapse
Nope, sorry. I use Google Voice, so I don't have first hand experience with Digits.
afblangley said:
Nope, sorry. I use Google Voice, so I don't have first hand experience with Digits.
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Click to collapse
How does Google voice work with t-mobile
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cherylbaker said:
How does Google voice work with t-mobile
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Click to collapse
Google Voice for the most part, is carrier ignostic. Calls to a GV number can be forwarded to any of several landlines, cell lines, or digital lines. Outgoing caller ID is a bit trickier and device dependent. Messages can be handled through the messaging app or Hangouts.
In my setup, since my public number is under Google's custodianship, carrier assigned numbers are irrelevant/disposable. My watch, phones, and tablets each have their own carrier number, GV is configured to forward calls to each of these numbers, and they ring simultaneously and independently. Ditto with messages. The carrier has no input in this process. The Gear is also ignorant of this. I don't need to use it's call forwarding setting.
I don't doubt that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon will eventually get all the kinks worked out of their number sharing system. But Google has been at it for a few years and offers more features, flexibility, and gives power back to the user.
So here's what we got after 5 days:
With my second watch in hand Im informed that the tMob engineers have decided the watch os bad and needs to go back to Samsung. After explaining that the odds against 2 bad watches were pretty small and demanding to be escalated I got a good manager who agreed. The watch is fine. After some digging she decided the problem was that the line is screwed up on the back end and won't connect voice. Problem is she has no idea why or how to fix it. So I'm waiting for their "engineers" to look at it again with her cracking the whip. Bottom line for me is if I can't get a stand alone watch I'm not interested and expect a full refund AND for them to not market what they can't provide. We'll see.
If the line is messed up, why can't they just start from scratch and assign the watch a new number? Then setup the watch without a phone to make sure it works. This is true standalone. If that works, then the problem is with Digits, not the watch or the line.
afblangley said:
Google Voice for the most part, is carrier ignostic. Calls to a GV number can be forwarded to any of several landlines, cell lines, or digital lines. Outgoing caller ID is a bit trickier and device dependent. Messages can be handled through the messaging app or Hangouts.
In my setup, since my public number is under Google's custodianship, carrier assigned numbers are irrelevant/disposable. My watch, phones, and tablets each have their own carrier number, GV is configured to forward calls to each of these numbers, and they ring simultaneously and independently. Ditto with messages. The carrier has no input in this process. The Gear is also ignorant of this. I don't need to use it's call forwarding setting.
I don't doubt that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon will eventually get all the kinks worked out of their number sharing system. But Google has been at it for a few years and offers more features, flexibility, and gives power back to the user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well THAT certainly cleared up the question...
REALLY PISSED OFF!! Over a week now and TMob STILL can't fix whatever THEIR problem is with getting this watch to use voice! They were really happy to take my money though! SO PISSED!!
So today it actually.worked! With the phone off!
Then it stopped.
Wrote the CEO of TMob and got an answer in 2 days. Seems not all of their networks supports Voice-over-LTG on 4G lines so it doesn't work everywhere (or something like that). Like where I am. They are hoping the Tizen 3.0 will correct that so the watch accepts a.lower quality line but not sure. Outstanding...
UPDATE 15 Oct - if I ran the watch as truly stand alone it would work. By using DIGITS it only uses 3G, which my area does not have. More info.