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Hi everyone,
This is Edward, developer of Car Locator. I just soft-launched my latest app and I wanted to tap this wonderful community to help me test it out and gather feedback before I start promoting it.
The app is called "Smarter Alarm". Basically, instead of waking up to a blaring sound in the morning, Smarter Alarm will read customizable information to you, like the morning's weather, stock prices, headline news, sports scores, your friends' birthdays and more. It's similar to Iron Man's "Jarvis" alarm clock.
I'll be adding more feeds in future updates, but I wanted to gauge interest before putting in the time =)
I'd really appreciate any bug reports, feature requests, and improvements you might have! If you can find any verifiable bugs, I'll happily reward you with a free copy of the full version of any of my other apps: "Car Locator", "Copy Paste It" and "Screenshot It".
Heres the market link: market://details?id=com.edwardkim.android.smarteralarm
Thanks!
p.s. The app is also entered in Verizon's VDC Power your app contest under the "information" category. Please vote for me! (poweryourappcontest.com/Protected/ApplicationListVote.aspx)
Sounds like a great idea! Ill keep an eye out
Sent from outerspace
I think its a great idea, but instead of voice, maybe an option to have music (or anything else playing) and instead have the text on your screen. Because currently the voice is a bit unpleasant to listen to
Hmm, interesting. I'll give it a try.
Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.
Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.
Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....
A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.
}{Alienz}{ said:
Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.
Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.
Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....
A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your suggestions! Multiple alarms is definitely a feature that I'll be adding soon. I'm just getting started =).
Can you recommend to me some voices that you think are good?
Thanks for this fantastic app!
So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.
A few suggestions that were not mentioned:
Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.
Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.
User configurable RSS feeds.
Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).
Device: Samsung Galaxy S
tried it on my htc desire. Although the app is quite nice, however the lock screen went missing once this application is install, and lock screen is restored once the app was uninstall.
Hey guys, have you ever heard something about WakeVoice ?
It's exactly the same things but with vocal recognition to ! (Jarvis....)
Here is the XDA thread : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=743915
RMonst3r said:
Thanks for this fantastic app!
So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.
A few suggestions that were not mentioned:
Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.
Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.
User configurable RSS feeds.
Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).
Device: Samsung Galaxy S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
User configurable RSS feeds is a DREAM feature for me as well. And the enable Wi-Fi Data would be important as I have things such as JuiceDefender which switch them off when not in use. Specifically...turning Wi-FI ON would be the most important one since where you need an alarm, you will likely be at your house and you will likely have wi-fi there that you use everyday.
So I suppose if I had to rate features it in order of important it would go like:
1. Configurable alarm time for different days of the week.
2. Turn Wi-Fi (or data) one minute prior to alarm going off. Make a trigger that checks if there is connectivity 1 min in advance and only enable the wifi if the trigger says there is no internet
3. Music in the background. Configurable in volume and content, meaning you can select what tune to play while the voice is reading stuff.
4. RSS feeds. YOU choose the feeds and news sites the alarm will read.
5. Randomize the background music so that it's different on different days or it randomly picks a song to play in the background-that way it will sound like you're listening to the radio only it's playing YOUR favorite music and telling you only stuff YOU care about.
Voices:
SVOX Classic British
SVOX Classic US Grace
Loquendo Susan
All 3 choices work pretty nice with the program. They are not like human voices but they are at least 5-10 times better than the default Android voice and WELL worth it. Hint: You can use them for navigation and reading your texts while you are driving as well.
To OP: If you manage to implement most of those features, I think you can easily set a $5-7 price tag and this thing will STILL sell like hot bread on the market lol. . .
nice.lets try
}{Alienz}{ said:
User configurable RSS feeds is a DREAM feature for me as well. And the enable Wi-Fi Data would be important as I have things such as JuiceDefender which switch them off when not in use. Specifically...turning Wi-FI ON would be the most important one since where you need an alarm, you will likely be at your house and you will likely have wi-fi there that you use everyday.
So I suppose if I had to rate features it in order of important it would go like:
1. Configurable alarm time for different days of the week.
2. Turn Wi-Fi (or data) one minute prior to alarm going off. Make a trigger that checks if there is connectivity 1 min in advance and only enable the wifi if the trigger says there is no internet
3. Music in the background. Configurable in volume and content, meaning you can select what tune to play while the voice is reading stuff.
4. RSS feeds. YOU choose the feeds and news sites the alarm will read.
5. Randomize the background music so that it's different on different days or it randomly picks a song to play in the background-that way it will sound like you're listening to the radio only it's playing YOUR favorite music and telling you only stuff YOU care about.
Voices:
SVOX Classic British
SVOX Classic US Grace
Loquendo Susan
All 3 choices work pretty nice with the program. They are not like human voices but they are at least 5-10 times better than the default Android voice and WELL worth it. Hint: You can use them for navigation and reading your texts while you are driving as well.
To OP: If you manage to implement most of those features, I think you can easily set a $5-7 price tag and this thing will STILL sell like hot bread on the market lol. . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your feedback again, as well as the suggested voices
I really like your ideas and I'll definitely be adding configurable multiple alarm times, music in the background, and rss feeds (1, 3, and 4). As for turning on wifi (2), I'll have to look into whether or not 3rd party apps are even allowed to turn on/off wifi without user input. I'm sure its possible, and if so, I'll add feature 2 as well.
Look out for updates in the next week or 2!
Almost forgot, my email address (for you to send the log file) is eddie dot kim at [google's mail system] dot com
Hey Edward,
Wifi control should be possible because Juice Defender does it, it may require root though (not sure).
Can't wait for the changes.
Bug report!
This is the second day it failed to "alarm" lol. Good thing I set another alarm 5 min after otherwise I woulda slept in late for work.
Ok bugs. Yesterday it gave me a Text to speech can't be initialized or similar (I was playing with voices night before so maybe thats why).
This morning it gave me some error as well. I was in a rush and sleepy so didn't remember it but from now on I'll write them down or do log cats. Point is though both times it failed to ring. Today's error was not connected with voices at all as far as I remember.
Also a different bug is: When you launch the app, it AUTOMATICALLY turns on screen rotation and then bugs itself out when it can't decide on a horizontal vs vertical layout. Interestingly enough, the rotation option remains DISABLED on my phone...the app goes crazy switching modes though and then errored out with something. It does this on being launched or running, regardless. Just flip the phone a bit and you'll see.
It's a bug report because if an alarm goes while it's doing this, the alarm errors out and does NOT ring.
}{Alienz}{ said:
Bug report!
This is the second day it failed to "alarm" lol. Good thing I set another alarm 5 min after otherwise I woulda slept in late for work.
Ok bugs. Yesterday it gave me a Text to speech can't be initialized or similar (I was playing with voices night before so maybe thats why).
This morning it gave me some error as well. I was in a rush and sleepy so didn't remember it but from now on I'll write them down or do log cats. Point is though both times it failed to ring. Today's error was not connected with voices at all as far as I remember.
Also a different bug is: When you launch the app, it AUTOMATICALLY turns on screen rotation and then bugs itself out when it can't decide on a horizontal vs vertical layout. Interestingly enough, the rotation option remains DISABLED on my phone...the app goes crazy switching modes though and then errored out with something. It does this on being launched or running, regardless. Just flip the phone a bit and you'll see.
It's a bug report because if an alarm goes while it's doing this, the alarm errors out and does NOT ring.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your bug report. Not alarming is obviously a huge bug, so I'll try to duplicate this and put out a fix asap. While the alarm is going off, screen orientation changes SHOULD be disabled so the alarm is not interrupted.
Sweet app. which voice engine is better? It gives me a choice of Pico and eSpeak
One suggestion: Add the current time. Ex: "Good <morning|afternoon|evening> name. It is <time>am|pm.
Not sure if this is a bug, or just something not fully implement yet, but when I'm setting the alarm time, the time is in am/pm format - even though my phone is set to 24h format. Other than that it looks promising and good luck with your project.
Sent from my Desire HD
This sounds really good. It reminds me of those futuristic moives where the computer tells the person everything about the day and stuff.
Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk
Awesome app! Here are some suggestions:
1) Please include an alarm clock icon in the status bar, so I know whether it's on or off.
2) Please add an option to configure what days you want the alarm to go off.
3) Bug report: current weather is given in Celsius, but the forecast is give in Fahrenheit.
So, I have had this watch since late November, so, here's my honest opinion after ~7 weeks use. (I suspect I get unnecessarily flamed by Samsung Fans for this!!)
The Good
- The design, rotating bezel is the best attempt yet at a simple selection system for a smartwatch
- The battery life - I easily get 3 days
- The hardware - nice screen, snappy performance
- Answering/rejecting calls from the watch works very well and call quality is superb
- Notifications work well, but limited as to what one can do with them with non samsung phone
- Huge number of watch faces - but who needs more than one?
- When S-Voice is working (which is rarely) its handy for 'remind me to...', 'set alarm for...' requests.
- Controlling music player on phone works well enough
- Very few decent apps, but Remote Camera, Xenozu (Youtube), Gear Browser, Toggles, Flipboard work pretty well.
The Bad - (Warning - this is pretty scathing!)
- Only 1.4GB free on watch from the original 4GB
- Watch is full of junk that cannot be uninstalled (useless watch faces useless apps)
- Seriously compromised if not using with a Samsung phone (eg no email, limited sms messaging)
- No way to add SMS functionality via third party apps. Can send messages, but can not go back through old received messages.
- No Gmail/Email (pop3/imap) app, if you have a Samsung phone you get this feature, if not then tough. A stand alone imap-enabled client would have solved this.
- Often the only option in notifications is 'show on phone' eg from FB messenger/twitter notifications - where we are talking about just a few words, this defeats the purpose of the watch, I need to be able to read on watch and reply on watch. This limitation gets tiresome. 3rd parties EG FB/twitter could fix this with their own S3 app, or notifications that allow 'reply', but we all know they never will. Some other notifications (eg email are less limiting)
- Samsungs App store is god-awful - there are many poor quality, paid apps, and when one installs them and discovers they are rubbish there is NO WAY to get a refund (unlike the google play store). I have wasted £20 this way.
- Decent apps on the Samsung store are hard to come by. The (fairly pointless) Xenozu Youtube app, gear brower along with the widgets app (displays android widgets on yr watch) are about the only decent ones that exist. The latter eats battery on the phone though. One notable exception being the remote camera app which is good.
- Samsung pay still does not work in the UK, and no idea when or if it ever will.
- a good 80% of the 'apps' on the Samsung store are simply watch faces - I only need one watch face.
- What remains is an extremely poor collection of extremely buggy apps.
- The 'SMS Service is not available' response to S-Voice attempts to 'Send a text to xxx' requests is tedious. There was no need to screw the functionality up so much for non Samsung phone users.
- Very often S-Voice does not respond - just times out and gives a spoken error
- The remote connection (via wifi) when watch is not connected via bluetooth is unreliable. Its supposed to make a remote connection to phone and allow notifications/etc to still be sent to the watch. Most of the time, it does not work even where watch/phone are on same wifi network, I have never had it work when they are on different networks.
- The watch is fussy about wifi networks (it wont work at all in my workplace for instance). It connects, but no connectivity.
- S-Health is a pile of junk, it auto-detects cycling when I am doing 60MPH on the motorway for instance!!! Among many other issues. Where is the option to remove it and replace with Strava? S-Health on the phone also eats the phones battery in no time.
Samsung needs to up their game if they are serious about Tizen Smartwatches, supplying their own developers for free to the likes of facebook, twitter, whatsapp, hive, ifttt, Skitrax etc in order to ensure that apps for the watch get developed, or paying devs to develop for the platform. They also need to change their store to allow a refund window for rubbish apps.
Samsung could WRITE an IMAP app to fix the email hole on the watch (could be configured from phone, but then work without phone)
Nigel
I am a Samsung fan and I agree with a lot of your gripes, but with all Tech products the "honeymoon" period is pretty short, in other words the level of excitement wears off quickly.
But I agree, if they want Tizen to take off, they need to have major upgrades to the software side of the experience. Samsung is and always will be a great hardware manufacturer, but the software side is always a question-mark. This goes for the overloaded useless crap software on their galaxy phones to the poor software functionality of their smart tvs.
Google is releasing Android Wear upgrades so hopefully some competition outside of Apple will spruce things up, but I am not holding my breath.
BTW, I had to turn off S Voice as it would randomly turn on 2-3 times a day (I didn't even have voice recognition configured) when I was in meetings, very embarrassing. I should have the capability to uninstall it all together.
Also 100% agree on the refund period, like what the hell, in this day and age it should be an easy thing to do. Have bought so many faces and apps that look great and advertise great functionality to only be disappointed when seeing it work after installation. Money wasted.
The only reason I dont have a Samsung phone is the software. Hardware great, but why oh why do they have to mess with stock android so much!?
Sent from my SGP621 using Tapatalk
I bought the frontier to try out Tizen. The other reasons were Samsung Pay, GPS (coming from Huawei Watch) and IP68 certification. I was hoping there would be great apps to support it along the way. The watch build (minus the rotating bezel) is fantastic but Tizen and the current Gear apps are just not exciting enough and hence my feelings are similar to the OP. Maybe my expectations for a wearable are too much. However, I'm looking forward to what Under Armour has to offer since I like to track my runs. Still keeping my Huawei with latest Wear developer preview installed which I actually prefer over Tizen for its clean UI, Google search and wrist gestures. I hardly touch the Frontier's rattling bezel for the fear of it breaking loose. I wish I could tap the screen to turn on the display as with the Huawei. These are just my preferences but its good that I can have the same notifications on both watches at the same time using one phone and therefore be able to switch between the two.
I agree with the OP post plus I'm fed up with the bugs and crap altitude and barometer. Maybe I'll switch to the Fenix 5 when it's released.
I also own a Lg G watch r, and the thing i miss on Gear s3 are the lack of google`s software integration. Would like to use "ok google", by far superior to S-voice. Also google maps, with turn by turn navigation on my wrist.
The selection of watchfaces are awful on gear, and many of them does not look nice on the watch. Missing Watchmaker app, awesome selection of quality watchfaces created by users.
Like mentioned in OP, the notifications are not rich enough.. the idea of the watch making it easier is not working good enough. BUT im hoping there will be changes coming, because it an nice looking and powerful watch.
blackspp said:
I agree with the OP post plus I'm fed up with the bugs and crap altitude and barometer. Maybe I'll switch to the Fenix 5 when it's released.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fully agree with you. There is no apps and Samsung does not bring much to the table. It should be improving the experience, but in place they just rotate few features between models. They don't add new features, but only remove some to replace them with others. Then next models, swap them again (e.g. IR remote).
Progress will be to keep the existing and ADD something!
The only thing I enjoy with the Gear S3 is the look. I felt an improvement in quality, but nothing else. Hope that new intersting apps will get on board soon and that firmware update will be able to correct irrealistic figures from all sensors in that watch.
I fully agree with all of you.
I can use Google maps now with Directions, but even that one I have to start manually.
Toggles was new for me. (Thanks)
But still a lot of handy things as in the first part of Nigel's story.
Quick read my mail, etc etc, coming from a ,not too bad, Sony Smartwatch, its great.
And we have this beautiful KLM airline app.
S-Voice is a drama. (no Dutch)
But this is the Tizen choice. We knew it... lets face it.
Huib
Does anyone know if android wear 2.0 will support android pay on rooted phones? The only reason I'm keeping my Gear S3 is for samsung pay. The rest is too buggy as mentioned here. The other reason is spotify, which rarely works well for me anymore.
soundneedle said:
Does anyone know if android wear 2.0 will support android pay on rooted phones? The only reason I'm keeping my Gear S3 is for samsung pay. The rest is too buggy as mentioned here. The other reason is spotify, which rarely works well for me anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There first has to be a watch that supports Android pay with nfc. Right now there isn't any and idk looks like they might not let root users unless they make a separate app for Android pay for watches like Samsung did for Samsung pay for the gear s3 on how it is separate from the Samsung pay phone version. We should know hopefully soon.
Geez!
I was tempted by the Amoled screen vs the LCD of the Moto 360 v2, but as I am an HTC phones user the limitations will be bad.
Though I see there are some custom roms, I wonder if they can fix most of the listed problems?
Samsung Pay with MST keeps me around. Truly groundbreaking on a watch. If you're not using that, then yeah I can see how you'd throw in the towel.
I'm mystified by the lack of app developers as well as Samsung's poor app offerings! I want to be able to read all Flipboard posts! I want better functionality from the calendar. I want Facebook, a better browser and a swyping keyboard! And I want them to fix the WiFi so you can connect to password protected networks!
Sent from my SM-N930T using Tapatalk
kronium said:
Samsung Pay with MST keeps me around. Truly groundbreaking on a watch. If you're not using that, then yeah I can see how you'd throw in the towel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Likewise, first impression was "Wow great watch" but after a month with it, it got bland fast so I sold my Canadian version (which didn't have Samsung Pay on it). I found out through the forum that the American versions have Samsung Pay which would work in Canada and that Watchmaker could trigger Tasker so I decided to buy another one. Honestly love the watch now! Samsung Pay IS really groundbreaking and makes this watch totally worth it. (blah blah blah I know, spending money so that you can pay for more stuff you don't need...)
I use tasker to control my home automation so that's a plus too.
I am fully aware that the Gear S3 is a smartwatch first and sport tracker second. But Samsung come on, at least have Strava come -on-board with a native app, S-Health sucks big time.
Yup. It seems to work okay with cycling. Just okay.
S Health is a humongous battery hog.
And how about a Pandora native app also.
I use the watch daily. I can see my notifications (text and Gmail) on the watch without looking at my phone. I also use Samsung Pay almost daily. I have the LTE version, so it it nice to be able to have a stand-alone device if needed. There are many, many reasons I like this watch. However, I think it is obvious that there is a huge lack of usable apps for this watch. Clearly, this is mostly because of Tizen, but Samsung is to blame for that. They have taken little initiative to get real app development. They could at least create a bridge that would allow some Android apps to function on Tizen. They are very hoggish and want to control all aspects of the watch for themselves but aren't moving fast to do so. They offer a BMW app for the watch, but how many people drive a BMW? Why not offer a Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge app, etc...? The list is way too long to mention here of usable apps that need to be available for this watch. So, as I have mentioned in other threads, the watch is great...it just severely lacks app development and Samsung's weak attempts (****ty contests) to inspire development is falling way short. I can only hope they change this very soon. Google should be releasing a pretty awesome watch very soon and I'm not sure if Samsung Pay is going to be enough to keep me with the S3. Especially since I can just use my phone for the same thing.
scott14719 said:
I use the watch daily. I can see my notifications (text and Gmail) on the watch without looking at my phone. I also use Samsung Pay almost daily. I have the LTE version, so it it nice to be able to have a stand-alone device if needed. There are many, many reasons I like this watch. However, I think it is obvious that there is a huge lack of usable apps for this watch. Clearly, this is mostly because of Tizen, but Samsung is to blame for that. They have taken little initiative to get real app development. They could at least create a bridge that would allow some Android apps to function on Tizen. They are very hoggish and want to control all aspects of the watch for themselves but aren't moving fast to do so. They offer a BMW app for the watch, but how many people drive a BMW? Why not offer a Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge app, etc...? The list is way too long to mention here of usable apps that need to be available for this watch. So, as I have mentioned in other threads, the watch is great...it just severely lacks app development and Samsung's weak attempts (****ty contests) to inspire development is falling way short. I can only hope they change this very soon. Google should be releasing a pretty awesome watch very soon and I'm not sure if Samsung Pay is going to be enough to keep me with the S3. Especially since I can just use my phone for the same thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with everything you say except SPay! Amen!
Sent from my SM-N930T using Tapatalk
Ditto the two above posts...
I bought the watch 2 weeks ago and I love the way it functions personally. S health got a major upgrade 2 weeks ago, and to get the most of it you need to check off the activities that you like in the S gear app. So far I have just run and walked using this app. and it gives heart rate, and let's you know your pace and calories burned. I have yet to track weight training, and such. The Under Armor apps are there, but I seem to get and invalid email error so far. One of the best keeps getting better since the last heart rate monitoring addition.
Hi guys,
This may be a set of obvious questions but not for me. I need a device that would keep my phone unlocked when it’s around and run some basic features without LTE installed on the device. After watching some reviews I got perplexed so I think asking may be the best choice. My needs are as follows:
- controlling Google Play Music on my phone, streaming to my headphones (I believe it works),
- reply to FB Messenger notifications (in Classic version of the gear, so only via Bluetooth),
- read and reply to Textra and Telegram messages.
- use Google Calendar, not Samsung one.
I have searched for these but the information is misleading. Sorry for asking maybe obvious questions.
FlashGPL said:
Hi guys,
This may be a set of obvious questions but not for me. I need a device that would keep my phone unlocked when it’s around and run some basic features without LTE installed on the device. After watching some reviews I got perplexed so I think asking may be the best choice. My needs are as follows:
- controlling Google Play Music on my phone, streaming to my headphones (I believe it works),
- reply to FB Messenger notifications (in Classic version of the gear, so only via Bluetooth),
- read and reply to Textra and Telegram messages.
- use Google Calendar, not Samsung one.
I have searched for these but the information is misleading. Sorry for asking maybe obvious questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Play Music controls work, read/reply to Textra works, and i can see my google calendar on it too. I have telegram and FB messenger, but i don't have notifications for those on. I can test them later though.
coolhandz said:
Google Play Music controls work, read/reply to Textra works, and i can see my google calendar on it too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many thanks for your answer. That’s fantastic. I’ve seen mixed info on the internet, probably referring to various firmwares tho. Like “you need to start music on yer phone first” or “only the built in sms client works so ya need to switch back to it” (from Textra, c’mon! Pffff...).
coolhandz said:
I have telegram and FB messenger, but i don't have notifications for those on. I can test them later though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would be happy to know it as well.
I previously used pebble Time Steel, which was perfect for my purposes. I could read the messages, which in my case are 95% FB Messenger one’s, and quick :good: or reply to them. I could control music on my S7 (yet, if memory serves, I needed to start playback on my phone first). And I could see a plethora of notifications on it. But Fitbit decided to buy and kill Pebble so I sold it. I purchased Huawei Watch but Android Wear is silly for me. Sold it, thought I will never go back to smartwatches again but this little gem, I want to give it a try. My requirements are not big, but they are detailed (e.g. I don’t use Spotify as it lacks “play next” feature which I use a lot, there is only add to queue, and for some more details).
Oh, probably one last question: is the night mode independent from the one on the phone? E.g. can I use the watch for vibrating notifications after my phone goes DND?
FlashGPL said:
Many thanks for your answer. That’s fantastic. I’ve seen mixed info on the internet, probably referring to various firmwares tho. Like “you need to start music on yer phone first” or “only the built in sms client works so ya need to switch back to it” (from Textra, c’mon! Pffff...).
Would be happy to know it as well.
I previously used pebble Time Steel, which was perfect for my purposes. I could read the messages, which in my case are 95% FB Messenger one’s, and quick :good: or reply to them. I could control music on my S7 (yet, if memory serves, I needed to start playback on my phone first). And I could see a plethora of notifications on it. But Fitbit decided to buy and kill Pebble so I sold it. I purchased Huawei Watch but Android Wear is silly for me. Sold it, thought I will never go back to smartwatches again but this little gem, I want to give it a try. My requirements are not big, but they are detailed (e.g. I don’t use Spotify as it lacks “play next” feature which I use a lot, there is only add to queue, and for some more details).
Oh, probably one last question: is the night mode independent from the one on the phone? E.g. can I use the watch for vibrating notifications after my phone goes DND?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have my phone on DND all day while i am at work and my S3 vibrates for notifications. I just tested telegram and replying works on there. I usually don't have telegram on because it would be going off all day. FB messenger i can't really test because i never use it, but I've turned notifications on so we'll see what happens.
First let me say this is a very fine piece of Hardware and I have been researching it these last few days and got nowhere, yes I see the demo's and reviews and it's all great but...………………………… and it is a big but
and please correct me if I am wrong and take it as a question more than a statement
- I cannot get access to view the available apps unless I have a Samsung phone - which I don't
- I have done numerous searches to find what I want and come up with near enough nothing
Currently I have a Smartwatch with a single watchface that is giving me all this when I look at it
Time Day and date at my location
Time at another location
Watch Batt Status
Phone Batt Status
Weather today temp hi/lo with pic
Currency conversion of my choosing (set on phone) realtime
It shows me all messages from all my messaging apps on my phone with the text, sms, line, FBmessenger WhatsApp etc.
Incoming calls with contact details or number etc
I can set my phone on the other side of the room and fully control my music player (poweramp) with album art etc, my music is stored as mp3 on the phone so is there even a music player app for the Gear S3 that can access the music on my phone and play it controlling the phone and playing from the phone ?
I really would like to buy this watch but can it do all that, can it even do all that with separate apps if want to scroll through to get there for stuff like currency and media control (Sony Phone)
can someone please confirm
Yes I get that I am not going to get a watch face that will show me what my current one does but is it even possible using apps widgets downloaded to the phone and/or watch to at least give me the functionality I have now
And I stress I am not being critical of the Gear S3 because I really like it and I want one provided it can tick all the boxes
Probably with a Wear OS watch
dersie said:
Probably with a Wear OS watch
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yes I agree, I've been doing a lot of reading up these last few days and the Samsung Gear S3 is the best watch on the market but it fails miserably because they opted to break from Android OS (Wear), I think they were trying to become Brand Specific like Apple but that is never going to work on Android - very foolish
I have narrowed my choices down to 3, Ticwatch Pro, LG and Fossil, Ticwatch is slightly in the lead, but I have decided that it must be Android OS, just a pity Samsung S3 went a different direction, I am not going to buy a watch that only functions for 50% of what I want no matter how good the Hardware is, to me it is a fail and wouldn't take it at half the price
Geoffxx said:
yes I agree, I've been doing a lot of reading up these last few days and the Samsung Gear S3 is the best watch on the market but it fails miserably because they opted to break from Android OS (Wear), I think they were trying to become Brand Specific like Apple but that is never going to work on Android - very foolish
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Click to collapse
I think the Gear S3 is the best watch at this time.
Wear watch are really horrible. Very bad battery life (sometime not last the day), a lot of bug and hang, often the watch take long seconds to respond (when it works, often not works but do not know why ???) ..... apps are very rare do not mistake I have G-Watch, R-Watch, LG-Sport, Sony SW3, Asus ZW2, Ticwatch E) all are almost unusables. You must install app (and often faces) with the phone AND AFTER use the watch (with tiny screen) to go on Playstore WITH the watch (when it works).
With Tizen you have the "Watchmaker" app (same as Wear OS) and you can have advanced watch face. On Tizen I have note app, Google Task app, evernote app..... nothing for Wear and almost none of this kind
dersie said:
I think the Gear S3 is the best watch at this time.
Wear watch are really horrible. Very bad battery life (sometime not last the day), a lot of bug and hang, often the watch take long seconds to respond (when it works, often not works but do not know why ???) ..... apps are very rare do not mistake I have G-Watch, R-Watch, LG-Sport, Sony SW3, Asus ZW2, Ticwatch E) all are almost unusables. You must install app (and often faces) with the phone AND AFTER use the watch (with tiny screen) to go on Playstore WITH the watch (when it works).
With Tizen you have the "Watchmaker" app (same as Wear OS) and you can have advanced watch face. On Tizen I have note app, Google Task app, evernote app..... nothing for Wear and almost none of this kind
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why not address my first post and tell me exactly (from my requirements) what the S3 can and cannot do
lets start with a live exchange rate widget or even stock quotes, I am still using a Sony Sw2 and it does everything I want it too, I actually just bought an LG Watch Urbane 2 nd Edition LTE Unlocked for 100GBP brand new, very cheap IMO
also if I buy and Samsung Gear S3 I lose 50% of the functionality because I don't have a Samsung phone and never will have
And what we lost with a no Samsung phone ? The only thing is, maybe, the Samsung Email app wich works with Samsung watch. But even with a Samsung phone I use Aquamail and not the Samsung mail. All others things works same with samsung and other phone since the S2 serie.
dersie said:
And what we lost with a no Samsung phone ? The only thing is, maybe, the Samsung Email app wich works with Samsung watch. But even with a Samsung phone I use Aquamail and not the Samsung mail. All others things works same with samsung and other phone since the S2 serie.
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I believe you are wrong about that
Remember I don't have one and was unable to look at apps because I don't have Samsung phone.....but here is what I have read
- messaging doesn't work properly
- music player (control) extremely limited
- email
- calling functionality
- limited apps but I honestly don't know this for sure because I can't access the app store to look, what I do know is that AW is 100% supported with apps for absolutely everything I would ever need
like I mentioned - stuff like currency/stock tracking doesn't exist, XE is AW enabled but doesn't exist on S3
I use Poweramp as my music player on my phone and can completely control it from my ancient Sony SW2 - go figure, this is extremely useful if I am out and want to hook my phone up to an external sound system - my phone sits meters away and I can control everything from SW from my seat, does Samsung S3 support Poweramp ?? well I don't know because I cannot access the secret Samsung app store without a Samsung Phone or SW - maybe they are hiding it
The list my friend is endless, like I said in my OP - the Gear S3 is IMO the best hardware out there but is unusable on a none Samsung setup and even if you have Samsung phone it is still limited because of lack of app support
IMO Samsung made an error not adopting Android Wear and would have dominated the market it they had
Like said, since Gear S2 Samsung apps works on all Android phone with 1.5Go RAM. Works also on IOS but limited for app wich have an android compagnon app. Messaging is like all others apps and works same way on Wear OS or Tizen OS.
Email ? wear has not really an email app, works just with notification system like Tizen OS. Same for all
Geoffxx said:
I believe you are wrong about that
Remember I don't have one and was unable to look at apps because I don't have Samsung phone.....but here is what I have read
- messaging doesn't work properly
- music player (control) extremely limited
- email
- calling functionality
- limited apps but I honestly don't know this for sure because I can't access the app store to look, what I do know is that AW is 100% supported with apps for absolutely everything I would ever need
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Click to collapse
I have a OnePlus 6 and a S9+, currently my Gear S3 is paired with my OnePlus.
I get my messages through Google voice and Facebook messenger, both work well. The random text messages work too. With all of these I get notifications but don't have the history, which is fine IMO, I can see and reply to messages, but I don't need to start a conversation from my watch in my usage.
I can play/pause/fast forward/rewind/adjust volume. It works for what is playing already, so I can't start my podcast unless it is 'ready' in the Android system (ie, if I press the play button on my headphones and it would play the podcast/music).
Email, I get notifications for Gmail, can't start a conversation on the watch though.
I can call and recieve calls.
The apps appear to be the same.
I tried the TicWatch pro, it was good, but the health features were crap compared to the S3, plus no MST and slightly worse battery life made me go back to the S3.
Edit: I'm not sure about the watch face thing..... Maybe later this week I can set up the watch designer from Samsung and see if some/all can be added to a watch face.
_Dennis_ said:
I have a OnePlus 6 and a S9+, currently my Gear S3 is paired with my OnePlus.
I get my messages through Google voice and Facebook messenger, both work well. The random text messages work too. With all of these I get notifications but don't have the history, which is fine IMO, I can see and reply to messages, but I don't need to start a conversation from my watch in my usage.
I can play/pause/fast forward/rewind/adjust volume. It works for what is playing already, so I can't start my podcast unless it is 'ready' in the Android system (ie, if I press the play button on my headphones and it would play the podcast/music).
Email, I get notifications for Gmail, can't start a conversation on the watch though.
I can call and recieve calls.
The apps appear to be the same.
I tried the TicWatch pro, it was good, but the health features were crap compared to the S3, plus no MST and slightly worse battery life made me go back to the S3.
Edit: I'm not sure about the watch face thing..... Maybe later this week I can set up the watch designer from Samsung and see if some/all can be added to a watch face.
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Click to collapse
like I said - 50 functionality, I want something that will work and is fully supported not something that is going to be hit and miss, but it is by far the best in terms of HW.
Over that last few days I have come across many people saying the same thing "I wish it was Android OS" even on this forum where one of the longest threads is about exactly that - porting AW
Geoffxx said:
like I said - 50 functionality, I want something that will work and is fully supported not something that is going to be hit and miss, but it is by far the best in terms of HW.
Over that last few days I have come across many people saying the same thing "I wish it was Android OS" even on this forum where one of the longest threads is about exactly that - porting AW
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Click to collapse
I've had WearOS, the only thing that was better (and not by much) was side loading Facebook messenger lite. Otherwise, IMO, Tizen and WearOS are very close in functionality, with WearOS winning in apps and Tizen in hardware. WearOS had more apps, but most aren't very useful, and I can program watchface in Tizen easier then WearOS. Tizen had more built in (probably do to the lack of third party apps) so things like sleep tracking works better.
Honestly, but a watch from somewhere with a good return policy and try it out, it's the only way you'll know if it works for you. I'd do this with both watches and see which works better in your specific use case.
I'm honestly not trying to persuade you one way or the other, just having used both OS's recently I want to give an accurate description as to their strengths and weaknesses.
_Dennis_ said:
I've had WearOS, the only thing that was better (and not by much) was side loading Facebook messenger lite. Otherwise, IMO, Tizen and WearOS are very close in functionality, with WearOS winning in apps and Tizen in hardware. WearOS had more apps, but most aren't very useful, and I can program watchface in Tizen easier then WearOS. Tizen had more built in (probably do to the lack of third party apps) so things like sleep tracking works better.
Honestly, but a watch from somewhere with a good return policy and try it out, it's the only way you'll know if it works for you. I'd do this with both watches and see which works better in your specific use case.
I'm honestly not trying to persuade you one way or the other, just having used both OS's recently I want to give an accurate description as to their strengths and weaknesses.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply and I do understand, I'm in buying mode and have been reading and looking for hours upon hours just absorbing info on all the options, I started this thread for that exact purpose and it is turning out the way I wanted - input from experienced people that is helping me get through the clutter, I have order a watch that I managed to get at a reasonable price 100 sterling for an LG Urbane 2nd addition so no huge investment, the LG sport is a better watch but 2-3 times the price, so I will get it in a couple of days and see how I go with that, unfortunately I won't have my new phone until Sept (Xperia XZ2 Premium) so I will have to manage with my dated Xperia Z1 but it should give me an idea of what I'm dealing with
again thx for taking an interest in my thread you have been very helpful
had my first day with the LG and wow absolutely superb, helped along with the App watchfaces which is also superb
funny I set the watch up and charged it and went out, I actually thought there was something wrong when it showed 100% battery for 2 hours and then started to very slowly drop, I am now 8hrs in and still have 67% battery which I think is impressive, and I had an always on face with lots of widgets, very impressed
I like to use my calendar to set my alarms as I do shift work - and EVERY shift is different.
I also like to put my Samsung in do not disturb overnight.
The problem with this is, last time I checked, calendar reminders are silenced in DnD, whereas alarms are not.
I found the holy grail of what I was looking for in the form of an app called AlarmPad by MindMe.
This app had many features, but the only one I was interested in was the scraping my Google calendar to set my alarm.
This was achieved by placing a hashtag in the title or description of my calendar entry, then creating a rule (or several) for it in AlarmPad.
I found this app so useful, I paid for the pro version.
I'm currently using an S7 edge, I previously had this on my S5 and possibly my S3 before that.
I'm considering my next phone... And am now looking at the Notes...
I can't decide whether to get the Note 9 now, or wait for the Note 10 next year...
But either way, if the app doesn't automatically transfer itself, I'm stuffed and will need a replacement.
Are there any other apps that can simply create alarms based on calendar entries!?
No-one?
escribblings said:
No-one?
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I still use it on Android 10.
So do I, but I'm concerned that one day it will break with an update.