Smart Watches

[lopri]

What is it that makes watches better at voice recognition than phones? Is it hardware or software?

 

[sze5003]

What is it that makes watches better at voice recognition than phones? Is it hardware or software?

I haven't had issues with my n6 using voice recognition. Unless I'm using it with a third party app. My watch also does pretty well in that department as long as its not too loud around me.

 

[lopri]

Would you say the watch's voice recognition is better than the phones? (speed & accuracy) I am wondering if there is a dedicated hardware for that in smart watches.

How does the watch affect the phone's battery in your experience?

 

[sze5003]

Would you say the watch's voice recognition is better than the phones? (speed & accuracy) I am wondering if there is a dedicated hardware for that in smart watches.

How does the watch affect the phone's battery in your experience?

I know my phone usually gets my contact names right whereas my watch sometimes gets the wrong one if I speak too quickly. It probably is the hardware as its a more important feature on the watch than on a phone.

I've been using my phone a lot and am running an aosp ROM which is known to use more battery. Bluetooth on will make your battery run down faster. But I'm also on a lot of location apps constantly so I don't get as much battery usage as I used to.

Also on the watch if you want to send a long message you have to talk fast as it cuts off after you pause.

 

[MrSquished]

I know my phone usually gets my contact names right whereas my watch sometimes gets the wrong one if I speak too quickly. It probably is the hardware as its a more important feature on the watch than on a phone.


Also on the watch if you want to send a long message you have to talk fast as it cuts off after you pause.

agreed - mine acts the same way. For example the name Jess always comes up as Jesse. However it gets much harder names right. And the pause, as you mention, is indeed too short. You can barely stop talking before it goes to send mode. That should be fixed.

But as far as overall recognition goes - this thing is like 99% accurate and very impressive.

 

[lopri]

Thank you for sharing the experience. I am considering (very, very tentatively) a smart watch and voice commands and dictation are the most interesting aspect. I know I can do it with phones but I do not get into it very often. Perhaps a watch will make a better companion for growing the habit.

 

[sze5003]

I wonder if there is a way to put your phone on silent and just let the notifications come through the watch. If I I set the phone on silent the watch is also set to silent.

I keep it at my desk at work and sometimes when I walk around Id rather not have the phone vibrate.

 

[blackdogdeek]

I went to BestBuy last night and they had the moto360 2015 on display. 42mm should be a really nice size for my tiny wrists. I also got an email that my watch has shipped finally. Current expected delivery as early as 12 Oct.

 

[MrSquished]

The battery life on the moto 360 2nd gen is impressing me. Never have less than 50% after a day's use

 

[sze5003]

The battery life on the moto 360 2nd gen is impressing me. Never have less than 50% after a day's use

Same with my huweii. I'm at 60% and its 6:46pm today, off the charger at 6am. I did have issues with the battery randomly dropping 10-15% right off the charger. One day by 10pm it went to 23% which was extremely odd. No third party apps or change in settings.

Talked to Google and went through trouble shooting issues. They are sending me out a new one so hopefully that wont be an issue. They did acknowledge the issue and are looking into it. Hopefully when M comes to the watch it should be better.

 

[Red Storm]

I wonder if there is a way to put your phone on silent and just let the notifications come through the watch. If I I set the phone on silent the watch is also set to silent.

I keep it at my desk at work and sometimes when I walk around Id rather not have the phone vibrate.

You definitely can do this. The setting should be in the Android Wear app (on your phone). Within that app, go to your watch's settings and there should be a toggle to mute notifications on your phone whenever your watch is connected to it.

 

[sze5003]

You definitely can do this. The setting should be in the Android Wear app (on your phone). Within that app, go to your watch's settings and there should be a toggle to mute notifications on your phone whenever your watch is connected to it.

Thanks I just did it, nice to have that feature.

 

[MrSquished]

Same with my huweii. I'm at 60% and its 6:46pm today, off the charger at 6am. I did have issues with the battery randomly dropping 10-15% right off the charger. One day by 10pm it went to 23% which was extremely odd. No third party apps or change in settings.

Talked to Google and went through trouble shooting issues. They are sending me out a new one so hopefully that wont be an issue. They did acknowledge the issue and are looking into it. Hopefully when M comes to the watch it should be better.

That happened to me once - lost like 20% in one hour right off the charger. I rebooted it, charged it rigth back up and it was fine. I think it's a software issue.

 

[sze5003]

That happened to me once - lost like 20% in one hour right off the charger. I rebooted it, charged it rigth back up and it was fine. I think it's a software issue.

Its happened twice or three times to me already. Twice off the charger and once just randomly while I was wearing it. I hope the new one doesn't do that anymore.

 

[dawheat]

Got my Gear 2 Classic today - just did basic setup. IMO it was a little more straightfoward than the initial setup I did with Android Wear and my 1st gen Moto 360.

Will use it for a day and post feedback. Initial thoughts:

- It is way more compact than I expected. My old Moto 360 looks and feels practically gigantic in comparison

- The bezel is great - you can easily one finger it (2 fingers is unnecessary and actually a bit awkward)

- Screen is great - clear step up from the 1st gen 360, though probably parity with all other current watches

 

[sze5003]

Got my Gear 2 Classic today - just did basic setup. IMO it was a little more straightfoward than the initial setup I did with Android Wear and my 1st gen Moto 360.

Will use it for a day and post feedback. Initial thoughts:

- It is way more compact than I expected. My old Moto 360 looks and feels practically gigantic in comparison

- The bezel is great - you can easily one finger it (2 fingers is unnecessary and actually a bit awkward)

- Screen is great - clear step up from the 1st gen 360, though probably parity with all other current watches

Yea it looks way nicer than the 360. How's the software? I know tizen is a bit different maybe stripped down a bit. I'm wondering how well it integrates with the phone. From videos it looks like you have an email and messaging app that you can use to view or read mail.

I'm assuming all notifications from your phone that deal with those two come through those apps? Also are you getting other notifications from tapa, what'sapp, or other apps? All of mine come in even if they don't have built in support to reply or view.

 

[lopri]

I would get a few of those for gifts if those were a bit cheaper. It at long last looks like a normal watch, but it does not look like a $350 watch. Of course it is a smartwatch and all that but for $350 the value just does not seem to be there. At $200~250 I think it will be way more compelling and impulse-friendly.

 

[openwheel]

All of the smart watches simply look like a cheap imitation of mechanical watches. The low quality is so evident even in pictures I see here. A simple strap upgrade would make that gear 2 Classic look 100x better.

Why not make smart watches stand out, why try to be something they are not?

 

[sze5003]

All of the smart watches simply look like a cheap imitation of mechanical watches. The low quality is so evident even in pictures I see here. A simple strap upgrade would make that gear 2 Classic look 100x better.

Why not make smart watches stand out, why try to be something they are not?

I dunno, people think my huweii is an actual regular watch. It looks kind of classy.

 

[MrSquished]

I've gotten compliments on my moto 360 gen 2 already. I changed the band and have a black case with a silver chamfer bezel.

 

[openwheel]

I dunno, people think my huweii is an actual regular watch. It looks kind of classy.

Exactly my point.

 

[openwheel]

I've gotten compliments on my moto 360 gen 2 already. I changed the band and have a black case with a silver chamfer bezel.

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

 

[dawheat]

I do agree the leather strap on the S2 Classic isn't the best, but it's fine to me. It's a standard band so I can swap it out anytime.

The watch itself IMO is very high quality for a smartwatch. I'm in the group that has never been interested in a traditional watch - I wear a smartwatch primarily for the notification functionality and for basic activity tracking.

After a couple days of use:

- battery life is no issue for me. Yesterday from 8am to 7pm with normal/light use to primarily check notifications and time, battery was at 72%. I charged it back up and left it off charger and unworn from 10pm to 8am and it was at 94%. You can probably get 2 days or normal use out of it easily, though I still will charge it every night.

- for primary tasks like notifications and going to common functions like weather, media controller, calendar, etc - I think the UI and interaction is far simpler and intuitive vs. Android Wear with its endless swiping and honestly sometimes not knowing whether I should swipe left, down, right, or up. Blows my old Moto 360 out from a UI perspective (ignoring performance differences).

- where it does suffer compared to Android Wear is beyond core tasks. Now I actually never used any 3rd party apps on my Moto 360 - I downloaded a few that were recommended, appreciated them for 5 minutes, and then never used them again. I've also thought about the Maps use case, but living in Manhattan makes it a bit useless. But if you do use this feature, the built in Maps on the S2 is bewilderingly useless. Yes you can eventually figure out how to pick and address and get directions, but I can't understand why someone would peck at a tiny screen to do so. Maybe the Google Maps feature works much better.

- I don't like the always on watch option - it's oddly pixelated compared to when the screen is on. It bothered me and I turned it off. However, the wrist detection to turn on works much better than my first gen Moto 360 (and prior Samsung watches).

- I do miss the ambient light sensor from the 360. Having a fixed brightness is OK until you go into a dark room. At least the watch faces don't produce much light but a notification certainly does.

Overall I like it quite a bit - it's compact, light, looks great, and is more comfortable than the old 360. Battery life, performance, and UI are great. For core tasks it beats Android Wear easily. But for 'advanced' tasks, those apps need some work.

 

[gorcorps]

All of the smart watches simply look like a cheap imitation of mechanical watches. The low quality is so evident even in pictures I see here. A simple strap upgrade would make that gear 2 Classic look 100x better.

Why not make smart watches stand out, why try to be something they are not?

That's exactly how they started, and almost everybody hated that the screens weren't round and demanded round screens that actually look like watches.

You are in the minority here. I suppose somebody might come up with a new design that people like more, but we've already been through some and people didn't like how they looked.

 

[openwheel]

That's exactly how they started, and almost everybody hated that the screens weren't round and demanded round screens that actually look like watches.

You are in the minority here. I suppose somebody might come up with a new design that people like more, but we've already been through some and people didn't like how they looked.

- I don't think so. Smart watches started out looking like toy watches, now they are simply mimicking regular watches better.
- Regular watches don't have to be round. There are plenty of other shapes. Check out the Famous Hamilton Ventura or Jaeger's Reverso.
- I know I am in the minority, heck, watch people are the minority of minorities. Hence I asked the question. Why try to be something they are not?

The Fitbit for example, is beautiful and unique. Minimalist and functional. Smart watches can be so much more, than mere imitation of traditional watches.