I know it's a little too soon, but what do you think it's after the pebble steel? Will it be the Pebble 3? When do you think will it be announced?
This is one of my first time posting on this forum , please be nice.
Whatever it is, orders will be accepted at least three months before it is released....
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Pebble Wear?
Pebble aluminium with boom sound
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I'm excited about the Android Wear devices because of the Google Now integration. I've always thought the mic and speaker on the smartwatch would be an important feature - not for speakerphone conversations, but as a good supplemental control system for the times when fiddling with the watch with your other hands is inconvenient. Pair it with always listening voice control of Google Now and you've opened up a world of convenience and utility.
I hope Pebble will consider that, because I'm testing a Gear 2 Neo and the mic and speaker is game changing. Even though w/ Samsung, you're only given control of S-Voice instead of Google Now, there's still a lot you can accomplish with it. It would be cool if a dev could break that open so we could choose which one. I'm at the point where any future smartwatches I choose, will be required to have that kind of feature.
If all Pebble did on the next HW version was add always-on health monitoring (steps & heart rate monitor) and mic w/ speaker I'd be happy.
rEVOLVE said:
I'm excited about the Android Wear devices because of the Google Now integration. I've always thought the mic and speaker on the smartwatch would be an important feature - not for speakerphone conversations, but as a good supplemental control system for the times when fiddling with the watch with your other hands is inconvenient. Pair it with always listening voice control of Google Now and you've opened up a world of convenience and utility.
I hope Pebble will consider that, because I'm testing a Gear 2 Neo and the mic and speaker is game changing. Even though w/ Samsung, you're only given control of S-Voice instead of Google Now, there's still a lot you can accomplish with it. It would be cool if a dev could break that open so we could choose which one. I'm at the point where any future smartwatches I choose, will be required to have that kind of feature.
If all Pebble did on the next HW version was add always-on health monitoring (steps & heart rate monitor) and mic w/ speaker I'd be happy.
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Yes that will be great! Maybe also include wireless charging like the Qualcomm Toq.
I really hope Pebble will stick to what they are doing now. I like them over Android wear because of:
1. Screen is always on. I would hate having a watch that had to be turned on.
2. There are still country's that doesn't have voice recognition from Google. Including Denmark where I live. I frequently use English voice recognition for my phone, but it is impossible to get it to recognize danish names etc. So I would prefer no voice.
That being said, a higher resolution would be great, and a more stable connection would be awesome.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
NinjaOne said:
I really hope Pebble will stick to what they are doing now. I like them over Android wear because of:
1. Screen is always on. I would hate having a watch that had to be turned on.
2. There are still country's that doesn't have voice recognition from Google. Including Denmark where I live. I frequently use English voice recognition for my phone, but it is impossible to get it to recognize danish names etc. So I would prefer no voice.
That being said, a higher resolution would be great, and a more stable connection would be awesome.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
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Agreed on point 1. I'm testing the Neo and it is the single most annoying thing with this watch. Any watch that can't reliably activate the screen to the point I have to reach over with my other hand is a fail. It is no longer convenient - I need the info to be immediately visible when I glance down for it to be useful like on my Pebble and Metawatch. Even the Gear 2 Neo is a half second slow to wake up, so it doesn't feel as nice to use as as the Pebble. I am not one to be impressed by the color touch screen of the Gears. It's form over function.
On point 2 - I really feel for you that it is not a reliable way to interact for you. As an English speaker, I cannot do justice on describing how convenient the always on voice commands are when they work - and we're coming upon an age where more often than not, it is reliable and accurate. To extend that to the watch so that the watch on your wrist is the control mechanism in scenarios where your hands are busy otherwise, it's a breakthrough! I hope the voice control is made better for your use someday very soon so you can also experience the convenience I've been enjoying.
I don't care for the round shape of the Moto 360, though. I would like a "screen shape" so I can achieve the density of information I require on certain watchfaces - I don't know if I'll be able to get that out of a round screen.
Like I said, I LOVE the way my Pebble has been able to give me such real features and uses, but due to what I expect a major shift in how I want to use a smartwatch after testing one with the mic and speaker, those are absolute requirements going forward for me. If they don't add that voice control capability, I'll have to eliminate their offerings from my future selections.
I see your point, and would probably love it too, if voice recognition was more useful to me. But as long as it isn't, voice recognition isn't a priority for me.
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My guess is that a future Pebble would have the following:
1) Once again the charging port/cable will be drastically altered from the previous versions. (making it not backwards compatible)
2) The overall shell of the unit is bulkier.
3) If the technology exists, they might have a color screen (e-ink/paper of course).
4) The stock software will allow users more open slots to install/remove watch faces/apps/games.
Adding anything else would drastically lower the battery's performance and be very unnecessary. Adding Android as the base software would really make this watch a nightmare to use. The battery wouldn't last as long, the watch would be heavier, and it would get uncomfortably warm. Adding stuff like a speaker wouldn't give this watch its waterproof ability.
The way Pebble is, its perfect in every aspect. Granted you're still stuck with some watch faces, but physically, its perfect. Waterproof, dust-proof, drop-proof, long-lasting, light, watch-bands are replaceable, and its relatively thin.
I just got my new silver pebble. It is very beautiful and first of all is a watch and not a complex device. My only problem till now it is that does not support greek language and the most letters showing as boxes. I hope a new firmware fix this...
athankar75 said:
I just got my new silver pebble. It is very beautiful and first of all is a watch and not a complex device. My only problem till now it is that does not support greek language and the most letters showing as boxes. I hope a new firmware fix this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try pebblebits
Yes, pebblebits working just fine, no more squares...
I recently got the Pebble. I use it for Fitness. I use it for Music control. And notifications. I have say I am impressed. The connection issue is improving for me. The screen functional but for sure not beautiful. I hope at some point for future devices the engineers figure out how to have nice looking screens with good battery life. And someway of making the watch useful when the phone is not right there. We may be a few generations away though.
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logitechor said:
I recently got the Pebble. I use it for Fitness. I use it for Music control. And notifications. I have say I am impressed. The connection issue is improving for me. The screen functional but for sure not beautiful. I hope at some point for future devices the engineers figure out how to have nice looking screens with good battery life. And someway of making the watch useful when the phone is not right there. We may be a few generations away though.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium HD app
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Click to collapse
Maybe they can use Qualcomm's Mirasol display.
Yes, higher res, always-on screen is my biggest desire for a new pebble. Ideally color, and I think mirasol would be a great option.
Keep the buttons; I absolutely do not want a touch screen. And better built in apps would be nice: timer / stop watch / single shot alarms, "nag" notifications that buzz every 5 minutes until dismissed.
Voice input to Google now would be nice but not that important to me. My phone does that already.
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I would be curious to know if it is possible for them to come out with an Android Wear watch running on the E-Ink display. Kinda taking the best of both worlds. I think that the development community has been great for Pebble so far but I am pretty sure Android Wear will be catching up really quick to surpass it. But one of the features that I love about my Pebble is that the battery life is great and always on. So if there is a way it would be a neat idea to kinda bridge the gap instead of trying to compete. They would also be offering something that any of the Android Wear devices we have seen so far. Just a thought.
Related
I was reading that the Galaxy uses its Infrared technology for its Air View application, does anyone know if we would be able to utilize Air View on the HTC One or if there is an similar application?
derrick8 said:
I was reading that the Galaxy uses its Infrared technology for its Air View application, does anyone know if we would be able to utilize Air View on the HTC One or if there is an similar application?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does it do?
It has another sensor up front for that purpose I believe
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raptoro07 said:
What does it do?
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It uses sort of a hands free function: you can use your hand as a wave gesture to swipe pages horizontal/vertically, it has a feature that if you look away from a video it will automatically pause, etc.
Sounds like a useless gimmick. My Evo 3D had an overly sensitive screen, didn't always have to touch the screen, just be close, and it detected touch. It was pretty annoying.
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gk1984 said:
Sounds like a useless gimmick. My Evo 3D had an overly sensitive screen, didn't always have to touch the screen, just be close, and it detected touch. It was pretty annoying.
Sent from my HTCONE using xda app-developers app
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Really, I didnt get the Evo 3D so never had the option of that software, man these commercials really make certain apps look brillant
derrick8 said:
Really, I didnt get the Evo 3D so never had the option of that software, man these commercials really make certain apps look brillant
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Lol it was more of a flaw... It was never intended to be like that but it would randomly register touches from your finger before you touched the screen.
derrick8 said:
It uses sort of a hands free function: you can use your hand as a wave gesture to swipe pages horizontal/vertically, it has a feature that if you look away from a video it will automatically pause, etc.
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Click to collapse
If it did you wouldn't want it. The accuracy required to make these gestures reliable is way beyond the technology the S4 has in it, which is why reviewers say it's a gimmick. It either triggers when you don't want it, or doesn't when you do. You'd need something like a Kinect strapped to the top of your phone to really pull that off. The battery drain alone would be devastating.
Add in it likely won't function on any ported ROM or new versions of android. It will be very similar to the 3D where the drivers and other needed stuff won't be available to make it work. One reason I avoided Samsung.
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the S4 has a specific sensor just to the right of the earpiece speaker for the air gestures. its not as accurate as they make it seem just like the eye tracking isnt very good either. like previously stated its a gimmick. your average consumer is WOWED by stupid crap like that. i felt like an idiot swiping my hand in front of the phone and when using eye scrolling you have to physically tilt your head up and down. all the phone is doing is tracking the movement of your head and using your eyes as a focal point to base amount of movement off of. not to mention you cant be more than a foot or two from the sensor. if you wear glasses like me its really a pain. i guess the reflection in the lenses of the glasses makes it react funny. ive only played with the s4 for a couple days when ive been at my store but all in all im not impressed. im wondering if it will gradually learn your personal body movements and become more accurate. it seems like they took an S3 made the viewing area slightly bigger, new camera, and stupid gesture sensor. if it worked as well as Tony Starks stuff it might be worth playing with lol. even then though its not practical its just something that looks neat when you can get it to work. you can also use Svoice from the lock screen so say you name your phone then hold home key say name so svoice will launch then you say name again to start a command. the ability to launch from lock screen makes me wonder if it will have security issues like the S3 did. i also feel like me having to address the device twice in a row is dumb. i should say "S4 call ...." or "S4 launch ...." not say "s4" wait for svoice "S4 call...." or "S4" wait a few secs "S4 launch...." again i felt like an idiot standing there making swipes and repeatedly saying "S4..." thats just what i named the one at our store. i like google now bc i launch it then say "google" it beeps i say "search target.com for..." and it goes. i wish it worked better as a launcher for apps or taking appointments, sending emails, texts, ect.. i will say svoice has that going for it.
in the end im still holding out for black 64gb HTC One. im getting ready to make a sacrifice to cellphone gods if i dont hear something official soon.
xanmanz31 said:
i wish it worked better as a launcher for apps or taking appointments, sending emails, texts, ect.. i will say svoice has that going for it.
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Google Now can do all of those things.
Seems like more of a headache than it's worth trying to get it on the HTC One.
I know its life companion but they definitely meant it more as assistant (at least I hope so). But ya mine has been great. I really love the TV stuff, its actually really useful. S health isn't bad, and it runs all the apps I could possibly need. I don't know why, but I've been using their calendar and stuff and it integrates well. The eye stuff is actually useful. I love the rotation and the video pause. Camera is actually awesome and goes great with my bitcasa subscription. The multi window is another feature that is actually more useful
The hover thing is cool but more of a novelty, I wish they would have integrated it more. S voice sucks, its soo slow and gets text wrong all the time.
At the end of the day it doesn't really feel much more like a life assistant any more than other smartphones (I wouldn't call it a life companion or a life assistant) , but its defiantly a great smartphone.
So how do you feel the phone has held up to being a life companion/assistant ?
firesoul453 said:
I know its life companion but they definitely meant it more as assistant (at least I hope so). But ya mine has been great. I really love the TV stuff, its actually really useful. S health isn't bad, and it runs all the apps I could possibly need. I don't know why, but I've been using their calendar and stuff and it integrates well. The eye stuff is actually useful. I love the rotation and the video pause. Camera is actually awesome and goes great with my bitcasa subscription. The multi window is another feature that is actually more useful
The hover thing is cool but more of a novelty, I wish they would have integrated it more. S voice sucks, its soo slow and gets text wrong all the time.
At the end of the day it doesn't really feel much more like a life assistant any more than other smartphones (I wouldn't call it a life companion or a life assistant) , but its defiantly a great smartphone.
So how do you feel the phone has held up to being a life companion/assistant ?
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Click to collapse
I love mine. She gets me lol. I'm not sure why your S Voice isn't working properly. My texts are very accurate. I rarely have an issue with it. I can't wait to use S Health when I go on my hiking trip at the end of this month. Nothing but positive feedback from me.
P1NK13P13 are you running TriForce 3.0 on baseband MF9 ?
Yes sir, I am... ♥ it!
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The TV remote and app is a cool extra, gps, bluetooth, nfc, camera all work great. I turned off all of the other extra features and just use it like a smartphone. I dont talk to my phone or wave at it or anything like that. It is best phone I have ever used and battery life is excellent. Getting up to 2 days with normal usage and a full day with heavy usage.
I don't use any samsung stuff, running ge. but I really love the hardware, it is so much faster, better in battery then the s3. not to mention the screen and camera. but really I use it like the last 2 galaxies before it. I really liked multi Window though.
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Voice control with music app is very handy. When people try to talk and you say "pause" then give them the look to go ahead and talk blows their mind. I still haven't learned all features but the Sammy commercials hit the nail on the head when people see my gs4.
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Hey folks,
I thought it would be interesting to see whether the Glass Home launcher and its companion apps would work on the Gear - FYI the APKs I'm playing with are the XE7 ones at zhuowei's github site, although I note that Google have now posted the XE11 image at developers.google.com/glass/tools-downloads/system
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the launcher loaded up, recognised my "ok glass" voice command, and managed to go off and do the right thing when I asked it to "google how tall is the eiffel tower?"
However it seems to be unhappy about a few things (lots of FCs) - in particular the lack of WiFi on the Gear, believing that the device is offline even when it's actually tethered to my phone via Bluetooth, and the camera didn't work for me.
Anyone else got "Glass on Gear" experiences to share?
Cheers,
Martin
Good idea. Will be interesting to find out what needs to done
I do however feel my watch is a lot more useful than Glass (apart from lack of gps/wifi)
Provide some links I want to see this launcher etc.
Sorry, I'm a newbie so my ability to post links is somewhat limited. Let's see if this works... github.com/zhuowei/Xenologer
I think it's going to be a great way of getting a forward look at what to expect with Glass - and the Nexus watch And heck, we may well have the proper Glass SDK before Samsung release one for the Gear...
The UI is reasonably navigable using voice and swiping the touch screen. The Glass fonts work well on the small screen size, unlike say stock Android apps running under Nova or the Google Experience Launcher. Glass Home doesn't know about your non-Glass apps, though, which is understandable if a little disappointing.
martin_hamilton said:
I think it's going to be a great way of getting a forward look at what to expect with Glass - and the Nexus watch And heck, we may well have the proper Glass SDK before Samsung release one for the Gear...
The UI is reasonably navigable using voice and swiping the touch screen. The Glass fonts work well on the small screen size, unlike say stock Android apps running under Nova or the Google Experience Launcher. Glass Home doesn't know about your non-Glass apps, though, which is understandable if a little disappointing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quite interesting.. Im interested mainly in the contacts app.. Going to give it a whirl.
EDIT: Sadly didnt work as I hoped, no launcher icon.. when I manually run the intent just crashes.. BOO !
The launcher on the otherhand could be interesting.,,
Contact handling on glass is weird. You need contacts in your gmail account, then need to add individual contact to glass manually via app/website
Brendo said:
Contact handling on glass is weird. You need contacts in your gmail account, then need to add individual contact to glass manually via app/website
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh.. Yikes.
Staying away from that !
I'm working on poking through the Glass launcher and companion files to see if I can find anything. I tried to change the DPI so all of the text fits on the display because it cuts off most of the text, but it doesn't seem to cooperate.
Video demo of Glass on Gear
And here's a nice little video (1 minute) that I made demonstrating the Glass launcher on the Gear:
You can also read a bit more about my experiences hacking around on the Galaxy Gear on my blog at martinh dot net.
Happy hacking!
That is awesome.
martin_hamilton said:
And here's a nice little video (1 minute) that I made demonstrating the Glass launcher on the Gear:
You can also read a bit more about my experiences hacking around on the Galaxy Gear on my blog at martinh dot net.
Happy hacking!
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Click to collapse
263 views 2 likes? How is this not blowing up?
jamen said:
263 views 2 likes? How is this not blowing up?
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The idea is excellent, although there's other factors to consider.. tethering always being active is going to be a battery drainer, along with the launcher constantly listening for commands..
Interesting thread... Looking forward to more updates on this... If I can get Google Now to work on this device paired without rooting the phone, Google Glass sounds pretty darn cool
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It's also a bit clunky in that you have to swipe down to go back to the "ok glass" prompt, unless there is a voice shortcut that I've missed. It would be great to go totally handsfree with this, but shaking your wrist doesn't have an analogous effect to nodding your head when wearing Glass.
Oh, and the Bluetooth tethering is a bit flaky and tends to come unstuck after you have done three or four searches - going to look into the automatic reconnection thread when I get a few spare cycles
bogdi1988 said:
Interesting thread... Looking forward to more updates on this... If I can get Google Now to work on this device paired without rooting the phone, Google Glass sounds pretty darn cool
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can run the Google Experience Launcher from Kit-Kat, which will give you the "leftmost home screen is Google Now" feature. If you choose US language and download the offline speech recognition pack then you should find that the mic is permanently active too
Does that still allow me to get notifications pushed to the watch?
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I am going to be testing glass with a bare bones rom now. Hopefully it will be nice
sent from my Note 3 or Galaxy Gear
Cant get it to work at all
sent from my Note 3 or Galaxy Gear
Me neither
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Nice work!
The only way to go back using glass is to swipe down
Sounds like motion sensors are handled differently on each device (possibly Samsung propriety on the gear?)
What settings are shown in the settings screen? Is it only 'google' phrase that works? I think take picture and record are default on glass without need for app. Contact related stuff requires adding manually via app
Other than the obvious, Gear/Gear 2 run Tizen. How are they different?
Can you make calls from the watch/accept/decline calls from the watch like you can on the Gear/Gear 2?
Also, how does it handle notifications? For example you receive a text or get Tweeted at, can you respond?
Thanks for any/all info!
Might go to Best Buy sometime this week and buy one, so would like all info possible!
It is quite different. Mind you, I'm also using custom null on gear 1
There is a mic, but no speaker
Vibrate seems very weak
All notifications get sent to watch. Haven't tested replying yet
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Kind of disappointing that you cannot take a phone call on the Gear Live as you can on the Galaxy Gear and Gear 2.
Surprised I am typing this, but it is a backwards progress vs the Gear 2 as of right now. I dont have any confidence in Samsung long term for developing a capable platform and have all confidence in Google so I will ditch my Neo for it but Android Wear has a way to go.
robber said:
Surprised I am typing this, but it is a backwards progress vs the Gear 2 as of right now. I don't have any confidence in Samsung long term for developing a capable platform and have all confidence in Google so I will ditch my Neo for it but Android Wear has a way to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know everyone have an opinion, but from where I am sitting, this a great leap forward, There are many things that can be improve and with time software will get a lot better, however on my eyes Lives have improved considerable over the Gears 2.
Some thoughts going into my second day of use with my new Urbane.
•Battery life is actually pretty good. I took it off charge at 7:30am and it's currently at 72%. The Android Wear app on my phone is telling me I have 12 hours of use left after playing with it a fair bit this morning. It should improve even more as the watch 'wears in'.
•Notifications come in pretty much instantly from my phone. It's frustrating in some regards though - you can't always see images sent to you from Facebook Messenger, sometimes you can. Also, once you dismiss a notification from your watch it's gone for good - you then have to check your phone to see what it was. Having said that, it does give you a very brief period after dismissing it to 'undo' the dismissal, but it's very brief. It would be better if it could archive say the last 5 notifications for you to go and look at after you've dismissed them.
•WiFi seems a bit buggy, for instance when connected to my home network and I turn off bluetooth on my phone or go out of it's range, WiFi does seem to take over but Google Now refuses to work. If I set up WiFi tethering on my phone (and disable bluetooth) it works perfectly so I guess it's just my router - though I don't know what I would need to change to make it work.
•Also (and this is a biggy), don't assume that because the Urbane has WiFi you can just simply log onto any network without your phone being around. This is not the case. Inexplicably, you need to log onto any WiFi network using the Android Wear app on your phone otherwise the Urbane will never use it. There is simply no way to log onto a WiFi network using just the Urbane. Once you've logged on using the phone, the Urbane will then remember the log on information from that point on. This to me defeats the purpose of having WiFi enabled on the watch, you should be able to log on anywhere without the phone..
•The Urbane has difficulty in recognising my 'OK Google' command. Commands issued after that are no problem however. The Urbane gives you the option at set up to choose between US or UK English, but for me that ,made no difference in whether the watch recognised my initial command or not (and you have to factory reset the device to change language...). I did however after some searching online see that after the Urbane is set up properly, it will look at your phones native language and base the information it gives, as well as spelling and metrics on that language. This doesn't help in recognising my initial command, and either my Aussie accent is just too 'Aussie' or the 'OK Google' command recognition is a bit buggy. Perhaps a bit of both lol.
•As someone who takes their watch off as soon as I get home, it's functionality is useless to me after that - unless I go out somewhere and put it back on. I guess at home you'd usually fall back to using your smart phone/tablet anyway. It does feel odd though to discard a $400 smart device like that..
•Heart rate monitoring is good, as is the other fitness tracking the watch does. However, there is two monitoring apps on the device that measure heart rate, Google Fit and and LG Pulse. When you first ask the watch "What's my heart rate", it will give you the choice of choosing which app to use. The problem is, whatever app you choose becomes the default app after that and there is no way to change that as far as I can see.
•Playing with the different watch faces is fun. LG ships the Urbane with 18 different faces to chose from, in various styles. And of course there is a rapidly growing number of user created choices out there as well. Some faces can be a bit buggy but for the most part they are gorgeous or garish, and anywhere in between. It's fantastic to have so many choices.
The biggest issue for me is still the perceived value of owning a smart watch such as this. After playing with it for a day, my thoughts have not changed in this regard.
It's still firmly in the luxury/novelty category at the moment, and I certainly do not need to have it. Is the Urbane worth the price I paid? From a purely technical stand point, probably. The Gorilla glassed OLED display is beautiful, the stainless steel body and overall craftsmanship looks and feels like something the Japanese would make, and the technical mastery of it all as a package feels like a bit of a leap forward, particularly considering where smart watches were a year ago.
But the software is not of the same level, and has a long way to go to really match where the hardware already is. It sort of like having Windows XP running on a 2015 5K iMac - there is a mismatch between software and hardware.
The upside is that Google can, and I'm sure will, improve the software as time goes on. The launch of the Apple Watch ensures that Google will treat Android Wear very, very seriously indeed. And that can only be good for the Urbane.
From a personal standpoint, the Urbane in it's current state is not worth what I paid for it. I would argue even the GWR is still about $100 too high. Do I have buyers remorse? To a degree I guess, but I can see the potential of this device, it can be so much more. The hardware is begging for a heart and soul, and a reason to exist.
I will keep it, and see where it takes me. Being an early adopter and gadget freak in general means that you have to take risks when jumping into and investing in a new product (hello OUYA, yes I got that too at launch lol), that's part of the thrill. Gadgets are a hobby, and a hobby is not worth having if you can't indulge in it every now and then. And obviously I am not alone in investing in the Urbane and Android Wear in general, which makes me feel a bit better.
Anyway, I hope I've given people reading this a bit more clarity in forming your own opinion of the Urbane/GWR. My advice? I would just go for it if you're anything like me, but maybe start off with the GWR.
TLDR, Urbane is an impressive, if slightly flawed device that should get better with time.
Regarding Voice recognition of "OK Google", I'm also struggling with this. It is nowhere near as good as my LG G Watch (square) was, that worked well 90% of the time. The urbane seems to be closer to 30%, and is really annoying me. I'm an aussie too but I'm not necessarily convinced our accents are causing the issue as I swapped straight from my G Watch to the Urbane and noticed problems straight away.
Regarding the default app for heart rate (and others) - to change it go into android wear app on your phone, hit the settings icon, choose your watch (LG Watch Urbane) and there will be an option for "actions" . In the you can reassign default actions.
Dwayne
Thanks for that fix mate!
I find if you lift your arm and wait 1 second before saying "ok google" it works perfect 99.9% of the time.
WOW you're actually right!
An observation of the hardware in general is that these watches are simply too bulky and much more so than they need to be in most cases. Getting the lugs up against the case on this particular watch would have made a huge difference by itself not just in reducing the bulk but the band or bracelet then fits better because it has more "grasp" area allowing for a grippier (if you will) fit for a given level of tightness. In other words the watch can grip better while being looser making it more comfortable to wear. Another... the killer feature these watches need is the ability to mimic a real watch face better and one way to get there is a convincing 3D effect for the screen. It doesn't have to be perfect and of course it couldn't be a battery killer but these smart watches need it. Right now people have some pretty nice stuff out there and I'm in no way taking a shot at some of those efforts which are outstanding work but they cant be convincing without a better screen tech.
Having these two things would move these watches from "what can it do for me" territory into wearing them because of what they can do for you but also just because you flat want to because the damn thing looks nice. Right now its a tool that I toss on the dresser as soon as I'm done with it and the few I know real world with one and most of what I read on the internet implies this is typical. They want to sell these things in a bigger way they need to make them something people wear because they want to because the use case isn't all that great for most people and I don't think having worn one for a while that this will change much because the window between utilizing the watch and it being easier to pull the phone is fairly small.
Keep in mind these are my opinions, I'm curious what other users think about the direction smart watches should be or need to be taking.
krabman said:
An observation of the hardware in general is that these watches are simply too bulky and much more so than they need to be in most cases. Getting the lugs up against the case on this particular watch would have made a huge difference by itself not just in reducing the bulk but the band or bracelet then fits better because it has more "grasp" area allowing for a grippier (if you will) fit for a given level of tightness. In other words the watch can grip better while being looser making it more comfortable to wear. Another... the killer feature these watches need is the ability to mimic a real watch face better and one way to get there is a convincing 3D effect for the screen. It doesn't have to be perfect and of course it couldn't be a battery killer but these smart watches need it. Right now people have some pretty nice stuff out there and I'm in no way taking a shot at some of those efforts which are outstanding work but they cant be convincing without a better screen tech.
Having these two things would move these watches from "what can it do for me" territory into wearing them because of what they can do for you but also just because you flat want to because the damn thing looks nice. Right now its a tool that I toss on the dresser as soon as I'm done with it and the few I know real world with one and most of what I read on the internet implies this is typical. They want to sell these things in a bigger way they need to make them something people wear because they want to because the use case isn't all that great for most people and I don't think having worn one for a while that this will change much because the window between utilizing the watch and it being easier to pull the phone is fairly small.
Keep in mind these are my opinions, I'm curious what other users think about the direction smart watches should be or need to be taking.
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I totally disagree. Have you seen panerai? Hublot? Breitling???? They are all big. Its whats in style, and has been for years.
interfreak said:
Thanks for that fix mate!
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Nice to read your thoughts on it I agree with 99% of it the only thing I would like to see is with Google now be nice to take a breath as you text lol
suzook said:
I totally disagree. Have you seen panerai? Hublot? Breitling???? They are all big. Its whats in style, and has been for years.
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lol Yes, I'm a watch person and own a number of them, surf the forums, etc. I'm guessing I've explained poorly. Its not the size itself so much as the needless bulk. I have several watches that have a face the same size but are quite a bit less bulky. This watch is a prime example with its needlessly large lugs and large bezel around the screen. It has confused no one as to what it is and I would never put it on in place of my real watches which I wear because I like them.
As to watch size in general a lot of people have never made friends with the large watch style, I'm among them. For me 40 to 42 mm is about right and I know a whole bunch of people with the same opinion. That is of course an opinion and I'm old enough to know that they vary and I do of agree that this style is popular right now but the trend is already reversing somewhat. Not surprising really, most people look like crap with a 48 mm saucer on their wrist because they simply are not possessed of the wrist size to put the watch into proportion.and my guess is the truly huge watches are going to continue going away bit by bit leaving the more reasonable 44ish mm sizing as the typical large watch with the larger stuff being outliers. At any rate it isn't just me, most of the reviews talk about the size issue with smart watches in general and particularly with this one where the added bulk particularly at the lugs hasn't been well received.
I take it you feel the size is fine then? You don't think that they might move more of these if they could move to a better and more convincing screen tech?
krabman said:
I take it you feel the size is fine then? You don't think that they might move more of these if they could move to a better and more convincing screen tech?
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Yes, i do love the size. I actually love the screen, Im not sure what you mean? I get compliments constantly. Alot of people ask what kind of watch is that??
Got mine today. Can't work out how to get lg health app to show heart rate data from the urbane. It's meant to appear automatically.
i hate you can't control how long the screen stay on..sometimes I need to time things with second hand...just so frustrating!!
gooner4life said:
i hate you can't control how long the screen stay on..sometimes I need to time things with second hand...just so frustrating!!
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There are some watch faces that do allow you to change this setting (timeout) usually in the android wear app on the paired device. There is also a stopwatch app built in.
This app (StayLit Wear) on google playworks for me
nOISEVAULT said:
There are some watch faces that do allow you to change this setting (timeout) usually in the android wear app on the paired device. There is also a stopwatch app built in.
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This^
And /or this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phonephreak.extendedlight
My first impressions so far
part 1 - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/09/lg-watch-urbane-beauty-and-disaster-first-impressions/
part 2 - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/10/lg-watch-urbane-part-2/
gavinfabl said:
My first impressions so far
part 1 - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/09/lg-watch-urbane-beauty-and-disaster-first-impressions/
part 2 - http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/10/lg-watch-urbane-part-2/
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Are you using FaceRepo with Watchmaker? Browse the website with your connected phone, and download the faces directly to the app. It's easy to customize the faces from there...
http://facerepo.com/
slaydog said:
Are you using FaceRepo with Watchmaker? Browse the website with your connected phone, and download the faces directly to the app. It's easy to customize the faces from there...
http://facerepo.com/
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Yes I am now, thanks.
I say "ok google" -> it works (but slowly)-> I ask smth or say "set a reminder" and %50 chance it works for a while (slooowly) and says "offline" -> I get crazy. But if I use google now on the phone everything is smooth as butter. Am I doing something wrong? / Is the watch faulty? / Is the bt connection too slow for spoken commands? / Or what?
TheSanitarium said:
I say "ok google" -> it works (but slowly)-> I ask smth or say "set a reminder" and %50 chance it works for a while (slooowly) and says "offline" -> I get crazy. But if I use google now on the phone everything is smooth as butter. Am I doing something wrong? / Is the watch faulty? / Is the bt connection too slow for spoken commands? / Or what?
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Speed can vary. I find just say OK Google and wait for the speak now part. Say what you want in one go, no pauses and it works 8/10.
I photographed all my watch faces on the watch to give everyone a better idea of what they look like, and created a gallery.
Google Photos then made a GIF of them lol
http://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/15/lg-watch-urbane-my-watch-faces-shown-photographed-gallery/
@interfreak and others - thanks for your input, it has been very helpful! (I'm in for one, will be delivered tomorrow)