Wear OS
Dear Google, You do a wonderful job of making it easy to move from one Android phone to another but moving a Wear OS watch along with that phone is horrible. Please bring back the ability to install and manage apps from the phone. I should not have to factory reset and reinstall all watch apps just to move to another phone.
I am one of the many people who used and really liked the DarkSky weather app on Android. While the Android app is great, the main reason why I bought the premium subscription was for the Wear OS app. Now that Apple bought DarkSky and shutdown the Android app, I’ve lost the DarkSky app and complications on my watch.
I switched to the AccuWeather app on my smartphone, but while it does have a Wear OS component, it is really bad in comparison to DarkSky and doesn’t have complications. I am hoping AccuWeather beefs up the Wear OS app over time. The whole DarkSky aquisition by Apple was really disappointing.
I am very disappointed to learn that Apple has acquired Dark Sky and decided to discontinue it’s Android application. I’ve been a happy user of Dark Sky on my Android smartphone and Wear OS watch for several years, and find it to be the best weather app on Android. I I guess I will be seeking a replacement.
Suunto 7 promises a Wear OS sports smartwatch with 12-hour battery life - SlashGear
Nice to see an old Microsoft SPOT watch vendor still in the game.
Google’s purchase of smartwatch intellectual property from Fossil is interesting. I don’t know if it is a harbinger of a Google watch but I find the statement that Google did the deal so that the IP will be available to all brands, interesting. If nothing else it affirms Google’s commitment to Wear OS.
Update regarding the freeze/resumption issue I have been having ever since the Wear OS H update was installed on my watch. I’ve turned off always on display and since doing that the symptom has not appeared.
Did a little more gardening today, updated the Fossil Q Explorist page with an observation on what I think is triggering the freeze/long resumption issue the watch has had ever since installing the H update of Wear OS.
Wear OS Update H installed on my watch two days ago. There appears to be a problem recovering from the new “deep sleep” / suspend mode. At intermittent times the watch appears to be unresponsive, basically it looks as though it is frozen after I attempt to wake it by either moving my arm, tapping the screen or pressing the crown. Eventually it does come back/recover, which leads me to suspect the watch has gone in to suspend/deep sleep and takes a long time to resume. I appreciate the idea of saving battery life by going into such a state, but the watch needs to recover much faster as right now it is a horrible user experience. Is anyone else seeing this? Is this a known problem with a fix in progress, or is there a way to disable this “feature?”
I started to notice this behavior yesterday. I’ve restarted the watch in hopes that might resolve. My fear is that this is a processor issue causing this watch to not be able to resume from this form of suspend fast enough.
The Wear OS “H” update arrived on my Fossil Q Explorist yesterday. I am curious to see how much battery life improves. Apparently Google has added a deep sleep mode that kicks in after 30 minutes of no activity, but I am not sure how activity is defined.
Wear OS update today: 5 reasons to be excited - SlashGear
Awaiting the update for my Fossil Q Explorist.
Keep An Eye On The Watch
I am wearing a Fossil Q Explorist, third generation. Battery life has been good enough to get through my day up until recently. It’s hard to get solid evidence because the Wear OS app does not provide much useful info on power drainers. It feels as though the problem started when upgrading my Pixel 2 to Android P. Doing a factory resert and re-pair to see if that fixes it.
Apparently Google announced they will be releasing a new version of Wear OS within the next month. Articles are available from several sources, all appearing pretty much the same. It would be nice to see a video of the changes, but apparently that has not been provided by Google.
I’ve been running the new version of Google Fit for four days, and I am pretty happy with the change. I had already made the mental shift from steps to move minutes. Fit has even suggested in an increase in my goals after using the defaults and monitoring my activity for a few days.
One problem that I do have with my watch, which is a Fossil Q Explorist, is that the battery life has been worse since upgrading my phone to Android P. I am not sure that is the exact correlation, but it feels to be the case. I’ve had several occurrences of the battery running out on my watch by early evening, which was not an issue in the past.
Updates to Google Assistant are coming to Wear OS.
Did a little more investigation into the watch face that Fossil “pushed” to my smart watch last weekend. What happens is, you receive a notification saying that you “unlocked” a face and whether you want to enable it. What I have found is that amongst the many faces that are pre-installed on the watch is one called Seasonal, and this is the face that Fossil pushes updates to. Consequently, Fossil is not consuming additional storage space on the watch with each “new face” as it is updating one face that is designed for different appearances, which in reality is how all faces work.
I am wondering whether there is a Wear OS app that will automatically change watch faces I specify on a set schedule. I would like to rotate through some like the Outlook face that I like to use during the work day.
I got a Fossil Explorist Q, which is a Wear OS smart watch, for my birthday. Today Fossil pushed a face, commemorating Earth Day, to my watch, which was unexpected. Now I am curious to learn what other faces Fossil will push. I think this is a nice Easter egg.
Everything restored on the Pixel 2 except for the Android Wear settings, so now I have to factory reset my watches and completely reconfigure them to manage them in the Wear OS app. What an awful user experience.