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Pixel Watch 3

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Re: Pixel Watch 3

#101

Post by rootusrootus »

aliasxneo wrote: post #56
drewg123 wrote: post #2

" all-day battery life " Ugh, Apple really has lowered expectations. In order to switch from my Garmin, I'd want at least a week.. Even my MS Band from 10 years ago had 48hrs of battery life.

I have failed to comprehend the allure for precisely this reason. I've looked at adopting the Apple Watch a few times now, but as a person who struggles with insomnia and finds sleep tracking valuable, I'd have to buy a separate device to use with the watch because of the battery life. Or, I could just keep my current Fitbit which consistently lasts a week and gives me good enough information.

People make it out to be some big deal, but I don't really understand. I have an Ultra 2, and it goes an easy 2 days on a single charge. I wear it all day and all night (for sleep tracking), and put it on the charger when I get in the shower. When I'm getting dressed, I put it back on and it's good to go.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#102

Post by rootusrootus »

giaour wrote: post #44
drewg123 wrote: post #2

" all-day battery life " Ugh, Apple really has lowered expectations. In order to switch from my Garmin, I'd want at least a week.. Even my MS Band from 10 years ago had 48hrs of battery life.

100%! I switched from an Apple Watch to a WiThings ScanWatch for the battery life. Sleep tracking and vibrating alarms are kinda useless if you are expected to charge the watch every night.

Why charge it all night? Just throw it on the charger when you get in the shower. Even if it doesn't hit 100% in the space of one quick shower, it'll easily add enough charge to go at least one more full day.

I don't think I'd want the extra battery life unless it was much longer. Like a month or more. Remembering to charge a device just once a week is harder to make a habit out of than just putting the device on the inductive charger every time I take a shower.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#103

Post by wfme »

tomComb wrote: post #50
mattnewton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at Google I got re-orged into the same division as pixel / android. My director wore an Apple Watch and had an iPhone for personal use, and I am pretty sure I saw an Apple Watch on my VP too. Nobody was expected to eat the dog food and so few did. This was crazy to me coming from Apple- I remember several internal sites would ask you to file a radar (bug report) on why you switched to chrome from safari…

Interacting with Googler's in the past I noticed the same thing but took it a different way. Clearly there was no pressure to use the Google product so they used a wide diversity of devices and services, and I saw this as a healthy thing.

If you don't want to use your own product, why should anyone else? Empathy and understanding for your users is what drives a great product.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#104

Post by doix »

Suppafly wrote: post #82
ho_schi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re into sport, I recommend Garmin. It shows notifications properly. Bonus, charge it once or twice in a week. It doesn’t try to be a smartwatch . No sport? I recommend a classy automatic wristwatch . Your movement winds it up. No charging. No apps. No updates. No battery. The spring is wind up by wearing, eight hours of wearing usually last for 24 hours. So sleeping without isn’t an issue and in worst case you…

I just recommend no watch at all. Once I got a cell phone, wrist watches lost all appeal to me other than being a fancy piece of mechanical or digital jewelry and I have never seen the appeal of smart watches, despite working with technology every day. I'm sure they are useful for a subset of people, but this idea that everyone should have a smartwatch boggles my mind.

I have a smartwatch and it really helped me break my "phone addiction". I used to get a notification and check my phone in case someone needed me urgently. Then I'd just mindlessly open reddit or HN and start browsing.

Now I just glance at my wrist and ignore it most of the time. I also leave my phone lying around all over the place. I used to religiously carry it with me which made it much easier to get distracted.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#105

Post by modeless »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #68
modeless wrote: post #14

My Pixel Watch sucks and it's not because the screen isn't big or bright enough. The implementation of notifications is awful. It's actually faster and easier in many cases to whip out my phone to see a notification than to see it on the watch. Why? Because notifications are not shown by default. The watch vibrates but nothing is there on the screen but the watch face. To trigger a notification to actually show, you…

I don't hate my Pixel Watch (yet?) but dear God, getting a text message notification that doesn't actually show you the message is a baffling step backwards coming from a Fitbit.

I'm still wearing mine. But I only really get value from two features.

One is literally just the vibration motor on my wrist, so I can turn off all sound and vibration on my phone without missing calls and texts.

The other is "Extend Unlock" (formerly "Smart Lock") which makes the bad fingerprint reader on my Pixel 7 a non-issue, and is just generally convenient.

Funnily enough they're trying to replace "Extend Unlock" with a new feature called "Watch Unlock" and (quite predictably) they screwed up the implementation so bad it's not worth using at all. It's slower than entering my unlock code and annoying because it vibrates the watch every time my phone unlocks, with a random delay. Luckily they didn't actually remove the old "Extend Unlock" feature, they just hid it. I suppose someday they will remove it and I'll have one less reason to wear a smartwatch.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#106

Post by rootusrootus »

losvedir wrote: post #31

Huh, just yesterday I started setting up and getting used to my new (to me) Apple Watch Series 6, after having used a Pixel Watch 2 for several months. I'm surprised to find myself somewhat disappointed, and preferring my Pixel Watch, though I'm still giving myself some time in case it's just familiarity. But a few things: * The available watch faces are pretty underwhelming, particularly digital ones. There's only a…

I know you won't like this answer, but you probably want the Ultra. The Modular Ultra watch face does the things you want. Heart rate on the screen, lots of complications (six small ones, one big one in the middle), seconds displayed in several possible ways. Screen turns red automatically in the dark.

Sleep tracking should be pretty much automatic. I don't have any fancy schedules configured, although maybe at one point the phone did ask me what my usual sleep times are. It just automatically collects sleep stats and puts them in the Health app.

The round watch face preference is definitely a subjective thing. I can't imagine how it works as a practical matter since so much of what makes a smartwatch useful benefits from the rectangle form factor and space.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#107

Post by modeless »

doix wrote: post #104
Suppafly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recommend no watch at all. Once I got a cell phone, wrist watches lost all appeal to me other than being a fancy piece of mechanical or digital jewelry and I have never seen the appeal of smart watches, despite working with technology every day. I'm sure they are useful for a subset of people, but this idea that everyone should have a smartwatch boggles my mind.

I have a smartwatch and it really helped me break my "phone addiction". I used to get a notification and check my phone in case someone needed me urgently. Then I'd just mindlessly open reddit or HN and start browsing. Now I just glance at my wrist and ignore it most of the time. I also leave my phone lying around all over the place. I used to religiously carry it with me which made it much easier to get distracted.

Yes, people who haven't tried smartwatches don't understand this benefit. They always say "I get too many notifications, I don't want them on my wrist". But what you do is filter them so only important apps come to the watch, then you turn off notification sounds on your phone. Then you simply glance at your wrist once in a while, ignore everything unimportant, and get your phone out much less.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#108

Post by shawnz »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #68
modeless wrote: post #14

My Pixel Watch sucks and it's not because the screen isn't big or bright enough. The implementation of notifications is awful. It's actually faster and easier in many cases to whip out my phone to see a notification than to see it on the watch. Why? Because notifications are not shown by default. The watch vibrates but nothing is there on the screen but the watch face. To trigger a notification to actually show, you…

I don't hate my Pixel Watch (yet?) but dear God, getting a text message notification that doesn't actually show you the message is a baffling step backwards coming from a Fitbit.

Fitbit has the same behaviour they're describing where the screen only turns on when it detects that you're holding your wrist up.

I personally don't have a problem with that behaviour and find it to be a natural gesture. Maybe the Pixel watch isn't as good at recognizing it.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#109

Post by neilv »

mattnewton wrote: post #36
modeless wrote: post #14

My Pixel Watch sucks and it's not because the screen isn't big or bright enough. The implementation of notifications is awful. It's actually faster and easier in many cases to whip out my phone to see a notification than to see it on the watch. Why? Because notifications are not shown by default. The watch vibrates but nothing is there on the screen but the watch face. To trigger a notification to actually show, you…

When I worked at Google I got re-orged into the same division as pixel / android. My director wore an Apple Watch and had an iPhone for personal use, and I am pretty sure I saw an Apple Watch on my VP too. Nobody was expected to eat the dog food and so few did. This was crazy to me coming from Apple- I remember several internal sites would ask you to file a radar (bug report) on why you switched to chrome from safari…

There's something to be said for being familiar with the popular competition, but, yeah, I'd be disappointed if my teammates weren't dogfooding something like that.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#110

Post by ziml77 »

modeless wrote: post #14

My Pixel Watch sucks and it's not because the screen isn't big or bright enough. The implementation of notifications is awful. It's actually faster and easier in many cases to whip out my phone to see a notification than to see it on the watch. Why? Because notifications are not shown by default. The watch vibrates but nothing is there on the screen but the watch face. To trigger a notification to actually show, you…

It really sucks to hear this. I was going to once again try swapping back to Android with these new Pixel devices but it sounds like it's going to be a downgrade from the Apple ecosystem. I'm not happy with the things that Apple does with their strong market position created by having such locked down systems, but I'm not going to downgrade my experience solely on principle (also it's not like Google is saintly).
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