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Pixel Watch 3

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Re: Pixel Watch 3

#181

Post by paradox460 »

happymellon wrote: post #149
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…

Pebble was peak smart watch. After my third one broke I had some time where I tried a Galaxy Watch, played with an Apple watch, and finally settled on nothing until there was something that lasted longer than a day. Fitbit Versa being the spiritual successor I moved to, but its frustrating that Google picked them up after i bought it and slowly the software is becoming less reliable. My wife's will keep unpairing fro…

Garmin is the spiritual successor to Pebble

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#182

Post by paradox460 »

intothemild wrote: post #159
entropie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if you do a bit of serious (long-distance) running, you can't get past garmin. My partner has recently reached the semi-professional level and nobody there actually uses anything else. A few apple enthusiasts often refuse at first, but they all switch at some point. I'm not that deep into the fitness scene, but I'm convinced by the 14-day battery life. But I also understand if you find the look a bit unfas…

As a distance runner myself, this is accurate. I've known a few people who are hesitant to switch from Apple (or really any "smart watch"), but when they do, it's the same comment "Oh wow I didn't know these were so good!" A common complaint I hear is "yeah but there's no apps! how do I add extra functionality to my watch?" .. they just don't believe you when you say "it's already there" Smart watches are general pur…

Even then, the no apps claim is false. You can make apps for Garmin stuff. They're written in monkey c, and are quite nice

I've got one for my smoker, a fireboard app. Useful to see the temp on my wrist when I've got a brisket finishing

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#183

Post by mattnewton »

brookst wrote: post #66
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…

Dogfooding is so important, but so is competitive awareness. There has to be a good balance, where enough people are using your own product to find (and document) all of its flaws, but enough people are using competitive products to see bigger picture gaps.

I think you would have to be living under a rock to not have competitive awareness of apple while living in silicon valley or another tech hub.

You can get all the awareness you need from using the competitors product as a daily driver for a couple weeks, instead of using it 24/7 and being totally unaware of the problems using your own product that only crop up after heavy use.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#184

Post by joecool1029 »

CooCooCaCha wrote: post #130
joecool1029 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about this for a second, would Apple purposefully gimp their watch’s battery life Yes? Design a device with just enough to get through the day, forces getting replaced in a few years when battery degrades. Apple is a hardware company with the capability to optimize battery life but they don't since 80% health on a batt that lasts a week won't force a replacement for most customers.

Yet apple device batteries last longer than any other brand. My Apple Watch is 5 years old and lasts at least a day and a half. It feels as fast as the day I bought it and still gets major upgrades. My other apple devices are the same way. I switched to iPhone 10 years ago they’ve held up very well. Your statement is ignorant.

> Yet apple device batteries last longer than any other brand

Citation? In my experience this isn't the case. 2-3 years heavy use and the batt needs replacement (less than 80% design capacity). Can sometimes get as high as 5 years on a lightly used device. It may work longer but its not going to hold anywhere near design capacity. The dual-cell low voltage charging standards other manufacturers use seem to hold up longer since the heat is reduced.

> I switched to iPhone 10 years ago they’ve held up very well.

Cool, stuff like my original SE's hold up fine (and got a security update like a week ago). I've just replaced the batteries 2 or 3 times because they age and performance declines. This is expected but I'm not going to cope on a battery with 60% of its design capacity and act like its just as good as new.

> Your statement is ignorant.

I forgot how hard some people will try to rationalize their behavior. I still think the statement holds true knowing how many people I've met clinging to devices with dying batteries and saying 'well I have an upgrade coming soon' rather than just replacing the fucking battery.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#185

Post by entropie »

paradox460 wrote: post #182
intothemild wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a distance runner myself, this is accurate. I've known a few people who are hesitant to switch from Apple (or really any "smart watch"), but when they do, it's the same comment "Oh wow I didn't know these were so good!" A common complaint I hear is "yeah but there's no apps! how do I add extra functionality to my watch?" .. they just don't believe you when you say "it's already there" Smart watches are general pur…

Even then, the no apps claim is false. You can make apps for Garmin stuff. They're written in monkey c, and are quite nice I've got one for my smoker, a fireboard app. Useful to see the temp on my wrist when I've got a brisket finishing

I see it pretty much the same way; there are no apps and the appstore is very underwhelming. There is no quality control and one is not even able to purchase anything without credit card.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#186

Post by joecool1029 »

drewg123 wrote: post #157
CooCooCaCha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet apple device batteries last longer than any other brand. My Apple Watch is 5 years old and lasts at least a day and a half. It feels as fast as the day I bought it and still gets major upgrades. My other apple devices are the same way. I switched to iPhone 10 years ago they’ve held up very well. Your statement is ignorant.

I replaced my first Garmin (640M) at roughly 5 years old due to physical damage (it got mangled badly enough that the part of the case that holds the band on broke off), and it was still getting roughly the same battery life as it did when it was new.

Keep in mind you're doing far less charge cycles than a device with shorter battery life, it's going to last longer than a device that gets a full cycle per day. Not unreasonable for it to have under 500 cycles in a 5 year period (where this would be unheard of in a primary cellphone).

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#187

Post by 8note »

ensignavenger wrote: post #178
insane_dreamer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has its own issues. And if I'm not mistaken, you need an iPhone to use an Apple watch, that's a feature, not a bug

I don't know about it being either... more of a product choice made by Apple.

According to the US anti-trust complaint, apple made the choice to make it harder for iPhone owners to switch away from an iPhone

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#188

Post by lazycouchpotato »

Looking forward to The Quantified Scientist's [1] review of it. I don't care about any of the mainstream tech reviewers who read the spec sheet. I care about the accuracy of the advertised health features.

Pixel Watch 2 was significantly better than Pixel Watch 1 but still behind an Apple Watch SE2 which is $100 cheaper.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuantifiedScientist/videos

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#189

Post by modeless »

Suppafly wrote: post #172
modeless wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or you could just filter the ones that come to your phone in the first place. I suppose android could make some improvements on the phone side to make that easier, but it's not a problem that requires involving an additional piece of technology.

No, see, it's not just the programmatic filtering, but also the filtering you do yourself. There's no filter you could make to perfectly distinguish important and unimportant texts or calls, so the final filter is you, looking at your wrist and deciding whether it's important enough to take out your phone.

Like the other guy said, when your phone buzzes and you open it up to see what it is, now you're on your phone and you can easily get distracted and spend minutes scrolling. With a watch, half the time or more you can decide it's not important enough to even touch your phone. Much easier to let it go.

Re: Pixel Watch 3

#190

Post by thrtythreeforty »

dingaling wrote: post #180
dustypotato wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alarm, backlight, stopwatch, 8-10 years battery life. 20-30USD price tag. What is not to love?

> What is not to love? Terrible UX. Cycling through the modes steps you through the settings mode. A destructive / disruptive function should never be part of the normal functional flow.

I've always thought you should need to press and hold Mode to set the time! And I thought I was the only one who was bugged by this. Timex watches got this right.

I recently got an A158W (the shiny version of an F91W) because I want to drop a Sensor Watch board into it. I'm going to make damn sure to modify this aspect of the firmware.

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