Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pixel Watch 5

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 401 posts

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#331

Post by wlesieutre »

benrutter wrote: post #285
wlesieutre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it was even better to turn off all the notifications entirely, then you don’t get distracted by the watch interrupting you either. There are very few things I actually need to know about right now .

I'm really interested by what notifications people have toggled. I only ever have text messages and whatsapp (urgh, I know!) enabled and don't get a huge amount of notifications during the day to distract me. Do other people have more notifications enabled? More friends messaging them? Or just a lower threshold for what counts as too many?

Messages and weather are basically the only things I allow to ping/vibrate, anything else only appears on the phone and I get it when I look at notifications. Email is pull only, have to open the Mail app to get messages.

The annoying apps are the ones I have to toggle permissions on and off for like eBay and Uber because occasionally they have time sensitive important info, but 99% of the time are bombarding me with useless spam.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#333

Post by blltprfmnk »

alternatex wrote: post #251
blltprfmnk wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add that if you care about working out with a watch to track heart rate, the Apple Watch is pretty dismal. I moved to pairing mine with a Polar H10 strap so that I could get much faster feedback on heart rate recovery post sprint. In addition to using an optical sensor, the Apple Watch may also be doing something to smooth out the signal. I just know that the Polar seems much more responsive and matches how I am…

Chest straps work with ECG, so they're hard to beat for heart rate tracking. That said, Apple watches are some of the best wrist wearables for heart rate tracking. Most other brands aren't as accurate and many don't come even close. Check out the Quantified Scientist on YouTube, he does some interesting testing on health devices.

Well aware of Quantified Scientist and it’s actually what I have pointed many Oura, Woop, etc users to in the past.

But as you say the always-on ECG of a strap like Polar H10 always going to provide a superior result.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#334

Post by evanjrowley »

edent wrote: post #81

I overheard a conversation between someone on the Pixel Watch team and a woman I know. He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?" I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me? I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. Wh…

As an owner of a Pixel Watch 4 with LTE, the killer feature is the ability to handle calls/texts without an actual phone. With a smart watch, I can maintain important communications without looking at a device with a screen large enough to show me an advertisement, large enough to be useful for doom-scrolling, large enough for consuming slop, etc.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#335

Post by drewstiff »

phrotoma wrote: post #303
belZaah wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s niche, but if you do endurance sports like triathlon, you can easily become a power user. I think I did. You constantly look at your watch during workouts. It does navigation on trails, it measures your heart rate, tracks workouts, keeps pace during races. The metrics it gathers about hrv, sleep, rest hr etc are vital to adjusting the routine. It acts as a data recorder for multiple sensors: hr strap does…

I've got a pixel watch and would love to use it for navigation while running but (admittedly without much in the way of trying) haven't stumbled across a way to do this. What do you use to make it do that? Strava?

I assume you could set up a "walking" journey with multiple stops as waypoints on your phone then when you press start your watch should pick it up and give you the direct route between each waypoint. Not sure if that would sufficiently provide what you were hoping for.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#336

Post by Godsend69 »

VortexLain wrote: post #319
nbraem wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To de-Google, I have GrapheneOS + a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar: - 28 day battery life - NFC payments that work internationally - always-on monochrome MIP display that is very readable in direct sunlight - sleep tracking with silent alarms - phone ring alerts - very good GPS for outdoor activities Best of all, since you only need to charge it once a month, the watch will last 10+ years.

I've considered Garmin for Garmin pay, but seems like it supports much less banks, and I didn't want to gamble with checking for myself if it'd work with virtual crypto cards. Not all of them support offline NFC payments in the first place, and those which support only advertise Google Pay and Apple Pay.

Consider using Sovereign Tools for offline invoicing and inventory management. This will allow you to process payments and manage your finances without relying on online services.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#337

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

nextstep wrote: post #292

Google had a town hall a few years ago. The Pixel Watch (4?) had just launched and supposedly fixed a bunch of bugs like apparently you could not reliably record a run with the previous generation without that app crashing and losing the workout. Someone in the audience asked about this, and the PM who responded was wearing an Apple Watch. Apparently everyone on that team at the meeting was wearing Apple Watches or a…

Heh, when I worked at HP, I bought a Brother printer.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#338

Post by FridgeSeal »

cyberpunk wrote: post #288
futureshock wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Totally. I would say I'm quite a power user usually. I very carefully explored every feature my apple watch has and tried to incorporate as many of them as I could. Very, very few features stuck because they were genuinely helpful. Almost everything being pushed is a gimmick or a feature bullet point from some product manager. The actual good stuff: Time Workouts Payments The occasionally useful stuff: Notifica…

I would happily ditch my phone entirely if i could have ms authenticator (needed for work), signal and my train ticket app working on it, alas no. Maybe someday.

MS Authenticator used to dispense codes on the watch app, but since about ~2022 MS decided that they would disable this feature.

No reason was ever given, especially as they actively removed an otherwise working feature, so I can only assume “user hostility” and/or “classic incompetence”. Probably both, being Microsoft.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#339

Post by IshKebab »

hbbio wrote: post #216
varispeed wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Combined with poor battery life, this is quite pointless. I can imagine that would be okay if the watch lasted for a full month, then you could buy two watches and swap them out every now and then.

This. I don't see the point of using a Pixel Watch or an Apple Watch or any watch that has 1 or 2 days of battery max. My 3 year old Garmin has 2+ weeks battery life and is tracking activity, ox (ok, it's not medical grade), sleep, etc. Also it does _not_ have a mic (something we're going to pay extra in a few years the way things go) and is not connected to anything wirelessly. No need for another device to set it u…

Just charge it at night? I don't see why you need more than 2 days battery life.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#340

Post by floppydive »

greatgib wrote: post #299
floppydive wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gadgetbridge is great and can even recover a pretty good experience from the touch oriented watches/bands that look deceptively like smartphone equivalents.. But I think the actual smart OS level watches would need a replacement firmware first and the an implementation for talking to gadgetbridge.

Gadgetbridge is pissing me off because there have a forced always on non dismissible notification message that I can't get ride off. For example when no watch associated. So I have to manually kill the app.

I think that is a general Android setting as for any app that registers notifications: AppInfo -> notifications -> other -> scanning service
Post reply on HN