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Pixel Watch 5

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Re: Pixel Watch 5

#381

Post by Moldoteck »

mminer237 wrote: post #96
tuckwat wrote: post #2

30 hours of battery life is a deal breaker. I don't want to charge my watch every day. I've been using the Garmin Forerunner for a few years now and the battery life is 2 weeks!

Yeah, I bought a Pebble Time 2, and I can't imagine buying any other watch now. Having a 3+ week battery life is a game-changer. Plus its screen is practically always-on, I've never seen any lag, it's half the price, and I have yet to feel like I'm missing any features over Wear watches.

You can get a forerunner that can also last many days and MIP display and it'll cost about the same. Now the question is rather what platform you like. I find PT2 Ui much more intuitive

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#382

Post by tmzt »

futureshock wrote: post #156
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…

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…

Payments should be the obvious feature. The commercials for various smart watches show the same thing: somebody buying a coffee with just their watch.

But the reality is different. On my smartwatch (an older Samsung, but same Google OS merged with Tizen) there's a PIN required if you enable payments on the watch. I understand why, the secure element requires it. But it makes every other feature of the watch useless to me. I don't have any secrets I want a watch to protect. I want to be able to time workouts while standing on a treadmill.

They could solve this, only have large amounts require the code while letting me buy a coffee without it, but I'm sure there's some line in an agreement between Google and the banks prohibiting this. The risk has to be transferred to the customer, even if the likelyhood of somebody buying a coffee with my watch is low.

Product design should consider all of these things, but getting out the next smartwatch without thinking it through is more inline with quarterly objectives. There isn't even a Steve around to piss off enough to do something about it.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#383

Post by wink »

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…

They might just get a stroke if they'll hear what I use my smartwatch for. Hop on my bike, press start, and at the end of the ride press stop, then look at the result on my phone (sometimes). And if I don't forget to put it on I read the time. I have navigated with it once in the first week. But luckily it's not a Pixel Watch.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#384

Post by wink »

etrautmann wrote: post #126
maccard wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I have plenty of ways to tell the time so it’s actually kind of useless for that. It’s a passable golf watch, a passable fitness tracker for running and it pairs with earphones so I can not bring my phone with me. I’ve occasionally used Apple Pay with it but that novelty wore off pretty quickly. I don’t care…

The novelty of Apple Pay on watch wore off? I use this all the time but it’s not noteworthy or interesting, just a great feature that’s seamless and doesn’t require pulling out my phone.

People at my supermarket still generally need longer to pay by watch or phone than me with using my card, so I'm not sure what to take away here.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#385

Post by dataflow »

pandaman wrote: post #210
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…

The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Health stuff like sleep tracking is likely useful for the vast majority of population, at least to everyone who needs time and thus lives on a schedule of some sort, without the possibility to fall asleep and wake up whenever one feels like i…

> The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you.

Probably depends a lot on the person. A phone already does that for me, and doesn't have the associated uncomfortableness of wearing a watch while I sleep.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#386

Post by t_mahmood »

ValentineC wrote: post #365
t_mahmood wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a Garmin, ruined me with awesome battery life, but after I melted it, I was using Amazfit ActiveEdge (can't find straps, the watch is still ok), which made me realize, I'm fine with it, both serves what I need, with over week of battery life. And, that matters the most at the end. Having ADHD, a smart watch is a life saver. But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? Alarms are crucial, I have 8 a…

> But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? I wear my Apple Watch to sleep, and take it off to charge whenever I'm in the shower. That's just another routine for me.

Well, from an ADHD book, do not remember the exact statement but goes like this, "But doctor, how do I remember to take the medicine that is supposed to help me remember things"

If I have to charge it every day, it will create another thing that I will forget to do, and make it ultimately useless for me.

And once you get used to 10-15 days of battery life, charging your watch every day feels absolutely absurd.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#387

Post by pandaman »

dataflow wrote: post #385
pandaman wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Health stuff like sleep tracking is likely useful for the vast majority of population, at least to everyone who needs time and thus lives on a schedule of some sort, without the possibility to fall asleep and wake up whenever one feels like i…

> The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Probably depends a lot on the person. A phone already does that for me, and doesn't have the associated uncomfortableness of wearing a watch while I sleep.

Indeed, I didn't see studies so my theory is that most people find sleeping with a phone in the bed much more uncomfortable than with a watch on the wrist.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#388

Post by gofreddygo »

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…

For you and me, using a thing regularly for longer (than people around you) and possibly for more than one purpose makes for a power user.

If you're on the Pixel Watch team however... "power user" takes on a different meaning

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#389

Post by semiquaver »

ValentineC wrote: post #377
semiquaver wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t know what to tell you. I am using this as a completely standalone plan: https://www.usmobile.com/apple-watch-cellular-plan (see Standalone Plan section)

Ah, it seems like a hack that some telcos are doing to get around the pairing problem. From the page you linked: > Your iPhone and Apple Watch will have different numbers and Apple IDs, but will need to be members of the same iCloud Family. And from this Reddit discussion, it looks like texts won't sync: https://www.reddit.com/r/USMobile/comments/1q8wpie/is_the_st...

I’m not sure what the hack is. The watch is provisioned like a normal eSIM-equipped phone, since that’s what it is.

How could SMS messages from different phone numbers sync? That’s the whole point: It is truly standalone. In my case there is no issue whatsoever because the person using the watch has no cell phone (preteen child).

For the majority of adults who want the seamless Apple Watch approach where their watch and phone act together contextually, this is not a solution but it works great as a true standalone “phone on your wrist”.

Re: Pixel Watch 5

#390

Post by ihaveone »

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.

I think you can get most of that working on a pebble.
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