Develop Bugs

adding watch faces on the Sony Smartwatch 2

can any of the app developers for Sony Smartwatch (2) tell me if it's possible to add watch faces to the watch?
the digital one on the SW2 is really too simple, with just the time showing, it really needs at least the date to be added

Hmm...I think you missed there a several choices built in to the watch. Go to the settings app on the watch scroll down and you will see the option to change the watch faces. Some include the date

But they aren't digital.

exactly, there are 4 "analog" watch faces and 1 digital and i want a digital one with date
what i really want to know is, can only Sony add watch faces?

Other developers can, although I don't know if they can do the proper "always on" effect. There is an app in the store now which claims to add more faces, although it isn't yet "optimised" for the SW2. For me though it just crashes on startup.

It seems its built into the firmware ... watch faces on the market are just WApps, they burn far too much battery to be useful IMO.
If we can hack the firmware, i'm fairly sure we can make our own watch faces, but i've no idea where you can even download the firmware to start with, let alone modding it.
Im interested how the display works, does anyone have proper info on this ? It looks to me like the display has two parts to it. one being the monochrome traditional style LCD and the other being the colour LCD ... or am i barking up the wrong tree ?

it's a transflective LCD, without backlight in low light its hardly readable, but in direct sunlight it reflects light in a certain way so it gets readable again
inside you can ofcourse use the backlight

Hello
So does this mean there is no way to have custom watchfaces that are always on. Like on the pebble?
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4

TulpiX said:
Hello
So does this mean there is no way to have custom watchfaces that are always on. Like on the pebble?
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At this time, yes.
As an owner of one myself I'm not too bothered by that fact. I've actually found the black analog face to look quite nice on the device - and I'm picky about my watch faces. My only complaint about the watch faces though is the fact that the digital watch face does not include a date/day indicator - it just displays the time.

Thanks for your answer.
I find this a little disappointing.
Always found that the ability to change watchfaces makes a smartwatch so interesting (next to notificationsbof course)
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

i've tweeted something nice to @SonyXperia
any decent digital watch can show a time AND date, and a smartwatch can't?

Hi,
I was looking for the same thing: A digital watchface with at least the date. I was personally a bit disappointed with he analog watchface as is not nearly as sharp as on the picture that are used as publicity.
I found that the first smartwatch had such as watchface), but I'm not sure if this SW can be installed on the Smartwatch 2.

Me too....
Sent from my GT-N7105 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I notice on the box it shows a digital clockface with day and date....this isn't available on the watch itself!! Good grief, In this respect its a step back from the old one!

This is when graphics win over functionality
Still you must admit that this is a beautiful watch compared to the first version plastic thingy...
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

please retweet this if you have a twitter account
https://twitter.com/JarlSX/status/388703033510469632

i never saw the date/time thing on the box, made a photo and tweeted it, please retweet
https://twitter.com/JarlSX/status/388987475953459200

Retweeted
Inviato dal mio C6903 con Tapatalk

We can have more watchfaces but we have to pay for.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=SMARTWATCH&c=apps&hl=EN

There is a similar discussion going on on the Sony Forum, entiltled "SmartWatch 2 - shake to highlight?, battery life?" (as a fairly new user I can not post an external link here yet).
Thommo writes:
I'm almost pretty sure that the watch in that video is a 1st production demo which had that feature on it - After looking round other sites which have tested the watch after official release this feature was removed apparently due to battery life as the watch would always be on thus battery life would not be that long, I'd like to also point out that on the demo versions there were more clock faces and a walkman widget - The walkman widget as far as I'm led to believe had a pixelation problem and was removed although the packaging still has an image of the widget on it
I'm curious to see if these functionalities will be brought back in as they are clearly printed on the box of the watch.

Facer vs WatchMaker - Side by Side

ok so I have posted a few times about both apps, but seeing as some really cool watchfaces have come out that use smooth second hands, I wanted to make a video to show a comparison of graphic-intensive watches with inbetween frame animations running with both apps!
Devices shown are Samsung Galaxy S4 and Moto 360.
The awesome watchface shown is Jarvis 2.0.
In both cases, i have turned on all smooth seconds settings and tags for both apps #DWFSS# / {drss}.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zNhOSo818&feature=youtu.be

dangreene1 said:
ok so I have posted a few times about both apps, but seeing as some really cool watchfaces have come out that use smooth second hands, I wanted to make a video to show a comparison of graphic-intensive watches with inbetween frame animations running with both apps!
Devices shown are Samsung Galaxy S4 and Moto 360.
The awesome watchface shown is Jarvis 2.0.
In both cases, i have turned on all smooth seconds settings and tags for both apps #DWFSS# / {drss}.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zNhOSo818&feature=youtu.be
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Watchmaker freezes and force closes if a file like jarvice is being used. Just be careful.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

It used to. Works perfect since 2.4.0 release. You can see it working in the video!

Installed it to see what the fuss was about. I don't like any of the included watches, and unliker Facer it does push in-app purchases on you (want custom backgrounds? pay, want some of the "nicer" watches? pay). So that was a little offputting.
However, the smooth animation is indeed smoother than Facer's. I imported a few of my Facer watches, (and after paying $0.99 for the "Premium" unlock) changed the second hand rotation to smooth and it's almost like my real Bulova with its silky smooth animation. So I'm going to continue using it for the meantime

Can anyone comment on the battery life when using 50 fps?

Battery seems ok for me, btw thanks dangreene1 for pulling out this comparision.
I did some modification myself to further imphasize the time on Jarvis.
If someone need it, plz let me know and i will post my Jarvis version

That looks great. Please do share

Remove download link, credit go to Kuronosan

Tried it without editing, tried after editing it, tried deleting everything in WatchMaker and reimporting. No matter what I do, this comes up very messed up on the watch. My own and the others i've imported into WatchMaker work fine. Anything messed up with the file itself? or WatchMaker being crappy?

Just tried to import modified version on my watchmaker, everything works perfectly normal to me don't know what causing prob on yours

Max_Pain said:
Installed it to see what the fuss was about. I don't like any of the included watches, and unliker Facer it does push in-app purchases on you (want custom backgrounds? pay, want some of the "nicer" watches? pay). So that was a little offputting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just do what I did and don't buy any watch packs - you can import 100's from FaceRepo anyhow - then you only pay $0.99 as a one-off for the full premium upgrade which also gives you weather, battery widgets and some backgrounds thrown in.
ChrisNee1988 said:
Can anyone comment on the battery life when using 50 fps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find no difference in battery life between smooth and 1fps mode - very good overall.
Max_Pain said:
Tried it without editing, tried after editing it, tried deleting everything in WatchMaker and reimporting. No matter what I do, this comes up very messed up on the watch. My own and the others i've imported into WatchMaker work fine. Anything messed up with the file itself? or WatchMaker being crappy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The facer file works 80% in WatchMaker but breaks on the weather conditionals.
WatchMaker uses LUA for its expressions so the formatting is slightly different - try the link below for fixed weather formulas :
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bx1TawGl-CXYZlpZQjd0ZEZVY2c&usp=sharing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04zN...ature=youtu.be
I watched the original video again and you really need to see it running on a real watch to appreciate the full difference in frame rate - it really is smooth as butter even on the Jarvis watch.

After trying both, I do agree Watchmaker is much smoother. Not sure about the battery life though.
Edit: How to import from FaceRepo or Facer files? .face and .zip files can work on the Watchmaker as well??
Update: It worked! Confirming .zip and .face can work on Watchmaker as well.

dangreene1 said:
The facer file works 80% in WatchMaker but breaks on the weather conditionals.
WatchMaker uses LUA for its expressions so the formatting is slightly different - try the link below for fixed weather formulas :
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bx1TawGl-CXYZlpZQjd0ZEZVY2c&usp=sharing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the problem is the Jarvis 2.0 file is already a .watch file made for WatchMaker. It imports and looks fine om phone. No matter what i have tried x once i set the watch face on the watch, it's like the images are all jumbled so there are phantom red second and hour hands, and the layers arent in the right order and some layers seem to be missing. Something seriously wrong happens when sending to the watch that hasn't happened with other faces.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

Just re-import a second copy and send that instead.

I already explained i did that. As a matter of fact, every watch i try to import is messed up on the watch even though it looks fine on the phone. The only one working now is my Bulova face and the stock ones...
Going to try wiping everything for WatchMaker and reinstalling it.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

Oh ok apologies. Maybe try a file explorer for wear and clear the files on your watch?

WatchMaker is a piece of crap.
That's the short version. Long version? I uninstalled it from my phone. Used SD Maid to remove any leftovers. Manually deleted the entire BeautifulWatches folder. No WatchMaker or its files left on my phone. No WatchMaker available to select om watch.
Reinstall WatchMaker. Only import Jarvis 2.0 watch file. Looks fine on phone. Send to watch. Broken. Why?
Because WatchMaker isn't cleaning up the files in the watch itself. So i could see the face image from my Bulova face, see the face and dials from a Rolex face i had imported and deleted at some point yesterday, and some other images that don't belong to the Jarvis face. So until WatchMaker deletes all the files from old faces, this is an issue. And any other watch i import, it is broken on the watch for the same reason. The images being called by the XML are not corresponding to the images from that face file on the phone. And I'm back to Facer for the meantime.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

I agree that it should deal with the sync case where someone has done a manual wipe on the folder on their phone. But I am sure that workflow will be fixed soon.
other than that I am very happy to run all my watches at 50fps with similar battery life to the stock watch.

As an amateur programmer (Visual Studio, haven't tried Java yet), I saw the problem coming when I realized how WatchMaker imports the images. Rather than keep the unique IDs that Facer uses, it's always trying to go .img1, .img2, etc. If you only ever import watch faces and never delete them, you probably wouldn't encounter this problem.
But if you do import multiple watches, then delete some, then import more, you're going to have this problem. The solution is for WatchMaker to wipe all custom face resources from the watch every time you change faces, and then to send new files. The fact that it's not doing that, and instead only seems to send new files while keeping existing ones baffles my mind from a programming angle.
Anyone know who the dev is?

Watchmaker doesnt look like an amateur app to me.
As most have said above the watches look amazing. If there is an issue im sure the dev will fix it. Facer fixed around 20 bugs in the last update so all apps have bugs.

[Q] Watch faces - How many

For those lucky enough to have their watch. How many watch faces are there pre loaded?

There are 18 watch faces pre loaded on the watch.

Watch Faces
although, will there be many more like i've seen on XDA for the MOTO360?

Ok got my ZW yesterday. I have to say, I love the build and the design...what's disappointing is that I can't use any of the third party apps to build a watch face. I've tried two diff apps and nothing will push the design to the watch. It appears that the ZW manager is preventing any third party designs to come thru. IF THIS IS TRUE, and Asus doesn't open up the design api this would be a deal breaker for me. I know this is a small thing, but its to restrictive considering that ALL of the other AW watches support third party apps. UGH!

jimi_pooh said:
Ok got my ZW yesterday. I have to say, I love the build and the design...what's disappointing is that I can't use any of the third party apps to build a watch face. I've tried two diff apps and nothing will push the design to the watch. It appears that the ZW manager is preventing any third party designs to come thru. IF THIS IS TRUE, and Asus doesn't open up the design api this would be a deal breaker for me. I know this is a small thing, but its to restrictive considering that ALL of the other AW watches support third party apps. UGH!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used Facer just fine... maybe something is wrong with your connection between your watch and phone?

Nickyro23 said:
I used Facer just fine... maybe something is wrong with your connection between your watch and phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that was the one I hadn't tried yet and was going to next. Do the faces show up in the ZW manager?

jimi_pooh said:
Thanks, that was the one I hadn't tried yet and was going to next. Do the faces show up in the ZW manager?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, only use the facer app... facerepo.com has a bunch of user made faces that are decent. Some aren't designed for the ZW though, so they won't look right. Trial and error. When downloading, download directly to the facer app. Should pop up giving you that option when you press download. What were the apps you were using that didn't work?

Nickyro23 said:
No, only use the facer app... facerepo.com has a bunch of user made faces that are decent. Some aren't designed for the ZW though, so they won't look right. Trial and error. When downloading, download directly to the facer app. Should pop up giving you that option when you press download. What were the apps you were using that didn't work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried WatchMaker and AndroidWearWatch

jimi_pooh said:
I tried WatchMaker and AndroidWearWatch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool thanks

"Luxury Watch Faces", "Wear Face Collection" and "Intellicom Watchfaces" have all worked for me.

dgjenkins said:
"Luxury Watch Faces", "Wear Face Collection" and "Intellicom Watchfaces" have all worked for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are they as far as affecting battery life on the watch?

Nickyro23 said:
How are they as far as affecting battery life on the watch?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only had the watch for two days now so it's hard to tell. Honestly, although I've downloaded and tested other watch face apps, I'm using the "explorer" face that comes with the zenwatch stock app. I have it always on, with steps and battery for both watch and phone showing. Lowest intensity on the screen is more than bright enough.
First day was a 16 hour day and I put it back on the charger with about 30% left. Yesterday was 14 or 15 hours with about the same left. I get tons of notifications and yesterday used the notifications while using navigation (that works well).
All I care about is getting through the day on a charge and it's doing that nicely, so I'm happy.

The nice thing about the included watch faces is that they were all built with the included first-party watchface API, unlike the ones in the Moto 360. So the cards behave nicely mostly hidden and transparent at the bottom, rather than taking up half the screen.

dgjenkins said:
I've only had the watch for two days now so it's hard to tell. Honestly, although I've downloaded and tested other watch face apps, I'm using the "explorer" face that comes with the zenwatch stock app. I have it always on, with steps and battery for both watch and phone showing. Lowest intensity on the screen is more than bright enough.
First day was a 16 hour day and I put it back on the charger with about 30% left. Yesterday was 14 or 15 hours with about the same left. I get tons of notifications and yesterday used the notifications while using navigation (that works well).
All I care about is getting through the day on a charge and it's doing that nicely, so I'm happy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Yea I may stick with the stock watch faces too. I actually like them a lot.

Berzerker7 said:
The nice thing about the included watch faces is that they were all built with the included first-party watchface API, unlike the ones in the Moto 360. So the cards behave nicely mostly hidden and transparent at the bottom, rather than taking up half the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Facer faces have worked for me with no change to the way notifications are handled. I use the square face watch faces that were designed for the LG G Watch with a few modifications the the ratios for the screen size diff.

Intellicom WatchMaker works sort-of. If you have rooted/modified your phone, apparently you cannot update to v5.01 on the watch, which is required (5.0 anyway) for the latest version to work. Their version 1.11 works with 4.4W2, but of course, some of the new features are not present.

DDowns said:
If you have rooted/modified your phone, apparently you cannot update to v5.01 on the watch
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think that's the case. My watch updated to 5.0.1 automatically, and my phone is rooted and otherwise messed with.

jimi_pooh said:
The Facer faces have worked for me with no change to the way notifications are handled. I use the square face watch faces that were designed for the LG G Watch with a few modifications the the ratios for the screen size diff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
can you tell me what ratios you modified to get the square watch faces to work with the zenwatch?? its not centered on mine..
Thanks

bustanut666 said:
Hi,
can you tell me what ratios you modified to get the square watch faces to work with the zenwatch?? its not centered on mine..
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Change the res to 320 x 320. If things are supposed to be center on the horizontal axis then put 160 for x, if center on vertical axis then 160 for y. Sometimes the size of the element needs to be changed as well, I usually set them two to three sizes up. Just play around with it and after making changes look at the face in the app and see if it aligns properly and such.

m3lover1 said:
Change the res to 320 x 320. If things are supposed to be center on the horizontal axis then put 160 for x, if center on vertical axis then 160 for y. Sometimes the size of the element needs to be changed as well, I usually set them two to three sizes up. Just play around with it and after making changes look at the face in the app and see if it aligns properly and such.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bustanut666 said:
Hi,
can you tell me what ratios you modified to get the square watch faces to work with the zenwatch?? its not centered on mine..
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He hit on the head @bustanut666

Classic Watchface : settings cog not there !

I have a Xperia XZ Premium, and also of course a Smartwatch 3 which work fine.
About a week ago my wife wanted to upgrade from her Xperia Z5 and so I bought her a Xperia XZ Premium to match mine. and all was fine until we came to try and alter the Classic Face !
As has been mentioned on here the "steps" no longer work, so all we did was change the three widgets, so we had 'battery level', 'date' and 'week number' and my wife wanted to do the same on her nice new phone
But she CAN'T.... for a start there is no little 'cog; in the middle of the watch face so I changed to another face and clicked on the 3 dots on the Classic Face, where the option to get the "settings" was there but when you click on this it tried to connect with Google Play to download the settings from somewhere but fails so obviously the app for that is missing !
So - no steps... and now you can't adjust/change anything like the widgets I have just mentioned, colours or anything else.... why, just why ?????
My still works OK, and I have removed and reinstalled Wear OS a few times on her phone but no joy
So whose fault is this ? Google messing with the OS ? or Sony not updating the watch face ? … or me for not being clever enough to work this out ?
Help please !
As my wife is driving me mad.. all she wants is the watch face she loves to be as she wants it … i.e. like mine !

Transfer app from you phone to hers
parity said:
So - no steps... and now you can't adjust/change anything like the widgets I have just mentioned, colours or anything else.... why, just why ?????
My still works OK, and I have removed and reinstalled Wear OS a few times on her phone but no joy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks like the underlying app required to change to setting on the Smartwatch 3 has been removed from the Playstore. I've just upgraded my Xperia and spent ages trying to find it. Eventually, I resorted to using an app that lets me transfer apps from my old phone to my new one. I used SwitchIt, it's quick and easy, and I transferred 2 apps - SmartWatch and Watch Faces (not sure this one is required but the SmartWatch app is). Everything works fine now and I can configure the widgets no probs.

Many Thanks !
Forteanjo said:
It looks like the underlying app required to change to setting on the Smartwatch 3 has been removed from the Playstore. I've just upgraded my Xperia and spent ages trying to find it. Eventually, I resorted to using an app that lets me transfer apps from my old phone to my new one. I used SwitchIt, it's quick and easy, and I transferred 2 apps - SmartWatch and Watch Faces (not sure this one is required but the SmartWatch app is). Everything works fine now and I can configure the widgets no probs.[/QUOTE
Thanks for your reply, as they say better late than never
Seems like it was Sony's fault for removing the Smartwatch 3 App from the store !
We both LOVE our Smartwatch 3, and can't see any reason to 'upgrade' them as they foo everything we want...
Would be nice IF the brought out a Smartwatch 4, as we would certainly buy one !
I won't hold my breath though as they ditched laptops, then tablets and no sign of those coming back either, but my 3 'old' Sony laptops are all running fine on Windows 10 and my 4 Sony tablets are fine too despite no Android upgrades
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I can share the "Watch Faces for Smartwatch 3_v2.0.A.0.20.apk" if you still need it...

Good way of browsing watch apps?

This seems like such a basic thing that I'm surprised I need to ask it, but is there a good way of browsing apps for the Galaxy Watch? I have a non-Samsung phone, so I'm installing them through the Galaxy Wearable app on my phone, but the interface is horrid. I select an app category and then see a screen of logos and cut-off app titles. No way to change the list type or sort by anything. Internet searches of good apps reveal the same recycled 20 apps that folks wrote up when it was first released. I can't find an online app store or listing either. Surely there has to be a better way. Any ideas?

Welcome to Samsung tizen OS. The only way to make that better is to switch to Android Wear OS. No one is building apps for the Samsung watch because tizen is horrible and there app store sucks LOL it looks unfinished like most of the apps you'll find there. If you just want watch faces you can use an app called watchmaker in the Android play store.. there are thousands of watch faces that will work on Samsung. Some of them are paid some of them are free. And if you don't like what you find, you can build your own from scratch within the app. Hope this helps
Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk

djwuh said:
Welcome to Samsung tizen OS. The only way to make that better is to switch to Android Wear OS. No one is building apps for the Samsung watch because tizen is horrible and there app store sucks LOL it looks unfinished like most of the apps you'll find there. If you just want watch faces you can use an app called watchmaker in the Android play store.. there are thousands of watch faces that will work on Samsung. Some of them are paid some of them are free. And if you don't like what you find, you can build your own from scratch within the app. Hope this helps
Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was afraid of that. The irony is that I just switched from Android Wear (Zen Watch 3) because I couldn't take the laggy, buggy OS anymore. My Galaxy Watch is so zippy and responsive in comparison that it's worth it to be restricted to stock apps for what I use it for. Hopefully Samsung will get around to fixing this critical flaw.
Anyone else have ideas?

djwuh said:
Welcome to Samsung tizen OS. The only way to make that better is to switch to Android Wear OS. No one is building apps for the Samsung watch because tizen is horrible and there app store sucks LOL it looks unfinished like most of the apps you'll find there. If you just want watch faces you can use an app called watchmaker in the Android play store.. there are thousands of watch faces that will work on Samsung. Some of them are paid some of them are free. And if you don't like what you find, you can build your own from scratch within the app. Hope this helps
Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think so. Wear OS is a dead OS. You go there, you get very minuscule support. They have had "Tiles" for quite a long time and STILL no one can do anything to add new tiles with their apps. Their app store is no better than Tizen's app store and new apps aren't coming out like hotcakes for their OS either. I find myself only using 5 or 6 practical apps and nothing more. I just sold my Wear OS device last week to get a Galaxy Watch. (I've used the S3 and Gear S before) People always hype up "Wear OS has more apps" yeah, more apps in quantity, but not quality. A lot of Wear OS apps also look half-baked.
Stay with Samsung, they have good support for their OS as a company and even gave us a new refreshed UI and Bixby is also getting a makeover into a true Bixby with One UI 1.5. (Comparing Google Assistant and Bixby are like apples to oranges). Tizen as a smartwatch OS in my experience has had better battery life and capability than Wear OS.

I had Wear OS awhile ago, and it is DOA!

I so much agree with you guys. Just put my Tickwatch pro away, and back to Tizen now, with my Active2.
(If a poor enthusiastic Android user in Holland wants it for free he can pick my Tickwatch up, if near the Hague.)
The user interface Samsung did is just great. The possibility to use the phone app for settings is nice also.
But the appstore.... Brrr. And what happened with the old KLM app?
E.g. I would love to have an app that gives a clearer and more persistent message on my watch when I accidentally leave my phone behind.
On Wear os it shows the "did you forget your phone?" message with clear sound.
Really miss it. I forget my phone all the time.
Huib

I was a bit apprehensive about making the switch from my trusty LG Urbane with WearOS but Tizen is much better designed and smoother than WearOS. The only downside as others have mentioned is the app store which is pants. The range and quality of apps on offer is extremely poor, even from big names such as Uber and BMW whose apps just don't work.