[Q] Use SW3 to control MyTracks/GPS on phone? - Sony Smartwatch 3

Does anyone know if it' s possible to use the SW3 to control MyTracks (or some other GPS app) on the phone rather than using the integrated GPS in the SW3? I realize that the GPS is one of the main reasons why people choose this watch, but let's say that your watch battery is getting low while your phone has plenty of charge, so you'd rather use your phone's GPS. Of course you could just pull the phone out, but for the sake of argument let's say that it's inconvenient to get to your phone. For example, you're on a hike and it's in your backpack or you're out on the water and it's in a waterproof bag. So you just want to use the watch to control MyTracks on the phone. I guess this is probably not a real common use case, but I was hoping it would be possible.
I did an experiment yesterday to try and find out. I turned Location off in the SW3 settings, and then I opened the MyTracks app on the SW3. Surprisingly, MyTracks started up and let me start recording a new track. The distance traveled was even updating as I walked around. I left it on for a while, and the quick battery drain on the watch seemed to indicate that the SW3 GPS was actually on even though location had been disabled. It makes me wonder what the location on/off setting even does if it doesn't prevent an app from turning on the GPS (anybody know?). However, when I tried to pause or stop recording the track, it wouldn't let me. I would press the pause/stop button, and nothing would happen. MyTracks stayed running and recording, and I couldn't swipe it away. I finally had to just reboot the SW3 to get it to stop. The track that had been recording disappeared and never transferred to my phone. Maybe I'll try it again if I have time in the next few days, but I guess the first experiment wasn't too successful.

Related

Anyone else have these problems? (GPS, Skype, Calendar, Bluetooth)

So...
I'm very unhappy with my Asurion forced upgrade from the Incredible to the Incredible 2. Is anyone else having these problems and is there any solution?
Aside from the issues in the pictures, the Bluetooth never gets connected. I keep getting "HF Error 68" on my stereo. I guess that could actually be my stereo though...
I'm not sure what you're trying to show with the map. GPS works great on my I2. I use it almost daily.
While I don't use the calendar heavily, it hasn't crashed one me.
I don't use Skype.
I use bluetooth frequently for stereo audio, primarily in my car. I have no problems with pairing, auto-connecting, etc.
Have you tried rebooting your phone? Contact support?
Basically, what nimdae said: no issues.
If you haven't already, try a factory reset too.
Tried rebooting and resetting my phone. Also, alarm didn't go off this morning. When I woke up the alarm thing was showing but no alarm and the "Snooze" button was greyed out and I could only press "dismiss".
With the map. I use Runkeeper to track my exercise activities. Do you see how it's jagged all over the road? It adds about 20% on to the length of every exercise. This ruins any chance or keeping track of distance, pace, estimated calories burned, etc. My Droid 1 and Dinc had fine GPS. Maybe it locks fast and works fine for navigation but for tracking anything it's terrible. I certainly wasn't zig-zagging all over the road like in that picture.
Sounds to me you have a defective phone. I can't comment regarding RunKeeper, as every phone I've had that I've tried using the app with, including the iPhone, I thought has sucked for GPS tracking.. Beyond that though, none of the issues you are seeing.
I have had none of those issues.
I have not tried run keeper but I use endomondo for running. For the most part it is VERY accurate...the only time it is a bit off is when I go around a sharp u - sometimes it cuts across rather than following the u. But I think that is a software polling issue.
I agree with the others that your phone sounds defective.
I'll have to load up one of those apps and see what result I get. It's always good to compare. I've noticed a geocaching app I used had a slight accuracy issue, but it wasn't all over the place. I was at least able to use it as a reference.
Another thing - do you turn gps on and off or just leave it on?
When I first got this phone I would turn it off and on. I noticed that when I turned it on it took forever to lock.
I leave it on now.
I don't really remember if I left it on or not but a 20 mile ride should have had a lock somewhere in the beginning.
It seems my calendar issue was just something with that event, as it works okay with editing others and after changing my alarm notification sound the alarm works.
I am still having this issue with Skype telling me that I'm not on Verizon in the US... I have the hybrid Alltel PRL, maybe that has something to do with it? The GPS issue is just too much. I rely on Runkeeper to keep track of my running and cycling and having to take note of length and route, then completely remove and manually add the every event back in just isn't going to work for me.
The GPS works great for me on the inc2, I've used it plenty of times to get me home. I use the calendar as well and never seen a F/C/ I'd call for a refurb.
ACD168 said:
The GPS works great for me on the inc2, I've used it plenty of times to get me home. I use the calendar as well and never seen a F/C/ I'd call for a refurb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's a difference between the navigation mapping and the GPS usage he's attempting, which I intend to test with my I2. Navigation shows your relative position on a set path so if you are slightly off, it still shows you on the set path. On the other hand, things like geocaching and bike/run tracking doesn't lock you to a path, but rather tracks what the GPS radio reports is your location, whether on a road or in the middle of a field. In his scenario, his GPS is reporting him zigzagging on a road, which increases the estimated run distance and throws off various calculations.
I have some interest in this issue because I use a mapping app called Waze and because of this potential issue I've been hesitant to use the feature that allows you to map new roads using GPS.
I've been pretty busy so I haven't had a chance to hop on my bike with a tracker. I'll try to get to it this weekend if I'm not stuck on conference calls :S
@Grouper
Somehow I missed that you are using this for estimating calorie burn. I would highly recommend a Polar heart rate monitor. Any heart rate monitor will be more accurate than making a guess based on run time and distance, and I've found the Polar monitors to be pretty great, though a little on the expensive side. I like that it works with my cardio equipment as well, and I'll use it with my weight training and martial arts training.
I was thinking about getting one of the chest strap monitors but just don't have the money to spend on one right now.
I'm very curious to know whether or not I have a defective phone or if the drivers for gps on this device are just crappy.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App

Why Is The GPS So Bad?

Ever since I've had this phone, I've not had any issues that would make me want to start a thread, except one -- the GPS. Here are the issues I've had, which are probably similar to other's experiences:
1) GPS just stops locking occasionally, and required reboot to fix. This happened at random times, but it always seemed like I had to have the phone on for a long time before it occured.
Solution: Sometimes I can use the "GPS status" program to reset the GPS state, and this would work sometimes. It doesn't always work though, and I need to reboot to get it back.
2) GPS stops turning on at all. This was traced down to my company requiring full encryption of the flash/SD card, which apparently this phone has a bug that prevents GPS from working at all when you do this. I had to remove my work email from the phone to get GPS back.
Solution: None yet, except turning encryption off.
3) The GPS icon in the notifier bar stays on in the "locked" status, even when GPS is turned off.
Solution: Reboot. Not ideal, obviously.
I've also tried replacing the gps.conf file as another user pointed out, but that doesn't appear to have fixed anything. Does anyone have a solution for these issues that I haven't already mentioned, particularly #1? It's getting very annoying when I need to use navigation and I have to reboot just to have a chance of it working.
Get your phone looked at/replaced. I literally have none of those issues.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA App
I know some people have issues with GPS but mine locks INSTANTLY and I have no issues with it.
Locks WAY faster then my HTC EVO 4G ever did!
I havent had one issue with the GPS. I use it in the mornings with runkeeper and it locks nearly instantly. I would say get the phone looked at
I've had similar issues with my GPS.. it takes a long time to get a lock and afterwards it's very temperamental. Unless my phone has an absolutely clear view of the sky in my car it will lose the lock instantly. It's extremely frustrating since I'm coming from a Samsung SGS Vibrant that had a horrible GPS. Samsung needs to start putting in better GPS modules in their phones. Many HTC owners have reported that their GPS works incredible and can lock on sats in their basement etc.
Just to add to my above post about my GPS locking instantly, it even locks instantly in my basement when I have like one bar of phone service.
I'd have to say the GPS is one of the better features on this phone.
I'll echo the view that you should have the phone looked at, I'm coming from a Thundebolt which frequently, literally never locked. My E4gT locks nearly instantly even when my signal is weak.
i leave my gps/ wireless networks off 90% of the time, so sometimes when i first put it on, it takes forever to lock on. i started just putting it on and rebooting and then it locks instantly
sidebar, i love how data isnt needed. i put it on to load the map correctly then turn it off to save battery
Just to clarify, if I reboot the GPS does seem to lock MUCH quicker.. I'm going to flash the stock ROM that was leaked recently and see if my issues go away, if not.. I'll probably see if Sprint can swap my phone out with another. LOS has been driving me insane.. I'm an on-call support engineer so missing a call due to LOS would be very bad for me.
My GPS sucks as well. When it locks (hardly ever) it is super inaccurate. I went to sprint and since I don't have the insurance I had to call Samsung. I'm going to send my phone to them (no loaner). They said once they receive it, I will have it back within 6 days. I'll let you know how it goes.
No problems with gps on both of the phones that I have had. The current one is exceptional actually. I use a GOLF gps program/app WEEKLY and the accuracy is actually remarkable. From my comparing it to a friends gps (also pretty accurate) as well as a LASER rangefinder (to center pin locations) it is usually within 2 or 3 yards from our calculations, which we think is pretty acceptable for our single digit games.
It helps alot on shots inside 150 yards, especially inside 100 when we think it is 50 yard shot and it is really 70, you have a big advantage there whether its 67 or 70 yards compared to your shot of 50 if you didnt have the gps.
It does take about 10 to 15 seconds once you stop moving to catch up and give an accurate yardage, this is likely the program/app as some of them I have tried find it quicker some slower...
JC
Disable "Use sensor aiding" if it's enabled. Locks much faster.

Wear Profiles - Battery Improvements Idea

http://www.reddit.com/r/moto360/comments/2la6cg/noticed_i_can_get_my_moto_360_to_last_24_days/
A rudamentary discussion is over at the link above about an idea a couple of us have. The short of it is that with the ability to build profiles from an app on your phone, you could disable notifications/bluetooth (on the phone)/ ambient/ etc and that has been shown to dramatically improve battery life ( up to 3 days ). I'm curious if a developer with a Wear device would entertain the idea of putting something like this together. I would be happy to pay for an application that could make these types of adjustments through definable profiles, and I suspect many others would as well.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Quick update. Battery life on the watch is improved by ~40% in a controlled test by disabling bluetooth on the paired phone. More details on the thread at Reddit.
Wtf is the point of disabling Bluetooth on the phone? The watch can't do what it's supposed to do then?
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
I don't think that can be accurate. I've found that my watch has much worse battery life when not paired, as it is constantly searching for a bluetooth device to pair with... Maybe they mean airplane mode. But if that's the case, the watch is barely more featured than any normal old watch....
As discussed in the thread @ Reddit, the idea is that we're often in a situation where you don't need the watch. If I'm sitting at my desk, I have Chrome open, have my phone in front of me on a dock, etc. Using the watch is cumbersome if I already have my hands on a keyboard and mouse. Therefore, draining 7-12% per hour is a waste. If you consider that many of us are in a position for 6-8 hours a day where the watch will not be used, and the lifespan of the watch is anywhere from 12-18 hours, than turning off bluetooth can mean your watch may last longer than 24 hours and be more effective when you do require it.
This may not apply to you. But it will for many.
As for its effectiveness, I've done it two days in a row now. Using Wear Battery Stats, the results are consistently 40%+ reduction in battery discharge.
so what would be the conditions for matching the profile? meetings? GPS location? times of day?
also, you'd have to have an app present on the watch itself to make this functional, which would limit you to solely duration of time. so technically you'd be limited to the appointments on your calendar - but if you're in airplane mode, is this even possible?
i think the phone could issue a command to the watch to go to airplane mode, but how to get it back out is a bit more complicated. time is the only factor that i can think of. if you move locations, leave your desk, etc., you'd have to manually set it out of airplane, which is not something that interests me.
i'm still waiting for the ability to turn off teh motion sensor.
I just did a logical cheap DIY. (it does not put a stress in the battery)
I put my charger dock to my TIMER wall plug.
I wake up everyday at 05:45. When I go to sleep I have about 25% battery life, I put the watch on my dock and do not charge it.
At 04:00 my wall charger turns automatically ON and starts charging my watch, When I wake up it's 100% . Moto 360 did NOT charge all night, and it goes from about 10% - 20% (witch is almost best ) to 100%.
cvenk said:
I just did a logical cheap DIY. (it does not put a stress in the battery)
I put my charger dock to my TIMER wall plug.
I wake up everyday at 05:45. When I go to sleep I have about 25% battery life, I put the watch on my dock and do not charge it.
At 04:00 my wall charger turns automatically ON and starts charging my watch, When I wake up it's 100% . Moto 360 did NOT charge all night, and it goes from about 10% - 20% (witch is almost best ) to 100%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. not sure how this relates to the OP.
2. isn't the battery "sweet spot" 80-40%? theoretically reducing the battery to 10% puts more wear on the battery than charging overnight? what if you switched your timer to charge first, then disable?
Yes. What I'm envisioning at bare minimum would be:
- An application on the smart watch that can disable bluetooth locally. That way you can keep it on the phone for your car stereo, headphone, etc features. This could be used through Google Voice (Tap screen and say "Open Sleep Now" or whatever). Also have the ability to open from any standard launcher such as "Wear Mini Launcher" or a Swipe command so you can quickly enable it when you sit down at your desk.
- The application on the smart watch includes the ability to force dim the screen or show a black screen like Slumber until you press/hold the button or press the screen to wake it.
- The application on the smart watch would have a feature to keep bluetooth turned off/screen turned off until the watch detects feedback from the accelerometer that there is significant and consistent movement over X period of time. This would help some people configure it not to go off while at their desk but while walking around the office/home/etc.
A more advanced version could offer additional features from the smartphone such as location awareness based on Wifi/GPS, but my understanding is that such a feature would burn through the smartphone battery. If not, then the ability to disable bluetooth on the smartphone based on location or detection of wifi APs would be another way to approach this. However, I believe that many people would find the first few feature recommendations above beneficial enough.
i hadn't considered the accelerometer but i think it will be tricky to get it right. i feel like the watch would be turning off/on the BT a LOT. sorry to sound so pessimistic - i think some test cases are warranted here.
your last point i just don't see feasible given the limitations of the watch. sacrifice the phone battery for the watch battery doesn't sound like an ideal situation and I'm not convinced it would be effective at reducing battery usage on the watch either.
640k said:
i hadn't considered the accelerometer but i think it will be tricky to get it right. i feel like the watch would be turning off/on the BT a LOT. sorry to sound so pessimistic - i think some test cases are warranted here.
your last point i just don't see feasible given the limitations of the watch. sacrifice the phone battery for the watch battery doesn't sound like an ideal situation and I'm not convinced it would be effective at reducing battery usage on the watch either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. Again, at bare minimum, if I had a bluetooth/wireless toggle switch on the smartwatch, that would be a huge benefit. I could turn it off while driving and sitting at my desk.
Also, as discussed on reddit, it does not only apply to bluetooth on and off. With profiles, you can turn off HR monitor, step counter, etc when you're seated at the office and just turn it back on when you leave. It can also be scheduled (if you leave office at 5pm, start the profile that enables most services by 4:30pm).
For me, the 8 hours a day that I work, I don't need email or social apps notifying me on my watch since I have a computer in front of me the whole time. I also don't need the HR triggering every so often. At the bare minimum, I just need calendar reminders and SMS via hangouts. If there is a way to set "Office" profile scheduled every 9am to 5pm then revert back to the default profile outside of those times, it would be great.

5.1.1 update - your experience with the new software ?

I found it very hard to find information from people who actually have the update in other threads because it is mixed with information on how to actually obtain and install the update.
So what are your impressions of tge 5.1.1 update ? Please only post if you have the update installed and running for at least few hours.
My impressions:
- Battery life is worse, like 30% worse with Wi-Fi detection on, even if mostly using Bluetooth.
- Still can't edit the canned response list Emoji drawing is a bad joke.
- I can't dismiss notifications with flick gestures (only hide them)
- Very smooth and responsive UI overall
- No annoying "Ok Google" text on watch face until you say "ok Google" 5 times
Battery life for me for 5 times better.... One thing, this enables 'always on' apps... I would check some of your apps and see what battery consumption is. I've been in my watch since about 10am and I have 53% left right now. Way better than anything I have ever gotten. This is with wifi on.
It's pretty fantastic for me. I have no complaints. The processor is old, but I'm very impressed with how optimized they've made it. The lag just doesn't interrupt my work flow, unlike with the Apple Watch at least. There's no major delay. Will likely be buying V2 or V3 depending on how I feel the life cycle for these devices will be.
Updated yesterday. I feel like the battery lasts less, but you have to give it 2-3 days to settle down. Liking the new features, but I don't think I'm gonna use Wi-Fi too much since it drains battery.
For now, I'm keeping WiFi, gestures, and ambient mode off. This way within a week I'll have a true comparison of battery life. Then I'm going to test each function and how it effects battery. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
Have the update one day now,
Good points:
-Smootness
-less buggy
-wifi when out of range
-wrist flick(great idea)
-Google maps maps
Bad points:
-Wrist flick is hard to perform correct (think it is a learning curve)
-When wifi is active on whatch and is connected but phone isn't connected to internet it still says it is connected.
-Laggier in first minutes after boot
-Lock screen sometimes activates when on wrist.
Overall i'am happy. Batterylife is to early to judge
I got the update yesterday after resetting my device. The first thing that I have noticed is that I can no longer dismiss notifications that only take up the bottom part of the screen. I have to pull the notification up and can then dismiss it. If this is what the developers intended, then that it is a major step backwards.
Also where do I setup which apps should stay "always on"?
Battery life after the update is disasterous, about 6% per hour but I need to give it a few days to sort itself out.
The dismissing of notifications is very much hit and miss and is impracticable.
At the moment I am not impressed with the update. Hopefully things will sort themselves out over the next few days.
For me, the update has been surprisingly good.
Good:
- Battery life (which I must admit, was my primary concern) is as good as it was prior to the update, even with the watch connected to WiFi.
- I love the flicking gestures, they work exactly as I imagined they would, although they're not as smart as they should (you can swipe available cards up and down, but when a card has multiple sub-cards, you can't scroll between them).
- Performance is great, specially considering it's a device with 512MB RAM, UI is still responsive enough and with very little lag.
- I love the new contact screen, it saves me a lot of time for quick calls when I can't remember the contact name (I normally use Google Now to call someone).
Bad:
- For the life of me, I haven't figured out how to enable always-on apps. It's one of the features I've been waiting for so eagerly, specially for Google Keep's checked notes (which I use A LOT).
- The WiFi connection is USELESS if you leave your phone home and find a protected WiFi network, because you NEED the phone to input the password. It kinda defeats the whole purpose.
One thing I noticed after the update is all of my hangouts threads became unmerged. Now each person has SMS/Hangouts as seperate threads. My one buddy experienced the same issue when his watch updated. Not sure why the software update would cause that, but it's upsetting.
Overall, I'm really liking the update. The only thing that's really bugging me is that you can't seem to dismiss notifications unless they're open. I'm used to being able to dismiss them immediately if I can get all the information I need from their title. Now, I actually have to swipe up first to open them, and only then can I dismiss them. It's not so bad that I can't live with it, but it is annoying.
The update has exceeded my expectations so far. I have only had it installed for about 12 hours. Battery life seems better. Worst case I don't think it has gotten any worse which was a huge concern because it hasn't been so wonderful. It seems to give more feedback and explanations so I'm not guessing as much. For example when I added a playlist it informed me that the battery needed more charge to download to the watch. Prior to the update I would have been scratching my head all day and then it would magically download when I charged up at night.
I really hope the WiFi works as advertised. I can think of many ways it could be useful to me. It seems like there are lots of times when I want notifications in case of an emergency because I'm a single dad but I also don't want to carry the phone with me.
My biggest annoyance with update is that now I have to open cards before they can be swiped away. Most times I can tell what a card is telling me and used to swipe them away without opening them.
Seems more responsive.
As others have said, removal of swiping / dismissing the previews was not a good call.
Not entirely sure, but looks like I won't be able to connect to my work WiFi which uses certificate based EAP-TLS authentication ? Will see when I'm back in the office next week.
Sent from my Lollipop TF700T
Do the other watches have the same issue (yeah, I'm calling it an issue instead of a feature) with the notification swiping? Or maybe this is something Motorola did thinking they were compensating somehow for the flat tire? Regardless, I hope there's an update to fix it, it just annoys the piss out of me every time.
My first day battery report.
Off charger at 9am, end of the day (11pm) 67%. This is with WiFi and ambient mode off so I can have a direct comparison to prior then update. But to me that is a huge improvement.
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
user of android said:
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed the same behavior when mine was at 2%. It did not respond to screen touches and only switched on for about half a second after clicking the side button several (5 or more) times. It still took about 30 minutes for the watch to finally shut down. Maybe this is because of a very aggressive battery saving mode?
I must add that I did reset the watch after the 5.1.1 update was fully installed and wanted the battery to drain completely for the same reason you did: to recalibrate it.
Sent from my One S using XDA Free mobile app
Mister-B said:
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm thinking it may only be an AMOLED feature.
Mine had the same issue at 10%. I wonder if this is related to the performance issue Motorola was talking about.
I don't know if I am happy or sad that this is widespread. Hopefully they patch this up.

Seeing equal or better battery life on wifi vs bluetooth

There were lots of comments (and still are) about how wifi is a battery killer on android wear. I'm not seeing this to be the case at all, when it's working like it's supposed to.
Since 5.1.1 my battery use has been around 3% and hour with all features on. Turning off bluetooth on my phone, with a 2/3 wifi signal on the watch, I'm seeing 2.5 to 3%.
Quick drain happens when walking around the edge of bluetooth range, as the watch switches back and forth between bluetooth and wifi. It seems that as long as it's not finding bluetooth, battery use is normal at worst for me.
I know that the moto 360 will switch to a state of only checking for updates occasionally to save battery, but I don't see this happening. Notifications are coming to the phone, and shortly afterward on the watch. I have not seen a time when a notification was delayed more than a few seconds.
The downside to wifi-only use: some apps that communicate with a phone app don't work. My watchmaker face doesn't update the phone battery level. Google voice commands fail too often, maybe half of the time.
I think google should change the frequency of attempting to reestablish bluetooth connection while on wifi.
Has anyone else tried this? Either turn off your phone's bluetooth, or make sure it is well out of range.
I'll give it a go tomorrow at the office and report back.
Sent from my Xperia Z3
Thanks to a heads up by DarkRazorZ, I learned wifi can be turned on in airplane mode. Will be looking to see if this makes any more difference.
Watch maker has been my biggest battery drain. It also makes the drop down menu laggy and impossible to use.
Yeah, I had that problem with watchmaker. I use intelligent and it seems to work well. Other people report facet works too.
I concur. Wi-Fi uses a lot less battery than Bluetooth, with an acceptable lag - 1-2 seconds on notifications. Bluetooth seems like a big battery drain on the phone and on the watch.
Sent from my Xperia Z3+

Categories

Resources