Greetings. Im hoping someone might be able to help me with a very annoying problem im having.
I have somewhere around 2000 music tracks, all of which are uploaded to Google Music. Ive had GMusic since they first announced the beta and i love the fact that my entire library is everywhere I go. I also love that i can download the tracks directly on my phone, from my phone.
However using the app to play music is horrible. In the past i used poweramp, which is a wonderful player. My main problem with Google Music is it audibly cuts the power from the headphone jack in between tracks, so when i have it hooked up to my car stereo i hear a pop when the track changes... which annoys me to utter hell. On top of that it behaves weirdly some times, for example i had it set to shuffle all the other day, and it would stop on every song, and i would have to hit play manually to go to the next song.
What i would like to do is go back to using PowerAmp, but be able to manage my music as easily as i do with GMusic. Problem is that, PowerAmp doesnt see the music i download from the GMusic app and the one time it did, all the meta-data wasnt there. So all poweramp said was "Unknown track 1".
The other side of the problem is managing it on my computer. Since i bought music from Itunes and Google Music, keeping everything organized has become a nightmare(i have a number of compilations, and when you download the music from google music, it organizes it by artist not by the album). Which is why i dont want to have to manually move files to my phone. Ive tried WinAmp and Double Twist, and both have their annoyances. I was wondering what other people do, maybe someone can make my life easier.
subsonic, streams from your PC, no need to upload it to the cloud and it the UI is not bad either. it can also cache your streams for offline play
After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..
Jbuch84 said:
After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know how to transfer music, but how do you play music from the watch?
ChrisNee1988 said:
I know how to transfer music, but how do you play music from the watch?
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Click to collapse
Since the new OTA lets you store music on the watch itself, go into settings and pair the watch with a bluetooth speaker or headphones. I have mine paired with the Moto Hint, when I have the hint in my ear and I play a song on the watch it will stream to the earpiece.
Call me crazy, but I think you are expecting too much from a device that isn't really intended to be a standalone media player.
Putting music on a smartwatch, or a Moto 360 to be specific, is kind of dumb to begin with imho.
Why? First, it's a watch.. Second, it has only 4GB of storage. Third, it has no speakers or audio output jacks. Fourth, ya, it's a watch.
Playing music from a smartphone and controlling via the M360 is more than sufficient and has almost no effect on battery other than regular operations.
My 2 cents.
Jbuch84 said:
After receiving the new 4.4.W.2 update, I decided to move some songs from Google Play on my phone onto the watch for offline playing.
Here's how it went:
Downloaded an album with 12 tracks onto my phone
Took my watch off off the charger at 100% battery
Began to transfer music to the watch, took 25 an hour to move 12 songs. Only checked the screen maybe 5 times during the transfer
After the transfer was complete, I listened to about 5 min of music
Battery dropped from 100% to 70% in a span of half an hour......
Call me crazy, but this leaves a lot to be desired..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Test it again taking out the transfer step. I would bet that is what is eating up battery not the actual playing of the music.
how to transfer song to watch?
Andromjb said:
Call me crazy, but I think you are expecting too much from a device that isn't really intended to be a standalone media player.
Putting music on a smartwatch, or a Moto 360 to be specific, is kind of dumb to begin with imho.
Why? First, it's a watch.. Second, it has only 4GB of storage. Third, it has no speakers or audio output jacks. Fourth, ya, it's a watch.
Playing music from a smartphone and controlling via the M360 is more than sufficient and has almost no effect on battery other than regular operations.
My 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's your opinion, but... if excusing faults based on the fact that "it's just a watch"is sound reasoning, then you're completly abandoning the appeal and leaving many wondering why bother dropping $250 on "just a watch".
Aside from notifications, wasn't this feature one of the main selling points for the device? Personally, I looked forward to being able to leave my clunky phone at home while going on a run. It seems natural that a smartwatch should be able to set me free of cords and allow me to listen to music wirelessly. If the device battery struggles to handle that, I can't imagine how short the life would be if music and GPS ran at the same time.
This turned into a rant.. but I was hopeful that this update might bring purpose to the Moto 360. As it stands now, its a $250 watch that is less useful than my $75 g-shock anytime I move more than 25 ft. away from the smartphone it was meant free our addiction to.
I agree this would be a useful feature. I could see not bringing my phone to the gym and using my watch to listen to music.
I still think this watch is worth every penny I paid for without this feature. Hell, being able to change the watch face daily is a pretty cool feature by itself. Add in the ability to get notifications on a device that looks like a watch I'd wear with a suit, and it's worth the $250.
Jbuch84 said:
That's your opinion, but... if excusing faults based on the fact that "it's just a watch"is sound reasoning, then you're completly abandoning the appeal and leaving many wondering why bother dropping $250 on "just a watch".
Aside from notifications, wasn't this feature one of the main selling points for the device? Personally, I looked forward to being able to leave my clunky phone at home while going on a run. It seems natural that a smartwatch should be able to set me free of cords and allow me to listen to music wirelessly. If the device battery struggles to handle that, I can't imagine how short the life would be if music and GPS ran at the same time.
This turned into a rant.. but I was hopeful that this update might bring purpose to the Moto 360. As it stands now, its a $250 watch that is less useful than my $75 g-shock anytime I move more than 25 ft. away from the smartphone it was meant free our addiction to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said it was "just" a watch. I was more implying that it's main purpose is not to be a media player specifically.
Being that Android Wear & Google Play Music just implemented this feature in the latest update, I don't believe this was a selling point at the time of M360's sale. Not to mention, the first implementation is most definitely not going to be optimized.
Is it a cool feature? Of course. Is it it useless? Of course not. But that is also dependent on the user.
Seems you just are not happy with the battery life and watch in general from your response.
even if you store music on your watch and leave your phone at home while going on a run or gym... don't u still have to carry a bluetooth speaker to hear the music..lol.. anyways.. resetted watch 4 times.. no luck here...ughhh..
Andromjb said:
I never said it was "just" a watch. I was more implying that it's main purpose is not to be a media player specifically.
Being that Android Wear & Google Play Music just implemented this feature in the latest update, I don't believe this was a selling point at the time of M360's sale. Not to mention, the first implementation is most definitely not going to be optimized.
Is it a cool feature? Of course. Is it it useless? Of course not. But that is also dependent on the user.
Seems you just are not happy with the battery life and watch in general from your response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery life is great, can last 30 odd hours so long as I only use the watch to check time a handful of times a day.
My post was to see if anyone else is experiencing such problems and if they had any real world uses similar and ways to save battery.
no one should be surprised that using the watch as a media player would kill the battery.
the best use for the media player on the watch is to be used while working out or running. because it will definitely need to be recharged after using it for an hour as a media player.
Is offline music only support google music? ? I still not.figure out how to.download local song to.watch, anyone can clairfy? Thanks.
gammite said:
no one should be surprised that using the watch as a media player would kill the battery.
the best use for the media player on the watch is to be used while working out or running. because it will definitely need to be recharged after using it for an hour as a media player.
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Click to collapse
if you go to the start menu on the watch and select the play music app, it will inform you there is no music stored on the watch and you need to change a setting on your phone to "download to android wear". go into play music on your phone and in the settings is where that option is. As soon as I checked it, the music i had downloaded to my phone started downloading to my watch. once it's done you can access the music from the play music app on your watch. the newest play music version is required i believe.
FlowingAway said:
if you go to the start menu on the watch and select the play music app, it will inform you there is no music stored on the watch and you need to change a setting on your phone to "download to android wear". go into play music on your phone and in the settings is where that option is. As soon as I checked it, the music i had downloaded to my phone started downloading to my watch. once it's done you can access the music from the play music app on your watch. the newest play music version is required i believe.
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Click to collapse
Thanks mate. Now i know.
Since i have not played google music before, so does this offline download to.wear only support.song.from google? But not local music? And how I know the download.is.happening? Also can I select which songs be download to 360?
mmx6688 said:
Thanks mate. Now i know.
Since i have not played google music before, so does this offline download to.wear only support.song.from google? But not local music? And how I know the download.is.happening? Also can I select which songs be download to 360?
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Click to collapse
From the looks of it, it's only music you've purchased from the play store, or music you've uploaded to play music. local music residing on your phone won't transfer over. you'll definitely know it's happening, a notification appears on the watch that says how many songs are left remaining to download. as far as which songs you're getting, i'm still testing it, but it looks like it's going to be all songs you've downloaded to the phone, but i could be wrong about that.
FlowingAway said:
From the looks of it, its only music youve purchased from the play store, or music youve uploaded to play music. local music residing on your phone wont transfer over. youll definitely know its happening, a notification appears on the watch that says how many songs are left remaining to download. as far as which songs youre getting, im still testing it, but it looks like its going to be all songs youve downloaded to the phone, but i could be wrong about that.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. Now I have a full.picture.
Jbuch84 said:
Battery life is great, can last 30 odd hours so long as I only use the watch to check time a handful of times a day.
My post was to see if anyone else is experiencing such problems and if they had any real world uses similar and ways to save battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha. Results are pretty sporadic from what I've gathered. There are too many variables right now, such as people using poorly optimized watch faces and/or apps. Possibly running older frimware/software, enabling/disabling ambient screen, brightness settings, etc.
Hard to get a baseline, but my results personally have been pretty great. I can't complain.
I use stock Moto watch faces, most specifically Retrograde (black background). Textra for SMS, it offers a lot of customization (vibration settings, color, etc), and is one of the most fluid in terms of replying via watch. Sometimes I use Mini Launcher, but it tends to drain battery a little more than usual and gets in the way a lot while swiping.
If you aren't using stock faces, then I recommend you stay away from third party watch faces until the Wear update with face customization becomes available.
Not just you. I listened through the watch for 30 minutes and it absolutely smoked my battery.
I wonder how the other watches hold up
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
Hello,
I am a newcomer in the world of smartwatches. So I've buyed a smartwatch 3 and I struggle to find how to control Play Music on my watch.
When I launch music on my phone, controls are not showing up on my watch. And on my watch when I go to Google Music I can just download musics but not play remotely. And I don't want to download musics because I have a lot of tracks on my phone and I cannot choose which one synchronise on my watch.
I forgot to mention that I'm running lollipop preview, I maybe it is because of that...
Flav106 said:
Hello,
I am a newcomer in the world of smartwatches. So I've buyed a smartwatch 3 and I struggle to find how to control Play Music on my watch.
When I launch music on my phone, controls are not showing up on my watch. And on my watch when I go to Google Music I can just download musics but not play remotely. And I don't want to download musics because I have a lot of tracks on my phone and I cannot choose which one synchronise on my watch.
I forgot to mention that I'm running lollipop preview, I maybe it is because of that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
When you have a track playing on the phone tap the watch face then scroll up from the bottom the track will be displayed then scroll from right to left then the volume controls and track skip will be on the watch screen.
Thanks but it's not working. Maybe due to the lollipop preview version on my phone...
Flav106 said:
Thanks but it's not working. Maybe due to the lollipop preview version on my phone...
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Click to collapse
I'm having the same problem on lollipop with two different installs of KNX01V. Playback fro the watch works great, but when music is playing on the phone, no card shows up on the watch. As soon as the phone is paused (with the phone notification still present), the card shows up on the watch. If I then hit play on either the watch or the phone, the card on the watch disappears. Going to try a new build of lollipop soon.
Play Music v5.7.1717Q.1530520
^^ same for me on nexus 5 eev purview
Can someone one kitkat check this?
Flav106 said:
Hello,
I am a newcomer in the world of smartwatches. So I've buyed a smartwatch 3 and I struggle to find how to control Play Music on my watch.
When I launch music on my phone, controls are not showing up on my watch. And on my watch when I go to Google Music I can just download musics but not play remotely. And I don't want to download musics because I have a lot of tracks on my phone and I cannot choose which one synchronise on my watch.
I forgot to mention that I'm running lollipop preview, I maybe it is because of that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am running Lollipop too. Music cards don't seem to show when music playback is triggered from the phone. However I do get the name of the current track playing if I tap the screen and navigate back to the watch face, but it disappears (so the phone is sending the information).
As far as I can tell Android Wear currently only supports Google Play Music in the following ways....
Open The Play Music app, this plays back music synced to the watch. This is a bit crap because there is no real control over what is synced, this does result in cards being shown.
Say "OK Google Play Music", this launches Play Music on the phone and plays back tracks at random. This also results in the cards being shown.
It seems Play Music is still a bit raw on Android Wear at the moment, hopefully Google will add the ability to sync specific playlists or albums just to the watch rather than randomly selecting from those that have been synced to the phone.
Bojanglez said:
I am running Lollipop too. Music cards don't seem to show when music playback is triggered from the phone. However I do get the name of the current track playing if I tap the screen and navigate back to the watch face, but it disappears (so the phone is sending the information).
As far as I can tell Android Wear currently only supports Google Play Music in the following ways....
Open The Play Music app, this plays back music synced to the watch. This is a bit crap because there is no real control over what is synced, this does result in cards being shown.
Say "OK Google Play Music", this launches Play Music on the phone and plays back tracks at random. This also results in the cards being shown.
It seems Play Music is still a bit raw on Android Wear at the moment, hopefully Google will add the ability to sync specific playlists or albums just to the watch rather than randomly selecting from those that have been synced to the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's indeed the behavior I can observe on my watch.
I hope you're right and Google will allow to select tracks to synchronize in a future update because actually this is unusable for me as I have tons of GB stored on my phone.
The thing is android wear shows cards/notifications that are not ongoing on the phone, when you pause music - notification is not ongoing and wear shows it
I finally works well with official Lollipop and last version of Android Wear : http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/android-wear/
Flav106 said:
I finally works well with official Lollipop and last version of Android Wear : http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/android-wear/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, this version seems to work perfectly now. This will be great for skipping tracks whilst driving.
I recently buy a moto 360 and update it to 4.4w.2, so theres a option that says you can save your music in the watch from the google play music app, my cuestion is if you can select the music that you want to transfer?
I have marked the option in the phone, but doesnt transfer the music to my watch, anyone can help me?
I don't think there's an option for that. There's no speaker, so what's the point?
Cheater912 said:
I don't think there's an option for that. There's no speaker, so what's the point?
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Click to collapse
There certainly is an option for it. The watch allows pairing with bluetooth devices. I've successfully paired my watch with a bluetooth speaker and played music to it with my phone being completely off.
OP, I just selected the option to download to wear in the google play music app settings and then you should see the watch say that it's transferring. It works better if you put the watch on the charger right after you enable the option in google play music. The transfer speed is ridiculously slow.
As of now, you cannot select which music you want to transfer. The music that will be transferred is whichever music you have downloaded to your phone in Google play music.
How does music playback work on the Smartwatch 3? What software does it use to play back music, and does it support FLAC files? Also, how many hours of playback can you get?
Megalith said:
How does music playback work on the Smartwatch 3? What software does it use to play back music, and does it support FLAC files? Also, how many hours of playback can you get?
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Click to collapse
It's very convenient to use Play Music on the SW3 when paired with your smartphone. Walkman works well (with my Xperia Z3) although I can't begin to play music from it (as yet I know how to) with Walkman because it thinks I'm trying to access music from the watch itself, which is unfortunately not the case, Play Music has the option to "Play from phone" or ("Play from Watch" -> which would require headphones paired to the watch itself.) As for Flac files, I have no idea, but my phone recognizes and plays Flac, and Walkman can change the song from the watch.
Thanks for the info. I've been thinking about getting one so I can forego my smartphone while jogging or cycling. I guess the lack of FLAC isn't a deal breaker, particularly when you consider the watch only has around 4GB of storage.
it does play flac files, even hi-res ones