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Viable alternatives to Wear OS smartwatch for Android Phone?

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biggles

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Joined
Jul 25, 2005
Messages
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I use an LG Urbane paired with a LG G6. For my business media controls are used from the watch to control music players. Unfortunately, it seems that an update to the Wear app for Android has broken media controls from the watch.

My overall impression of Wear OS is that it is not great anyway. So, are there any decent alternatives for my use case? How about the Samsung watches that run Tizen? Or something else, maybe Fitbit?
 
biggles said:
I use an LG Urbane paired with a LG G6. For my business media controls are used from the watch to control music players. Unfortunately, it seems that an update to the Wear app for Android has broken media controls from the watch.

My overall impression of Wear OS is that it is not great anyway. So, are there any decent alternatives for my use case? How about the Samsung watches that run Tizen? Or something else, maybe Fitbit?
Click to expand...

If you want a generalized smartwatch platform, go for a Samsung Galaxy Watch. Tizen is generally well-regarded on smartwatches, even if it doesn't have nearly as much ecosystem support as, say, the Apple Watch.

After that: Fitbit's Versa is a pretty good smartwatch in general, but it's more fitness-focused than anything.
 
Well the funny thing is that I will be speaking in front of hundreds of people over the next few weeks explaining to them I can no longer operate the music system due to Google's software change. Living in Silicon Valley I cannot imagine this is good for the reputation of Wear OS. Wondering if the change by Google programmers was intentional or accidental.
 
biggles said:
Well the funny thing is that I will be speaking in front of hundreds of people over the next few weeks explaining to them I can no longer operate the music system due to Google's software change. Living in Silicon Valley I cannot imagine this is good for the reputation of Wear OS. Wondering if the change by Google programmers was intentional or accidental.
Click to expand...

To paraphrase the saying: never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. Hard to say for sure, but probably a glitch.
 
As someone else mentioned maybe a gear, but tizen is kind of a wasteland when it comes to apps. I had a LTE urbane and wasn't overly impressed.
 
After reading about the Galaxy Smartwatch it says it is possible to interact with the device by rotating the bezel. It sounds like this could be much faster than screen taps on the LG Urbane, is this true? If so, this would be a good upgrade for me. When speaking in front of 50-100 people on the job delays of a few seconds here and there make a significant difference.
 
biggles said:
I use an LG Urbane paired with a LG G6. For my business media controls are used from the watch to control music players. Unfortunately, it seems that an update to the Wear app for Android has broken media controls from the watch.

My overall impression of Wear OS is that it is not great anyway. So, are there any decent alternatives for my use case? How about the Samsung watches that run Tizen? Or something else, maybe Fitbit?
Click to expand...
I use a Moto 360 v2 as well as Samsung gear fit2 pro. Both work great, haven't used the moto 360 a lot so i couldn't comment on the media controls as of late. However, the Samsung gear fit has media controls that work great. They aren't as easy to access as on Wear OS, (swipe down, click on music icon then the music controls appear.) but I like it versus pulling my phone out.
 
biggles said:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-0-cant-fix-its-obsolete-smartwatch-hardware/
Another question, do folks here agree that Wear OS is being held back by obsolete hardware? I have noticed the LG Urbane frequently lags in use. Again, in my unique use case scenario, not ideal as it means audiences of 50-100 people are waiting while the watch is being manipulated.
Click to expand...

I'd agree. Qualcomm is only just introducing an update to the Snapdragon Wear two years later, and it's basically the old CPU with a companion chip that can sometimes help performance.

Part of why Apple dominates the smartwatch market is because... well, it actually cares about performance. Every Apple Watch update has included a major CPU upgrade; you can buy brand new Wear OS watches that are using that old Snapdragon Wear. The Galaxy Watch is using a faster processor than the Gear S3/Sport, thankfully... I just wish there were more major changes.
 
Thought I would post an update on this. Read a review on Amazon that said notifications do not work when paired with an LG G6. That did not sound right since the Galaxy watch should work fine except for a few Samsung specific features on non-Samsung phones. But I just finished a chat session with Samsung.com and they confirmed this. So to be clear, notifications do NOT work on the Galaxy watch with the LG G6. Which rules this watch out as a option for me, unfortunately.
 
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