An Old Man's Guide To Stuff

My Pebble 2 adventure has come full circle after I received my refund today.

Just received the update from Kickstarter and it look’s like I won’t be receiving a Pebble 2 after all. Oh well, at least I am getting a refund of the USD 149 that was pledged.

The Zenwatch 2 has been working well in the past few months. Battery life hasn’t dipped and this is a major plus. This has turned out to be a very good purchase afterall. Not bad for my first Android Wear experience.

It's been a little over 6 months and I am glad that the Zenwatch 2 hasn't exhibited any strange behaviour (i.e. random battery drain, sync disconnects, lagging or being unresponsive, etc). I am still enjoying an average of 2 days of battery life with: The screen brightness set to 2; Minimalist watch face; Screen set to always on; Notifications set to normal; Deleting the Zenwatch Manager and using only the Android Wear app.

Just filled in the survey and confirmed my colour choice for the Pebble 2. Can’t wait!

This has all the makings of a great smartwatch. I’m glad I managed to snag it while it was relatively cheaper!

As a fairly clumsy person, build quality ranks very highly on my list of priorities. Therefore, I am happy to report that after all these months, the Zenwatch 2 has been holding up well. There is only minor scratch on the lower right portion of the screen and everything is working as intended.

Well after a hard reset and pairing it to my phone again. All is well. No strangeness of any sort has been observed after a day of normal use.

My watch has stopped pairing with the phone but other than that it seems to be working fine. Will have to reset the watch to factory settings and see if that helps.

I came across this listing on a popular local online shopping site. The price is more than double the retail price and this translates roughly to USD 387.66! WOW!

As you can clearly see, battery life has not suffered after the Android Wear update. The Zenwatch 2 is still chugging like a champ even after all the new features have been added.

In my last post , I talked about receiving the 1.4 Android Wear update. Here are some random pictures from the update: After using some of the new features from the update , I am of the opinion that whilst it may seem convenient to make and receive calls on your wrist, I have opted not to use the feature as I would prefer to keep the content of my calls private. That said however, I do enjoy listening to music from the watch from time to time. Having an audio notification for calls and such is also a very nice addition. I am also  happy to report that although the update has brought some nice additions to watch, there is no negative effect with regards to the battery performance.

After reading this a couple days ago, I’ve been waiting for the update to come in and it’s here!

If you are shopping for a wearable, please do some research beforehand to ensure that you are getting the items that suits your needs at a fair price. I have attached a picture below from a random search, showing the vast disparity in prices for the same item to illustrate the above point. Shop smart because a fool and his cash are soon parted.

I am happy to report that I have not experienced anything weird since 22 Feb 2016 . The Zenwatch 2 is chugging along just fine and is charged every couple days. You can refer to this post for some real world usage stats.

Some of you have asked for some real world usage stats, so here it is!

So after the that incident with the watchfaces , I decided to monitor the battery drain again, and I am pleased to report that all is normal again.

Remember this? The rapid battery drain? All I did after yesterday’s post was charge the watch, and change the watchface from “Illusion” to “Master” (while leaving all the other settings untouched). The result? Phenomenal! This probably means that all watchfaces are not created equal and have different requirements and levels of optimisations. I will monitor the battery life tomorrow to see if this holds.

After showering the Zenwatch 2 with praise over and over again, I find myself in a weird situation. What is it you might ask? Rapid battery drain! Strangely enough, the only thing that has changed on the watch or my phone so far is a watch face and I seriously doubt, that it would be enough to reduce the 50 or so hours that I have been getting to a mere 15. I’ll poke around further and revert once I shed some light on this mystery.

I am pleased to say that my first experience with Android Wear has been a positive one (although there were some minor annoyances earlier on). I’ve had the watch for slightly over 2 weeks now , and I think that there is very little that has to be improved at the current price point (For the benefit of our readers, the Zenwatch 2 with a leather strap retails for MYR 699 or approximately USD 166 from the local Asus store). The only improvement that could probably be made would be a slightly more comfortable strap . I would like to take this opportunity to point out that whilst there are many vendors selling screen protectors for the watch, it is not required. I have dropped my watch a couple times and I will assure you that it has come out with no scratches on the screen thus far, however the same cannot be said for the bezel on the side. I will revisit this post regularly to see if my thoughts on the above change. Till then, I would highly recommend this as your entry point into And...

Whilst I have enjoyed using the Zenwatch 2 over the past couple weeks, its leather strap has been somewhat lacking in the looks and comfort department. Therefore, I have decided to source for some alternatives. Here are some of my favourites: Navy Blue 22mm Genuine Leather Smart Watch Replacement Band TX74722BL Dark Gray / Orange 22mm Genuine Leather / Nylon Combo Slip Through Smart Watch Replacement Band TX75722GR I’ll update more once I find some other attractive alternatives.

After spending a couple minutes going through the documentation and setting up the app, I managed to get the Qmote up and running (set up was a breeze, it probably took more time to download the app ). Basically, you can assign functions to specific button presses on the Qmote. Some of the options include: So what am I using the Qmote for? Well I have it setup to do the following so far: Set my phone to silent mode; Set my phone to ringer mode; Snooze on my alarm; Ring my phone so that I can find it; and Controlling the camera shutter As time goes by, I will probably find more uses for it. Is the Qmote essential? Not really, but it does open up so many new ways to interact with your phone. I suspect that it will probably be hard for me to stop using it after a couple weeks.

Just received a Qmote as a gift and I am really excited to try it out. Check back soon for some impressions after I get some usage in.

Before you plonk some money down on a wearable, you might want to take note of the upcoming Android Wear update . What about the update in particular? The portion in the red box of course!     As of current date, only the Huawei Watch and the Zenwatch 2 (49 mm i.e. the bigger one) have speakers, you might want to consider getting one or the other over the competition.

With deals like these, there is no reason not to do some shopping. Edit: The Smartwatch 3 is RM 799 with a 1 year warranty at select Sony stores, so that will be a better deal. Technorati Tags: Wearable , Android Wear , Sony , Smartwatch 3

Just found out via Android Authority that Facer is now free! Go hit that download button watchface addicts! Technorati Tags: Android Wear , Watchface

The Zenwatch 2 has been chugging along fine but there are some minor annoyances (No, I still have not experienced any of the random disconnections which seem to be affecting some users). Firstly, the watchfaces are limited to 3 widgets max (i.e. phone battery, watch battery, steps taken, etc.) and this limitation forces the watch not to display a day and date combo when you use said widgets. What about the watchface designer you ask? I think it s just as limiting as the watchface customisation that you have access to in the base Zenwatch Manager app. Secondly, the sensitivity of the screen goes through the roof after prolonged inactivity. It just seems too snappy and eager to go about whatever you need it to do. Thankfully however, there are no major annoyances thus far. Perhaps I just need a little time and tweaking to address the two annoyances I listed above. Technorati Tags: Wearable , Asus , Zenwatch 2 , Android Wear

I’ve been the Zenwatch 2 since I got it from the Asus store at 10.47am yesterday and so far its been rather impressive. I’ve not encountered any of the random disconnections that I’ve been reading about and the battery life is pretty good. I’ve even tweeted about the battery life a couple times today because Í was impressed about how frugal it is. Below are the list of tweaks/adjustments that I have done with my Zenwatch 2 and Note 4 so far: Updated the firmware; DIsabled Google Fit; Disabled S Health on my phone (it doesn’t work with the watch); Installed Zenwatch Manager; Installed Zenwatch Wellness; Installed Calendar for Android Wear; Installed Swarm; Enabled Smart Lock (Google); Added the Zenwatch 2 to the list of trusted devices to unlock the Note 4 via proximity; Edited the Master watchface to include phone battery, watch battery and number of steps taken; and Enabled “Forgot phone warning”   Technorati Tags: Wearable , Asus , Zenwatch 2 , Android Wear

After a few false starts and “teasers”, the Asus Zenwatch 2 is now officially available (as of 4 Feb 2016) at Asus stores nationwide.  As you can see from the box below, I picked up the “D Gun Metal with Dark Blue Leather Strap” and so far it has not disappointed. I’ll be providing more updates after I have spent more time with the watch. Technorati Tags: Wearable , Asus , Zenwatch 2 , Android Wear