First day impressions

[TabGuy]

I got my Zenwatch 3 yesterday. I'm moving from a Moto 360 that I've had for over 2 years so I'm not new to Android Wear.

This appears to be a very high quality watch. It's the first smart watch that actually looks very pretty. The first comment I get from most people is that it "looks like a regular watch." Which is a compliment in the Android Wear or Apple Watch world.

Once I fired it up and paired it with my watch it literally took over 40 minutes until it was usable. Most of that time was spent syncing the 21 AW apps already on my Galaxy S7 Edge. After that it worked exactly as I had been used to on the Moto 360.

Here are some random first day thoughts.

- The Gold bezel isn't as deep as it looks on the pictures. The crystal isn't indented very much.
- Overall it feels a little heavier than the Moto 360 but I haven't weighed them.
- It comes with "always on" turned on. I could never do that with the Moto 360 because it would eat the battery. But this is AMOLED and only the pixels that are turned on will use energy. I'll leave it that way and go for a week.
- It charges FAST. Very fast.
- The charging situation is kinda awkward. There's a tiny little puck to sit the watch on while charging. It's kinda OK. But once disconnected the charging ring isn't heavy enough to sit in one place. If there's any tension on the cable it will move around.
- I can't find anywhere to buy a spare charging unit. I need a second one. Or maybe a third one. With my Moto 360 I could just plop it on any available Qi wireless charging unit. And I have those everywhere.
- There are a ton of watchfaces that come with the watch. All somewhat customizable. Most of them are very professional looking. But there is no watchface that lets me use my own background like the Moto 360. I'll have to find such a watchface in the Play Store. I often take picture that I just took and make it my watch background (wallpaper if you will).
- The watch is much faster than the Moto 360. Downloading a watchface is instantaneous where could take up to 10 seconds on the Moto.

All in all I'm happy with the watch. Only time will tell if that feeling continues to grow.

 

[GC736]

Thanks for the review. I am also coming from the 1st gen 360, and my ZW3 should be here Thursday. I will miss the wireless charging, but will probably fabricate a base that encompasses the charging disk.

As far as using your own image for the watch background, ASUS has a FaceDesigner app available that lets you choose from either their backgrounds, as well as custom backgrounds. I have also used WatchMaker for my 360 and made some pretty nice custom faces with it as well.

 

[TabGuy]

Day 2:

Impressions after a full day...

- When I put the watch on the charger last night after 17 hours of usage the battery was at 21%. Not bad considering I was playing with the watchfaces all day and I have ambient face turned on. Still, I'm hoping it gets closer to the 55% I enjoyed with the Moto 360

- I really, really like the "always on" (ambient) display. I can now glance at the watch to see the time instead of whipping my arm around. It's more of a real watch this way. I know, I know, I could have done that with the Moto 360 but the battery life with the LCD display wasn't up to the challenge. The AMOLED display makes a big difference in battery life.

- The vibration is much milder than the Moto 360. I find myself mssing some notifications. I wonder if there's a way to intensify that via software.

- Today, after 3 hours, the battery is at 94%. That's only sipping the battery at 2% drain per hour with ambient mode on. That's very encouraging. The best I could do on the Moto 360 even without ambient mode was 3.5% drain per hour.

 

[wynand32]

I'll post some initial impressions soon, but mine are roughly the same. Overall I'm liking the ZW3, and Android Wear isn't nearly as bad as I'd expected given the somewhat negative press around it.

Note that the digital watchface I'm using, "Illusion," does allow the use of a custom background. I believe some of the other ones do as well.

 

[TabGuy]

Day 3:

Yesterday, day two, my battery was at 38% after 16 hours of usage. That's 3.8% per hour. Much better than day 1 and pretty impressive considering I have ambient (always on) turned on. Needless to say I'm very happy with this watch.

Couple of other observations...

- There must be an ambient light sensor because the brightness changes depending on my surroundings. I'm not sure where it is but I'm glad it was done without the "flat tire" like the Moto 360.

- The watchband "loops" are driving me crazy. There are two loops that hold the tongue of excess band flat against the band. Neither one is anchored and the always end up near the watch face making them useless. I find myself shifting those down onto the tongue at least a dozen times per day. Kinda reminds me of socks that keep sliding down into my shoes. I want to permanently affix at least one near the clip so that it doesn't slide around. Any tips on what kind of adhesive I should use?

 

[wynand32]

Day 3:

Yesterday, day two, my battery was at 38% after 16 hours of usage. That's 3.8% per hour. Much better than day 1 and pretty impressive considering I have ambient (always on) turned on. Needless to say I'm very happy with this watch.

Couple of other observations...

- There must be an ambient light sensor because the brightness changes depending on my surroundings. I'm not sure where it is but I'm glad it was done without the "flat tire" like the Moto 360.

- The watchband "loops" are driving me crazy. There are two loops that hold the tongue of excess band flat against the band. Neither one is anchored and the always end up near the watch face making them useless. I find myself shifting those down onto the tongue at least a dozen times per day. Kinda reminds me of socks that keep sliding down into my shoes. I want to permanently affix at least one near the clip so that it doesn't slide around. Any tips on what kind of adhesive I should use?

Man, your experience is pretty much exactly the same as mine.

I'm getting right around 4%/hour as well during active use with the always-on turned on. And the ZW3 sips power to the tune of about 1.8%/hour while it's pretty accurately tracking sleep, which is impressive. Comes out to about 3%/hour overall.

And the ambient light sensor (Asus advertises the feature, so it's definitely there somewhere) is probably the most effective I've ever used--it responds IMMEDIATELY and accurately to lighting conditions. This is the first wearable I've used where I can actually see it in direct sunlight, because the screen almost instantly goes to full brightness the second I step outside. Then when I step back inside, it just as quickly gets dimmer. Very impressive, and how they did it without the Motorola flat tire is beyond me.

And, yes, the loops are driving me crazy too. Mine always slips off the end and lets the end of the band pop out. I'm glad that the bands are removable, because I'll be getting one as soon as I can that doesn't have that issue. It's a tiny little irritation to be sure.

I'm loving this thing as well. Between the Band 2, the Fit 2, and the ZW3, the ZW3 is by far the superior device for me.

So far the only thing that doesn't work almost perfectly is the activity reminders--they're not very sensitive and so I'm not getting reminded to move when I've been sitting around. I want that feature to work because I'm a writer and I do get caught up in work. I need to be reminded to get up and move around, and so maybe Asus can tighten that up in a firmware update.

 

[TabGuy]

I'm glad you brought up the great performance with direct sunlight. I tested this day and made sure that the sun was directly on the screen and it was still very readable. Much better than the Moto 360. I'm a happy camper.

 

[TabGuy]

Day 4:

As it happens I needed to do a factory reset on my Galaxy S7 Edge at lunch time. When that happens, in order for the Android Wear watch to pair again, the watch needs to also do a factory reset. No problem I've done this dozens of time on my old Moto 360. Unfortunately, a watch can't be paired when the battery is under a certain percentage. Is it 80%? Not sure. Anyway, mine ZW3 was under that threshold and I got the dreaded "need to charge" message. In the past, with the Moto 360, that was never a problem because I just plopped it on a nearby Qi charger. Since that's not an available option for the ZW3 I had to wait until the evening to get the watch going again. Bummer.

I really need to pick up a couple of chargers for this thing. Any idea where they can be had?

 

[wynand32]

Day 4:

As it happens I needed to do a factory reset on my Galaxy S7 Edge at lunch time. When that happens, in order for the Android Wear watch to pair again, the watch needs to also do a factory reset. No problem I've done this dozens of time on my old Moto 360. Unfortunately, a watch can't be paired when the battery is under a certain percentage. Is it 80%? Not sure. Anyway, mine ZW3 was under that threshold and I got the dreaded "need to charge" message. In the past, with the Moto 360, that was never a problem because I just plopped it on a nearby Qi charger. Since that's not an available option for the ZW3 I had to wait until the evening to get the watch going again. Bummer.

I really need to pick up a couple of chargers for this thing. Any idea where they can be had?

No idea on accessories yet, haven't found anyone who carries any. I'm also looking forward to the band options and that little battery puck.

 

[TabGuy]

It's been a week now and I can easily say that I'm very happy with this watch. Seems much faster than the Moto 360. Also love having ambient on all day. The battery is in the 40% range when I put it on the charger. Very nice.

This has been one of the best technology purchases I've made in a long time. I highly recommend this watch.

 

[wynand32]

It's been a week now and I can easily say that I'm very happy with this watch. Seems much faster than the Moto 360. Also love having ambient on all day. The battery is in the 40% range when I put it on the charger. Very nice.

This has been one of the best technology purchases I've made in a long time. I highly recommend this watch.

I'm with you. Literally, the only complaint I have is the band loops we both mentioned previously. Battery life is perfectly acceptable (no wearable has "great" battery life), the always-on mode is nice, the ambient light sensor is freakishly good (still don't know how they managed to make it SO MUCH better than anybody else's).

Tracks my sleep without issue, which is great, alarms and reminders are reliable, performance is great. The step tracking is also much more accurate than my Samgsung Gear Fit 2. One of my complaints with the Fit 2 was that it would tell me I took 300 steps when I went to the bathroom, which is like 10 steps away. The ZW3 is MUCH more accurate, and so now I know I need to move more, which is the entire purpose of an activity tracker.

Really, Asus outdid themselves with this thing. For $230, I consider it a steal compared to other Android Wear devices. And it's a much better value than, say, the Samsung Gear Fit 2 at $180. I don't miss the heart monitor, since I've never had a wearable with an accurate one, and I also don't miss GPS because I always have my phone with me. If you don't need those two things either, then the ZW3 is a great choice in wearables.

 

[Donkey Hodie]

I'm surprised at the comments about step and sleep tracking as the numbers reported by mine are a complete fantasy.

Yesterday, I took a short nap (30-45 minutes) in the middle of the day. Before the nap, my step counter was in the mid-2000's. When I woke up there was an alert telling me I'd reached my goal of 5000 steps (it was at 5270).

Last night, I slept for 7.5 hours (as reported by my fitbit which is roughly correct based on the time I went to bed and got up) with one bathroom trip. The ZW3 reported 2.5 hours sleep.

Pretty useless.

 

[wynand32]

I'm surprised at the comments about step and sleep tracking as the numbers reported by mine are a complete fantasy.

Yesterday, I took a short nap (30-45 minutes) in the middle of the day. Before the nap, my step counter was in the mid-2000's. When I woke up there was an alert telling me I'd reached my goal of 5000 steps (it was at 5270).

Last night, I slept for 7.5 hours (as reported by my fitbit which is roughly correct based on the time I went to bed and got up) with one bathroom trip. The ZW3 reported 2.5 hours sleep.

Pretty useless.

It sounds to me like you should get yours replaced--an inaccurate accelerometer would account for phantom activity that's both counting extraneous steps and logging you as awake when you're actually sleeping.

 

[Donkey Hodie]

It sounds to me like you should get yours replaced--an inaccurate accelerometer would account for phantom activity that's both counting extraneous steps and logging you as awake when you're actually sleeping.

You might be right though my comment was definitely in the "first impression" category based on one days use.

The watch activation on raising my wrist works perfectly. I'd think that would also be sketchy if the accelerometer was bad.

 

[wynand32]

You might be right though my comment was definitely in the "first impression" category based on one days use.

The watch activation on raising my wrist works perfectly. I'd think that would also be sketchy if the accelerometer was bad.

That's true. Definitely give it some time to settle in.

I remember how frustrating it was when my Gear Fit2 would say I'd walked 2000 steps when I'd been sitting and working for four hours. Completely inflated my actual activity levels, which was worthless. My Microsoft Band 2 was more accurate but also somewhat inflated. My ZW3 really is much more in line with my actual activity--if anything, it might slightly undercount my steps.

Sleep tracking, though, has been spot-on, in terms of when I fall asleep, when I get up, and when I wake up throughout the night.

 

[pazzo02]

I'm surprised at the comments about step and sleep tracking as the numbers reported by mine are a complete fantasy.

Yesterday, I took a short nap (30-45 minutes) in the middle of the day. Before the nap, my step counter was in the mid-2000's. When I woke up there was an alert telling me I'd reached my goal of 5000 steps (it was at 5270).

Last night, I slept for 7.5 hours (as reported by my fitbit which is roughly correct based on the time I went to bed and got up) with one bathroom trip. The ZW3 reported 2.5 hours sleep.

Pretty useless.

It sounds like the watch is trying to tell you that you have restless leg syndrome.

 

[sendas]

I notice the vibration is very very subtle ! Is there any way do change this ?!

 

[Nyvideo]

I got my Zenwatch 3 yesterday.
- The charging situation is kinda awkward. There's a tiny little puck to sit the watch on while charging. It's kinda OK. But once disconnected the charging ring isn't heavy enough to sit in one place. If there's any tension on the cable it will move around.
- There are a ton of watchfaces that come with the watch. All somewhat customizable. Most of them are very professional looking. But there is no watchface that lets me use my own background like the Moto 360. I'll have to find such a watchface in the Play Store. I often take picture that I just took and make it my watch background (wallpaper if you will).
-

I agree about the charging cable moving around. zThere is a seller on amazon that makes a stand which holds the charging ring so you just drop the phone into the holder.

As far as background pictures, download the Asus FaceDesigner App from the Play Store.

 

[anon(661246)]

This watch is near perfect for me! It left out all the things I wouldn't use, gps, lte, heart rate monitor. It is very stylish and thin! The price is very consumer friendly