Always On, Useful ?

[gnahc79]

I like seeing the time but if you don't use the stock email and sms apps you won't get any notifications for those.

Posted via the Android Central App

I've been using AOD since Monday and...not useful for me. I'm going to turn it off.
1) I wear a watch, an old school automatic watch
2) no 3rd party app support. meaning no gmail/inbox support.
3) the normal blinking light indicator for email, sms, misssed calls etc is enough for me and makes AOD unnecessary

 

[jma78b]

I got my phone yesterday and put on this fancy gold theme which came with a gold looking cog when the AOD kicked it. It lit up the bedrooms something awful! I thought noooo!!!! I changed the clock to one of the stock ones (round clock with numbers) and it is perfect. I'm often awake during the night and the night clock is too bright (hubby hates it so I can't use it) and I just like to side eye over to the bedside cabinet and check out what time it is. I loved the feature on the Samsung galaxy S6 edge but it was a tiny little strip telling the time Bad eyesight needs bigger clocks but not bright!

 

[Jeffwhofch]

I wear a watch during the day and can't stand knowing the time when I wake up in the middle of the night, just in case it tells me that I've got to get up for work in a few minutes. I'd much rather have the alarm tell me that and leave the rest of my night to sweet ignorance.

Might use it as a full time clock when I upgrade to my next phone

 

[DizWhiz]

I turned it off. Until it can display notifications for 3rd party apps and other info it's pretty useless.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[sunburned]

Well, that's the flip side to "average person turns on their phone 100 times a day" stat. We spend a good chunk of time NOT looking at the display. We're sleeping, it's in our pocket, on the seat of our car, etc. Now, it'd be different if Samsung used an ultra-low power display, like e-ink or something where it sips power when active.
It's a smart idea, I mean, it's one of the most popular features in the Moto lineup... I really like Ambient Display on my Nexus... The feature itself is really useful. But Samsung's implementation (its ALWAYS on and only for a select list of Samsung apps) just really misses the mark.

It was detailed that the AOD would turn off when in your pocket and I'm assuming you could just turn the phone face down on a table or something to turn it off as well. As for the display itself, I'm sure having like 100 pixels on at any moment in time isn't exactly gulping down battery.

I loved moto display on my '13 Moto X, but once I actually set up a lock screen, it became a bit more cumbersome. I'd swipe to open up the notification, then have to put in a password or pattern, so it was still a 2 step process. Then after I had the phone for a while, I guess the display didn't turn off while in my pocket because notifications would be open when I pulled the phone out.

I don't see anything wrong with the AOD other than the non-3rd party app thing. That completely kills it for me since I don't use any Samsung apps except the dialer. If they are going to start pushing me into using on their apps (which are duplicates of everything Google does), I'll just stop using the phones completely.

Once they add support of 3rd party apps (which I'm sure will eventually come), it'll be great. I don't need 'actionable' notifications on the screen because I'm still going to use the fingerprint scanner to unlock either way. The fact that I can look at my phone and see there are no notifications or that I have an email or message is perfect for me. It is way better than grabbing the phone and waiting to see if the LED is blinking.

 

[LeoRex]

It was detailed that the AOD would turn off when in your pocket and I'm assuming you could just turn the phone face down on a table or something to turn it off as well. As for the display itself, I'm sure having like 100 pixels on at any moment in time isn't exactly gulping down battery

It's no so much powering the display, it's what is going on behind the scenes. Yes, your display is only firing up 100 or so pixels, but the GPU is active, not powered down... the CPU may or may not be in deep sleep, etc. I brought up the e-ink display because the phone can set the display and shut down, and the display's contents remained.

That it turns off if you put the phone face down, in a pocket... cool.... that would have been a pretty big derp had they not coded that in.