Android Wear 2.0 on the ZenWatch 2

[jean15paul]

I've gotten the cloud icon when I wasn't connected.

 

[jean15paul]

Cloud icon

 

[nelson1]

The Forgot Phone alert to let you know when your phone loses connection to your watch is in the FoneHelper app. Maybe the Cloud icon is activated with that setting too? I know the one you mean though from 1.5. I wonder if it's maybe even connected to the Cloud Sync setting?

Thanks for that information. I found it as you said in the FoneHelper section of ZenWatch Manager. I turned it on and an alarm went off when I lost Bluetooth the connection (WiFi was off).
I explored further and discovered the cloud icon problem has to do with the watch face I'm using. I use the Glance watch face and no cloud appears. When I switched to other watch faces the cloud appeared. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

 

[Dconn1975]

I'm unpairing and resetting my watch now. Going to check and see if that changes anything

 

[dov1978]

I'm unpairing and resetting my watch now. Going to check and see if that changes anything

I think it will. My battery life has massively improved after unpairing and resetting the watch. Make sure you update all your apps on the watch after you set it all up

 

[jean15paul]

How do you updated apps on the watch?

 

[dov1978]

How do you updated apps on the watch?

Open the PlayStore app on your watch. Swipe down from the top of the watch screen, press MY APPS (the icon on the left) and it will show you if any of your apps need manually updated.

 

[nelson1]

I explored further and discovered the cloud icon problem has to do with the watch face I'm using. I use the Glance watch face and no cloud appears. When I switched to other watch faces the cloud appeared. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

For those following this topic I've checked and the cloud icon is there on the Glance watch face. Unfortunately that's a bad location because it is often covered by an agenda item and not visible (which is why I missed it). I hope they move it back to a location where it is not obscured (as it was previously).

 

[anon(166548)]

I got my update Saturday, and have been playing around with it a bit. At first I was getting no notifications, I finally factory reset the watch and re-paired it and am now getting notifications.

Version 1.5 left notifications visible at the bottom of the screen. This version does not. I just get a vibrate, the notification pops up briefly, and after that there is absolutely no indication that I have any unread notifications. Unless I set notification previews to high, in which case they are full-screen and never(?) go away.

You can tap/hold on an item in the apps list to "pin" it as a favorite, but as nears as I can tell any "pinned" items appear below "recent" items, instead of at the top of the list. And I'm not sure you can re-order your pinned items.

As others have mentioned, having to go to sub-menus for stuff like "power off" is dumb.

Finally something I was hoping they would improve (but instead I think it got worse):
There are 4 (I think) positions to display data, at 12, 3, 6, and 9 on the dial. Often one or more of them is obscured by one of the watch hands. It would have been nice if they either let those data fields float based on the locations of the hands, or made the hands translucent. And to make matters worse in this version, as near as I can tell you have to add data to each location in a specific order, so for example I can't add data *only* to the 6:00 position, I have to add something to the 12:00 position, and only then can I add data to the next in the pre-defined sequence (9:00 I think).

But hey, my primary goal of having my wrist vibrate when a call comes in still works :-D

PS having to use the watch to configure my display (such as adding data fields) is annoying, I'd much rather be able to do that on the phone.

 

[dov1978]

I got my update Saturday, and have been playing around with it a bit. At first I was getting no notifications, I finally factory reset the watch and re-paired it and am now getting notifications.

Version 1.5 left notifications visible at the bottom of the screen. This version does not. I just get a vibrate, the notification pops up briefly, and after that there is absolutely no indication that I have any unread notifications. Unless I set notification previews to high, in which case they are full-screen and never(?) go away.

You can tap/hold on an item in the apps list to "pin" it as a favorite, but as nears as I can tell any "pinned" items appear below "recent" items, instead of at the top of the list. And I'm not sure you can re-order your pinned items.

As others have mentioned, having to go to sub-menus for stuff like "power off" is dumb.

Finally something I was hoping they would improve (but instead I think it got worse):
There are 4 (I think) positions to display data, at 12, 3, 6, and 9 on the dial. Often one or more of them is obscured by one of the watch hands. It would have been nice if they either let those data fields float based on the locations of the hands, or made the hands translucent. And to make matters worse in this version, as near as I can tell you have to add data to each location in a specific order, so for example I can't add data *only* to the 6:00 position, I have to add something to the 12:00 position, and only then can I add data to the next in the pre-defined sequence (9:00 I think).

But hey, my primary goal of having my wrist vibrate when a call comes in still works :-D

PS having to use the watch to configure my display (such as adding data fields) is annoying, I'd much rather be able to do that on the phone.

One of the data fields (Complications) you can now set for unread notifications in case you miss any. But I agree I miss the little card preview that remained at the bottom of the screen to let you know there was a notification there that you could just make reappear with a flick of the wrist or a swipe. I personally like a lot of the new features in 2.0, I just wish they didn't remove some of my favourite features from 1.5 in the process. There's room for them all

 

[Dconn1975]

I reset or repaired my watch yesterday and still no Gmail. I think it's bc I'm running aqua mail and not per say Gmail for my email. That's got to be the cause.

 

[stmiranda]

There is a notification setting for either 5s or always leave on screen. Don't recall where I saw it. I'll look once I recharge. I pushed my watch battery to see how long it would go between charges. Two days, 3 hours and about 6m.

 

[Dconn1975]

There is a notification setting for either 5s or always leave on screen. Don't recall where I saw it. I'll look once I recharge. I pushed my watch battery to see how long it would go between charges. Two days, 3 hours and about 6m.

Pretty dang good. I'm not sure I'd get that type of usage out of mine or not. That's a long time. Good job!

 

[stmiranda]

Settings, Notification previews, is where you can see how long the notifications display.

 

[jean15paul]

There is a notification setting for either 5s or always leave on screen. Don't recall where I saw it. I'll look once I recharge. I pushed my watch battery to see how long it would go between charges. Two days, 3 hours and about 6m.

Cool. Was the 2 day battery life with the 5s setting or the always on setting?

 

[stmiranda]

Always on, but I also have the gesture that turns on the screen when you tilt the watch, turned off. So I need to touch the screen to to turn it on.

Gestures, Tilt to wake. Have that off.

 

[nelson1]

Could it be that WiFi battery life is better on 2.0? My first impression is that WiFi isn't using as much battery on my ZW2 with 2.0. Overall my battery life is definitely less than 1.5 but turning on WiFi doesn't seem to have the same negative impact that it did previously. Any thoughts?

 

[dov1978]

Could it be that WiFi battery life is better on 2.0? My first impression is that WiFi isn't using as much battery on my ZW2 with 2.0. Overall my battery life is definitely less than 1.5 but turning on WiFi doesn't seem to have the same negative impact that it did previously. Any thoughts?

Did you unpair/reset your watch after the upgrade? I just did the upgrade and my battery barely made it through the 1st day. So I unpaired it and reset it that night and the fowollowomg days were a lot better, about the same if not better than 1.5. I keep wifi off just because it hit the battery so badly on 1.5 but I might try it for a day to see if it's worse or better.
One thing for me that affects battery on the watch is Google Maps. I drive a lot at work and using Google Maps for navigation I get turn by turn notifications on my watch too so with the larger more persistent notification cards on 2.0 they hit my battery more.

 

[Doug Moffat]

Comparing the Zen Watch 2 against the Samsung S3 what are the pros and cons?

 

[dov1978]

Comparing the Zen Watch 2 against the Samsung S3 what are the pros and cons?

No Google integration on the Samsung Gear S. That's the single biggest reason I've not bought another since the original Gear S. They look awesome but I use OK Google a lot to set reminders, start navigation with Google Maps on my phone etc. S-Voice on the Gear S just can't do those. If Google integration isn't important to you then I'd get the Gear S3 personally.