Android Wear Update 5.1.1 Opinions

[df79transam]

Will now that it's been released and reaching moto 360 owners, what do you think of this newest version of Android Wear?

They call them there things phones, will I'll be.

 

[ccontard]

I love the WiFi enablement and the gesture scrolling. Overall, it's a good update and the watch feels a bit snappier.

But...is it me, or does the wrist-flick to turn on the display no longer work?

 

[Sleepwlkr45]

Works for me, and snappier to boot. Happened to be wearing it while it updated and boy did this watch get warm!

 

[df79transam]

Im liking it other than I can not get the WiFi part to work. I'll try and send a text for example, and everything looks good then it says "can't reach Google at the moment" very frustrating

They call them there things phones, will I'll be.

 

[Ozman44]

Well I have not tried the WIFI feature yet but my watch seems to run a little faster on 5.1.1.

 

[df79transam]

Well I have not tried the WIFI feature yet but my watch seems to run a little faster on 5.1.1.

Other than the WiFi part, I agree, the watch does seem a little bit snappier.

They call them there things phones, will I'll be.

 

[DryBear]

I guess it is not just me then seeing better performance

The best part, IMO is the updated menu system, and access to contacts. One problem with contacts, though is that my fiancee's work numbers are shown as mobile, while her mobile number is shown as work.

Other than that, so far, after a day of use, battery life seems about the same, even with the WiFi option turned on. Will still have to see how the battery life is like after a week.

 

[jhilker]

I guess it is not just me then seeing better performance

The best part, IMO is the updated menu system, and access to contacts. One problem with contacts, though is that my fiancee's work numbers are shown as mobile, while her mobile number is shown as work.

Other than that, so far, after a day of use, battery life seems about the same, even with the WiFi option turned on. Will still have to see how the battery life is like after a week.

I've noticed this problem with contacts. Hope it can be fixed in an update, and won't take as long as it did to get 5.1.1.

I'm curious, though - is this limited to the Moto 360, or is it occurring on other devices as well?

 

[TJ Kelly Jr]

Great update, Wi-Fi works great, and I'm actually seeing improved battery life, but that's only 1 days worth.

I viewed this video about setting up Wi-Fi, and noticed the notification menu popping up when he slid down (to where mute and all that is). Mine takes me to the mute screen.

Am I missing something? Just wondering what it is!!!


http://www.droid-life.com/2015/06/19/how-to-setup-and-use-wifi-on-android-wear/

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[TJ Kelly Jr]

Figured it out, it's the menu if you have a phone running at least Android 5.0 Lollipop!!

Oh well, the wait for that begins again!!!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Hayrii Kaya]

Having Wi-Fi is very nice feature, but the way we have wi-fi on Moto 360 is disappointment for me. What I mean let me explain.

Android Wear 5.1.1 Allows joining smartwatches to Wi-Fi by typing password onto phone but not on the watch! That means we will not be able to join any Network if phone is not with us!

I would prefer joining any wi-fi Network by typing password directly on the watch with an on screen keyboard application! For example, if you forget your phone at home and go somewhere else, you can not reach your phone and can not not see if someone called you or someone messaged you! because you will not be able to join a network without your phone! This is a paradoxal situation!

Or think that someone stole your phone, changed SIM card and went through internet, if we were able to join any wireless network from Moto 360 by typing password directly, we could immediately find a wireless network and join by Moto 360 and then take the photo of thief! Or photo of the place where the phone stands! But now you have to turn back to your home or another network that you priorly connected with Moto 360..

I hope Google will fix this and let devices to join Wireless Networks directly..

 

[crxssi]

I guess it is not just me then seeing better performance

I am not sure I see any performance increase

The best part, IMO is the updated menu system, and access to contacts. One problem with contacts, though is that my fiancee's work numbers are shown as mobile, while her mobile number is shown as work.

I am having that exact same problem. Glad it is not just me Since I don't use Google Now I was unable to initiate texts or Email. With this contacts feature, now I can! It is the best part of the update. Second best part is the adjustable text size- now I can see the stuff without having to wear my glasses

Other than that, so far, after a day of use, battery life seems about the same, even with the WiFi option turned on. Will still have to see how the battery life is like after a week.

My battery is far worse than ever. And with WiFi on, I estimate it doubles the battery drain.

 

[tr-1]

The new Contacts menu is a nice touch but it has one major flaw.... I use Google Voice number in Hangouts app (both are Google products) and I use GV as my default number for outgoing calls. Well, if I sent a message from that new Contacts menu, it's going out from my carrier phone number that no one is even aware of (I don't even know what it is LOL). Seems like Google doesn't even test it's own services. And why isn't there an option to use Hangouts instant messenger instead of SMS?

Another issue is that I cannot get the Dark Mode to work. Perhaps it's only for OLED screens and there's no point for LCD?

 

[hopefulfarm]

Having Wi-Fi is very nice feature, but the way we have wi-fi on Moto 360 is disappointment for me. What I mean let me explain.

Android Wear 5.1.1 Allows joining smartwatches to Wi-Fi by typing password onto phone but not on the watch! That means we will not be able to join any Network if phone is not with us!

I would prefer joining any wi-fi Network by typing password directly on the watch with an on screen keyboard application! For example, if you forget your phone at home and go somewhere else, you can not reach your phone and can not not see if someone called you or someone messaged you! because you will not be able to join a network without your phone! This is a paradoxal situation!

Or think that someone stole your phone, changed SIM card and went through internet, if we were able to join any wireless network from Moto 360 by typing password directly, we could immediately find a wireless network and join by Moto 360 and then take the photo of thief! Or photo of the place where the phone stands! But now you have to turn back to your home or another network that you priorly connected with Moto 360..

I hope Google will fix this and let devices to join Wireless Networks directly..

I agree and wonder if this is something that will come later. AW still seems to be in it's infancy such as Android back with Donut and Eclair, etc.

 

[mindshadow]

Well I've had 5.1.1 running for 2 days now.

I still need to test this under different settings and conditions but I will share my initial findings

Performance has definitely increased dramatically. I had major issues with lag and stutters previously and now it absolutely zooms through the menus. I've not had any slow downs at all. How they have managed to increase the performance and general responsiveness with that older processor on a more demanding update is very impressive!

Wrist gestures has also been very useful for me and again is very responsive. Flicking your wrists quickly is extremely useful for me especially in work. It did seem strange at first getting used to flicking up and down as to which did what but quickly got used to it.

The app drawer, and contact menus are well structured and add that bit more for quick information accessing to the evolving android wear ecosystem. I've not had any problems with contacts yet.

I haven't tried the WiFi feature yet so I can't really report on this

Notification control and drop down menu has slightly improved but I think android wear still has some room for improvement in this area but definitely an improvement over previous.

The watch seems pretty stable in terms of connectivity I haven't had any bluetooth drop outs or connection error notifications yet since using this. I use my moto 360 with the htc one m8

I haven't had time to test always on ambient mode apps yet.

I have noticed that the accelerometer is more sensitive which I prefer. To turn on the watch, you needed to be very defined with your wrist movement on the previous versions but now the phones comes to life and ambient mode does seem to appear much more regularly and more naturally with the motion of the wrist. I wanted to know if other people have noticed this at all? It's definitely more sensitive for me with wrist movement compared to what it used to be

Battery life is difficult to measure after 2 days. For the first day after an update the drain was major in the day almost 10% per hour of very little use. it also went from 40% to 8% overnight with zero usage and not connected to wifi. I did check my settings and found wifi cloud sync mysteriously turned on so I turned that off and the second day of battery life is more like my normal usage of 60% used in a day with ambient mode ON. I'm happy with this level of usage for what is expected of this watch. I will report a further update on my battery experience after more days/weeks of use

Altogether I'm really happy with the update they did miracles with this in my experience so far and well worth the wait. I just hope this isn't the last update for moto 360 and this update proves there is still life left in this amazing smartwatch!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[zavandiver]

You may be wanting something that the watch simply can't do. I had the impression that the wi-fi feature was an extension of the bluetooth connection that allows the watch to be more than 30 feet from the phone and still maintain a connection. They both need to be on the same wi-fi network, so leaving your phone at home sever the connection to the watch. What you are wanting would require a cellular connection.

 

[hopefulfarm]

Well I've had 5.1.1 running for 2 days now.

Battery life is difficult to measure after 2 days. For the first day after an update the drain was major in the day almost 10% per hour of very little use. it also went from 40% to 8% overnight with zero usage and not connected to wifi. I did check my settings and found wifi cloud sync mysteriously turned on so I turned that off and the second day of battery life is more like my normal usage of 60% used in a day with ambient mode ON. I'm happy with this level of usage for what is expected of this watch. I will report a further update on my battery experience after more days/weeks of use

as an FYI, you'll need to have cloud sync on when you use WiFi. This is how you sync your watch with your phone over Wifi.

 

[df79transam]

You may be wanting something that the watch simply can't do. I had the impression that the wi-fi feature was an extension of the bluetooth connection that allows the watch to be more than 30 feet from the phone and still maintain a connection. They both need to be on the same wi-fi network, so leaving your phone at home sever the connection to the watch. What you are wanting would require a cellular connection.

I respectively disagree, I turn the WiFi off on my phone, left the data connection on, had 2 bars of 3G, then with the watch tied to my WiFi network, I sent a text message to a friend of mine and it went through. I also was able to ask if it would rain or not, and the weather came up.

It doesn't matter how the phone or watch is connected as long as the two can communicate with some kind of internet connection with Google's cloud service. On the android wear app on your phone, you need to make sure you have the WiFi cloud sync option turned on.

They call them there things phones, will I'll be.

 

[crxssi]

I respectively disagree, I turn the WiFi off on my phone, left the data connection on, had 2 bars of 3G, then with the watch tied to my WiFi network, I sent a text message to a friend of mine and it went through.

Every time I send a text message using WiFi when with BOTH connected to WiFi, the phone (8sms) either never shows that I sent anything, or it shows I sent something and yet the person I sent it to never gets the message. I tried it multiple times on two different days with no success. This is SMS, NOT GOOGLE HANGOUTS (which might be doing something else).

On the android wear app on your phone, you need to make sure you have the WiFi cloud sync option turned on.

My setting is on. Very frustrating. I am almost about to just shut off WiFi on the watch and pretend I don't have the feature


UPDATE: Well, and now it just made a liar out of me and some of my WiFi text messages actually went through- both directions. Got the "Can't connect to Google" thing several times, of course (which makes no sense, since I am sitting 1 foot from the router and have rock-solid WiFi and Internet connection). So I guess sometimes it does work. Hmm...

 

[popartist]

Every time I send a text message using WiFi when with BOTH connected to WiFi, the phone (8sms) either never shows that I sent anything, or it shows I sent something and yet the person I sent it to never gets the message. I tried it multiple times on two different days with no success. This is SMS, NOT GOOGLE HANGOUTS (which might be doing something else).



My setting is on. Very frustrating. I am almost about to just shut off WiFi on the watch and pretend I don't have the feature


UPDATE: Well, and now it just made a liar out of me and some of my WiFi text messages actually went through- both directions. Got the "Can't connect to Google" thing several times, of course (which makes no sense, since I am sitting 1 foot from the router and have rock-solid WiFi and Internet connection). So I guess sometimes it does work. Hmm...

Even before the update (which I am just about to install) on bluetooth without the wifi I always get some kind of error message when I send a text through the watch, yet the text always does go through.