Looks like the LG Watch Urbane 2nd edition will get first crack at Android Wear 2.0

[FitzAusTex]

I have an S2, so I'm probably going to like a lot of these changes, but certainly not all of them. I am sure that I'm not going to like how easy it is to access watch faces.

Can someone explain how notifications display on the ambient (always on) watch face? Currently the ambient card displays. Is there some sort of ambient notifications indicator? I definitely need/expect that we'll still have that, as I often am in the middle of something when getting a notification, and the current ambient notifications indicator reminds me to wake up watch.

Also wondering if anyone has tested out if we can now have BT phone headset connected to our phone - with the U2LTE only connected to phone via BT (unactivated sim/cellular) and get phone call notifications on U2LTE? Currently we can't do this on 1.5.

And thanks for all the observations on 2.0.

 

[Runningwarrior08]

I have an S2, so I'm probably going to like a lot of these changes, but certainly not all of them. I am sure that I'm not going to like how easy it is to access watch faces.

Can someone explain how notifications display on the ambient (always on) watch face? Currently the ambient card displays. Is there some sort of ambient notifications indicator? I definitely need/expect that we'll still have that, as I often am in the middle of something when getting a notification, and the current ambient notifications indicator reminds me to wake up watch.

Also wondering if anyone has tested out if we can now have BT phone headset connected to our phone - with the U2LTE only connected to phone via BT (unactivated sim/cellular) and get phone call notifications on U2LTE? Currently we can't do this on 1.5.

And thanks for all the observations on 2.0.

I will try to answer these as best I can...

No there is no ambient notification reminder. When you receive a notification it gives you a popup in ambient mode, but after that you need to wake the watch to see the notification peek, I imagine the new complications will fill this void or maybe they will allow notifications to peek with the updated wear app in the future.

Bluetooth is exactly the same as it was... Without having phone audio checked in bluetooth settings for the watch(I am talking about on the phone) the calls will not show up on the watch. If you have it checked in the options on the phone it does show up on the watch.. This is quite annoying and makes using my car stereo a pain in the ***. I am gonna make a tasker or something soon to autodisable the phone audio when it connects to my car, and re-enable when it disconnects.. Just need to get around to it.

 

[foxbat121]

The BT audio thing mostly is the job of AW app on the phone to do the heavy lifting, e.g. get the notification send over to the watch or auto-switch BT headset connection to watch when answering on the watch. Since we don't get any updated AW app for the preview, this behavior will not change for now. AW OS on the watch can't do that for you.

 

[FitzAusTex]

I will try to answer these as best I can...

No there is no ambient notification reminder. When you receive a notification it gives you a popup in ambient mode, but after that you need to wake the watch to see the notification peek, I imagine the new complications will fill this void or maybe they will allow notifications to peek with the updated wear app in the future.

Bluetooth is exactly the same as it was... Without having phone audio checked in bluetooth settings for the watch(I am talking about on the phone) the calls will not show up on the watch. If you have it checked in the options on the phone it does show up on the watch.. This is quite annoying and makes using my car stereo a pain in the ***. I am gonna make a tasker or something soon to autodisable the phone audio when it connects to my car, and re-enable when it disconnects.. Just need to get around to it.

Thanks for answering. Very helpful. Yeah complications will probably help, but impossible to have as many complications as would probably be necessary. They have probably gone too far if we're not gonna have some sort of indicator on the ambient watch face.

As for BT, to currently receive an incoming call notification on 1.5, you have to have the "Play phone audio on watch" in the watch BT setting turned on. This causes the issue of being unable to connect a BT phone headset (and apparently car BT) simultaneously. To make matters even worse (although Google probably thinks better), it is virtually impossible to easily disconnect the U2LTE BT connection via the phone BT settings. It immediately reconnects after you tap the Disconnect option (while you still have the "Play phone audio on watch" turned on). This means a minute-plus scramble to attempt to disconnect U2LTE and connect BT phone headset when receiving an incoming call. If you have "Play phone audio on watch" turned off, you wouldn't even know you're receiving a call on your phone if your phone isn't near by (I'm often sitting on my patio with phone in kitchen, and don't hear phone ring, and U2LTE provides no notification).

Apparently Google thinks that owners of a U2LTE only intend to use their U2LTE as their BT "headset". Even on 1.4 on my Gear Live, they have removed the red/green swipe to answer, and replaced it with a mere incoming call notification (with quick reply call rejection). If the U2LTE is paired to phone, but not currently using "Play phone audio on watch" turned on, we should at least get the same incoming call notification that watches without speakers/cellular get. This is a serious design flaw that I can only pray that Google addresses.

 

[foxbat121]

I don't know if you have noticed, currently, if you have 'Play phone audio' checked and connected via BT, calls to the watch's number will never be answered and goes directly to voice mail. SMS to watch number works. Placing a call from watch number works. Just can't receive incoming calls to the watch number.

The handling of BT is a mess right now with AW. Google engineers need each get a Samsung Gear S to learn how Samsung tackled this early on. I know those 20-something at Google are not familiar with the need to make and take phone calls. But com'on. This is the very basic stuff. Shouldn't be that hard.

 

[daverns]

I tested the GPS this morning using Google fit and it seems that it takes a long time to lock compared to the stock firmware, it also did stop tracking my walk after 10 minutes. Due to this, I went back to stock again, but the battery drains too fast, but the usage percentage shows only 3 items and is not as much, the watch seems a bit warmer too. I will try to reboot and maybe factory reset.

 

[muzzy996]

I don't know if you have noticed, currently, if you have 'Play phone audio' checked and connected via BT, calls to the watch's number will never be answered and goes directly to voice mail. SMS to watch number works. Placing a call from watch number works. Just can't receive incoming calls to the watch number.

The handling of BT is a mess right now with AW. Google engineers need each get a Samsung Gear S to learn how Samsung tackled this early on. I know those 20-something at Google are not familiar with the need to make and take phone calls. But com'on. This is the very basic stuff. Shouldn't be that hard.

Reading stuff like this is what keeps me from buying a smart watch. The device has to make life simpler not more complicated and so if it's going to muddle up my ability to seamlessly make/take calls in my car while playing Bluetooth audio streams from the phone through the car stereo then forget it. I'm not interested in having to manually change the watch's settings either, things should just work out of the box.

 

[miroul]

Muzzy996 this thread being about a preview of Android wear, you should not base your opinion on what users are reporting here. For my part, i am happy to read about what those who dared trying this preview but I'll stick to 6.0.1 for now. This version is not perfect but most of the important features just works and honestly, from what I've tried so far, this smart watch hardware coupled with Android Wear beats out all other offers on the market. I basically sold my smartphone and Garmin training watch since i got it. The smartphone was replaced by a LTE tablet (Samsung Tab S2 9.7) and that's the perfect combo so far. But, hey, to each is own and yes, there is still a lot of improvements needed on the software side of things but those will come in time, sooner than we all think.

 

[idle0095]

I installed this on my Urabane 2 and lasted about a day. I flashed back. The voice to text didnt work good and OK Google was having issues.

 

[muzzy996]

Muzzy996 this thread being about a preview of Android wear, you should not base your opinion on what users are reporting here. For my part, i am happy to read about what those who dared trying this preview but I'll stick to 6.0.1 for now. This version is not perfect but most of the important features just works and honestly, from what I've tried so far, this smart watch hardware coupled with Android Wear beats out all other offers on the market. I basically sold my smartphone and Garmin training watch since i got it. The smartphone was replaced by a LTE tablet (Samsung Tab S2 9.7) and that's the perfect combo so far. But, hey, to each is own and yes, there is still a lot of improvements needed on the software side of things but those will come in time, sooner than we all think.

Definitely understand that, it's still just a preview and they have time to sort it out. Here's hoping they do fix what broke in 1.4 because for me I would want to have it work well in tandem with a phone. I like some of the things they have done with the new version like the menus. Some stuff like swiping to change faces I'm thinking they'll change back (too easy to get frustrated that inadvertent swipes have changed the watch face).

 

[FitzAusTex]

I realize that this is just a preview, and I haven't tried it but watched all the videos I could find so far, and I think I'll like many of the changes. It appears that Google is all-in on this vertical design approach, so my wish isn't gonna happen, but I wish they would do swipe right for notifications, and swipe left for widgets (yeah, Samsung got that right in Tizen on the S2). Keep long-press for watch faces. After swipe left and swipe right, then everything could be vertical. Widgets really are great at giving glanceable info for many apps. If the app doesn't have a widget, it could just be a shortcut to our most used apps. There is less "thinking" about what to do next with widgets, just swipe and see what's going on. Currently with 1.5, when I wake my screen (out of habit from owning an S2), I have to launch apps to see what I need to see, as opposed to the S2, where I can review water/coffee, weather, schedule, etc so easily.

 

[ekerbudeeeek]

do you lose numbersync on the 2.0 preview?

 

[Shaarkys]

Guys, is the preview only for LTE version or it works for 3G version as well? I do have LG Watch Urbane 3G (4741) (yep, I didn't know there is 3G version sold in Europe :-( )

 

[anzax]

It works but better to avoid it for now. I've bought Watch Urbane 2nd in Poland, it's LG-W200E (3g only) model. I flashed wear 2.0, played a bit but found that it has a lot of small glitches so decided to rollback. I flashed back 6.01, build number mnc40x (nemo-mnc40x-factory-fa528bec.tgz). Now I have horrible battery drain and can't find the reason. BTW, could you please check the build number of original firmware on your watch?

 

[Shaarkys]

It works but better to avoid it for now. I've bought Watch Urbane 2nd in Poland, it's LG-W200E (3g only) model. I flashed wear 2.0, played a bit but found that it has a lot of small glitches so decided to rollback. I flashed back 6.01, build number mnc40x (nemo-mnc40x-factory-fa528bec.tgz). Now I have horrible battery drain and can't find the reason. BTW, could you please check a build number of original firmware on your watch?

It is MNC40X. Did you also re-lock your bootloader?

 

[anzax]

It is MNC40X. Did you also re-lock your bootloader?

Yes, I've re-locked bootloader. Could you also check 'preferred network type', on mine it shows three options: LTE, 3G, 2G? This is strange because the watch is 3G model. Probably, radio firmware should be different, I'm just guessing.

 

[Shaarkys]

Yes, I've re-locked bootloader. Could you also check 'preferred network type', on mine it shows three options: LTE, 3G, 2G? This is strange because the watch is 3G model. Probably, radio firmware should be different, I'm just guessing.

Yes, I have the same But so far I don't have SIM inserted...

 

[Johnston212]

Yeah, I'm going to try and avoid the update for as long as I can. I only saw two good changes and the rest will only mess with my setup. The new app menu and the quick settings are not going to be used by me. Wear Launcher still provides a superior interface

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Barlas YANAR]

Hi everyone, how can I flash back to stock fm?

 

[scaots]

Same way you get the preview. The files and instructions are on the dev page.
https://developer.android.com/wear/preview/downloads.html#set_up_a_watch