I mean, you don't really need the watch to be able to connect directly via WiFi to a thing if it can connect via WiFi to the watch which then can connect directly to the thing. Likely a battery-life saving optimization at the cost of some additional complexity.
Not sure I follow... Wi-Fi uses more power than Bluetooth, presumably Wi-Fi is for connecting to a router when the phone isn't in range, which solves the range issue and also stops the watch from polling for BT connection.
WiFi has a higher power drain than Bluetooth LE which is what it currently uses. The purpose of WiFi here is to allow it to communicate with your phone, and possibly the Internet, when out of range of your phone.
Oh no , the UI navigation is not horribly painful like on the Apple Watch, what are we going to do?! Google and it's lack on insanity ... Google does need to give us solutions for things we use more often and we need minimal effort for. I would allow custom small dials on any face that can act as widgets and shortcuts and for home automation even the main dial could be that. The always on apps do help with this but more can be done. And ofc drawing would be more useful if if was for user defined actions or shortcuts. The current way of using it.. well, we have enough duck pics and boobs.
No ,not even close to it. Getting to apps was too much work but Apple's navigation is beyond stupid. They got a touch screen, a button and the digital crown that's both a wheel and a button. It's a huge step back. I joke that the crown is like putting a full sized joystick on a phone or replacing the touchpad in a laptop with 2 etch a sketch knobs. Apple wanted to make things easy to access and instead of finding intelligent solutions,they made a huge mess and the digital crown is no ipod wheel as they hope. Plus , not 100% sure on this, they likely don't have gloved touch and even if they had, the buttons would be extra annoying in the winter (most of the developed world has winters). If you have ever owned an electronic watch with buttons,you know buttons are not ideal and some even complain about the fact that a watch occupies both hands. So the need for ease of use and simplicity is fundamental. Apple has overcomplicated things with it's buttons and knobs while Google Wear is pretty much just touch and swipes on the screen. Apple made a Blackberry, Google made an iphone. For Wear you could even make a BT connected ring with a 40mm2 touchpad so you can use it with the sane hand the watch is on. Anyway UI navigation is just one aspect of all this mess but one of Apple's biggest (and most absurd) problems.
"However, I would have also expected Wi-Fi to be exposed to apps somehow for watch-to-thing type interactions. For example, pressing a button on the watch to change the channel on a Kodi media center."
Yes, me too. That would be the main benefit I looked forward to, local wifi network home automation.
Google's new deal seems to go via their servers? OK, so that's nice if it means I can go to the grocery store without my phone, and provided they have wifi, I'd still have access to my Google Keep lists on the Wear device.
By routing everything through their servers, Google maintains data control, enables data mining, user interaction, preference patterns etc. In addition, I guess they could allow/block access for certain device makers/service providers, so going wifi would only work for those device makers that Google accepts.
So this, I guess, would mean that my own little Squeezbox on a RPi would not be controllable via the Wear device over wifi.
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aruisdante - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
I mean, you don't really need the watch to be able to connect directly via WiFi to a thing if it can connect via WiFi to the watch which then can connect directly to the thing. Likely a battery-life saving optimization at the cost of some additional complexity.aruisdante - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
And by "connect via WiFi to the watch" I meant "connect via WiFi to the phone". Stupid lack of ability to edit posts.Impulses - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Not sure I follow... Wi-Fi uses more power than Bluetooth, presumably Wi-Fi is for connecting to a router when the phone isn't in range, which solves the range issue and also stops the watch from polling for BT connection.TheTurboFool - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
WiFi has a higher power drain than Bluetooth LE which is what it currently uses. The purpose of WiFi here is to allow it to communicate with your phone, and possibly the Internet, when out of range of your phone.jjj - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Oh no , the UI navigation is not horribly painful like on the Apple Watch, what are we going to do?!Google and it's lack on insanity ...
Google does need to give us solutions for things we use more often and we need minimal effort for.
I would allow custom small dials on any face that can act as widgets and shortcuts and for home automation even the main dial could be that. The always on apps do help with this but more can be done.
And ofc drawing would be more useful if if was for user defined actions or shortcuts. The current way of using it.. well, we have enough duck pics and boobs.
steven75 - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Sounds like until this update, the UI navigation was actually *worse* than Apple Watch. Not sure this is a point worth trumpeting.jjj - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
No ,not even close to it. Getting to apps was too much work but Apple's navigation is beyond stupid.They got a touch screen, a button and the digital crown that's both a wheel and a button. It's a huge step back. I joke that the crown is like putting a full sized joystick on a phone or replacing the touchpad in a laptop with 2 etch a sketch knobs.
Apple wanted to make things easy to access and instead of finding intelligent solutions,they made a huge mess and the digital crown is no ipod wheel as they hope.
Plus , not 100% sure on this, they likely don't have gloved touch and even if they had, the buttons would be extra annoying in the winter (most of the developed world has winters).
If you have ever owned an electronic watch with buttons,you know buttons are not ideal and some even complain about the fact that a watch occupies both hands. So the need for ease of use and simplicity is fundamental. Apple has overcomplicated things with it's buttons and knobs while Google Wear is pretty much just touch and swipes on the screen. Apple made a Blackberry, Google made an iphone.
For Wear you could even make a BT connected ring with a 40mm2 touchpad so you can use it with the sane hand the watch is on.
Anyway UI navigation is just one aspect of all this mess but one of Apple's biggest (and most absurd) problems.
TheTurboFool - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
It's been made pretty clear that this will be unlocked retroactively on already-existing watches. Even Motorola has announced it on the 360.Impulses - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
That's usually the way Wear works, yes, the article didn't state otherwise:" The update is being deployed over the next several weeks to all Android Wear devices, "
Gadgety - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
"However, I would have also expected Wi-Fi to be exposed to apps somehow for watch-to-thing type interactions. For example, pressing a button on the watch to change the channel on a Kodi media center."Yes, me too. That would be the main benefit I looked forward to, local wifi network home automation.
Google's new deal seems to go via their servers? OK, so that's nice if it means I can go to the grocery store without my phone, and provided they have wifi, I'd still have access to my Google Keep lists on the Wear device.
By routing everything through their servers, Google maintains data control, enables data mining, user interaction, preference patterns etc. In addition, I guess they could allow/block access for certain device makers/service providers, so going wifi would only work for those device makers that Google accepts.
So this, I guess, would mean that my own little Squeezbox on a RPi would not be controllable via the Wear device over wifi.