So, I did a lot of research on smart watches for about a month while I waited for my rewards points to become available. I didn’t find any thorough reviews from a “real life person in action” so I created one. In a nutshell, this watch is great for work, play and style. There are already a few people I know looking to go buy it since they saw mine “in action.” My observations from the past week:
1. Battery Life
This was my first concern that was quickly squashed to a non-issue. (thanks Google.com) When I opened the device for the first time on 1/31/15 it right away did an update to the latest firmware, Lollipop. Once I got it synched up to my phone (HTC One) after that, the battery was dropping DRASTICALLY. On that Monday, I unplugged it from the charger at 6:45AM and by 8AM I was at 70%. I did a little research, and I found that doing a factory reset on the watch after the update was probably needed for some reason. This was a user comment, not from Moto or anything. I did this and the watch is now flawless. It’s now 3:25PM and I have 55% life left. I don’t sleep with a watch on, so I could care less if it lasts more than one day. It gets plugged in with my phone when I go to bed.
I did spring the $39 for a second charger for my office. The reason is that if you plan, for example, to go out at night right after work it would be a good idea to put some juice back in the watch. By the way…it charges SUPER FAST. 1-2 hours TOPS for a 0%-100% charge. So plugging it in at work for 15 minutes makes a huge difference for a late night.
On a side note, my phone’s battery life is great now. I thought by keeping my Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS on all day, it would drain quickly. Since I now look at my phone infrequently since everything I used to look at is displayed on my watch, the phones battery is improved. The screen on the phone is what drains your battery.
2. Style
The watch speaks for itself. I have some coworkers that collect very expensive watches, and the fact that they were complementing the style says a lot. I wouldn’t change a thing. Especially since you can change the faces to whatever wardrobe, etc…
3. Email Notifications
The notifications are great. Think of it as an extension of your phones notification tool bar. It’s that simple. I love that I can read an email or text from the phone. I do get a lot of emails, so I am a little bummed that if more than one email comes through, I can only see a list of the emails and who they are from. I cannot select them to read each one individually. You can read it in its entirety if there is only one email waiting for you. I have a feeling this is an Android thing with the phone, so I’m not worried about it, just would be nice. Maybe one day we can select one out of the 5 emails in the notifications to read. Not a deal breaker.
4. Text Message Notifications
Text messaging is cool, you even get the picture of the person that your phone has on file when the notification pops. I just don’t like that you can’t select to reply to the message using your watch. The only way to reply is to use the voice activation to create a new message to that person. Not a BAD problem, because it turns out to do the exact same thing, but it would be nice to swipe and click reply right away as you can with the emails. I’m sure Android Wear will fix this soon since you can reply to emails in that way. Looks like an oversight by Google.
5. App Notifications
You get the exact app notification that you have set up to get sent to your phone. Plus when you open the notification, you get the background changing to the apps picture. Nothing special. You can select to open the app. If it’s not a “wear” app, it opens on your phone (assuming it’s not PW protected). It will be nice to see “wear” start interfacing more with more apps. That will just be time, it’s still early.
6. Watch Faces
Comes with some cool preloaded faces. The moto app that it prompts you to download allows you to customize the color accents, number format, etc… on the faces. I downloaded a few 3rd party, but they weren’t that much better that I have found yet.
7. Blue Tooth
This is my only complaint. It takes a significant amount of time to connect to my HTC One. Sometimes I have to disable and re-enable the Bluetooth. It does work “in the background” so you can still connect to a blue tooth speaker. About 25% of the time I connect to a blue tooth speaker, the voice activation stops working and I get a disconnected notification on the watch. So, I am either getting lucky that it works sometimes, or it’s glitchey and needs improvement on connection statuses. Other times, no issue at all. This would be the only thing that has me bugged sometimes.
8. Pedometer/Heart Rate
The pedometer was shockingly accurate. I, unfortunately, tested it by counting my steps on my walk to lunch. It was exactly 200 steps that I took and meanwhile fixing my shirt sleeve and holding a coffee. It registered exactly 200 steps. I was impressed because my wrist wasn’t moving in the perfect forward/backward motion the whole time. The heart rate monitor is good. I honestly don’t really care about it, but it’s good to have with my running app, Endomondo. I like my watch loose and the heart rate app will tell you to tighten your band. I have the steel band, so I got a link removed, and it works great, from what I can tell.
9. Running
Works great for running too. I just say “start a run” and it starts up Endomondo and starts tracking everything. Pretty cool. Not worried about sweat as it’s water proof, I just give it a wipe down afterwards.