[HN Gopher] Pixel Watch 3
___________________________________________________________________
Pixel Watch 3
Author : eamag
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-08-13 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| drewg123 wrote:
| " _all-day battery life_ "
|
| Ugh, Apple really has lowered expectations. In order to switch
| from my Garmin, I'd want at least a week.. Even my MS Band from
| 10 years ago had 48hrs of battery life.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| At least it has this:
|
| >Plus, a new better Battery Saver Mode extends battery life to
| up to 36 hours across both sizes, without compromising any of
| your health and fitness tracking or safety features.
|
| I don't know if 48 hr battery is that much better. Charging it
| everyday is easier than remembering every other day. You
| basically have to jump from 24hr to a week battery for people
| to truly care.
| drewg123 wrote:
| That's what I've gotten used to from my Garmin. It has a
| claimed 2 weeks of life, and I charge it once a week.
|
| I pointed out the 48hr life because I loved the MS Band, and
| I can't think of anything it didn't do that any modern smart
| watch does for me that I actually care about. And it got the
| same or better battery life as is typical in the market
| today. And on much worse hardware.
| jsheard wrote:
| Is that a MIP Garmin or an OLED Garmin? I've heard that
| their OLED battery life is getting better with newer models
| but usually you have to make a choice between battery life
| and sunlight readability (better on MIP) or brightness and
| vibrancy (better on OLED) with them.
| drewg123 wrote:
| MIP ... Garmin Fenix 6 pro.
| sdoering wrote:
| It also heavily depends on the amount of notifications
| and the brightness of the display. As well as a few - to
| me not easily identifiable - other factors. In the last
| few weeks I had battery life between 30hours and nearly 6
| days.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I have an OLED garmin (965). Battery life is about 1 week
| for me.
| 8bithero wrote:
| Personally I find notifications on a watch to be exceptionally
| annoying so I almost always have my watch set to sleep mode.
| The only thing I use the watch for is to tell the time, track
| my sleep, heart rate, and steps. I'm not sure if sleep mode
| affects the accuracy of the tracking but it does make my
| battery life last for a good 2-3 days.
| drewg123 wrote:
| They are also a huge battery drain. I wish Garmin put the
| effort into their iOS app that they did with their Android so
| as to be able to filter notifications by app. Eg, I want
| iMessage notifications on my wrist, but I could care less
| about IG notifications, and I actively turn off bluetooth to
| save my battery life when my wife is forwarding me reel after
| reel...
| dktp wrote:
| I'm in the same boat being extremely annoyed with
| notifications on the watch. But I just disabled them
| completely on my Garmin
|
| There's a setting under Notifications & Alerts > Smart
| notifications > Status (switch to off). In the Garmin app
| gwill wrote:
| my garmin is currently low and i have 4 days of battery life or
| 2-3 long runs with gps and bluetooth enable left. with physical
| shortcuts to payment and timers, i haven't worn my apple watch
| in weeks
| entropie wrote:
| Especially if you do a bit of serious (long-distance)
| running, you can't get past garmin. My partner has recently
| reached the semi-professional level and nobody there actually
| uses anything else. A few apple enthusiasts often refuse at
| first, but they all switch at some point.
|
| I'm not that deep into the fitness scene, but I'm convinced
| by the 14-day battery life. But I also understand if you find
| the look a bit unfashionable.
| kbknight wrote:
| Have had a Garmin Fenix for 4 years now. I will never again
| buy an Apple or Google smartwatch until they can complete on
| battery life.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| Weird take. Do you think your Garmin and your 10 year old watch
| can do the same things as an Apple Watch? No.
|
| Apple Watches are more like mini-iPhones. For example, I can
| take calls from my watch without a phone nearby, which is more
| appealing to me than multi-day battery life.
| giaour wrote:
| Do you actually use the mic and speaker on your watch like
| Maxwell Smart, or do you need to also carry a bluetooth
| headset or pair of AirPods to take calls from your watch?
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| I do use the mic and speaker for short and simple
| conversations. Overall I like that I can go on a run and
| leave my phone at home while also being able to take a call
| if I need to.
|
| Look, I'm not claiming it's life changing. The way I
| describe the Apple Watch to people is that you can
| definitely live your life without it but the little
| conveniences add up.
|
| It's silly that I'm getting downvoted because it's true.
| The Apple Watch and some android watches are more powerful
| devices more akin to a mini-phone. And because they're more
| powerful they use more power. Do people really think Apple
| is purposefully gimping their own device or maybe there's
| more too it than "these are all smart watches".
|
| I'm totally ok with charging my watch every night and the
| extra little conveniences I get from a more powerful device
| are worth it to me.
| pphysch wrote:
| > The way I describe the Apple Watch to people is that
| you can definitely live your life without it but the
| little conveniences add up.
|
| For a Garmin-style watch, the convenience of only needing
| a ~30min charge once or twice a month is pretty big.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| I throw my watch on the charger when I go to sleep, so I
| don't really seen the benefit. I'd rather have a more
| powerful device as a tradeoff.
|
| If that matters to you then great but I take issue with
| putting all of these watches in the same bucket and
| pretending that they're all the same except for battery
| life. It's just not true.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Your take is much weirder for me. I barely even make calls on
| my phone nowadays but I use my Garmin watch many times a day.
| I also use them to track my sleep which would be very
| inconvenient if I had to charge them daily.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| How is it a weird take? These devices serve different
| purposes, and their designs optimize for different things.
|
| I like that my watch serves as a mini-iPhone, and I don't
| mind charging it while I sleep. I like that I can install
| some of the same apps on my phone and watch.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| You wrote above that preferring a week-long battery life
| for a watch over an ability to make calls and install
| apps is a "weird take". For me it's exactly the opposite,
| I take the week-long battery any time. So if anything at
| all is weird here I'd vote for your viewpoint.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| Congrats you completely misunderstood. Preferring a week
| long battery life isn't weird.
|
| What is weird is saying an Apple Watch is inferior to a
| 10 year old watch because of the battery life, when these
| are different devices with different purposes.
|
| Think about this for a second, would Apple purposefully
| gimp their watch's battery life or maybe, just maybe,
| there's more going on.
| maxglute wrote:
| Was hoping needle move to all-week within a few iterations but
| not even close.
|
| Still enjoying my glorified fitness band watch with 2-3 week
| battery life.
| giaour wrote:
| 100%! I switched from an Apple Watch to a WiThings ScanWatch
| for the battery life. Sleep tracking and vibrating alarms are
| kinda useless if you are expected to charge the watch every
| night.
| officeplant wrote:
| Honest question. Do you not have 30 minutes to spare daily
| where you don't wear your watch and it could charge?
| aliasxneo wrote:
| I have failed to comprehend the allure for precisely this
| reason. I've looked at adopting the Apple Watch a few times
| now, but as a person who struggles with insomnia and finds
| sleep tracking valuable, I'd have to buy a separate device to
| use with the watch because of the battery life. Or, I could
| just keep my current Fitbit which consistently lasts a week and
| gives me good enough information.
| brookst wrote:
| FWIW the Android and Apple smartwatches will all charge
| nearly completely during a 15 minute shower. It's very
| possible to wear them for sleep tracking and only charge a
| bit a day.
|
| But I agree there is a huge difference between once-daily
| charging and once-weekly charging.
| officeplant wrote:
| I just charge my watch once I get home from work. Only takes
| 30-40 minutes. Its not gonna miss many bio-metrics while I
| watch an episode of a favorite show.
| trog wrote:
| My Fitbit devices (first Ionic, and now on my second Sense)
| have spoiled me, I can't imagine having to think about charging
| on a daily basis. I get 3-5 days depending on what I'm doing.
|
| I'm sure you get used to it and it becomes part of a routine
| but it's nice not having to deal with it daily.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Doorbell live video integration looks pretty neat.
| taeric wrote:
| Similar to my comment in the phone thread, a focus on "bigger"
| makes me sad.
|
| Kind of hilarious to pair that with bragging rights on "all-day
| battery life."
| sva_ wrote:
| > a focus on "bigger" makes me sad
|
| I really want a smaller/lighter phone next time. My Galaxy S23
| Ultra weighs almost 300g with the case.
|
| I recently got wrist pain and some radiating pain in my pinky
| and ring finger. First I thought I'm getting carpal tunnel but
| that is quite literally the other tunnel in the wrist.
|
| Took me a while to figure this out, but turns out holding a
| heavy phone in one hand, propping it up with your pinkie finger
| (bending the finger sideways) is not a natural way for the
| pinkie finger to function.
|
| Stopped holding it like that and it seems to be getting better.
| Got a magsafe handle for the back of the phone which should
| arrive soon ... Hopefully it gives me more grip.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > I really want a smaller/lighter phone next time.
|
| The standard Pixel a line is relatively small, ~6", but
| perhaps you're talking about going back to the under-6"
| range.
|
| I definitely find the move to larger phones somewhat
| perplexing because even as a 6'4" guy it's pretty difficult
| to navigate that much screen space with one hand.
| disqard wrote:
| Wow! I had the exact same experience as you --- also
| precipitated by the same "use pinkie sideways to support the
| bottom of the phone" usage.
|
| I stopped holding the phone that way, and it went away.
|
| The phone being big _and_ heavy is quite insidious. Turns out
| that "you're holding it wrong" can really be a problem...
| not for the antenna/reception, but for our own hands.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| I could realistically see myself replacing my phone with a 5g
| smartwatch. The hardware seems good enough, but tere's a few use
| cases that make me hesitant. If the ecosystem and support
| continues to improve I'll probably do that in a couple years.
| 42lux wrote:
| I was hoping for the galaxy watch ultra but it's not it maybe
| the new Apple Watch Ultra can finally do it.
| bramhaag wrote:
| Just curious, what do you usually use your phone for? Just
| calling and texting? Or maybe reading emails and browsing the
| web too?
| ugh123 wrote:
| I'd like to be able to do the following things on a watch
| with just 5g and not paired with a cell phone:
|
| - call uber
|
| - maps navigation
|
| - _a camera_. I need to be able to capture photos and videos
| things while out. even at lower specs i 'd love this
| drdaeman wrote:
| Apple Watch used to have Uber app, then it was discontinued
| and removed for some reason. I suspect it's probably the
| same for other watches.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Besides what you listed: maps, payments, door locks, and
| music. I'm mainly concerned about losing the web browser that
| lets me do everything from my phone, but stuff like gpto
| could replace a lot of stuff, and if there are more actually
| usable apps(with potential ai integration for ux), that might
| be enough for me to ditch my phone.
| localfirst wrote:
| good examples I also would like to be able to just have peace
| of mind for texting and calling for uber
|
| dont really need a screen, its cubersome when you are outside
| for long periods of time and battery life on Apple phones isn't
| very good
|
| Need something, I don't care if its big, that will last for at
| least a week, can do 3g/4g (5g is too much) SMS globally and
| calling internationally
|
| bonus points for satellite connectivity and extended battery
| mode (where you can text your coordinates in mountains etc)
| daneel_w wrote:
| > dont really need a screen, its cubersome when you are
| outside for long periods of time and battery life on Apple
| phones isn't very good
|
| > Need something, I don't care if its big, that will last for
| at least a week, can do 3g/4g (5g is too much) SMS globally
| and calling internationally
|
| That depends on if you feel that you need to keep everything
| that needs network running in the background all the time. I
| keep _some_ things running in the background, but not
| everything. My aging iPhone 8 lasts me a week between
| charges, and it 's got 4 years on its back and still using
| the original battery, now down to just under 80% maximum
| capacity. Really, the iPhones' battery life is fine.
| localfirst wrote:
| coming from android iphone battery is absolutely horrid
| daneel_w wrote:
| My experience is the exact opposite. I have less control
| with Android over what gets to run in the background and
| how network access is permitted, and most importantly no
| control at all over any of the shit Android itself keeps
| sending to Google infra the entire time the phone has
| cellular or WiFi access. It's a world of difference
| compared to how very rarely iOS "phones home".
| Regardless, I get a week of regular use out of this anno
| 2018 iPhone. If I keep it going as _just a phone_ and
| enable low-power mode, I get a few days more.
| modeless wrote:
| My Pixel Watch sucks and it's not because the screen isn't big or
| bright enough. The implementation of notifications is awful. It's
| actually faster and easier in many cases to whip out my phone to
| see a notification than to see it on the watch.
|
| Why? Because notifications are not shown by default. The watch
| vibrates but nothing is there on the screen but the watch face.
| To trigger a notification to actually show, you need to rotate
| your wrist down (if it is up) and then up again (impossible if
| you are carrying something). Then you have to wait for it to
| recognize the gesture. Then you have to wait for a fade animation
| to an intermediate screen that shows half of the information
| about the notification. Then you have to wait for a fade
| animation to the final screen that actually shows the
| notification text. And if you lower your wrist at all during or
| after this process, the notification disappears instantly and
| won't come back without the use of both hands to activate the
| touchscreen or crown. And in many cases the information shown is
| useless, like "so-and-so sent a picture." Show me the goddamn
| picture then!
|
| It boggles the mind that anyone could think this is a good
| experience to ship at all, let alone for three generations!
| Especially when Pebble had it right 10 years ago. You show the
| notification on the screen _first_ , _then_ you vibrate the
| watch, then you leave the notification there for at least 30
| seconds so it can be read. You show the whole notification at
| once (as much as possible on the small screen, of course), and
| you also show a small clock at the top so you can still see the
| time while the notification is shown. How hard is that?
|
| Of course this isn't the only way the Pixel Watch software sucks.
| The whole UX is pretty terrible, like they had some ideas and
| went straight to final implementation, never bothering to iterate
| based on user feedback. Low information density, low
| customizability, feature-poor, unresponsive interactions,
| blocking animations. It's everything bad about modern UI in a
| tiny frustrating package.
|
| I don't know what is wrong with all the tech reviewers that fail
| to call Google out on this stuff. Maybe it's better than Samsung
| or whatever but that doesn't make it good. At least the hardware
| is nice. Though, like all smartwatches except the Pebble Time
| Round, far too thick.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Yeah this is very annoying about notifications on my Samsung
| watch too, probably an android watch issue in general. For me,
| watch notifications have become just a way to know about
| particularly important things like email or certain chats.
| Often my watch will vibrate and I'll just switch to the tab
| with my mail in it without bothering to wait for the watch.
|
| It's crazy how they can't manage to make these work faster.
| There's more than enough processing power in there, but the
| software is just so bloated.
| mattnewton wrote:
| When I worked at Google I got re-orged into the same division
| as pixel / android.
|
| My director wore an Apple Watch and had an iPhone for personal
| use, and I am pretty sure I saw an Apple Watch on my VP too.
| Nobody was expected to eat the dog food and so few did. This
| was crazy to me coming from Apple- I remember several internal
| sites would ask you to file a radar (bug report) on why you
| switched to chrome from safari if you opened them in chrome. So
| many crazy issues I saw and reported didn't actually matter to
| many high ranking members of the pixel team because they didn't
| use the devices after 5pm.
|
| There is a lot of incredible talent in that team but I think
| Google needs a minor culture shift to compete with Apple here.
| tomComb wrote:
| Interacting with Googler's in the past I noticed the same
| thing but took it a different way.
|
| Clearly there was no pressure to use the Google product so
| they used a wide diversity of devices and services, and I saw
| this as a healthy thing.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I think that for the rank and file, not needing to use the
| device is fine. But if you are a manager/product owner/etc
| (especially over teams in charge of said devices) then YOU
| specifically should have to use google devices like 24/7 as
| part of your job.
|
| I think it's unhealthy for those in charge not to use the
| products they sell, especially when talking about consumer
| goods.
| summerlight wrote:
| I think those directors, VPs and PMs should be mandated
| to use their own products. Okay to keep iPhone, but use
| Android as well, at least for their corp works. The
| product quality of Workspace and Chrome is debatable but
| it's not even remotely comparable to those niche market
| products because everyone must use it in their daily
| works. Why not for Android and their hardware products?
| Even FB did droidfooding long time ago...
| from-nibly wrote:
| Not wanting to dog-food your own product is probably the
| hardest culture to change I can think of, I wouldn't call it
| minor by any stretch
| brookst wrote:
| Dogfooding is so important, but so is competitive awareness.
| There has to be a good balance, where enough people are using
| your own product to find (and document) all of its flaws, but
| enough people are using competitive products to see bigger
| picture gaps.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| With the original Wear OS, you could check your notifications
| at any time and even scroll through them, all without touching
| the watch. The gestures were amazing. They eventually took them
| away, for reasons that I cannot comprehend.
| ho_schi wrote:
| If you're into sport, I recommend Garmin. It shows
| notifications properly. Bonus, charge it once or twice in a
| week. It doesn't try to be a _smartwatch_.
|
| No sport? I recommend a classy _automatic wristwatch_. Your
| movement winds it up. No charging. No apps. No updates. No
| battery. The spring is wind up by wearing, eight hours of
| wearing usually last for 24 hours. So sleeping without isn't an
| issue and in worst case you can wind up manually. Best purchase
| of my life.
|
| PS: Teached me also other things. Mine has an "old" acrylic
| glass which I considered first as drawback. It isn't. It
| doesn't break up easily like gorilla glass. And no
| notifications.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Yeah! I was going to say, google should just buy the garmin
| products and add a few more features. Love my garmin
| products. Great battery life too.
| scblock wrote:
| No one wants Google to come in and ruin Garmin the way they
| ruined fitbit.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Seconding the Garmin rec - though stay away from new
| 265/965/Epic, which have the same OLED screen and resultant
| "shake it all about" and then wait a blink to see the time
| issue as Pixels and Apple watches, and stick to
| Fenix/Forerunner x55 MIPS displays for weeks-long battery
| life with always-on display. And no need to update every 2
| years.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm currently using a 965 and I love it. That said, I came
| to it from fitbit so maybe my views are warped.
|
| Generally, just turning over my wrist to look at it works
| exceptionally well at showing everything, a firm tap works
| when that doesn't.
|
| The 1 to 2 weeklong battery life is also great.
|
| It's really one of my favorite watches.
|
| My wife has the pixel watch 2 and holy cow does the battery
| on that thing suck. She never uses the sleep function
| because the damn thing is empty at the end of every day.
| Like 14 hours of battery life max in normal usage.
| Suppafly wrote:
| I just recommend no watch at all. Once I got a cell phone,
| wrist watches lost all appeal to me other than being a fancy
| piece of mechanical or digital jewelry and I have never seen
| the appeal of smart watches, despite working with technology
| every day. I'm sure they are useful for a subset of people,
| but this idea that everyone should have a smartwatch boggles
| my mind.
| grouchomarx wrote:
| Seems like the smartwatch has become a tool for workout
| (and to an extent, sleep) tracking. It's the only reason I
| have an apple watch and don't generally use it otherwise. I
| can record a five hour bike ride without blasting my iphone
| battery
| adamweld wrote:
| Or a Casio f91w. Timeless.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| It is also maddening to me the degree to which sensor
| information is hidden, or simply not available at all. I got my
| Pixel 2 watch specifically for fitness and sleep tracking. A
| year on, and I am still completely unable to perform a spot
| SpO2 check. I'll get a nice, pretty and utterly unlabeled graph
| of my supposed saturations when I sleep, but that's it. It
| definitely feels like the people that make it don't actually
| use the thing.
| modeless wrote:
| Yeah Fitbit is a toy, not a tool. The graphs are vague and
| the data behind them is inaccessible. The sensors are
| unreliable. The metrics are made up. The whole thing is a
| waste of time.
|
| If they ever figure out a way to measure blood sugar or blood
| pressure, that would actually be useful. Until then I would
| much prefer a thinner and more comfortable watch without the
| protruding sensors.
| cogman10 wrote:
| If you are a data nerd, Garmin is 1000x better. It tracks
| everything and the app displays everything.
|
| Some of the smart features aren't quiet as good... but like
| everything I've needed has worked great (like tap and pay).
| jayd16 wrote:
| All of this plus it doesn't integrate well with G-suite
| accounts. I can never get my calendar to sync...
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| I don't hate my Pixel Watch (yet?) but dear God, getting a text
| message notification that doesn't actually show you the message
| is a baffling step backwards coming from a Fitbit.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Android Wear is pretty much abandoned, which is ridiculous
| considering they're still putting out new Pixel Watches. It's
| insane that this OS has been around for a decade and pretty
| much not improved at all. The software still feels the same as
| it did in 2014 - slow, laggy, and badly designed.
|
| Don't get me started on the insanity of making round
| smartwatches. You wouldn't make a round phone.
| trog wrote:
| I had a Fitbit Sense for a couple years, before it finally died
| in the shower. It was just out of warranty. I bought a Fitbit
| Sense 2 which I thought would be an upgrade but it was
| amazingly a much worse device.
|
| A huge part of it was a similar notifications issue to what you
| describe - get a notification, raise wrist, and have to wait
| for a stupid animation to play before displaying the
| notification.
|
| There were a bunch of other problems, including some unbearably
| stupid ones like it would only work with Alexa and not
| assistant (wtf who owns fitbit?). I took it back and managed to
| buy another original Sense. (I posted about them on the Fitbit
| forum: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Sense-2/Is-
| Sense-2-a-downgra... which seemed to get a bit of agreement
| from others).
|
| My conclusion was that literally nobody working on this watch
| or responsible for its success actually used one.
| paxys wrote:
| I'm too locked in to the Apple ecosystem to switch, but I
| _really_ wish they made a round watch. This one looks so good
| compared to whatever Apple puts out every year. A round watch
| face just makes so much aesthetic sense.
| r00fus wrote:
| I could never give up those corner complications. Round looks
| better if you're only interested in the clock aspect, but for
| text display, a rectangle is incredibly more functional and
| with rounded rect shape, it's good enough for me.
|
| You would need to refactor the entire UI interaction model to
| properly take advantage of a circular face.
| zukzuk wrote:
| Have you considered a Garmin watch? It works well enough (for
| me anyway) for showing and dismissing notifications from my
| iPhone. The battery lasts well over a week, and the biometrics
| and fitness/training stuff is way ahead of anything Apple has
| to offer. And most of the Garmin watches are indeed round.
| paxys wrote:
| Not having features like unlocking your Mac from your phone,
| Apple Pay etc. is the deal breaker.
| 015a wrote:
| Garmin has contactless payment.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Seconded. I bought a Garmin on the basis of recommendations
| here and don't regret it.
|
| If you're fitness first, tiny screen strapped to your wrist
| second, they're _excellent_ devices.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Grass is greener I guess; I don't have an iPhone so can't use
| an Apple Watch, but I'd prefer a square display to match the
| content it displays.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Round smartwatches make no sense and I don't know why anybody
| is making them. Scrolling content needs a constant-width
| display. If there was a square android watch I would get it.
| archagon wrote:
| Most of the time, I'm not using my smartwatch for scrolling
| content.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| What content are you looking at on a smart watch where
| round would be better?
| archagon wrote:
| Clock face, compass, activity tracking, heartrate
| measurements. For most of those, square vs. round is
| largely irrelevant, but round feels more aesthetically
| pleasing (to me).
| lighttower wrote:
| My pixel watch 2 can't sync the Google workspace calendar.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| "fine-tuned for fitness" the product presentation page
| scrupulously avoids talking about sport and systematically uses
| "fitness" instead. Anyone who has ever tried to use Fibit +
| Google Health for their training knows that it's going to be a
| disaster.
|
| This product seems destined for those who like something big and
| bright on their wrist.
|
| In principle, this watch has no built-in GPS. One day's autonomy
| is therefore well below that any entry-level sport watches
| released in the last 5 years could offer.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| seriously? no GPS?
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| No reference is ever made to a positioning system, whether
| GPS, Galileo, GNSS or Glosnav.
|
| DC Rainmaker confirms in its test that this watch is not
| equipped with a GPS chip. "Notably, the Pixel Watch 3 doesn't
| include dual-frequency/multiband GPS/GNSS. "
|
| https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/08/google-pixel-
| watch-3-han...
|
| It's not clear whether the watch has a single-band GPS or no
| GPS at all. The fact that they don't communicate one it is
| not encouraging.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > "Notably, the Pixel Watch 3 doesn't include dual-
| frequency/multiband GPS/GNSS."
|
| That doesn't mean "no GPS"
|
| Weird cherry pick from a larger quote that clearly implies
| it has GPS:
|
| > Again, this is an area I'll dive into during my in-depth
| review down the road, looking at both the heart rate
| accuracy in running, as well as various changes they've
| made around GPS/GNSS accuracy. Notably, the Pixel Watch 3
| doesn't include dual-frequency/multiband GPS/GNSS. However,
| as I've constantly said: I don't care how a company arrives
| hardware-wise at an accurate GPS track, as long as they do
| so. We've seen companies with multiband implementations do
| worse than other companies without multiband. So as long as
| Google can deliver accurate GPS tracks, I'm happy.
| scblock wrote:
| You may wish to work on your reading comprehension. "Does
| not have multiband GNSS" is not the same as "no GPS", and
| the watch specifications clearly state is supports the GPS,
| Galileo, and Glonass satellites.
| plorg wrote:
| Parent is wrong. It includes GPS.
|
| https://store.google.com/product/pixel_watch_3_specs
| deelowe wrote:
| > In principle, this watch has no built-in GPS.
|
| Please don't post false information. The specs are readily
| available.
| losvedir wrote:
| Huh, just yesterday I started setting up and getting used to my
| new (to me) Apple Watch Series 6, after having used a Pixel Watch
| 2 for several months.
|
| I'm surprised to find myself somewhat disappointed, and
| preferring my Pixel Watch, though I'm still giving myself some
| time in case it's just familiarity. But a few things:
|
| * The available watch faces are pretty underwhelming,
| particularly digital ones. There's only a single one that
| actually includes the seconds, as far as I can tell. And the only
| one with lots of complications is Modular, which sticks the time
| in the corner, and has a big unwieldy complication in the center.
| My kingdom for Pixel Watch's Utility.
|
| * No watch face store!?
|
| * I can't seem to set up a minimal all-red face for night time,
| like I had on the Pixel Watch.
|
| * The heart rate complication is just a picture of a heart that I
| click and it takes me to a widget that measures my heart rate. I
| had a real time glance on Pixel Watch, right in the complication,
| always up to date.
|
| * The sleep tracking is weird and confusing. I need to set up
| schedules and such? On the Pixel Watch, it just tracks my sleep
| automatically.
|
| * Subjective, but I still like the size and shape (round) of the
| Pixel Watch more than this Apple Watch, for now.
| advisedwang wrote:
| These never have the features I want:
|
| * small/thin/light
|
| * Battery lasts multiple days
|
| * notifications are main feature
|
| Has anyone tried one of the hybrid smart watches like Withings
| ScanWatch series or Garmin vivoactive?
| burkaman wrote:
| I have a Garmin Forerunner which satisfies these requirements.
| It's basically the size of a normal watch, notifications work
| very well, and it has a GPS for tracking runs if you want that.
| I've had it for years and charge it at most once a day for ~15
| minutes when I'm in the shower and it has literally never run
| out of battery. You can take it on a weeklong camping trip and
| probably be fine as long as you don't use the GPS.
| TrianguloY wrote:
| Same for me, in the end I got the pixel 2 because its one of
| the few (if not the most recently) small android wear watches.
| I'm sad people complained a lot about the size and this new
| version is bigger. The software is so-so, but I love the design
| and feel.
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| I've had a Withings HR watch for 8 years, it's so old it's got
| the old Nokia branding but the battery still lasts for a month,
| handles android notifications and basic fitness stuff and looks
| decent. I'd buy another one instantly if this one was to give
| out.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I've got a Pixel Watch 2, and it's okay, but the fitness features
| are all unusable to me; I use a Fitbit Inspire for sleep tracking
| and wake alarms while my Pixel Watch is on its charger overnight,
| and Google only lets me turn on fitness tracking on the Pixel
| Watch if I migrate my fitness tracking from the Fitbit.
| vially wrote:
| For anyone considering buying the Pixel Watch 3, please keep in
| mind that Pixel Watch 2 has some long-standing issues where the
| GPS completely cuts out during runs or walks.
|
| Some users believe it to be a hardware issue but it's still
| unacknowledged by Google and the forum thread where people have
| been discussing it has just been locked recently. Just mentioning
| it for awareness and visibility.
|
| - https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Android-App/Google-Pixel-Wat...
|
| - https://support.google.com/googlepixelwatch/thread/242833127...
| hipadev23 wrote:
| Genuinely don't understand why Google continues to produce
| these products and refuse to support them. Do they just know
| there's a contingency of anti-apple users who will buy their
| devices regardless of extreme usability issues?
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