Tag: ticwatch

Smartwatches: after the Pebble on to wear OS

Pebble time and Ticwatch pro

Since the pebble I have been a bit fed up with the selection of smartwatches.

Originally I kickstarted the Bangle JS 2 smartwatch then bought the TicWatch 3 pro, but the battery life just frankly annoyed me so much and sent it back to get the Amazefit GTR 4.

I liked the Amazafit GTR 4 because the battery life was 3-5 days but the setup was something else. It doesn’t run Wear OS but I was fine with this because battery life made a big difference.

There is a review I read after getting the watch which sums up the problems with the watch. I like to hack and customise things but the options were insane. Then to add to this was the apps which included the default Zepp app and another one to pick up on the shortcoming of Zepp. Ultimately there were so many options but some of the basic things I expect were not covered.

Amazafit-GTR4 smartwatch

Replying to messages by voice wasn’t possible, although the watch does support voice commands and even Amazon Alexia integrations. The other thing which got me was the calendaring. With the pebble, the calendar was always up to date and I could trust it to know what’s next. With the Amazefit the calendar only updated when I opened the Zepp app, stop the calendar sync and then re-enabled it again. My calendar changes sometimes hourly so an updated calendar is super important.

In the end I got so fed up with a watch I couldn’t really trust, and finally I made the decision to sell the watch on ebay after reading  reviews about the new TicWatch 5. I decided the reasonable battery life, quick charge, wear OS 3 support was enough to convince me to switch (although I am wondering if wear OS 4 will make it to the watch). Its great to have proper sleep as android support again too.

Ticwatch pro 5

Its still early days but  I do miss some things like the automatic workout stuff, I have no idea what to put diaboloing under in my workouts. But generally if I’m charging the watch every day while in the bathroom, everything should be great.

The fast charge really has made a big difference and makes up for the smaller battery life. I can see this working when away from home due to cheap USB chargers (unlike the Oura). But that element of trust when looking at my notifications, calendar and tasks is something which can’t be underestimated.

Sorry Pebble Rebble

Pebble time and Ticwatch pro

Over the last few months, I kept using my Pebble watches for many things but over time every single Pebble 2 (I have 2 which still kinda work) died, even with no buttons.The last survivor is the Pebble time but it got to a point where I need to charge it everyday and partly in the day. I looked into moving the battery from some of the dead Pebble 2’s to the pebble time but its so simple.

The pebble is a great smartwatch but I had to look at my options, so decided to look at the hybrid smartwatches again and wasn’t impressed. After looking at smartwatches which have longer battery lives, I found a number changes and low power modes increasing the battery lives from 1 day to a 3-5 days.

In the end I bought the Ticwatch Pro 3 Ultra with Wear OS (automatically updated to wear 0s 3), although I did originally buy the Samsung Galaxy watch 4 and considered one of the Huawei smartwatches, but I decided I should stick with Wear OS (even with the battery drain). I had hoped the Google Pixel watch would be the answer to my needs but was let down.

Idle mode on the pebble time and ticwatch pro 3

The idle mode seems to be the key to battery usage, and the viewable screen on the ticwatch 3, although not as clear as the epaper screen of the pebble time. Is still good even at extreme angles.

Its a shame having to say goodbye to the rebble (post pebble community, they were amazing and the rebble software engineering is incredible. But it had to happen, as little things like not knowing who is calling and not being able to reply to non-sms messages (signal for example) was grinding on me. The health side is useful but mainly covered by the Oura ring.