8 ms·

Yep - zero trust is exactly right... I bought a Samsung smart watch for Black Friday for $280-ish. Figured "hey - this will probably have better calendar/applic

Yep - zero trust is exactly right... I bought a Samsung smart watch for Black Friday for $280-ish. Figured "hey - this will probably have better calendar/application support than my Garmin watch!" Nope. Literally can't get it to vibrate/alert when a notification comes through unless it's through Samsung's SPECIFIC applications. So my HipChat messages, Gmail inbox, etc have ZERO notifications even though it WILL show as a new notification on the watch face. Before anyone gives me crap saying "you screwed up the settings" - trust me, I didn't, and I've tried everything. I learned my lesson - Samsung is a faceless company with zero attention to user experience, and customer support. It is of no surprise that they outright lie about their features - which is EXACTLY what using a DSLR stock photo for this marketing is. An outright lie. I will stick with my Garmin devices from here on-out and am looking to switch ecosystems for my phone as I'm on an S8+ that disgusts me as a user (Bixby, bloatware blah blah). ZERO trust for Samsung.

13of40 8y ago
Heh - I was stuck at Costco getting tires installed the other day and ended up buying one of those watches. My favorite part so far is the Bixby app, which presents itself as a Siri-like assistant that collects all of my contacts and GPS data, because hey, but fails on everything I ask it, including dead simple questions like "Where's the closest Starbucks?"
- folkhack 8y ago
  I'm just going to take a hammer to it. I know it's unreasonable but I'm that p'd off.
- rhizome 8y ago
  My assumption is that the Bixby app is the point. It's the only way they can get recurring revenue out of you, the TV is a loss-leader to grease its installation.
dvlsg 8y ago
I bought a Samsung phone (S9) over black Friday. Returned it already. Their apps were incredibly heavy handed and invasive. The photo app had a hard coded button on top of my camera viewing area which linked a way to buy things via a samsung app. I was appalled. I also couldn't turn off the Bixby assistant without first making a new Samsung account.
- underwater 8y ago
  Do you mean the shopping integration for Bixby vision? That can be disabled. In fact I think it is disabled by default.
cgriswald 8y ago
Samsung is completely untrustworthy. I might buy another television from them in the future as the screen quality on my Samsung televisions has always been great. But their smart appliances are a joke. Read the reviews for any of the required Samsung "Smart" Apps and you'll find terrible software that doesn't work. Where it does work, at best it technically meets the advertised criteria, but in other cases it seems like bald-faced lies. I've got a Samsung washer/dryer. They're fine. But the advertised smart features don't work without the app, the App basically doesn't work, and while they say they can be connected to the Wi-Fi, they can only be connected to Wi-Fi via WPS. If that was ever justified, it certainly wasn't justified in 2015/2016 when I bought them. Had I bought them for these features I'd have been furious.
- covercash 8y ago
  I keep hoping someone will kickstart a display company that sells just really amazing displays and none of the “smart” garbage. I read that some manufacturers even serve up ads in their latest smart UIs. That’s infuriating!
  - asteli 8y ago
    Have you looked at Monoprice's stuff? They sell displays using the same panels as some of the nice name brand stuff, and I'd personally be surprised if they packaged the same BS into their house brand displays.
    - kbar13 8y ago
      monoprice qa is awful. would not recommend for larger ticket items. they're great for cables and accessories tho
    - dpkonofa 8y ago
      Someone else mentioned that to me too but all I see on their site are Vizio TVs and I refuse to buy one of those. I bought a Vizio a few years ago and it was the worst TV I've ever owned. Replaced it with a Sony and never looked back. Where do I get the Monoprice TVs?
rococode 8y ago
Are there more trustworthy options for Android smartphones in the US? I was recently shopping for an upgrade from my LG G4 and settled for the S9+. I'm pretty satisfied, actually, but it really felt like I had an extremely limited selection From my understanding, the only flagship-level choices that aren't big hassles to to get are Samsung (Galaxy/Note), Google (Pixel), OnePlus, LG. Of those, LG seems to be the only one that's not constantly plagued by trust/privacy issues (although in my case, I wanted to try a different brand so I didn't end up going with it).
- folkhack 8y ago
  I've been looking into Blackberry (Key2 specifically) because they seem to be putting security first and I don't mind if my platform is a tiny bit behind on the raw system specs. If anyone has experiences to share I am ALL ears!
  - rococode 8y ago
    I was actually about to get a KeyOne when I was shopping! The primary concerns I had that stopped me from going through with it were: 1) not sure if I'd actually like the keyboard enough to be worth the screen size tradeoff, and 2) I'd read bad things about the build quality (screens falling off?!?) since Blackberry apparently has little oversight over the actual production. I'd be glad to hear from someone else if these concerns were justified.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    You could do a lot better than Blackberry from a security standpoint. The URLs tell a pretty scary story all on their own: https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-police-obtained-blackberry-master-encryption-key/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-police-obtained-black... https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle-blackberry-will-finally-let-the-indian-government-monitor-its-servers/ https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battl... https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-blasts-apple-for-focusing-on-user-privacy-data-protection https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-bla...
- 8y ago
tooltalk 8y ago
Well, did Samsung promise this notification feature in their marketing campaign? I considered buying one for this exact feature, but decided not to buy it after TMobile sales folks confirmed that notification worked with Samsung apps only. I don't think however Samsung deliberately misled or lied. Now that isn't to say Samsung support is wonderful -- I personally wouldn't recommend buying anything other than TVs from Samsung.
- folkhack 8y ago
  > Well, did Samsung promise this notification feature in their marketing campaign? Nope - but it's something I would expect any smartwatch to do. It's just a dark pattern and they don't GAF for any actual use-case. > I don't think however Samsung deliberately misled Yea this is where we disagree. It's a dark pattern to force users to use their ecosystem fully. What about my corp. Outlook, HipChat, G-suite products, etc etc!? If it shows a notification on the phone - it should show a notification on the watch like my Garmin. Period.
  - shard 8y ago
    That's strange, did something change drastically for the latest Galaxy Watch? I have a Gear S2 from a few years ago, and I can get Outlook / GMail / WeChat / Kakaotalk notifications just fine. In fact, I was getting notifications from so many random apps, I started silencing most of them.
Angostura 8y ago
I bought a new Samsung Android tablet for the kid in September 2016. It came with Android 4.4.4 and assumed that it could be updated to at least 5.1 or possibly 6.x since it was a device that was shipping new from the company. E-mail from Samsung support (I'm in the UK) simply said > please be advised that updates are released in batches, release dates can also vary by region, network and device. As of the moment, if the updates are not yet showing on your device, then we may have to wait until it becomes available and we are unable to confirm when will that be. Of course, there never was any update. My first Android device, I was not impressed.
- westmeal 8y ago
  Was it the SM-T230NU? I think its called the Samsung Tab 7 inch?
- asveikau 8y ago
  Looked into lineage at all? I have a Samsung tablet that works well with that and I am happy.
sizzle 8y ago
After being a loyal Nexus Android phone user, made the mistake of getting a recent Samsung Galaxy phone. Never again. Updates will undo menu settings and break user settings arbitrarily, that if if Samsung even respects your settings configurations. Don't get me started on the uninstallable Samsung bloatware that is redundant to Google apps (calendar, photo gallery etc) that breaks all the time and backs up your data on its own if your aren't careful.
notyourwork 8y ago
Samsung makes great displays, that's about it.
dboreham 8y ago
Hmm. My Samsung watch does this just fine. E.g. it vibrates when I receive a Slack message.
arghwhat 8y ago
I have a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier smart-watch, paired with a Sony Xperia X Compact (i.e. no samsung). My friend has a Samsung Galaxy Wear, paired with a Sony Xperia XZ Compact. Neither of us use any Samsung applications other than the required "gear"/"galaxy" app. I'm getting Gmail, Telegram, Slack, and all sorts of other notifications just fine, and can reply to them. So while their software sucks (unlike the hardware, their smartwatches are by far the bets ones out there), you did indeed fuck up your settings. Or you use an iPhone, which there is poor support for. Also, while it's not a particularly trustworthy company, this specifically has nothing to do with trust.
- jobigoud 8y ago
  Do they vibrate the watch? GP is saying the notifications come through but only samsung apps vibrate.
  - arghwhat 8y ago
    Yes. Any notification causes vibration, wakes up the watch to show the notification (or if the watch is in use, show it as a small overlay), from which one can read the content and take actions, including replying straight from the watch. I always have the watch on silent, so no notification tone. I have no Samsung apps short of the Gear app and Samsung Health.
lmm 8y ago
> Nope. Literally can't get it to vibrate/alert when a notification comes through unless it's through Samsung's SPECIFIC applications. So my HipChat messages, Gmail inbox, etc have ZERO notifications even though it WILL show as a new notification on the watch face. Before anyone gives me crap saying "you screwed up the settings" - trust me, I didn't, and I've tried everything. You screwed up the settings. It defaults to only allowing a short list of (mostly Samsung) applications, but you can configure it. Galaxy Wearable > Settings > Notifications > Manage Notifications and enable those applications you want to see notifications from.
- daemin 8y ago
  Unless I'm mistaken, the key difference is that he can see the notifications fine, but the error is that they do not vibrate. Only the notifications from the Samsung apps vibrate.
maury91 8y ago
I have a Garmin forerunner 235, and there's no way I will ever replace it with any of those "smartwatches" nor apple or Samsung, the user base they target are absolutely to different (Garmin is a fitness watch with some smart capabilities, Apple/Samsung is a smart watch with some fitness capabilities).
Markoff 8y ago
how many weeks it's battery life? no problems with notifications btw Amazfit Bip owner

13of40 8y ago

Heh - I was stuck at Costco getting tires installed the other day and ended up buying one of those watches. My favorite part so far is the Bixby app, which presents itself as a Siri-like assistant that collects all of my contacts and GPS data, because hey, but fails on everything I ask it, including dead simple questions like "Where's the closest Starbucks?"

folkhack 8y ago
I'm just going to take a hammer to it. I know it's unreasonable but I'm that p'd off.
rhizome 8y ago
My assumption is that the Bixby app is the point. It's the only way they can get recurring revenue out of you, the TV is a loss-leader to grease its installation.

dvlsg 8y ago

I bought a Samsung phone (S9) over black Friday. Returned it already. Their apps were incredibly heavy handed and invasive. The photo app had a hard coded button on top of my camera viewing area which linked a way to buy things via a samsung app. I was appalled. I also couldn't turn off the Bixby assistant without first making a new Samsung account.

underwater 8y ago
Do you mean the shopping integration for Bixby vision? That can be disabled. In fact I think it is disabled by default.

cgriswald 8y ago

Samsung is completely untrustworthy. I might buy another television from them in the future as the screen quality on my Samsung televisions has always been great. But their smart appliances are a joke. Read the reviews for any of the required Samsung "Smart" Apps and you'll find terrible software that doesn't work. Where it does work, at best it technically meets the advertised criteria, but in other cases it seems like bald-faced lies. I've got a Samsung washer/dryer. They're fine. But the advertised smart features don't work without the app, the App basically doesn't work, and while they say they can be connected to the Wi-Fi, they can only be connected to Wi-Fi via WPS. If that was ever justified, it certainly wasn't justified in 2015/2016 when I bought them. Had I bought them for these features I'd have been furious.

covercash 8y ago
I keep hoping someone will kickstart a display company that sells just really amazing displays and none of the “smart” garbage. I read that some manufacturers even serve up ads in their latest smart UIs. That’s infuriating!
- asteli 8y ago
  Have you looked at Monoprice's stuff? They sell displays using the same panels as some of the nice name brand stuff, and I'd personally be surprised if they packaged the same BS into their house brand displays.
  - kbar13 8y ago
    monoprice qa is awful. would not recommend for larger ticket items. they're great for cables and accessories tho
  - dpkonofa 8y ago
    Someone else mentioned that to me too but all I see on their site are Vizio TVs and I refuse to buy one of those. I bought a Vizio a few years ago and it was the worst TV I've ever owned. Replaced it with a Sony and never looked back. Where do I get the Monoprice TVs?

rococode 8y ago

Are there more trustworthy options for Android smartphones in the US? I was recently shopping for an upgrade from my LG G4 and settled for the S9+. I'm pretty satisfied, actually, but it really felt like I had an extremely limited selection From my understanding, the only flagship-level choices that aren't big hassles to to get are Samsung (Galaxy/Note), Google (Pixel), OnePlus, LG. Of those, LG seems to be the only one that's not constantly plagued by trust/privacy issues (although in my case, I wanted to try a different brand so I didn't end up going with it).

folkhack 8y ago
I've been looking into Blackberry (Key2 specifically) because they seem to be putting security first and I don't mind if my platform is a tiny bit behind on the raw system specs. If anyone has experiences to share I am ALL ears!
- rococode 8y ago
  I was actually about to get a KeyOne when I was shopping! The primary concerns I had that stopped me from going through with it were: 1) not sure if I'd actually like the keyboard enough to be worth the screen size tradeoff, and 2) I'd read bad things about the build quality (screens falling off?!?) since Blackberry apparently has little oversight over the actual production. I'd be glad to hear from someone else if these concerns were justified.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  You could do a lot better than Blackberry from a security standpoint. The URLs tell a pretty scary story all on their own: https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-police-obtained-blackberry-master-encryption-key/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/canadian-police-obtained-black... https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle-blackberry-will-finally-let-the-indian-government-monitor-its-servers/ https://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battl... https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-blasts-apple-for-focusing-on-user-privacy-data-protection https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-bla...
8y ago

tooltalk 8y ago

Well, did Samsung promise this notification feature in their marketing campaign? I considered buying one for this exact feature, but decided not to buy it after TMobile sales folks confirmed that notification worked with Samsung apps only. I don't think however Samsung deliberately misled or lied. Now that isn't to say Samsung support is wonderful -- I personally wouldn't recommend buying anything other than TVs from Samsung.

folkhack 8y ago
> Well, did Samsung promise this notification feature in their marketing campaign? Nope - but it's something I would expect any smartwatch to do. It's just a dark pattern and they don't GAF for any actual use-case. > I don't think however Samsung deliberately misled Yea this is where we disagree. It's a dark pattern to force users to use their ecosystem fully. What about my corp. Outlook, HipChat, G-suite products, etc etc!? If it shows a notification on the phone - it should show a notification on the watch like my Garmin. Period.
- shard 8y ago
  That's strange, did something change drastically for the latest Galaxy Watch? I have a Gear S2 from a few years ago, and I can get Outlook / GMail / WeChat / Kakaotalk notifications just fine. In fact, I was getting notifications from so many random apps, I started silencing most of them.

Angostura 8y ago

I bought a new Samsung Android tablet for the kid in September 2016. It came with Android 4.4.4 and assumed that it could be updated to at least 5.1 or possibly 6.x since it was a device that was shipping new from the company. E-mail from Samsung support (I'm in the UK) simply said > please be advised that updates are released in batches, release dates can also vary by region, network and device. As of the moment, if the updates are not yet showing on your device, then we may have to wait until it becomes available and we are unable to confirm when will that be. Of course, there never was any update. My first Android device, I was not impressed.

westmeal 8y ago
Was it the SM-T230NU? I think its called the Samsung Tab 7 inch?
asveikau 8y ago
Looked into lineage at all? I have a Samsung tablet that works well with that and I am happy.

sizzle 8y ago

After being a loyal Nexus Android phone user, made the mistake of getting a recent Samsung Galaxy phone. Never again. Updates will undo menu settings and break user settings arbitrarily, that if if Samsung even respects your settings configurations. Don't get me started on the uninstallable Samsung bloatware that is redundant to Google apps (calendar, photo gallery etc) that breaks all the time and backs up your data on its own if your aren't careful.

notyourwork 8y ago

Samsung makes great displays, that's about it.

dboreham 8y ago

Hmm. My Samsung watch does this just fine. E.g. it vibrates when I receive a Slack message.

arghwhat 8y ago

I have a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier smart-watch, paired with a Sony Xperia X Compact (i.e. no samsung). My friend has a Samsung Galaxy Wear, paired with a Sony Xperia XZ Compact. Neither of us use any Samsung applications other than the required "gear"/"galaxy" app. I'm getting Gmail, Telegram, Slack, and all sorts of other notifications just fine, and can reply to them. So while their software sucks (unlike the hardware, their smartwatches are by far the bets ones out there), you did indeed fuck up your settings. Or you use an iPhone, which there is poor support for. Also, while it's not a particularly trustworthy company, this specifically has nothing to do with trust.

jobigoud 8y ago
Do they vibrate the watch? GP is saying the notifications come through but only samsung apps vibrate.
- arghwhat 8y ago
  Yes. Any notification causes vibration, wakes up the watch to show the notification (or if the watch is in use, show it as a small overlay), from which one can read the content and take actions, including replying straight from the watch. I always have the watch on silent, so no notification tone. I have no Samsung apps short of the Gear app and Samsung Health.

lmm 8y ago

> Nope. Literally can't get it to vibrate/alert when a notification comes through unless it's through Samsung's SPECIFIC applications. So my HipChat messages, Gmail inbox, etc have ZERO notifications even though it WILL show as a new notification on the watch face. Before anyone gives me crap saying "you screwed up the settings" - trust me, I didn't, and I've tried everything. You screwed up the settings. It defaults to only allowing a short list of (mostly Samsung) applications, but you can configure it. Galaxy Wearable > Settings > Notifications > Manage Notifications and enable those applications you want to see notifications from.

daemin 8y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, the key difference is that he can see the notifications fine, but the error is that they do not vibrate. Only the notifications from the Samsung apps vibrate.

maury91 8y ago

I have a Garmin forerunner 235, and there's no way I will ever replace it with any of those "smartwatches" nor apple or Samsung, the user base they target are absolutely to different (Garmin is a fitness watch with some smart capabilities, Apple/Samsung is a smart watch with some fitness capabilities).

Markoff 8y ago

how many weeks it's battery life? no problems with notifications btw Amazfit Bip owner