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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 com

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.

modeless 2y ago
I'm still wearing mine. But I only really get value from two features. One is literally just the vibration motor on my wrist, so I can turn off all sound and vibration on my phone without missing calls and texts. The other is "Extend Unlock" (formerly "Smart Lock") which makes the bad fingerprint reader on my Pixel 7 a non-issue, and is just generally convenient. Funnily enough they're trying to replace "Extend Unlock" with a new feature called "Watch Unlock" and (quite predictably) they screwed up the implementation so bad it's not worth using at all. It's slower than entering my unlock code and annoying because it vibrates the watch every time my phone unlocks, with a random delay. Luckily they didn't actually remove the old "Extend Unlock" feature, they just hid it. I suppose someday they will remove it and I'll have one less reason to wear a smartwatch.
shawnz 2y ago
Fitbit has the same behaviour they're describing where the screen only turns on when it detects that you're holding your wrist up. I personally don't have a problem with that behaviour and find it to be a natural gesture. Maybe the Pixel watch isn't as good at recognizing it.
- modeless 2y ago
  I have always-on display turned on. So the screen is always showing something, just not anything important, like the notification I just got, or the next turn on my navigation route, or whatever. If you ever used a watch that did show notifications automatically with an always-on screen and then went back to one that doesn't, you would probably notice that it's way slower, and also there are many times where you can see the watch screen but it's not convenient to do a gesture.
  - shawnz 2y ago
    Interesting, I don't use always on display and I could see how that would be annoying if I did.
playingalong 2y ago
Interestingly Fitbit is also Google.

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.

modeless 2y ago

I'm still wearing mine. But I only really get value from two features. One is literally just the vibration motor on my wrist, so I can turn off all sound and vibration on my phone without missing calls and texts. The other is "Extend Unlock" (formerly "Smart Lock") which makes the bad fingerprint reader on my Pixel 7 a non-issue, and is just generally convenient. Funnily enough they're trying to replace "Extend Unlock" with a new feature called "Watch Unlock" and (quite predictably) they screwed up the implementation so bad it's not worth using at all. It's slower than entering my unlock code and annoying because it vibrates the watch every time my phone unlocks, with a random delay. Luckily they didn't actually remove the old "Extend Unlock" feature, they just hid it. I suppose someday they will remove it and I'll have one less reason to wear a smartwatch.

shawnz 2y ago

Fitbit has the same behaviour they're describing where the screen only turns on when it detects that you're holding your wrist up. I personally don't have a problem with that behaviour and find it to be a natural gesture. Maybe the Pixel watch isn't as good at recognizing it.

modeless 2y ago
I have always-on display turned on. So the screen is always showing something, just not anything important, like the notification I just got, or the next turn on my navigation route, or whatever. If you ever used a watch that did show notifications automatically with an always-on screen and then went back to one that doesn't, you would probably notice that it's way slower, and also there are many times where you can see the watch screen but it's not convenient to do a gesture.
- shawnz 2y ago
  Interesting, I don't use always on display and I could see how that would be annoying if I did.

playingalong 2y ago

Interestingly Fitbit is also Google.