Wear for Locus Map beta testing

[skwal]

thanks, is working again.

one question, i don´t know how it was in the past

when im looking at the watch map and standing still i see a blue circle and a red cross
when im moving, i see a blue triangle and the red cross.


in locus i only see the blue circle and triangle.
is it possible to deactivate the red cross ?


edit: don´t know if you worked on it, cinema mode still not working

[milan.cejnar]

@skwal
oh, sorry about the red cross, that should not be there when auto-centered. Should be fixed in about 2 weeks when new Locus Map version comes out.

The cinema mode is problematic, I can't reproduce the bug at all, might be specific for Sony SW3. I suspect it is again more of an Android Wear 1.x problem, but when tested on my old Moto 360 the cinema mode is working as expected - the screen just stays off until I press the power button again.

[skwal]

@skwal
oh, sorry about the red cross, that should not be there when auto-centered. Should be fixed in about 2 weeks when new Locus Map version comes out..

No Problem. But you did not say that is now possible to move the red cross over the map on the watch.... 
made a 5hour test ride today, map always turns in the right direction

[milan.cejnar]

@skwal
Super, thanks for the test Glad to hear that the auto-rotation is usable and working.

[H Ifang]

Since beginning of April (wanted to try for a bike ride, might have occurred earlier but did not try) my Locus on watch does not connect to Locus on phone.

The watch is definitely connected: in Bluetooth settings it shows "connected", the crossed cloud-icon shows or not according to Internet connection on phone disabled or active, apps can be installed from watch's play store.

But when I start the Locus app on the watch, it shows up for a fraction of a second and then switches to message that watch and phone are not connected. I shall connect and try again. The refresh-button can be pressed as often as I want, does not change anything.

Locus main app had some updates since then, no difference.
Wear OS on the watch had an update meanwhile, no difference.
I uninstalled/reinstalled the app on the watch now, no difference.
I reinstalled the Wear for Locus on the phone too, no difference.

I wonder how to check if the phone part is "active"? Going into app details on the phone for "Wear for Locus", it shows no RAM usage, no battery usage. And the "force stop" button is not active, so does it run? If not, how to start - there is not even an icon for this "app" (more of a background service I guess - but how to check status of such ones - up and running? How about a little status widget?)

Thanks for reading.

[Christian]

Hi guys,
I'm new to wearables but interested.Can someone please explain something to me?
: the clock must be connected to phone via bluetooth and uses the GPS of the phone? right?
: how many hours the battery of the phone (offlline mode, only GPS is on) and how many hours the battery of the clock will last? Any expierences here?
: is the clock able to "guidance" like on phone? is beeper supported?

Thank you. Any answer will be appreciated.
Christian

[milan.cejnar]

@Christian
Hello, yes, currently with Wear for Locus Map the watch has to be connected to the phone to work and it uses the phone's GPS. But generally some other applications can also run without a phone possible with limited functionality synchronizing data later when the phone is available.
Expected battery life can vary greatly but basically the watch will be the issue not the phone. With "Screen always on" setting disabled on the watch Locus application will only connect and display data when the display is turned on. With this setting enabled the screen, although dimmed, will stay on and the application will stay connected which, depending on your watch, can drain the battery in a couple of hours. Generally Android Wear watch will probably not make it through more than 2-3 days without charging, even when they are just lying on the table with screen off. And even with light usage it is normal to charge AW watch every day.
Navigation directions are shown on the map screen, distance to point is drawn directly on the map. Beeper and/or vibration is not supported at the moment.

[Christian]

Thank you Milan for your detailed answer helping a lot.

[H Ifang]

My problem (see 4 above) did not go away. After a phone reboot the Wear-for-Locus app/service now has an active "force stop" button in the app details, but that did not help either.

How can I debug this? Why does the Wear OS Locus app always say there is no connection?

(Wanted to use for a mountain hike, even as I guess an absolute altitude field is still missing?)

Update: I set back the watch to factory defaults and re-connected/installed everything. All other things looked identical before and after that, but finally Locus on the watch can be started again.

Had a short look into the code from github before, it was the "middle" connection error message, the one associated to the API not delivering any "node" with status "nearby" (just from what can be read there, do not know anything about it). As I said, any other locations told me "connected" (like the watch settings or the Wear OS app on the phone).
Somehow Wear OS seems not really stable..

Update2:
In the mountains, the map on the watch is very useful.
You can have a look at the track at any time, without getting/opening/unlocking the phone - also saving energy there probably (Bluetooth costs less than screen I guess).

Having the possibility to see the time on the map would be nice. So you do not always have to switch to the watch face for that (and then back). On the other hand, it is probably a good idea to not have the map open all the time - a Wear watch just does not have the endurance for a 8 hour activity.
And of course everything could be a bit smoother / faster / responsive - if it could.. Seems the hardware that is faster and needs less energy lies a few years in the future..

[H Ifang]

As for my problem with unwanted touch-events with sleeves and/or when sweating.. (also occurred in the mountains recently as soon as there was some rain and putting on a jacket) - there is one solution: display-lock (or to be precise touch-lock).

With the Bubble-app, you can have such a function (even if the app is quite huge / lots of functionality, nothing else of which I use): a long press on the main button locks display, another long press unlocks.
There is such an option in the Bubble config - and another option in advanced config to disable fallback to deactivate the lock by screen (not a good idea I think - but introduced because of the following problem: for a while the Google app, which is on that long-press by default, spoiled everything by putting a dialog in between to choose Google or Bubble - thus making it impossible to deactivate the lock again - but since Google app version 8.4 this is fixed).

Of course, it would be very nice, if Locus Wear app would support some button navigation then (I am sure any app can react to button events - if they exist - the Q Explorist has 3 buttons and the main button can be turned). Like:
- turning button to scroll between dashboard pages or zoom in/out in map view
- button 2 press to switch between map / dashboard
- button 3 to pause or stop/start (long press) in dashboard, jump to own location in map view

And of course I still hope to get some more dashboard values (if not configurable, then predefined) for different situations.

But I see there is not really much traffic here and you probably get the impression the Wear app is not really a very "hot" topic. And indeed: if not for Locus, I have not really a good use for the watch, that would justify the constant need to charge, be connected with phone and phone with mobile network. Thats only for people with lots of communication / notifications.. maybe not the biggest part of Locus users.
Anyways, thanks for maintaining the Wear app at least a bit.

[milan.cejnar]

@H Ifang Hello,
yes we have planned another update for the watch but there are some more important issues right now, so as you say, at least temporarily the wear development has lower priority but we still want to add some features to the wear add-on to make it truly helpful and usable.
I am glad the screen lock function helped you. It should be available by default in the top drop-down system menu, but personally I find it not very comfortable to use. But with wet display I guess there is no other choice then locking the touch.
As for HW button support it should already be implemented. The turning button should actually work exactly as you described. Other buttons function depends on your physical button configuration specific for your device type. Do turning button and other buttons do nothing for you?

[H Ifang]

Oops - seems I not really tested that Sorry! (got the touch-lock usable just shortly before and no occasion for real use yet; yes I also found a lock-function in the standard system settings now, but indeed not very practical).

So yes, turning the button does scroll and zoom - nice. But the other buttons do the same (except some start/pause as it seems in dashboard). I would prefer one button to switch between map and dashboard. And another maybe toggle between current position (in map) and advance a bit in current direction or so - maybe to near the border of the map depending on current zoom level - just an idea. Given this, nearly all functions (except moving map freely) could be used completely touch-less, right?

In the system settings of Explorist, I only find the possibility to put apps to start on the additional buttons. So nothing configurable that could possibly have influence on button use in apps like Locus. The Wear OS itself does not use the buttons very well: turning the main button also scrolls through settings e.g., but nothing can be selected by button. So no button-only use possible there.

[milan.cejnar]

@H Ifang
Switching between screens or screen/menu on button click is a good idea. Moving the map forward on button click is a little bit more specific. Honestly ideal solution would be to make the buttons configurable, so that's probably something I would like to implement in the future.

[skwal]

app on the phone  and the wear app is running.
i have finished the ride and close the phone app.

it say closed but it continues running  on the phone and gps drains the battery.

when i disconnect the watchbefore i close the app on the phone it is really closed.

possible to fix that?



the rest of the wear app still perfect. not one crash, use it 5 times a week. now with warmer temperature outside i get 10h displaying the map on my sony sw3

[milan.cejnar]

@skwal Hello,
thanks for your feedback about usage and mainly battery life, 10 hours is an excellent result on SW3 I think.

I am not sure that I understand your problem with running app when you close Locus on the phone. Is Wear for Locus Map still running on the watch? Does Locus Map stop running eventually if you turn off Locus Map and then turn off Wear for Locus Map on the watch?
But I can confirm that if you turn off Locus Map on the phone while having Wear for Locus Map opened on the watch then Locus Map will just restart on the background because the watch still requests its services, that is the designed behavior.
Would you like maybe to have some dialog popup in the Locus Map saying that the watch is still connected and whether it should force kill the connection and then terminate Locus Map itself or something like that?