Samsung Gear/Galaxy Watch add-on feedback and testing

[polos.tibor]

Today, I tried the add-on on a 9 km hiking track with several waypoints, on the following setup:

Samsung Galaxy S9+; Android 8.0.0
Locus Map Pro; run Locus as a service switched on, battery optimization was off, navigation was active on the track
Samsung Galaxy Watch 46mm
Locus Map Pro add-on beta version

First impressions:
- Connection between the telephone and watch was very stable, the watch lost the connection only once but then it reconnected quickly.
- The watch showed the navigation directions (and distance to next waypoint) on top of the map.
- By raising the watch only once, neither the map position nor the navigation directions (and distance to next waypoint) were updated. I usually had to raise the watch 2 or 3 times to update the map position and the  navigation directions. Sometimes it was even not enough, I had to raise the watch several times to get it updated.
- A few times even several raising of the watch could not update. This time tapping on the autocenter button did the job instead and updated both.
- Icon sizes are fine for me.

[milan.cejnar]

Hello guys,
thank you for all your feedback.
The issue with the connection is weird, but I am glad that reinstalling Locus Map has helped, even though I see how this can be very incovenient.
After that I am glad to hear that the connection is pretty stable. The next thing I will focus on is probably the map not updating fast enough after the display is shown, as I have also seen this couple of times.

[Ingo Orland]

(I use Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Locus Map Professional, Gear S3 Frontier and the professional Beta app)
I always see that the map/position is not updated when I look at the watch. (caused me to take the wrong turn a couple of time). The watch display switches off after about 8 seconds which is not enough for the watch to connect and update the map and the latest position.  The display timeout is set to a1minute, but I believe because I use the Wake up gesture the display switches of so quickly. When I now switched off the wake up Gesture, the map and position refreshes in about 12 seconds. So I believe we should not use the watch wake up gesture, but a timeout of at least 30 seconds.
An idea: maybe you could display some kind of message or animation that the map/position is being refreshed.

[Ingo Orland]

Feature Requests:
There are two items (only) that I think could be improved.
1. Map view in tracking mode: When I am in tracking mode I can switch with the bezel between screens/data fields, but I cannot see a map view. I have to go out of the tracking mode (while tracking continues), and go into the map view and then back. This is quiet cumbersome. Could you display a map view also in tracking mode?
2. Elevation Profile: My use case with Locus Map and the watch app, is the following: I plan a route with the phone app and then I follow the route during the actual hike using the watch app. What I would like to see is the current and planned elevation profile in the tracking mode (with possible zoom in using the bezel). This way I can easily the climbs ahead...

(I use Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Locus Map Professional, Gear S3 Frontier and the professional Beta app)

[jpservices01]

Hi All:

I agree with Info Orland: a simple swipe in tracking mode should bring you to the map. A back button should bring you back to tracking screens if naturally a swipe cannot be differentiated with a drag of the map center. Or maybe in this mode the map should remain centred to the actually position and only the zoom with the bezel active... The swipe would bring you back to the other tracking mode displays.

Anyhow. Great job with this first version

[jpservices01]

Hi All:

Took my Samsung Galaxy S Tab Android 6.0 and a Gear S2 and a Galaxy A3 8.0 and a Gear S3 for different hikes in the past days. Works like a charm. Thanks to Milan Cerjnar & co. This add on makes Locus even more great than ever.

[big]

Hi,

I would like to test as well, but I don't want to reinstall Locus on my phone.
Is there another way to come across the "... Please initialize Locus on the phone first..." problem?

Thanks!

Gesendet von meinem SM-N930F mit Tapatalk

[milan.cejnar]

@big Hi,
yes there is actually. If you see any communication warning right from the start and the watch seems to be connected properly otherwise, then you can try to either

1) Reinstall Locus Map on your phone or
2) On your phone go to system Settings > Applications > Samsung Accessory Service and clear the data&cache for this Samsung application.

I recommend to run Galaxy Wearable application after attempting the second method to make sure the watch got reconnected properly after clearing the data of Samsung Accessory Service app.


Regarding the map in the track recording dashboard, the map has actually already been a part of the track recording dashboard in the very first prototype. But we made the screen separate so that the swipe/rotate input could be used to zoom and pan. I could add the map to the dashboard with software zoom buttons and disabled panning and would not distrupt the dashboard control but I fear it might be confusing to have two map displays with a different behaviour.

[big]

Thanks Milan! The second method works! All good so far!
Will continue testing...
Cheers big.

Gesendet von meinem SM-N930F mit Tapatalk

[JoinMA]

Hi!
yesterday I recieved a Galaxy Watch, and now beta link say me that is closed in Samsung apps, its possible to send me this addon, I'm very interested, I ve Locus Maps Pro,

thanks in advance,

[milan.cejnar]

@JoinMA
Hi,
the original beta is indeed closed, please install Locus Map Pro Watch add-on normally through Galaxy Apps on your watch.
I also recommend clearing cache of Samsung Accessory Service on your phone with LM Pro add-on.

[slarti76]

I was so far on the fence about Smartwatches, missing the real killer application, especially on Tizen - to me, the Samsung devices always seemed to have the best hardware and now with Gear S3 and Galaxy Watch also the best looks.
Now with Locus for Tizen, that killer application might have come. But I have a few questions left, perhaps somebody can answer those?

• What are the differences between Tizen and Android Wear add-ons? The Wear add-on is older, so does it also have more features?
• Are database points and tracks shown on the map, too? Can I tap on points for further information? Or is it just a static map image?
• Can I connect the watch to different phones, and if so, is this also no problem for Locus? Admittedly, this is more a general question, but I could also imagine that the watch app stores available recording profiles, which might differ on different phones.

Thanx for your help !

[milan.cejnar]

@slarti76 Hello,
thank you for your interest in the Locus Map Watch add-on for Samsung and interesting questions.

- The Wear OS and Tizen add-ons are very similar, almost identical in fact. There are some changes to the UI layout and in the Tizen add-on it is not currently possible to name custom waypoint during track recording (default naming is used). The main difference now is probably a missing HR sensor support, which should basically work in Wear OS, but at the moment there is no support to synchronize HR data from Samsung watch to Locus Map during track recording. This is something we would like to add rather sooner than later but we haven't really explored this function yet.

- You should see roughly the same rendered map as on the phone, but as you say, the image is pretty much static, there is currently no way to interact with any map items.

- Pairing your watch with different phone pretty much equals factory reset so it is not something you would probably normally do everyday. But otherwise it is perfectly possible and there should be no problem.

Best regards
Milan

[slarti76]

@milan:
Thx a lot for your answer. Unfortunately, that pretty much disqualifies more or less any Tizen watch for me. I have a phone for everyday, one for mountain sports, and one for travels. While a reset would perhaps be just about acceptable for a longer holiday, it certainly isn't for a weekend hike.
In case anyone's interested: With Android Wear, it's at least possible to switch phones without factory reset: https://www.xda-developers.com/pair-android-wear-without-factory-reset
I can only hope that Samsung realizes sometime in the future that that's a good thing...
Well, now I'll check for Android Wear watches...

[JohnCNA]

@milan:
Thx a lot for your answer. Unfortunately, that pretty much disqualifies more or less any Tizen watch for me. I have a phone for everyday, one for mountain sports, and one for travels. While a reset would perhaps be just about acceptable for a longer holiday, it certainly isn't for a weekend hike.
In case anyone's interested: With Android Wear, it's at least possible to switch phones without factory reset: https://www.xda-developers.com/pair-android-wear-without-factory-reset
I can only hope that Samsung realizes sometime in the future that that's a good thing...
Well, now I'll check for Android Wear watches...

Having upgraded my Samsung phone to a newer model, I was indeed annoyed when I paired the Galaxy watch to my new phone. Yes, it completely wiped all the apps and settings on the watch just to pair to a different phone. It was easy to restore everything from the auto backups, but it was annoying nonetheless. I can see why they do it that way for security reasons, such as if the watch was stolen. That would be a nightmare to deal with if you had multiple phones to use it with and wanted to periodically switch phones back and forth.