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4 years on and the watch faces still suck.

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Mr.Blacky said:
"You can make that 46 mm smartwatch look like a high-end mechanical watch..." - Nice joke! 😆😆 You can make it look like a cheap looking wanna-be mechanical watch, but nothing more.
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Yet someone else who has never owned one and has no idea what they are talking about. While it will never be as good looking as a mechanical because at the end of the day it's still a flat small display, it's not even close to cheap looking if done correctly. I made a Rolex face when I had to sell my GMT (long story) and wore it when buying my Carrera. The sales man saw it and said he knew TAG made a smartwatch but didn't know Rolex did.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion so you have a great night.
 

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bp328i said:
Yet someone else who has never owned one and has no idea what they are talking about. While it will never be as good looking as a mechanical because at the end of the day it's still a flat small display, it's not even close to cheap looking if done correctly. I made a Rolex face when I had to sell my GMT (long story) and wore it when buying my Carrera. The sales man saw it and said he knew TAG made a smartwatch but didn't know Rolex did.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion so you have a great night.
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Like I said: Cheap looking wanna-be mechanic watch.
But maybe you can fool someone from very far away or if the person is half blind. 🤷‍♂️
 
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I simply don't really get it. Some people say that they wouldn't like to look at it. Okay, you don't want to use it. We understand. Recognize that many of us do. What's wrong with the choice? Why be anti-choice?

They are missing an opportunity by not having a watch face store with many more choices. They willingly hand an advantage to other manufacturers.
 
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IMO .... Two of AW's short comings is lack of watch faces (from Apple or 3rd party), and native auto sleep detection.

It's the one area where Samsung watches outshines the AW. And since AW now has AOD, more/better or 3rd party watch faces is really needed.

But I highly doubt Apple will care much. The AW is the only smartwatch that works well and is 100% functional with the iPhone.
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Mr.Blacky said:
"You can make that 46 mm smartwatch look like a high-end mechanical watch..." - Nice joke! 😆😆 You can make it look like a cheap looking wanna-be mechanical watch, but nothing more.
Click to expand...

This is not true. AOD makes watch faces look realistic. And many watch faces have amazing AOD faces.
 
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LIVEFRMNYC said:
IMO .... Two of AW's short comings is lack of watch faces (from Apple or 3rd party), and native auto sleep detection.

It's the one area where Samsung watches outshines the AW. And since AW now has AOD, more/better or 3rd party watch faces is really needed.

But I highly doubt Apple will care much. The AW is the only smartwatch that works well and is 100% functional with the iPhone.
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This is not true. AOD makes watch faces look realistic. And many watch faces have amazing AOD faces.
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THIS....100%
 
LIVEFRMNYC said:
IMO .... Two of AW's short comings is lack of watch faces (from Apple or 3rd party), and native auto sleep detection.

It's the one area where Samsung watches outshines the AW. And since AW now has AOD, more/better or 3rd party watch faces is really needed.

But I highly doubt Apple will care much. The AW is the only smartwatch that works well and is 100% functional with the iPhone.
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This is not true. AOD makes watch faces look realistic. And many watch faces have amazing AOD faces.
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I'm not sure, what an AOD has to do with this?
 
Mr.Blacky said:
I'm not sure, what an AOD has to do with this?
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It has plenty to do with it. The AOD side of watch faces can be very realistic (depending on actually watch face). To the point where people don't realize it's a smartwatch. You need to experience it to understand.
 
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LIVEFRMNYC said:
It has plenty to do with it. The AOD side of watch faces can be very realistic (depending on actually watch face). To the point where people don't realize it's a smartwatch. You need to experience it to understand.
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But why does it matter whether or not people realise it’s a smartwatch? I wear whichever watch pleases me (or none) and couldn’t care less what other people might think or judge.
 
While the idea of realistic (read: skeuomorphic) faces has interested me, the functional shortcomings of Android Wear as well as my more recent Galaxy Watches didn't make up for the trade-off. My Active didn't accurately track sleep-If i went to bed and woke up two hours later to use the bathroom, and went back to bed and slept 7 more hours, my watch would show TWO sleep records, one for two and one for seven. That alone would mess up any chances of tracking it accurately and counted against any achievements in Samsung Health. (they do have achievements similar to AW)

Also the heart rate sensors in the Galaxy and Wear OS devices aren't the best at all. hardly even remotely good. Steps are counted wrong, exercise data is off by a mile or two, etc. Then there's the unfixed bugs I've had regarding Samsung Pay (Stay connected to phone error even with my phone next to me connected, forcing a remove and re-add of my card every five purchases) as well as Bluetooth (had to manually reconnect both my Gear S3 Classic and Watch Active to my S8 often even though my phone was near me the whole time--watch kept showing 'standalone' in the status--remote connection was completely broken. Gave it three generations of watches to fix, the S2, Gear S3, and Galaxy Watch Active. It's still bugged. Tried other phones too. No fix.

There's also no native Maps in the Galaxy Watches for hands-free navigation in a car. You can install some third party option but it's very buggy. There is some sort of maps but it's designed for walking not driving. Android Wear OS did have convenient turn by turn on their watches but that was broken during Wear 2.x. Now it acts like it is working then says 'Couldn't start Navigation' forcing me to pull my phone out and use it instead. Apple Watch "hey siri find me a nearby hotel" and it 'just works' for lack of better terms.
 
Lyn2012 said:
But why does it matter whether or not people realise it’s a smartwatch? I wear whichever watch pleases me (or none) and couldn’t care less what other people might think or judge.
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It doesn't matter. It's just that, if others feel like that way, you the wearer would too. ;)




nickdalzell1 said:
While the idea of realistic (read: skeuomorphic) faces has interested me, the functional shortcomings of Android Wear as well as my more recent Galaxy Watches didn't make up for the trade-off. My Active didn't accurately track sleep-If i went to bed and woke up two hours later to use the bathroom, and went back to bed and slept 7 more hours, my watch would show TWO sleep records, one for two and one for seven. That alone would mess up any chances of tracking it accurately and counted against any achievements in Samsung Health. (they do have achievements similar to AW)

Also the heart rate sensors in the Galaxy and Wear OS devices aren't the best at all. hardly even remotely good. Steps are counted wrong, exercise data is off by a mile or two, etc. Then there's the unfixed bugs I've had regarding Samsung Pay (Stay connected to phone error even with my phone next to me connected, forcing a remove and re-add of my card every five purchases) as well as Bluetooth (had to manually reconnect both my Gear S3 Classic and Watch Active to my S8 often even though my phone was near me the whole time--watch kept showing 'standalone' in the status--remote connection was completely broken. Gave it three generations of watches to fix, the S2, Gear S3, and Galaxy Watch Active. It's still bugged. Tried other phones too. No fix.
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I never had those experiences you speak of. I even wore my AW5 and my Gear S3 Frontier at the same time on differ arms to test, and the Heart Rate was only 3 beats differ on average, and 5 beats differ on average while working out. The native sleep tracker on the Samsung watch is the best at detecting sleep, but I never experienced a perfect sleep tracker on both platforms when it comes to the details (using third party sleep apps).

nickdalzell1 said:
There's also no native Maps in the Galaxy Watches for hands-free navigation in a car. You can install some third party option but it's very buggy. There is some sort of maps but it's designed for walking not driving. Android Wear OS did have convenient turn by turn on their watches but that was broken during Wear 2.x. Now it acts like it is working then says 'Couldn't start Navigation' forcing me to pull my phone out and use it instead. Apple Watch "hey siri find me a nearby hotel" and it 'just works' for lack of better terms.
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Yea, I agree. Samsung Tizen lack of integrated apps is severe. The OS itself is rock solid, but the third party apps that try to make up for Tizen's lack of native apps are pure garbage. And Android Wear I won't even consider, that platform is just a complete mess.

The only third party app that's better on a Samsung watch, is Spotify. Spotify did a damn good job with that. Especially with offline playlists.
 
LIVEFRMNYC said:
It has plenty to do with it. The AOD side of watch faces can be very realistic (depending on actually watch face). To the point where people don't realize it's a smartwatch. You need to experience it to understand.
Click to expand...

On the GMT face I made from sunrise till sunset the AOD face would just darken slightly and then from sunset till sunrise the AOD would be the luminescent accents. Double Tap on any of the hour markers to set a shortcuts to any app then just a single tap would open the app you assigned. Tap on the date and it would open your calendar. So many options, basically if you could think it and knew what you were doing with programming you could make it work.

LIVEFRMNYC said:
I never had those experiences you speak of. I even wore my AW5 and my Gear S3 Frontier at the same time on differ arms to test, and the Heart Rate was only 3 beats differ on average, and 5 beats differ on average while working out. The native sleep tracker on the Samsung watch is the best at detecting sleep, but I never experienced a perfect sleep tracker on both platforms when it comes to the details (using third party sleep apps).
Click to expand...

I agree, I never have any problems with the Galaxy Watch 46 mm and when I first got my AW also wore them both while running. In my case my AW was actually over in distance by half a mile on my normal 3 mile run until I calibrated it, which was something I never needed to do with my Galaxy.


LIVEFRMNYC said:
Yea, I agree. Samsung Tizen lack of integrated apps is severe. The OS itself is rock solid, but the third party apps that try to make up for Tizen's lack of native apps are pure garbage. And Android Wear I won't even consider, that platform is just a complete mess.

The only third party app that's better on a Samsung watch, is Spotify. Spotify did a damn good job with that. Especially with offline playlists.
Click to expand...

As a runner, another third party app that's better on the Samsung is Map My Run by Under Armor. When I first started using the AW Map My Run would not work without taking your phone (that has recently been fixed) and the Tizen version just has a lot more options built in.

At the end of the day the Apple Watch is a better smartwatch but there is a lot of room for improvement in the face category.
 
Spotify requires a paid subscription to even function on Samsung watches unless that's changed recently. It wouldn't do a thing without it on my Active.

Now there was a great app that integrated well with the Gear S2 before Samsung pulled its plug. It was badly named but was perfectly functional and integrated with S-voice (back when it actually worked). Milk Music. I loved the dial interface on the phone as well--it was a flat designed app but the 'dial' 'tuned' stations much like an analog one and I found that quite fun to use. That app worked via Slacker's front end (LiveXLive today) so techinically there shouldn't have been a way for Samsung to kill it without blocking Slacker itself but hey, they managed somehow. A shame I loved that app and there's no replacement for it.

Those Tizen shortcomings were some of the functional reasons I prefer my Apple Watch though. Even if you don't deal with the connection failures or Samsung Pay errors, the lack of in-built and quality third party alternatives really brings it down. Also, if you pair a Samsung watch to a non-Samsung phone the experience is gimped even further--forget SMS messaging or phone calls. Those apps just vanish from the watch completely.
 
nickdalzell1 said:
Also, if you pair a Samsung watch to a non-Samsung phone the experience is gimped even further--forget SMS messaging or phone calls. Those apps just vanish from the watch completely.
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How long has it been since you used a Samsung watch, or maybe the one you use is not on their latest OS? I used the Galaxy Watch 46 mm with my OnePlus 7 Pro with no issues at all, including messaging and phone calls. Yes using it with my Note 10+ is a better experience but nothing didn't work with my 7 Pro.
 
bp328i said:
Yet someone else who has never owned one and has no idea what they are talking about. While it will never be as good looking as a mechanical because at the end of the day it's still a flat small display, it's not even close to cheap looking if done correctly. I made a Rolex face when I had to sell my GMT (long story) and wore it when buying my Carrera. The sales man saw it and said he knew TAG made a smartwatch but didn't know Rolex did.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion so you have a great night.
Click to expand...

That is actually pretty good. The issue really is resolution.

Apple will keep upping the resolution as battery tech improves, and at some point they'll produce a screen which has a more 3D effect to it. Those two together will give us beautiful, always on, classic looking watch faces, that appear realistic, perhaps even up close.

Maybe they'll do limited edition round versions at that time at some ungodly price.

Personally I think they'll be d-riding health features for a few years yet at least, so I don't see ultra-realistic screens and a renewed focus on presentation coming to AW anytime soon. Sales show that people don't really care about the fact they've for tacky looking square bubble watches on their wrist - people are hooked on having the latest tech and will continue to buy in and upgrade regardless. They probably don't even think their Apple Watches are tacky. Many people probably even find their silicone banded silver alu square bezels attractive. To each their own and all that.

Even at the higher end, guys are shunning status watches to appear more grounded and utilitarian. I've talked about this before on MR - there's guys in £100k finance jobs, wearing cheap watches, because they're worried about displaying wealth. You always had guys like that, but now it's increasingly common.
 
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mcdj said:
Nevermind that 3rd party faces are still verboten, Apple’s faces are stagnant at best and crap at worst.

Liquid metal looks like trays of gelato.

Vapor? More like smog.

Solar dial? Visual train wreck.

Toy Story is such an obvious bureaucratic committee idea.

The rest of the dials are either tired or so cluttered as to be all but useless. And when you turn off the elements that make the face look cluttered, the design looks like it’s missing chunks.

Back in the early 2000s I worked on the design team behind the short lived Microsoft SPOT watch. It was ahead of its time by a decade. But it got some things kinda right, mainly due to the mandate from the design directors that the watch and its faces have maximum “glanceability” as much as possible.

This meant clean designs with bold numbers and the bare essentials in terms of data.

Apple could really use a few pages from SPOT’s book.

But more than anything, the lack of custom/3rd party faces is a completely missed opportunity.
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Looks like you habe to much time. I’m with Apple Watch from Series 0 with the original green sportsband being my favorite still.
Choice-like, it’s getting better every iteration and as apple still blocks third parties those are not boring to me. I have 3 to 5 watchfaces with Siri (work) or Sun Dial (morning) and Inforaph (every other time) being my favorites. I do not switch Watch faces often or get bored easily by them. A store where you can buy fake „high price brand“ watchfaces would destroy the brand on both sides so you will not get them.
 
bp328i said:
How long has it been since you used a Samsung watch, or maybe the one you use is not on their latest OS? I used the Galaxy Watch 46 mm with my OnePlus 7 Pro with no issues at all, including messaging and phone calls. Yes using it with my Note 10+ is a better experience but nothing didn't work with my 7 Pro.
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Paired my Galaxy Watch Active to a Moto G7 Power, my most recent Android phone, and the SMS app is just gone in the apps list of the watch. You can reply to a notification or read notifications but no full access to SMS on the watch itself. Many apps go missing unless you pair it to a Samsung phone. Same watch will indeed allow you to do full SMS from the watch if paired to either my Galaxy Note 2 or my J3 Orbit.

Both email and messaging are missing on the watch if paired to any Non-Samsung phone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyWatch/comments/ebbu6d

https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyWatch/comments/dd725z
 
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My main dial is Astronomy (earth) with Date up top & the Weather on the bottom and love it!
I use the California dial in blue as my dress watch face with Day/Date up top and a second time zone on the bottom.
I've also configured 2 other dials, one for Fitness, the other for Info.

I'm satisfied with the dials provided by Apple.

I also own a Glashutte Original SeaQ. It has only one none configurable face. :( (stock photo)

10 Gasfjitte ORIGINAL 2'.jpeg
 
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I'm quite partial to the Meridian face, just the right amount of complications to not be too busy yet remain functional and have a proper watch aesthetic
 
mcdj said:
Here are a few I’d love to see View attachment 883694
View attachment 883695
View attachment 883696
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The current AW faces could be better but these here are some cheap-a** Android looking faces.
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MisterSavage said:
Why can't I have a watch face like Infograph Modular where there's a large, digital time with seconds in the center and complications on top/bottom? Why are there Disney watch faces but we can't get (or buy) watch faces with other Disney properties such as Star Wars?
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Interesting ideas, I'd like to see such faces too. Hopefully we'll get more diversity by WatchOS 7 but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
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