I'd also like the ability to switch this off - One thing I wonder is whether theatre mode will blank the screen (I always put my current phone into theatre mode and DND when I go to bed).
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Always-On
- Thread starter Brien
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Yeah, hopefully they are "in the background" and only show up if the watch thinks you're trying to look at it, like it does today.
According to the Engadget hands-on, you can turn it off.
Yep. See https://support.apple.com/kb/SP778?locale=en_US
Now does it have the *same* screen and driver? I suspect not.
Apple probably won’t allow third-party development, I could see them having more of a ‘studio’ of their own watch faces for the user to choose from, similar to what they’re doing now with the watchband combinations. Apple likes to have complete control over the Apple Watch, and I’m not really seeing any leeway here where they would allow third-party developers to have complete access to watchOS kit.
There is only one thing that may prevent it from making it possible on AW4. Apple wants to sell AW5.
I don't need always on screen.
You know, I was thinking about this. Other than better battery life I'm not sure where they take the watch hardware wise. Maybe more health sensors?
I seem to remember there was mention of changed refresh rate hardware, or something else, that was different. I may be wrong.
Time will tell, I am sure somebody will dig into it.
The hands-on video I saw shows the watch face being dimmed as you lay it down on the table, and brightens up to the actual watch face with all complications when you pick it up.
I hope that there is an option to turn off always on when I need to conserve battery.
Unless I forget, I use theatre mode at bedtime so there is no light in my eyes at bedtime. It would be nice during the day in those times you have to tap it to see it.
What are they going to see?
Notifications details don't have to display on the screen as they arrive. You can control Notification setting using your Watch app on your iPhone.
Note: Notification Privacy setting.
Dave
Uh no.
The display and display controller are different. Apple is running the dim display at 1 Hz. And if you can change the frequency of a display with software link me to a driver that will let my monitor run at 240 Hz.
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Google 'how to change refresh rate of your computer monitor from settings' if you don't know how.
We are talking about lowering the rate on the watch. Not raising it.
Ok, so how does one solve the "out of range" issue when trying to set the monitor to 1 Hz?
It will be interesting to see what the battery life is like on the AW5 when you turn off the always-on display. Would be nice to have it push into the 24+ hour range. I don’t need to have an always-on display - heck even on my Seiko automatic, I’m not looking at my watch all the time, so not sure why you need to have your AW showing the time, all the time. This is especially true when I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt or jacket where the watch will mostly be covered up anyway.
It’s actually the biggest thing I notice when going back to a mechanical or G-Shock. I don’t have to flip my wrist (sometimes more than once) or touch the watch to read the time.
great! that will be the first thing I do
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glucose monitor is the next thing
It seems to me this is a complete unknown. Nothing like this technology anywhere.
Point is, we shall see. Burn in is the first thing that comes to mind. Then there's those pulse sensitive people, but that's with a phone. Nevertheless, staring at a tiny, dim, 1hz screen should be interesting.
Point is, we shall see. Burn in is the first thing that comes to mind. Then there's those pulse sensitive people, but that's with a phone. Nevertheless, staring at a tiny, dim, 1hz screen should be interesting.
I wonder if this means that apps can finally run in the background, albeit very slowly.
It depends on what you mean with "this" and "like this". If you're talking about variable refresh rates then those have existed for a while now. G-Sync, Freesync and ProMotion are all variable refresh rate technologies - their intended use simply happens to be with higher refresh rates rather than 1-60 as with the S5.
E-ink is also variable refresh rate, but it fluctuates between zero and sub-ten hertz depending on the tech involved.
With the lower brightness, modern OLED technology and assuming normal countermeasures in watchOS, burn-in shouldn't be any bigger an issue than with a S4.
Sensitivity to Pulse-Width Modulation is a real thing, but this S5 feature is not comparable to that. Back in the CRT days having a low refresh rate such as 30 could easily give you a headache, because CRTs were literally beaming alternating blank and filled frames at you. The flickering was irritating.
TFTs and OLEDs don't use this "blanking interval" and therefore there's no flickering - you're always seeing a filled image. What happens instead with low refresh rates is that on-screen motion becomes jumpy. This is why AW watch faces will hide the second hand when entering the always-on mode on the S5 - normally that hand glides along smoothly, but at 1 hertz such motion would be impossible to achieve.
PWM sensitivity in this case would have to do with screen brightness, which is separate from how often the contents of the screen are refreshed. I don't know how S4 controls its screen brightness, or how it might have been changed in S5. But that's not tied to the new always-on screen / driver tech.
Not because of the move to an always-on screen, and probably not in spite of it because it would consume yet more energy. If anything, I imagine Apple has done all it can to make sure the S5 consumes as little power as possible while in the always-on mode so that it doesn't compromise battery life. I doubt they have achieved the same 18-hour battery life claim simply by adding a bigger battery.
Since, due to the always-on screen, I plan on turning off raise to wake, I'm wondering if my battery life could actually improve. The large majority of my current "wakes" happen because I want to simply check my home screen for new notifications.