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Auto-on with wrist movement imprecise.

NovemberWhiskey

NovemberWhiskey

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 18, 2009
3,023
1,272
So anyone with a watch (e.g. G-shock) that had the auto light come on when you turn your wrist towards you knows just how maddening the system can be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes even the 1 second or 500 millisecond delay can drive you crazy. The worst part is you start doing a very precise exaggerated movement to get your watch to work right, and I hate that personally.

No reviews have touched on this, and it is impossible to try out how accurate/precise the apple watch is in the store because all the fitting units are running a demo and not live. The live watches are mounted onto an ipad-like slab.

Well, this review basically cuts to it and shows you that the current version of the watch is going to be inconsistent at best:

https://youtu.be/SaC00homOiA?t=2m

I guess I will have to wait and see how good/bad it is in person.
 
Last edited:
This could be improved with final firmware. Another interesting thing is, and I don't remember whose review said this, but, some reviewer was saying that basically everyone ELSE using the watch had no trouble consistently activating the face with this motion, but, they did.

So, this consistency issue may vary from person to person.

I plan to try it for a while, but, have no real sadness if it doesn't work for me. Lift to talk on iPhone rarely worked for me even though it seemed like a cool feature, I didn't really care. For the watch, if this doesn't work out after a couple weeks, I intend to just disable it and always press the crown. It's already an analog to a habit I have from wearing a watch as it is, which is to adjust the watch and/or clear my sleeve from it with my free hand. My watches are frequently slightly loose and tilt away a bit making them hard to see so a small adjustment is typical. In reality, I've seen many watch wearers share this reach and adjust habit. It'll just include pressing the crown and my use of watches won't be changed in a big way.

For others, I guess, whether this was a critical function... well, it will remain to be seen how big a deal it is. However, I do balk at the term "worst fear" applied to this trivial matter.
 
As a pebble user, I'll absolutely die without shake to wake, lol.

Sounds like a firmware update, good review, but I want to see how it is after the first update.
 
profmatt said:
What is the point of posts like this? Are they supposed to be funny? Clever? Do they make the poster feel so much better than everyone else?
Click to expand...

No harm in posts of any kind I say. If people didn't chat away the forums would be pretty pointless. I don't think every post has to be serious, informative, thought provoking or anything else. So long as it keeps the conversation flowing and isn't offensive it has fulfilled its purpose.
 
NovemberWhiskey said:
Bad news: Worst fear come true
Click to expand...

"Every once in a while it doesn't turn on, and that can be completely maddening"

As far as I can see, this is the limit of his criticism about the function. I'm not sure it really qualifies as a "worst fear" or even as terribly bad news for most people. Maybe if it happened consistently, but it doesn't sound like he's saying that at all. The one time in the video that it doesn't work is when he only lifts his arm slightly and hardly twists his wrist at all.

I'm hoping its a bit like the touch ID on the iPhone - every once in a while it doesn't work, and that can be completely maddening, but because it works the other 99.9% of the time (and the other .1% is usually my fault e.g wet fingers), I'm happy to live with the 'problem'.

I can see what you mean about the exaggerated movement to turn it on though. I think some people will find that a bit annoying to start of with until it becomes second nature.
 
I don't mind if it doesn't work as intended every single time, just another excuse to fondle that shiny wee body :D
 
NovemberWhiskey said:
No reviews have touched on this
Click to expand...

I disagree, a few reviews talked about this. The general consensus is, the Apple Watch is more accurate at knowing when to turn the screen on than any previous smartwatch that did so, and works most of the time. But when it doesn't work, it's really annoying. One review talked about other annoying limitations, such as the short time before auto-shutoff that can't be adjusted in the current version of the OS.
 
TrueBlou said:
I'll say. Some of us have real problems, I for instance have a recurring fear that I wake up and there's no coffee. Oh the horror ;)
Click to expand...

Oh, look on the bright side. Waking up to no coffee is still better than not waking up at all.

The coffee shortage can be fixed. :)
 
I don't know why anyone expects this to work well in the 1st place.
It's always going to be incredibly hit and miss.

Not coming on when you want it to, coming on when you don't want it to.
Until the method is improved it's never going to be much good.

There is no way the watch can know you are looking at it, without eye tracking & I can't see that being a realistic proposition for a long time.
 
NovemberWhiskey said:
So anyone with a watch (e.g. G-shock) that had the auto light come on when you turn your wrist towards you knows just how maddening the system can be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes even the 1 second or 500 millisecond delay can drive you crazy. The worst part is you start doing a very precise exaggerated movement to get your watch to work right, and I hate that personally.

No reviews have touched on this, and it is impossible to try out how accurate/precise the apple watch is in the store because all the fitting units are running a demo and not live. The live watches are mounted onto an ipad-like slab.

Well, this review basically cuts to it and shows you that the current version of the watch is going to be inconsistent at best:

https://youtu.be/SaC00homOiA?t=2m

I guess I will have to wait and see how good/bad it is in person.
Click to expand...

Actually, a few of the reviews discussed this.
 
Just tap the screen if your sitting and your wrist is resting on a desk. It is just as much motion to twist your wrist.

Like others have said, it is impossible for the watch to know exactly when your looking at it, but again should be adjusted in software. Thats the beauty of a software update.

If you resting your arm on your desk, just tap your wrist and problem solved.
 
I'm surprised that it doesn't have a program/app to "teach" it what orientation you'd like to see it light up.

It would be cool if I could teach it that I'd like it to show me the face in certain positions, even if those positions aren't the typical watch view position.

Much like the iPhone orients the compass, you could orient the watch face, then tap it when it's at a point you'd like it to turn on. This could obviously be changed or tuned as you wear it more.
 
I have a g shock and promptly disabled that feature. It would come on all the time. It was distracting. I'll be disabling that feature quickly. I'm ok with pressing a button to see the time. I'm used to it with my g shock.
 
Until I get mine I won't know exactly what I prefer but at the moment I'm thinking there should be two ways to activate for me.

1) If a notification arrives and I move in any way within 5 seconds after arrival it should turn on so I can see the notification.
2) Let me touch the watch. The face or crown or contact button, whatever but otherwise do nothing. I can see if you work with your hands much and its trying to guess all the time what you're doing it will increase the chance of getting it wrong. When I workout I don't want it showing me the time throughout, just when I ask for it and I don't mind it being manual.
 
John Gruber from Daring Fireball had a review unit and thought it worked pretty well.

"This feature, which Apple calls “Activate on Wrist Raise” works pretty damn well. It’s not perfect, alas, but it’s far more accurate than I feared it would be."

Hopefully a firmware update will make it even more accurate. His review also stated that you could turn the “Activate on Wrist Raise” feature off and activate the screen with a screen tap, press of the side button or press of the digital crown.
 
NovemberWhiskey said:
So anyone with a watch (e.g. G-shock) that had the auto light come on when you turn your wrist towards you knows just how maddening the system can be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes even the 1 second or 500 millisecond delay can drive you crazy. The worst part is you start doing a very precise exaggerated movement to get your watch to work right, and I hate that personally.

No reviews have touched on this, and it is impossible to try out how accurate/precise the apple watch is in the store because all the fitting units are running a demo and not live. The live watches are mounted onto an ipad-like slab.

Well, this review basically cuts to it and shows you that the current version of the watch is going to be inconsistent at best:

https://youtu.be/SaC00homOiA?t=2m

I guess I will have to wait and see how good/bad it is in person.
Click to expand...

omg, with that title, I was bracing for the worst, but it's even worse than I imagined... you ruined my day
 
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