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Apps Thermo Watch - control your Nest Thermostat

Maybe I'm missing something and I can already do this and I just don't know how... but can we have the option to not use voice as default? When I want to change the temperature, I always have to hit cancel and wait for it to cancel out before I can change the temp. If I'm in the middle of watching TV or a movie I prefer to just use the little knob to change the temp vs talking to my watch! :)
 
Marconelly said:
I've just released 2.1 version. The main improvement is the addition of a button dedicated to Away state toggle. ericg301 should be happy about this :)

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Other than that, I fixed a bug where the widget, upon opening, would sometimes be blank for a second or two, and then appear. So now it's possible to start adjusting right as the notification center opens, under all circumstances, as advertised.
Another bug was that the setting for the small modular complication display type would be ignored, and it would reset back to showing the target temperature. While this is now fixed, you may need to go to watch / app settings, unselect the wanted option, and then re-select it, after installing this update, so that the setting would stick. Sorry about this.
Lastly, I've ironed out a few UI rendering quirks, like the one you can see on gwhizkids's screenshot above, where the line cuts straight through the text.

For the next release, my plan is to add the HVAC mode selection to the widget, but I'm listening to any ideas, as usual.
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so very happy. nice job!
 
caligurl said:
Maybe I'm missing something and I can already do this and I just don't know how... but can we have the option to not use voice as default? When I want to change the temperature, I always have to hit cancel and wait for it to cancel out before I can change the temp. If I'm in the middle of watching TV or a movie I prefer to just use the little knob to change the temp vs talking to my watch! :)
Click to expand...
Oh yes - the no voice should in fact be the default. If you have changed it in the settings, just open the Watch app on your iPhone, find the Thermo Watch in the list of the installed apps, and unselect the "Complication -> Voice Input" option. Then, when you open the app the next time, the setting will apply, so activating the app through the Complication should no longer bring up the voice input pane.
 
Marconelly said:
Oh yes - the no voice should in fact be the default. If you have changed it in the settings, just open the Watch app on your iPhone, find the Thermo Watch in the list of the installed apps, and unselect the "Complication -> Voice Input" option. Then, when you open the app the next time, the setting will apply, so activating the app through the Complication should no longer bring up the voice input pane.
Click to expand...


Well that was easy peasy! I must have set it up that way initially thinking that I'd like voice best... whereas in real world I found out the little knob was best for me! :)
 
gwhizkids said:
I will...as soon as I can get past this. ;)

View attachment 647654
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Good news for you and anyone else experiencing the "Too many calls too quickly" problem - I've found out what the issue is and submitted a fix. It should be released in a few days given that the review process is very quick nowadays. The issue lies in a bug in watchOS3 where the complication background updates start happening uncontrollably quickly, which in the case of this app exceeds the access rate of the Nest service.
 
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The 2.4 update is out since yesterday, and that will resolve the "Too many calls" problem.

However, today I have noticed another problem related to watchOS3. Having the Thermo Watch complication enabled on the watch face seems to result in a gradual degradation of the app performance. This is happening very slowly and gradually, and is only really noticeable after 48 hours or so, which is why I didn't catch it in testing, as I kept installing new builds of the app. This again seems to be due to some bug in watchOS3, as there are many developers complaining about issues related to complication updates. I will try to schedule the background complication updates in a different way, and see it that helps. While I investigate, I can only offer two band-aid suggestions right now:

- Disable the complication, and keep the app in the dock. You'll still be able to get to it quickly, and in my testing, when this is done, the performance degradation no longer happens.
- Quit and then restart the app after about two days of running. This can be done by having the app active, pressing and holding the side/dock button, and when the sliders appear, pressing and holding the crown button. Then after about 30 seconds, restart the app.
 
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Awesome app. Got my first AW on launch day, (Series 2 SS) and this was an automatic day 1 purchase for me, like Apple: "it just works".

For once, I'm looking forward to the cold weather so I can play with this app.

I would buy at twice the price.
 
Just purchased it yesterday. Like the widget on my phone as well. Wife will be happy when her apple watch gets here. She can turn down the temp and I can adjust it back :D
 
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YatBob said:
Seem to be having a gradual degradation of the app performance while in the dock.
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Yes, this is happening, but I believe I've dealt with it in a new build that I've submitted to Apple for a review. It should be released in a few days.

I've tracked the reason for this to be the small images I've used on several types of complications. Assigning these images and changing them over the time appears to cause a small, but gradual memory leak and performance loss in the app. I am almost completely sure this is not due to anything I've done wrong, but rather a problem in watchOS3. For the time being, I've replaced these complication mini images with text that conveys the same information.
 
A few words about the next update. When I wrote a week ago that I've found out the cause for the performance degradation issue, I've already submitted the update for a review.

A day later, I've realized that I didn't solve the problem, and cancelled a review. The issue does lie 100% in the complication update that is being performed very frequently in this app, but the solution is not to remove the small images. I've been on this day and night for the past week testing everything that I could think of, and unfortunately, I think the real solution for this can only come from Apple, as I can see this performance degradation problem building on even when I keep updating the complication with literally nothing, using the complication code template auto-generated by Xcode. It only happens at a slightly slower rate in that case.

For the time being, in the new version of the update I've just submitted, I've implemented checks so that the complication redraws only if the data has changed since the last update. This will slow down the progression of the degradation, maybe even slow it a lot for some people who don't have frequent thermostat status changes, but won't fully resolve it.

Now that I'm confident what exactly is causing this, I've asked a question on Apple's dev forum, so hopefully if I'm missing something obvious, someone will point it out. But right now, this seems like a WatchOS problem, that I won't be able to fully circumvent.
 
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I've updated the app twice now. Version 2.6 has the Fan control from the widget, and the watch app has the watchOS3 specific improvement where it will show the latest retrieved state in the dock app preview. I've also taken measures to minimize the impact of the performance degradation due to complication updates, so at this point I think it will be largely unnoticeable to any user.

Something to point out about the dock app preview update. There are two ways to do this in watchOS3:
- Update the data in the background, then update the UI and the complication, then make a snapshot for the dock preview. With this approach the dock preview will match the last retrieved data the very moment you open the dock, even before you slide to the app.
- Update the data in the background, update the complication, store the last retrieved data but don't update the app UI. With this approach, the dock preview will be update when you slide to the app, much like Activity app does.

I have tested both approaches extensively, and chose to go with the 2nd approach, the main reason for this being that with the 2nd approach, the periodic background updates happen much more frequently (as long as you keep the complication on the watch face). With 1st approach, the periodic updates happen less predictably, and at 2-3x longer intervals compared to 2nd approach. I think that having a complication that shows much more up-to-date information is more important than having quicker app preview in the dock (which will show largely outdated information with 2nd approach, anyway).
 
Nice app. How are you guys doing with this and battery life? Has it affected battery life? I'm leery of installing apps because the watch just seems to sensitive to so many variables and it's hard to pin down what eats up the battery.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Nice app. How are you guys doing with this and battery life? Has it affected battery life? I'm leery of installing apps because the watch just seems to sensitive to so many variables and it's hard to pin down what eats up the battery.
Click to expand...

No issues as far as I can tell. I do wish the Watch had the same ability to track this as the iPhone/iPad do.
 
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spinedoc77 said:
Nice app. How are you guys doing with this and battery life? Has it affected battery life? I'm leery of installing apps because the watch just seems to sensitive to so many variables and it's hard to pin down what eats up the battery.
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I haven't done any formal pre/post battery drain time measurements, but I've had the app's complication installed on the watch face at all times, and I run it several times a day every day to ensure that it's working fine. I haven't noticed any kind of notable extra battery drain. The watch is accessing network periodically for other operations, and the thermo watch network operations are batched together with others at those times, so logically looking, the impact should be minimal.
 
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Just downloaded this and doesn't work with family accounts so is no good for me. How do I get a refund? I don't have an owner account.
 
purpleparrotuk said:
My husband but I want to use it. I have purchased it on my Apple ID.
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Its a great app and very useful. Why not just use your husband's owner login info? I control mine but would not hesitate to share with any family member that wanted to use this app.
 
purpleparrotuk said:
My husband but I want to use it. I have purchased it on my Apple ID.
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The expand on what I sent in the email - I apologize for not communicating this, and I feel bad that it's not possible for me to support the family accounts yet. I'm at the mercy of Nest to allow 3rd party developers access to some of the features they've added recently. They seem to be getting more proactive about this, but there's no timeline for when the family accounts will becomr available to 3rd party developers.

I can issue a refund, but only through paypal, as Apple doesn't have a mechanism in place to support this.

However, I want to point out there are no ill side effects to logging in to this app using an owner account, even on multiple devices. It will not affect any of the Nest functionality that relies on additional family accounts (such as detecting who's at home and who's not) for as long as you remain logged into the main Nest app using your family account.
 
Marconelly said:
The expand on what I sent in the email - I apologize for not communicating this, and I feel bad that it's not possible for me to support the family accounts yet. I'm at the mercy of Nest to allow 3rd party developers access to some of the features they've added recently. They seem to be getting more proactive about this, but there's no timeline for when the family accounts will becomr available to 3rd party developers.

I can issue a refund, but only through paypal, as Apple doesn't have a mechanism in place to support this.

However, I want to point out there are no ill side effects to logging in to this app using an owner account, even on multiple devices. It will not affect any of the Nest functionality that relies on additional family accounts (such as detecting who's at home and who's not) for as long as you remain logged into the main Nest app using your family account.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I have been using the app and don't want a refund :)
Only got the nest installed yesterday so still quite new to me. I like the complication too but I understand there's a small problem with it at the moment, but app looks great.
 
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purpleparrotuk said:
Thanks for the reply. I have been using the app and don't want a refund :)
Only got the nest installed yesterday so still quite new to me. I like the complication too but I understand there's a small problem with it at the moment, but app looks great.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you like it! Don't forget you can also use the notification center widget on your phone. Issues with the complication should for the most part be resolved now. I have found a workaround to make it work, and I'm now discussing with Apple's dev support if the issue can be resolved in a more straightforward way.
 
Version 2.8 is now out and contains two nice new features:
- Time-To-Temperature that Nest recently made available to 3rd party developers is now displayed when the thermostat starts heating or cooling. Both the watch app, and the iOS widget display this descriptive time.
- Eco mode support is added. This allows for setting the thermostat into the power saving mode similar to "Away" but without switching your whole house into away state. Eco mode impacts only the thermostat.

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Important note: To enable the time-to-temperature feature, I had to update the permissions access for this app. What this means in practice is that you will get a badge notification from the Nest's main app, and you will have to open the Nest app, and allow this permission change for Thermo Watch. This is the procedure Nest requires when 3rd party developers want to utilize features previously unavailable to them. If you ignore this, or don't allow the permissions change, the app will continue working just the same, it only won't be displaying the time-to-temperature.

Other than that, this update fixes several small bugs, most notably making the app preview in the dock update fully (previously only the main temperature gauge would update when you scroll to the app in the dock)
 
Having an issue where if I set Away using the watch, then later set to either heat or cool using iPhone or Tstat, the watch will stay set to Away until I manually press End Away on the watch then everything functions as it should. Seems to get stuck in Away mode when Away is set from watch and not ended on watch.
 
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