Fossil Sport Smartwatch: £62.30

billybonkers wrote: »

It does not work in Ireland on Wear OS

Is this for real? I've had Wear OS phones that have worked for me in the past (usually with a workaround).

The one I ordered for my Mrs has been delivered at PW, so should have it in the next day or two. Will test when I get it.

That's what I thought that someone may have tried the workaround on it yet.
Mines on the way to my PM as well so I should get it tomorrow.

Basil3 wrote: »

Is this for real? I've had Wear OS phones that have worked for me in the past (usually with a workaround).

It works on my Huawei Watch 2... I've been buying all my lunch items throughout the year just using my watch, and was the best thing ever at the pub when you could pay with a handful of beers in your arm, great stuff.

I assumed all watches did it so I guess I can now appreciate the wide-eyes at the checkout when people saw me do it (or maybe they were figuring out how to snap it off my wrist) :pac:

Apart from that, the Huawei Watch was a sluggish tempermental biatch, so this Fossil has vastly improved my Wear OS experience (despite the lower specs!)

I'll be investigating the Xda-developers workaround to get Google Pay working with this in a few weeks, but perhaps someone here wants to do the groundwork first?

BROWNE51

Picked up a Falster 2 from Skagen for £89 last week, only to find GPay is a no go here in Ireland on WearOs. Only reason I bought it as I have a Gear and Samsung Pay is ?.

Easiest way for me is disable wifi on watch, install Gpay whilst running PIA VPN app on my Note 8 and leave it run in the backgroud. Once installed you dont need the phone for Gpay and its as quick, if not quicker, than a card. Updates with transactions on watch after and minimal batter drain on phone (doesnt affect watch). Batter life with my final settings (notifications and Gpay basically) is 24hr so far, only had it a few days. Without Gpay though its just a nice watch.

BROWNE51 wrote: »

Picked up a Falster 2 from Skagen for £89 last week, only to find GPay is a no go here in Ireland on WearOs. Only reason I bought it as I have a Gear and Samsung Pay is ?.

Easiest way for me is disable wifi on watch, install Gpay whilst running PIA VPN app on my Note 8 and leave it run in the backgroud. Once installed you dont need the phone for Gpay and its as quick, if not quicker, than a card. Updates with transactions on watch after and minimal batter drain on phone (doesnt affect watch). Batter life with my final settings (notifications and Gpay basically) is 24hr so far, only had it a few days. Without Gpay though its just a nice watch.

Samsung Pay is only in the UK, not Ireland, AFAIK.

Received the watch today, set it up. Quite slow and laggy, but hopefully it will settle down. There's a definite delay when lifting your wrist to look at the time which is much faster on Tizen devices.

Downloading playlists to the watch on Play Music takes a long time, but I find it speeds up if you disconnect from your phone and let it use Wi-Fi.

listermint

Basil3 wrote: »

Received the watch today, set it up. Quite slow and laggy, but hopefully it will settle down. There's a definite delay when lifting your wrist to look at the time which is much faster on Tizen devices.

Downloading playlists to the watch on Play Music takes a long time, but I find it speeds up if you disconnect from your phone and let it use Wi-Fi.

It would be Bluetooth from the phone so you shouldn't use that. Use wi-fi for the speeds.

listermint wrote: »

It would be Bluetooth from the phone so you shouldn't use that. Use wi-fi for the speeds.

Yup, that's what I just said.

If you're connected to your phone (as most people will be), it will try to transfer over BT.

Been messing with the watch, have a few thoughts....

Device is slow and laggy, but this is just how Android Wear is in my experience. The time it takes for the screen to turn on when looking at your wrist is too slow.
Even though I had the watch set to use watch and phone for location, the distance it recorded for my run this morning is way off (more than 10%). I haven't looked into it, but I'm guessing it used my strides to guesstimate distance rather than using GPS as it should have.
If you want a watch for running, get a Garmin. If you want to check your distance/speed while running, you have to hold your wrist up for what seems like 10 seconds. It takes a few seconds for the screen to turn on, then you have to wait for it to update the stats, which only just happens before the screen goes off again.
Google Pay was on the watch when I got it, but got disabled. I've used Pay Enabler to enable it again, but am now getting the message that Pay isn't available in this location. I didn't have this problem with my last Android Wear device (Ticwatch Pro). Will have to research.
BT audio quality while running was decent. Had the occasional break-up of sound, but generally it was very good. The volume range seems a lot better than other watches I've used.
Haven't had the watch long enough to gauge battery life, but at 7:45am after a half-hour run this morning and messing with Google Pay, I'm already down to 64% after a full charge last night. This is with always-on display set to off.

statto25

If you're in any way tech savvy have a look at putting a custom ROM on the watch. I have a Huawei watch 2 and was seriously thinking about getting a Garmin as it was becoming so laggy and slow. I flashed a custom ROM and it's night and day. It's far faster with little lag.

statto25 wrote: »

If you're in any way tech savvy have a look at putting a custom ROM on the watch. I have a Huawei watch 2 and was seriously thinking about getting a Garmin as it was becoming so laggy and slow. I flashed a custom ROM and it's night and day. It's far faster with little lag.

cool, any links? My Huawei Watch 2 is kinda going unused at the moment so I can afford to hack it a bit.

Did the custom ROM stop Google Pay working?

Basil3 wrote: »

Received the watch today, set it up. Quite slow and laggy, but hopefully it will settle down.

Mine was initially slow and laggy for first day or so and then once all updates were in place it sped up dramatically. If no change, do a factory reset once the latest Wear OS firmware is installed.

I've also limited the number of apps I installed on it, limit to just two beyond the base setup, and I'm sure this helps a lot.

It's smooth as silk now and rotating wrist to activate is fast.

Also be sure to clear cache on your phone's Google app / Wear OS app / Google Play app

greenspurs

Brego888 wrote: »

Interested in an android smartwatch. Can anyone recommend a decent budget alternative to this fossil? Battery life is putting me off.

If you need it for running/jogging etc,

I use this watch. I find it really good. Heartrate, steps, sleep, gps also.
Great price. Garmin 35

https://www.cyclesuperstore.ie/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=104568

Cheaper on Littlewoods.
https://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/garmin-forerunner-35-gps-running-watch-with-wrist-based-heart-rate/1600404464.prd

Down to 5% battery by 8pm. Half hour run in the morning, 20 minute workout this evening. Apart from that, have hardly used it. Not sure how people make it into a second day.

Always on display turned off. Background HR monitoring off.

statto25

mrcheez wrote: »

cool, any links? My Huawei Watch 2 is kinda going unused at the moment so I can afford to hack it a bit.

Did the custom ROM stop Google Pay working?

I don't but there are a few options if you have a google. It did but there was a workaround to get it going again.

Basil3 wrote: »

Down to 5% battery by 8pm. Half hour run in the morning, 20 minute workout this evening. Apart from that, have hardly used it. Not sure how people make it into a second day.

Always on display turned off. Background HR monitoring off.

Do you have Play Music installed?

I found that was slowing my watch performance so I installed Wear Media instead

Try killing all open apps.

My watch is at 25% now and I charged it yesterday plus just came back from 1 HR cycle with GPS

mrcheez wrote: »

Do you have Play Music installed?

I found that was slowing my watch performance so I installed Wear Media instead

Try killing all open apps.

My watch is at 25% now and I charged it yesterday plus just came back from 1 HR cycle with GPS

Yeah, have Play Music, but only showing downloaded music to access my one playlist. The concerning thing is that I don't even think GPS worked for my run, so no idea why drain was so high.

Play Music seems to run a lot of background processing in my experience with it.

What apps have you installed beyond the basic?

Also what watch face? I'm using Essential Digital

mrcheez wrote: »

Play Music seems to run a lot of background processing in my experience with it.

What apps have you installed beyond the basic?

Also what watch face? I'm using Essential Digital

No extra apps. Did install pay and pay enabler, but uninstalled. Also uninstalled Spotify, as I don't use it.

Using the same watch face as you.

Basil3 wrote: »

No extra apps. Did install pay and pay enabler, but uninstalled. Also uninstalled Spotify, as I don't use it.

Using the same watch face as you.

I did a factory restart once I got the latest firmware, also cleared cache on phone for Google and Wear OS apps...

Just installed Wear media and the FTP transfer thingy..
Everything else is native. Turned off touch to activate too.

Just setting mine up now. Any tips for setting it up?

Hellrazer wrote: »

Just setting mine up now. Any tips for setting it up?

Just based on my own experience...

- Set it up as normal... download a few apps / watch faces to try ... identify the ones you want to keep

- Wait until the latest firmware has been installed (you'll know it's there when you scroll right off the home screen and it gives you the option to add more sub-screens). I *think* there's a way to speed this up under Settings -> System -> About -> System updates... or perhaps you might need to wait a day?

- Once you know which apps you want to keep ... wipe the device (Settings -> System -> Disconnect & reset). It retains the firmware, so I assume it's a soft-reset rather than a factory reset.

- On your phone clear cache on Google app, Wear OS app, Play Store app

- Set up your watch again ... install only those few apps you want

- Under Settings -> Gestures, disable Touch-to-Wake, but do activate Tilt-to-Wake. It stops things like water splashes when washing hands activating the device

My recommendation for the watch face is Essential Digital as you can have several icons on the homescreen that summarise everything you want to know without having to touch the screen and waste battery.

Whats the best way to wipe it?

Hellrazer wrote: »

Whats the best way to wipe it?

I wrote that in there

mrcheez wrote: »

I wrote that in there

Thanks.Its downloading the latest firmware now.
Whats the wear media app you mentioned earlier?
Sounds a lot better than google music.

Hellrazer wrote: »

Thanks.Its downloading the latest firmware now.
Whats the wear media app you mentioned earlier?
Sounds a lot better than google music.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=qubin.de.wearmedia&hl=en_IE

and you can transfer mp3s directly onto the watch using

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.turndapage.navexplorer&hl=en_IE

Just install them through the watch directly. Nav Explorer is a bit confusing to use initially, but the ftp process works very well once it's setup.

I'm not sure if Music Player for Wear works with downloaded playlists, but I'm mainly just uploading several mp3s to the watch directly.

Done all setup now. Couple of things I did was enable developer mode and turn all the animations off - much faster UI altogether.
Definitely recommend doing this.

Also tried this

https://technologypenguin.com/2019/05/28/fossil-sport-double-battery-life-with-one-setting/

Apparently always on is more efficient than tilt / tap to wake.

Charging now to 100% - lost about 30% - 40% setting it up which isn't unexpected with all the BT and wifi transfers.

Ill see how it goes.