New smartwatch, Sleep as Android is the deciding factor

#1

Hello all,

I’m about to get a new smartwatch, coming from the aging LG Urbane 2, and one of the most important features for me is SaA compatibility. I do prefer Wear OS solution, because of the fact that I don’t have to use any third party apps, and for Google Fit integration, so I’m not looking at Galaxy, Fitbit, Xiaomi watches and bands.

I have read the support subpage, stating that all Wear OS smartwatches are supported, but I’m interested in complete compatibility. For example I remember reading (a few months ago) that even though some TicWatch models were supported, SaA wasn’t able to pull HR data from them. Is that still the case?

For now I’ve bookmarked two models, the Ticwatch S2, and the Fossil Q Explorist HR, and I’m also considering the Ticwatch Pro series (Pro 2020 or the 4G/LTE version). Can anyone confirm that SaA is working flawlessly (HR and all) on those models?

Thank you!

#2

I switched to the new TicWatch Pro 3 GPS when it came out a few weeks ago. Works like a charm with considerably longer battery life than on previous WearOS models.
SAA has full access to the sensor data of the watch, including SpO2 data. Can definitely recommend.

1 Like
#3

Hello guys, after using my great Pebble Time for so long I also switched to TicWatch Pro 3 recently… first I got a broken watch - after 5 days of use it got stack in low battery mode and sensors stopped working, but replacement was without issues… I did also made SPO2 and HRV working with Sleep as Android on that model… one issue which I cannot resolve yet is that it seems SPO2 and HRV (see more about our new HRV tracking feature here https://sleep.urbandroid.org/hrv-tracking/) is not wotking at the same time… if I try to use both sensors I only get SPO2… not sure if this would have some goood solution… probably we would need some additional option for that…

2 Likes
#4

Sorry back to your question… I hope SaA should work well on all Wear OS models, from time to time we get some reports of issues so I cannot 100% rule issues out… but now with me testing Wear OS every night I think Wear OS integration will get more attention… Even the initial issues with TicWatch 3 Pro I would still recommend the watch a it is the first Wear OS watch I tried which is pretty useable… still not on par with Pebble… but maybe it is time to move forward… Pebble will never get SPO2 right?

1 Like
#5

I just got a Ticwatch 3 and the app on the phone seems to see the watch, but if you open the Watch app it says ‘Starting’ then goes to ‘Failed to connect.’ Ready to give up and buy a Versa 3. I hate software that takes hours of diddling.

#6

This can happen when you have outdated Play Services on the watch… please make sure to update them…

#8

Checked for updates, says it is up to date.

#9

The bad think is Wear OS changes something in wearable bug reports and they do not include logs anymore, so we are just now looking for some other way to debug such issues… but maybe your firmware is not yet affected, would you try the following? Ideally after you try to start the app?

"To submit a bug report, you’ll need to open up the menu of the Android Wear application on your phone. Once the app is open hit the menu button, and and there will now be a section for “report wearable bug.” It should be obvious what you do at that point. The steps that follow aren’t too difficult, although they’re not exactly straight forward either. Make sure to wait until you feel the watch buzz after hitting the button to submit and report bugs, you will feel the watch buzz three times.(Android Police says it takes about 30 seconds, so have a little patience) After you see the message pop up on your watch that says to touch to share bug report, you’ll want to swipe to the left to open and share, which will send a notification to your connected device allowing to you a tap-to-send option and thus letting you select your share method. "

“A Google representative reached out to inform us that the bug report feature only appears if your phone is also in developer mode (tap repeatedly on the Build Number in the “About Phone/Tablet” menu). You may need to enable developer mode on Android Wear as well, as one commenter points out and allow ADB debugging.”

#10

I already have developer mode enabled. But I am going to buy a Fitbit Versa today. Done with this app. Thought it was working, showed an actigraph on Sun and had a deep sleep total, today back to a flat graph and a - for deep sleep. Total insanity.

I am also a dev and android, which prided itself on its developer roots, has erased all that in the last 4 or 5 releases and made it as much of a heavily policed walled garden as ios (in some cases worse).

#11

Sorry to hear that, I i working for me 100% and we do not have such issues reported even many thousands of people are using it, but we support 10+ wearable platforms and and you may know as an Android developer how difficult it is is with the Android fragmentation to support all the devices out there as explained at https://dontkillmyapp.com/

And here you are facing issues with combination of the wearable platform and device…

Anyway if you want to give it a try later on, just ping me and I can investigate bug reports for you…

After all FitBit is a closed platform with a vendor lock problem. We try to support as much options as we can (even maintenance is difficult in a small team as ours) and we want you be the owner of the data with all the different health services and backup options we support…

All the best!

1 Like
#12

All good and noble goals. Although telling someone who is having problems it’s working for you is literally the most lampooned developer response of all time. Also, fragmentation is a bitch, but I am using the watch that won many roundups as the best WearOS watch and as far as I can tell reading the Fit SDK docs, you are getting the data from it, so the burden of supporting different watches is Google’s problem?

I submitted a bug report and got a canned response. It seemed to have log files.

#13

I think I might know what happened. I just saw a notification on my Pixel that turning the screen face down put it into do not disturb mode. But I also have scheduled do not disturb so not sure why that would have made it not work. The idea that the app shows the time (even dimmed) on the screen all night is nutty. The room should be black… ??

#14

Thanks for your input!

I just woke up after an 8 hour sleep and my old trusty Urbane 2 was down to 15% battery :frowning:

I’m currently eyeing the Ticwatch S2, mainly due to it’s lower price. For the upper range I was between the Ticwatch Pro 2020 and the Fossil Gen 4/5 at first, but since the Pro 3 actually works perfectly I will aim for that. The 4100 will probably make a big difference, especially in battery life. Only thing that bugs me is Mobvoi’s launcher and apps, but AFAIK I can just disable them.

Still early to ask, but @petr-urbandroid does the SP02 work with the current SaA version, or is it still in beta?

I would also hope that sleep tracking woukd still work in essential mode (like mobvoi’s own sleep app does)but I guess that would be impossible due to limitations, sensors off etc.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

#15

@akpe Sorry about that, I have some 30% consumption over night with constant heartrate for the new HRV feature and similarly with SPO2… on TicWatch 3 Pro… and had around 40-50% on the LG watch Urban 1 lasty time I tried… with HR on… If you turn HR off you will halve the battery consumption. But we have discovered that on Wear OS it really depends as the system can get into a state where it is battery hungry that night. So for a reference it is good to try to reboot the watch before sleep and put it into theather mode…just to see the baseline…

1 Like
#16

Won’t really help I guess, after three years of use the battery has finally deteriorated beyond repair, but thanks for the suggestions :blush:

#17

Good information thanks for sharing
vmware