Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Keeping up with smart watches

I have been thinking why I would want a smart watches. Now I figured it out - the discrete notifications! It solved a lot of my previous problems.

You can forward all the desirable notifications from your phone to the watch. It's a discrete vibration on your wrist. You flip your wrist to read the notifications and messages or the watch face will remain dark. It's more convenient than unlocking the phone even with a fingerprint sensor or facial recognition. You want to hide sensitive info on the locked phone but no need for the watch. If you are not wearing it nobody knows there are notifications and the watch face is dark.

For the technical details, you can read the text from SMS, Whatsapp, Hangouts etc. For calls you know who's calling. So I would turn off ringtones. So you don't even need to turn on silence mode during a movie or concert.

I don't know how Whatsapp got so popular in the states. And it was before Zucker brought it. The problem is that he is an ID nazi. You cannot have two accounts on the app. The usual solution is to clone the app so you have another account. I tried Parallel Space. It works but the notification doesn't get through to the watch. It is likely that PS was first coded for 32 bits. You have to download 64-bit support to make it work for Whatsapp. So I tried Dual Space and it worked perfectly. So you can actually call from WhatsApp to the other account on the same phone and all the notifications get through to the watch.

Since the watch app and dual space is always on, you don't want to use an older phone without enough memory, minimum 4G ram depending on what else you need to do.

I have been going into great length to deal with the voice calls. They all like to ignore the screen lock and display the caller's name, number, and picture big and center. I use multiuser mode to hide the secret contacts but I wouldn't get notifications if I'm not logged in. And not all phones give you that mode. I maintain a separate vanilla contact list with alias names. But it's very inconvenient unless for the few you expect calls.

Now I can turn on silence mode on the phone and put it face down on the table. It's very unlikely that someone will pick up the phone while someone is calling me. If somebody wants to actually use my phone, that has to be in the guest mode to avoid the auto searching for contacts. Without multiuser, I may at least lock some incriminting apps. Nowadays nobody will want to use your phone unless theirs are lost.

Also, Chanel may be the last one who prefers calls. She did text but it seems that she wasn't keen to see the stored messaged on her phone. There wasn't fingerprint locks on the flip phones! Good old days ...

ps Smartwatches are another equalizer. In the beginning, successful people wear Rolex. Convenient and accurate electronic watches with the battery lasting for years are seen as cheap. Then successful people just have an iPhone or Samsung. Young people and the young at hearts don't wear watches. Now young and fit people wear watches. And you don't want to carry a block of big heavy metal on your wrist when you exercise. Plastic don't cost that much. And my $80 watch look good enough f
or testing the technology.

pps Margaret just got through via Dual Space into my watch! A date!

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