Related
In the interest of making things easy for those who are holding off on the KitKat OTA, I thought it might be a good idea to consolidate all of our experiences into one thread. This is intended to cover mainly the changes specific to this OTA over Razr M-flavored Jellybean.
I'll start with my experience/thoughts and edit in additional findings. (Note: I'm bootloader locked, and now unrooted.)
The Good
The UI is definitely smoother. It doesn't jitter or stall under heavy usage anywhere near as much as it did in Jellybean.
Battery life when the phone is asleep seems to have been improved a little.
USB audio out is now supported.
The occasional "screen jitter" that plagued the Jellybean build is gone.
KitKat's Quick Settings panel is quite handy.
The native lock screen now supports adding, removing, and rearranging widgets.
Although it can't be installed from the Play Store, the Google Experience Launcher can be sideloaded and works just fine.
The Neutral / Very Subjective
The AOSP keyboard has changed; the keys are smaller and, in landscape, very squashed. You may need to adjust to it (I'm trying, but it's a struggle) or find a replacement.
Battery life when the phone is actively in use has not been noticeably improved in my experience; but it hasn't been noticeably worsened, either.
There's now a shortcut to the camera from the lock screen, which can be used even if the phone is locked by a pattern/PIN/etc. (Great if you're a shutterbug; not so great if someone else decides to troll your Dropbox/Drive account.)
The Google Camera app works - but Photosphere can't be used, as the Razr M doesn't have a gyroscope.
The Bad
No more root, for those with locked BLs (me). (Saferoot fails, and many users are reporting losing root even when they try survival methods.)
Wi-Fi tethering via most apps (e.g., FoxFi) has been blocked, so now you must pay your carrier for the feature unless a new workaround is discovered.
All notifications I've seen so far now flash the notification light white, instead of unique colors. This may be frustrating for some who used the colors to decide whether to check the phone immediately or later. (Luckily, there are ways to address this.)
The Blur launcher is same 'ol, same 'ol. It uses a solid black background for the soft keys and notifications bar (rather than taking advantage of KitKat's transparency support), and it still has that Quick Settings menu on the left (which is redundant now). In addition, Holo Launcher (which I was using) doesn't account for the space used by the softkeys at all, making it difficult to use. (I've switched to Nova Launcher, which is working fine.)
I've experienced some weirdness with the application switcher. Sometimes it drops me to the launcher right after displaying the list, and sometimes apps will overwrite another's position on the list, or be dropped from the list entirely without reason (this is always temporary, however - just bring up the switcher again).
Some apps can no longer write to the SD card - or at least not wherever they please. We still have the Files browser, mercifully (but I favor Total Commander anyway, which seems to work perfectly).
The audio quick switch on the lock screen has been removed. Also, the buttons for entering a PIN are smaller.
(Leraeniesh) Under heavy usage, the Razr M may get hotter under KitKat than it did under Jellybean, and may drain the battery more.
(GPIX) Some users have noticed decreased network performance in some apps, such as Chrome or YouTube, while on Wi-Fi and with Wi-Fi power-saving enabled.
(GPIX) Several users have reported popping noises - when a sound begins to play, or in the middle of playback. (I haven't experienced it, however.)
Swype is no longer included. If you used it in Jellybean, you will need to purchase it on the Play Store after taking the OTA.
(ls3c6) Some have encountered problems with sharing the address book to paired devices over Bluetooth.
My opinion, overall:
It's a nice upgrade, but all of little problems I've encountered (bugs, Verizon blockades, the works) make this feel like a bit of a letdown after the 6-month wait. In the end, after just three days, I find myself wishing I could take the phone back to Jellybean.
Here's hoping for either some exploitable holes or maintenance updates.
My opinion
Leraeniesh said:
So I popped my sim back into the XT907 for the weekend, and heres what I've noticed (when compared to 4.1.2).
Higher temps - previously, my XT907 hovered around 85F-100F, but with 4.4.2, I've noticed it drift toward 110F with 5+ minutes of active use.
Worse battery life - On 4.1.2 I averaged around 20% after 16 hours moderate use. With 4.4.2, I'm averaging around 5% in the same span.
Lesser LTE coverage - This may be something with my area, but I can usually get 2-3 bars of LTE in the Livingston County area on 4.1.2 (I've noticed the XT907 accel in this category). While on 4.4.2, I could not get any LTE coverage in the same area, and could only find it within more populated areas.
Slower performance - I'll always be amazed by how quick the XT907 was on 4.1.2, beating out devices with similar specs in the same price category. With 4.4.2, I've noticed frame drops, stutters, and random reboots be a common occurrence over the last few days of usage.
Overall, I'm satisfied with 4.4.2, but I still prefer the overall usability with 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Worth noting that I am using an unlocked bootloader, with CWM and SuperSU (only really did this to remove VZW bloat and install Xposed)
Leraeniesh said:
So I popped my sim back into the XT907 for the weekend, and heres what I've noticed (when compared to 4.1.2).
Higher temps - previously, my XT907 hovered around 85F-100F, but with 4.4.2, I've noticed it drift toward 110F with 5+ minutes of active use.
Worse battery life - On 4.1.2 I averaged around 20% after 16 hours moderate use. With 4.4.2, I'm averaging around 5% in the same span.
Lesser LTE coverage - This may be something with my area, but I can usually get 2-3 bars of LTE in the Livingston County area on 4.1.2 (I've noticed the XT907 accel in this category). While on 4.4.2, I could not get any LTE coverage in the same area, and could only find it within more populated areas.
Slower performance - I'll always be amazed by how quick the XT907 was on 4.1.2, beating out devices with similar specs in the same price category. With 4.4.2, I've noticed frame drops, stutters, and random reboots be a common occurrence over the last few days of usage.
Overall, I'm satisfied with 4.4.2, but I still prefer the overall usability with 4.1.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On 4.1.2 the "signal bars" were calculated by a xml in, I believe, SystemUI.apk. You could simply adjust the figures to show more or less bars, which Moto adjusted to show more. But having no LTE maybe a bad radio or a problem stemming from a bad flash. My Razr M doesn't get hot, no random reboots, and battery life seems to be the same. I haven't had any problems on KitKat.
ATTACK said:
On 4.1.2 the "signal bars" were calculated by a xml in, I believe, SystemUI.apk. You could simply adjust the figures to show more or less bars, which Moto adjusted to so more. But having no LTE maybe a bad radio or a problem stemming from a bad flash. My Razr M doesn't get hot, no random reboots, and battery life seems to be the same. I haven't had any problems on KitKat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gonna be doing some more testing in that regard. Even my M7 with its garbage radios gets LTE just about everywhere in the Metro Detroit area.
So far my experience with 4.4.2 has been positive. I agree with OP's list and would like to add these under the issue category.
ISSUE:
Decreased WiFi effectiveness/throughput - There is a noticeable decrease in performance on apps like Youtube and Chrome web browser.
Audio Popping noises - Some experience a popping noise when the sound driver starts up while others experience it during playback.
I have had the KitKat OTA now for 2 days and haven't found anything major wrong. The changes to the keyboard bugged me but I use swiftkey so that was moot. I also have an issue I haven't seen listed yet. The new sound for screen taps....it seems to give that "popping" feedback (that ive seen listed as an issue on driver start-up) ALL the time. I maybe get 1 clear sound out of every 5-6 screen taps. That is the only real "problem" I can find as of this point though. Does anyone have any insight on that?
Also activated Dev Mode and changed to ART runtime. Might be placebo but app response seems to be noticeably better! Not groundbreaking by any means but better than 4.1.2 for sure. Overall I am happy with the upgrade. Rather, will be happy once a root exploit comes up (I miss my debloating! On that note though, disabling apps never seemed to work right with 4.1.2....after hitting disable the app would show back up in active processes after a short time. Now I've gone 24 hours and 3 phone reboots and that damn NFL app is STILL disabled and NOT running as a background process. Might just have been an issue with my phone in particular before, but its fixed now!)
I am generally happy.
It fixed all the issues I had with Dhackers KitKat.
and feels about the same once you have rid of all the Bloat.
I like and I am happy that we still surprisingly got the update unlike the Galaxy S3
Happy =)
Just wanted to comment on the heat issue mentioned above:
I have only had KitKat for 2 days but I have definitely noticed a difference in heat after extended use compared to JB. One of the things I really liked about my Razr M was lack of heat so hopefully this is a fluke and I wont notice it too much in the future.
---
With that said, no big issues.
I don't like the keyboard -seems smaller, or something, The heptic feedback seems to be different too (for the worse IMO).
The lockscreen number pad seems smaller - definitely liked the number pad from JB.
I had to change the messaging app (hated the all white/lack of contrast). Using "8sms" if anyone is curious.
I also changed launchers to use the google-now launcher so the "okay google" thing would work on the homescreen and also get the transparency notification bar. But, in doing that I did lose the circle widgets which I liked. Can't win for losing sometimes...
---
On a positive note, Chrome/google searches seem to be much faster. The UI seems about the same (no complaints with JB).
If battery life can increase then I'll be satisfied with update (so far, no difference).
My experience has been very positive. My phone was bootloader locked and not rooted before (and, of course, after) the OTA. I cleared the cache partition from the recovery menu post-install but have not done a FDR. General impressions:
-- UI is overall much snappier/quicker. Extremely noticeable.
-- Love the new quick settings panel that you can get to after pulling down the notifications shade.
-- KK's changes to how the SDcard works have not been a big deal at all for me. The native "Files" app seems to have complete read/write access, as does ES File Explorer.
-- Like the new clock feature to automatically add a "home" display when traveling outside a pre-defined timezone.
-- Hate the new way you set the alarm on the clock. (Really, whoever came up with that input method should be transferred to a department where s/he can never affect design decisions again.)
-- I miss the audio silencer/mute on the lockscreen.
-- Battery life has been interesting. When I first installed the update (morning of 05/15), battery life was definitely worse, probably by about 50%. It has gradually been getting better, however, and now is probably only about 20%-25% worse than JB. Why it would change I have no idea, but it definitely is (I've been keeping notes, and am sure it is actually happening). I have noticed, using the Battery History details screen, that there are a LOT less wakelocks in KK than JB. In JB, I used to see tons of "Awake" indicators on that screen that did not pair with "Screen On" indicators. In KK, there are very few incidences of "Awake" that are not paired with "Screen On." Someone smarter than me will have to explain how that translates into worse battery life.
-- It may be my imagination, but it seems like the battery charges faster w/ KK. If it's not my imagination, I wonder if that means that the apparent decrease in battery life is really an issue of improper calibration/accuracy.
I have not experienced some of the things others have reported:
-- No random reboots.
-- No changes to WiFi or 4G signals. I don't use Bluetooth so can't comment on that.
-- No popping noise when using audio. (Note: I have seen some reports in other forums that a FDR fixes this issue for those who have it.)
I'm on locked BL, definitly non root, and I happen to installed MotoCam from a store n IT DID INSTALLED. .
Opens up, takes pictures beautifully. .
Only problems are the slide in menu is glitchy AND after taking HDR pic, cam UI is not there. Only live cam feed.
Other than these issues, it's playing nicely ESPECIALLY auto HDR does work, surprisingly!
How can I make those problems go away??
Sent from my XT907 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
4039995825
GPlX said:
So far my experience with 4.4.2 has been positive. I agree with OP's list and would like to add these under the issue category.
ISSUE:
Decreased WiFi effectiveness/throughput - There is a noticeable decrease in performance on apps like Youtube and Chrome web browser.
Audio Popping noises - Some experience a popping noise when the sound driver starts up while others experience it during playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go into wifi settings...in the setting "uncheck" the box "wi-fi optimization" it made my WiFi significantly better..
Nidstang said:
-- No popping noise when using audio. (Note: I have seen some reports in other forums that a FDR fixes this issue for those who have it.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Attempted a FDR on my phone, unfortunately it did not work for me. I will attempt to clear the cache partition to see if that may help the issue if
possible. So far i can only get the boot menu for a couple seconds and im lucky to get a selection in time.
EDIT: I cleared the cache partition, no effect. (NOTE: it seems to get into the recovery menu after selecting it at boot menu, you have to hold power & vol UP for a couple seconds)
crazy4android said:
go into wifi settings...in the setting "uncheck" the box "wi-fi optimization" it made my WiFi significantly better..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is an excellent point. I'll shut off the optimization and will edit my results in after tinkering with it for a while.
EDIT2: Without doing speedtests etc. It is very noticable that the wifi has improved. Youtube & other apps load as fast as they did on 4.1.2
Haven't looked into it so this MIGHT be a feature of the Google Now Launcher I installed, but I JUST noticed if you swipe down from the clock area of the new lock screen, you can add widgets! Am I crazy or is this a new feature on our phones? If so, LOVE it! Helps mitigate the loss of the quicklinks from our old 4.1.2 lock screen.
kashif87 said:
I'm on locked BL, definitly non root, and I happen to installed MotoCam from a store n IT DID INSTALLED. .
Opens up, takes pictures beautifully. .
Only problems are the slide in menu is glitchy AND after taking HDR pic, cam UI is not there. Only live cam feed.
Other than these issues, it's playing nicely ESPECIALLY auto HDR does work, surprisingly!
How can I make those problems go away??
Sent from my XT907 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe you can uninstall updates to the cam in apps
bwer1233 said:
Haven't looked into it so this MIGHT be a feature of the Google Now Launcher I installed, but I JUST noticed if you swipe down from the clock area of the new lock screen, you can add widgets! Am I crazy or is this a new feature on our phones? If so, LOVE it! Helps mitigate the loss of the quicklinks from our old 4.1.2 lock screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lockscreen widgets were introduced in Android 4.2.2.
Just want to let people know that the Google Now Launcher is working great on 4.4.2 including the "ok Google" functionality.
You can't download it from the play store. I just grabbed the apk from this thread.
http://www.xda-developers.com/andro...-and-gpe-devices-apk-mirrored-for-all-others/
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
rooted + cwm
can't use "memory" feature under settings, while calculating settings app would crash
how can I go to hiddent menu? *#*#4636#*#* is failed until my M get kk updrade...
tieuvienson2005 said:
how can I go to hiddent menu? *#*#4636#*#* is failed until my M get kk updrade...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many "phone info" apps in the Market. Or create the short cut with Activity Launcher.
Also the Cam sucks on my Wife's m so get the Lenovo from my Moto x signature link.
I found it very hard to find information from people who actually have the update in other threads because it is mixed with information on how to actually obtain and install the update.
So what are your impressions of tge 5.1.1 update ? Please only post if you have the update installed and running for at least few hours.
My impressions:
- Battery life is worse, like 30% worse with Wi-Fi detection on, even if mostly using Bluetooth.
- Still can't edit the canned response list Emoji drawing is a bad joke.
- I can't dismiss notifications with flick gestures (only hide them)
- Very smooth and responsive UI overall
- No annoying "Ok Google" text on watch face until you say "ok Google" 5 times
Battery life for me for 5 times better.... One thing, this enables 'always on' apps... I would check some of your apps and see what battery consumption is. I've been in my watch since about 10am and I have 53% left right now. Way better than anything I have ever gotten. This is with wifi on.
It's pretty fantastic for me. I have no complaints. The processor is old, but I'm very impressed with how optimized they've made it. The lag just doesn't interrupt my work flow, unlike with the Apple Watch at least. There's no major delay. Will likely be buying V2 or V3 depending on how I feel the life cycle for these devices will be.
Updated yesterday. I feel like the battery lasts less, but you have to give it 2-3 days to settle down. Liking the new features, but I don't think I'm gonna use Wi-Fi too much since it drains battery.
For now, I'm keeping WiFi, gestures, and ambient mode off. This way within a week I'll have a true comparison of battery life. Then I'm going to test each function and how it effects battery. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
Have the update one day now,
Good points:
-Smootness
-less buggy
-wifi when out of range
-wrist flick(great idea)
-Google maps maps
Bad points:
-Wrist flick is hard to perform correct (think it is a learning curve)
-When wifi is active on whatch and is connected but phone isn't connected to internet it still says it is connected.
-Laggier in first minutes after boot
-Lock screen sometimes activates when on wrist.
Overall i'am happy. Batterylife is to early to judge
I got the update yesterday after resetting my device. The first thing that I have noticed is that I can no longer dismiss notifications that only take up the bottom part of the screen. I have to pull the notification up and can then dismiss it. If this is what the developers intended, then that it is a major step backwards.
Also where do I setup which apps should stay "always on"?
Battery life after the update is disasterous, about 6% per hour but I need to give it a few days to sort itself out.
The dismissing of notifications is very much hit and miss and is impracticable.
At the moment I am not impressed with the update. Hopefully things will sort themselves out over the next few days.
For me, the update has been surprisingly good.
Good:
- Battery life (which I must admit, was my primary concern) is as good as it was prior to the update, even with the watch connected to WiFi.
- I love the flicking gestures, they work exactly as I imagined they would, although they're not as smart as they should (you can swipe available cards up and down, but when a card has multiple sub-cards, you can't scroll between them).
- Performance is great, specially considering it's a device with 512MB RAM, UI is still responsive enough and with very little lag.
- I love the new contact screen, it saves me a lot of time for quick calls when I can't remember the contact name (I normally use Google Now to call someone).
Bad:
- For the life of me, I haven't figured out how to enable always-on apps. It's one of the features I've been waiting for so eagerly, specially for Google Keep's checked notes (which I use A LOT).
- The WiFi connection is USELESS if you leave your phone home and find a protected WiFi network, because you NEED the phone to input the password. It kinda defeats the whole purpose.
One thing I noticed after the update is all of my hangouts threads became unmerged. Now each person has SMS/Hangouts as seperate threads. My one buddy experienced the same issue when his watch updated. Not sure why the software update would cause that, but it's upsetting.
Overall, I'm really liking the update. The only thing that's really bugging me is that you can't seem to dismiss notifications unless they're open. I'm used to being able to dismiss them immediately if I can get all the information I need from their title. Now, I actually have to swipe up first to open them, and only then can I dismiss them. It's not so bad that I can't live with it, but it is annoying.
The update has exceeded my expectations so far. I have only had it installed for about 12 hours. Battery life seems better. Worst case I don't think it has gotten any worse which was a huge concern because it hasn't been so wonderful. It seems to give more feedback and explanations so I'm not guessing as much. For example when I added a playlist it informed me that the battery needed more charge to download to the watch. Prior to the update I would have been scratching my head all day and then it would magically download when I charged up at night.
I really hope the WiFi works as advertised. I can think of many ways it could be useful to me. It seems like there are lots of times when I want notifications in case of an emergency because I'm a single dad but I also don't want to carry the phone with me.
My biggest annoyance with update is that now I have to open cards before they can be swiped away. Most times I can tell what a card is telling me and used to swipe them away without opening them.
Seems more responsive.
As others have said, removal of swiping / dismissing the previews was not a good call.
Not entirely sure, but looks like I won't be able to connect to my work WiFi which uses certificate based EAP-TLS authentication ? Will see when I'm back in the office next week.
Sent from my Lollipop TF700T
Do the other watches have the same issue (yeah, I'm calling it an issue instead of a feature) with the notification swiping? Or maybe this is something Motorola did thinking they were compensating somehow for the flat tire? Regardless, I hope there's an update to fix it, it just annoys the piss out of me every time.
My first day battery report.
Off charger at 9am, end of the day (11pm) 67%. This is with WiFi and ambient mode off so I can have a direct comparison to prior then update. But to me that is a huge improvement.
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
user of android said:
I've updated my watch yesterday and wanted to let my watch get to 0% to calibrate the battery because of the new update. so I didn't put my watch off at night, and the next morging (today) my watch was 10% and the screen was totally black and it wasn't responding to the side button so I tried to hold it for 30 seconds to let it restart I saw the normal bootupscren but as soon it was staring the app it became black again. I now have let it charge to 100% and it it's responding perfectly again. Does anyone know what was wrong?
Thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed the same behavior when mine was at 2%. It did not respond to screen touches and only switched on for about half a second after clicking the side button several (5 or more) times. It still took about 30 minutes for the watch to finally shut down. Maybe this is because of a very aggressive battery saving mode?
I must add that I did reset the watch after the 5.1.1 update was fully installed and wanted the battery to drain completely for the same reason you did: to recalibrate it.
Sent from my One S using XDA Free mobile app
Mister-B said:
Has anybody figured out how to enable the App Always On feature?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm thinking it may only be an AMOLED feature.
Mine had the same issue at 10%. I wonder if this is related to the performance issue Motorola was talking about.
I don't know if I am happy or sad that this is widespread. Hopefully they patch this up.
I've lately got into developing mobile apps and even though i've promoted this as beta, people seem to be using it, but nobody's reporting back! - same goes for all of my apps, i don't get it...
Anyway, i need real feedback and I was wondering if any folks here with a rooted android could help test this app out, it was made on Kitkat, so while yes, it works fine for me, it may not for you... I've had one feedback comment saying that his modem data was not switching off on lollipop, so i added support for that now allowing him or her to use the app as intended, but after replying via the playstore, nothing was heard of him since... almost suspicious lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpsPnMRO86w
Find it on Android's Playstore... Craig's Battery Saver ROOT
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=saver.battery.craigs.craigsbatterysaver :good:
How it works..... read on
How it works, if you're interested!
2 things use up battery power
1. apps that are CPU intensive, eg constantly repeating to connect (this would only happen under malware, as most apps would never do this, it would see the socket it closed/dead and stop and wait until user input, malware would constantly reconnect.. but 99/100 apps will just stop and then do nothing meaning all genuine apps should 'idle' not really using up cpu time....
2. Hardware services, bluetooth, mobile data, wifi, gps, these services are all hardware, so your cpu will switch on each of these services and each one has a significant drain on your battery, go bed at 11pm, by 9am it may have drained 30 - 40% or more... with this app, it will have drained under 1 - 3% depending on your battery (tablets for example should run for days with this app if rooted)
So this app does 2, it first remembers which hardware was on before the screen goes off, so no confusing switch wifi on when wifi's already on (as i've seen on other apps?!) reason why i wrote this because all the other apps i came across sucked really, almost but not quite etc etc..
With this tool, if you're a light user you could quite easily see 60% battery improvement! the bonus side affect of this app is also interesting, for 1, it charges quicker! if you accidentally fall asleep, it will conserve as much power as possible, obviously sms,telephone/mobile network is still running in the background so you can't completely stop a device from draining...
the other bonus side affect was, it kills dead all facebook notifications, twitter, well it would as it disables wifi, modem. 3g, bt when the screen goes off! :good:
1 more feature, if you drop your phone? then what?... take where's my droid, i sms it asking for location... it replies "GPS OFF" and "modem off" simple, send the text message to your phone with "on" without the " " around on, and the app will disable itself so it does not switch off the services and then at the same time it enables Wifi, Modem Data, Gps, Bt pretty useful huh... then on where's my droid, you'll get GPS combined with AGPS data from mobile data giving you pin point accuracy, as soon as you get the data of where it is... type in
off (to turn this feature off) or
on (to turn on all your services)
It also disables itself taking calls...
It has a smart check feature too, let's say after you switch the screen on and for some reason wifi failed to switch on ? after 3 seconds it will then check again to see if wifi is indeed on... if it's not on, it attempts to switch it on again...
Feedback is greatly appreciated so i can support a larger range of devices.... thank you for reading! (Suggestions, welcome!)
So basically what your device is and what's not working (along with build version, lollipop/kitkat etc) and i'll see if i can find a way to add it in to support your droid! - one more thing, i've been releasing updates like a crazy woman collecting cats lately and even though it does all this it's only supporting "Extreme power saving option" come tuesday i hope to have that sorted out so that every few minutes it can wake up to check for twitter/facebook messages for all of those who hate the sound of a phone being blissful quiet
if you're rooted and it does not look like that in the video [top of screen] (not the interface, but the services, i've already updated the UI)
anyway, help me to make it better for you...
One more thing, there are no push notifications, no popup adds, no huge banners, all my apps have one tiny advert to help support the countless hours of programming i'm putting into this apps, with each upgrade i aim to make them more stable and more usable, and i really need peoples help and support even if that is criticism - it's "beta" but i'm almost ready to bring it out after i add the wake up services....
Nobody has a rooted device?
Unlike other battery savers... it really does work
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
I've been running DP for months and I don't really remember what I should be missing. I am happy with current performance and features will stay on 2.0
Edit.... Can't see poll in app....
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Like it a lot. Just a little bit of a learning curve.
2. I miss the longer battery life. I charge it every night, but I was usually at 50% on 1.5, now I usually at 15%.
3. Answering calls. On 1.5, when I swiped to answer, I routinely swiped my launcher and lost the call. On 2.0 you tap to answer.
4. Definitely.
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are good things and very bad ones. I'm tending to not really like it. Reasons listed below.
I don't even know where to begin with... Here is a (probably incomplete) list of what I miss the most:
double tap on button for theater mode
contacts are not synced with the PHONE, instead it only syncs contacts from your Google account (which I'm not using, I'm using my own CardDAV server but I've seen already the exact same problem with Exchange, so this is not a niche problem - Calendar works well with my CalDAV server and is in sync with what is set up on the phone)
Google Now (all that below worked like a charm before the upgrade) - Google assistant is not really usable (for me at least), and far away from good or perfect:
it becomes quite useless without the contacts (can't make calls, as there are no contacts - can't send messages, etc.) - and making phone calls or sending messages is the primary use case for the voice control on my watch
saying "Call Jon Doe on mobile" (did a test cause I really need to call my wife often) keeps asking me for which number to call (seriously, Google Assistant? Are you that smart?)
saying "Send Telegram/WhatsApp/Text Message to Jon Deo - Hello World" will remain on a screen with buttons to cancel or send instead of sending that "Hello World" message (again: are you serious? Why should I use voice commands if I in return have to interact manually with my device again? What is the deeper meaning behind that?)
Old apps don't work anymore (I installed Heart Trace on the phone but it's not appearing on the watch - also not after doing the "sync apps" in the Wear app) - sure this will change for all apps that are still maintained by their devs - but others won't
notifications peek cards - especially for the music player. this is horrible and a really a big issue for me. And also for non-music player notifications: I just don't see at first sight (and without fiddeling with the watch) that there are notifications - the "complications" watch faces are ugly (IMHO) and I really hope that the dev of my watch face will include a small icon telling me that there are 1, 2, 3, 99 notifications pending.
tripple tap on the button for brightness boost - although I never used it (I just didn't know it existed until after upgrading to 2.0) I really see the benefit of this shortcut and would have started to use it - especially as summer is just around the corner and in bright sunlight the watch is hard to read.
swipe from right to left for the apps list (why would I want to swipe for changing the watch face??) swiping should really be associated to an action I use often - MAKE IT USER CONFIGURABLE!! (this holds true for most of the issues, and also for the good things below)
DND mode synced with the phone. Now, this is really controversial as it depends on the individual use case. I need it synced with the phone (either phone and watch muted or both on vibrate/loud). In any case: JUST LET THE USER DECIDE! (seriously, Google! How hard is this?)
battery live - was way better with AW1.5. Had 30-50% left after 22-24h - now it's completely drained after 20-22h with similar usage. Trying the stop sync over wifi setting next.
To be fair, there are a couple of nice features that I like:
the drop down quick settings - the individual screens for each setting were just horrible in terms of UX!
the apps carousel and the favorite apps shortcuts
the possibility to install apps directly on the watch
full fletched Telegram app (got to give props to the Telegram devs rather than to Google but still: I like)
possibility to stop the notifications from popping up all over the screen (a real problem if you are in a meeting at work with the customer and your friend sends you embarrassing messages so that every one can read them - other scenarios problematic, too) - instead now only a small icon appears and that's it
I'm really only centimeters/inches away from downgrading. Got the AW1.5 image already downloaded, giving AW2.0 some more days of testing, but if that list above keeps growing, I'll downgrade for sure.
There are also other issues with the UI/UX:
i.e., the scroll indicator on the right - historically, that makes sense. But on a watch (which most people are wearing on the left hand) when you reach to the screen for scrolling, you're actually obscuring the screen so you can't see the scroll bar anyway. So what's the point? also, the scroll indicator has the same size no matter how long the list is.
There is probably more, but I've had enough for today.
Cheers
dmckami said:
Old apps don't work anymore (I installed Heart Trace on the phone but it's not appearing on the watch - also not after doing the "sync apps" in the Wear app) - sure this will change for all apps that are still maintained by their devs - but others won't
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heart trace works. For some apps I get notifications on watch to install watch companion app, for others I have to manually install on watch via play store. Sometimes you can't find the app in the watch store unless you have it installed on the phone...
derausgewanderte said:
Heart trace works. For some apps I get notifications on watch to install watch companion app, for others I have to manually install on watch via play store. Sometimes you can't find the app in the watch store unless you have it installed on the phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll check that once I have charged the watch again. It ran out of battery mid-day today :-/
jowofoto said:
With a few useful actions missing, and really funky updating and subsequent battery drain-
How do you like AW 2.0 on your HW?
What do you miss the most?
What's your favorite new thing from 2.0?
Will you stay with 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. It's okay. There's a lot of potential, but it doesn't feel like it has been fully realized yet.
2. Not requiring me to press "ok" after I dictate a text message. That defeats the whole purpose of hands free messaging. The battery life downgrade is a bummer, but I charge my watch every night anyway so it doesn't really matter to me. I went from having 60-70% battery left in the afternoon to having about 50% left.
3. Facebook messenger finally works. In fact, all of my notifications work, though some work better than others. I'm looking at you, Outlook. Also, having a keyboard is nice. I think it works surprisingly well considering the tiny screen that it's on.
4. Yeah.
TheSt33v said:
. I'm looking at you, Outlook..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have Outlook installed on the watch? It's working for me.
With double and triple tap back it would be perfect for me.
derausgewanderte said:
You have Outlook installed on the watch? It's working for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, and it does work, but not as well as the other notifications. The notification is there when I swipe up, but it doesn't appear in a noticeable way when I first get it like my other apps. I have to go looking for it.
twitter on android wear 2.0
Is it just me or is there no twitter support for android wear 2.0?
Well my experience is that wear 2.0 is not an improvement as far as performance and efficiency goes. Been running it for 5 days. now. the watch is laggy, so much so that starting and stopping the stopwatch leads to unreliable times. press the stopwatch start button on my watch face and approx 1/2 second later it starts (tap and the vibration feedback also comes about 1/2 second later). any watch animations seem to be laggy like they are running at 20 frames. battery is lasting half as long (used to be 48 hours, now lucky if I get 24 hours). Love the new app launcher layout but in true google style they half arsed it and didn't carry it into a single other menu on the watch so the usual inconsistency from the guys that implement the standards, well done Google.
RudeboyXL said:
Well my experience is that wear 2.0 is not an improvement as far as performance and efficiency goes. Been running it for 5 days. now. the watch is laggy, so much so that starting and stopping the stopwatch leads to unreliable times. press the stopwatch start button on my watch face and approx 1/2 second later it starts (tap and the vibration feedback also comes about 1/2 second later). any watch animations seem to be laggy like they are running at 20 frames. battery is lasting half as long (used to be 48 hours, now lucky if I get 24 hours). Love the new app launcher layout but in true google style they half arsed it and didn't carry it into a single other menu on the watch so the usual inconsistency from the guys that implement the standards, well done Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I found that having the triple tap feature enabled for zooming was causing my touch reaction lag. no biggy, not a feature I need enabled. but I have found the battery life to be terrible. seems to have gotten worse. The watch uses about 5-10% per hour, if not more at times with little to no use. Can't even get through a full day. This is ridiculous. I went from having state of the art smartwatch with amazing UX to a power hungry wrist calculator. I literally don't like looking at my watch anymore as I'm without doubt going to see my battery drop about 15-20% since I last looked at it. Pathetic. I'm not performing another factory reset as it clearly is the ROM that's the problem. Huawei need to sort this out. All that time waiting and this is what we are given.
Usability wise, it's still nowhere nearly as comfortable to use an an Samsung Gear S3. That said, the UI is smoother and with better readable notifications. The Spotify-card on the Watch is a pain to use though. Sometimes it appears and sometimes it does not (also happens with Play Music).
Battery life is utterly dissapointing. I've had AW2.0 since OTA-day, now at least a week and I get about 1.5 days out of it. On AW1.5 I used to get 4-5 days out of it. Such an gigantic drop in batterylife is something I do NOT like. Now I can't brag about my watch lasting 5x longer than my collegue's Apple Watches :/
So far, Gear S3 is still by far the best watch money can buy. But if you really want Android Wear, imho the Huawei Watch still is by far the best buy.
1. Keyboard is not that easy to use but its good to have keyboard, apps got much better, battery drain is same as always for me (good).
2. I was on DP since DP4 released, but i remember AW1.5 had more beautiful UI that AW2's UI.
3. I can send voice messages via telegram!
4. Definitely.
Sent from my Huawei Mate 8 using Tapatalk
Other then the fact that somehow my max speaker volume changed to super low and the double tap to sleep is gone I am happy. Working with HW support, I did a reset which killed bat for about 4 hrs, but now bat life is same or slightly better than before and play services on watch is much smaller than after OTA update. New navigation took a day or two to get used to, but OK with it now. Like the fact that I have a little more control of what is on watch and how it is used. Probably going back to HW for speaker repair under warranty ( days left). Palm on watch to sleep doesn't work for me, but not a big deal. A few tweaks and it should be a nice OS.
amin318 said:
1. Keyboard is not that easy to use but its good to have keyboard, apps got much better, battery drain is same as always for me (good).
2. I was on DP since DP4 released, but i remember AW1.5 had more beautiful UI that AW2's UI.
3. I can send voice messages via telegram!
4. Definitely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The voice message feature for telegram is great! It actually makes the watch smarter...no more quick replies or voice message via Google(especially if you speak in an unsupported language)....
And you can also hear the voice messages you receive on the watch directly via the speaker....
Just like a wrist walkie talkie
I just pray to god Whatsapp will implement this as well...
2.0 is the single worst software update I have ever seen. ...
It's almost as if it bypassed even the simplest quality control check!!
Swipe left is now taking you to a watchface rather than menu?? Like seriously?? OMG
Where can I downgrade?
(FOR LG -H930)
Hello,
I want to share the configuration with which I have been more comfortable with this phone. as always the customs roms have their risks
After trying the following roms & kernels:
Stock rom + lg package disabled
Ion Ios Pie
Havoc Os
Crdroid
ResurrectionRemix 7.0
Bootleggers ROM 4.2 Pie
Pixel Experience
I think I've found the configuration that works best for me:
ROM = LiquidRemix 10.0
KERNEL = AK3Tachyon Enhance EAS T110
OPEN GAPPS = Nano version
CAMARAS
GCAM FOR THE WIDE LENS - DAY PHOTOS - PORTRAIT MODE
GCAM - NIGHT PHOTO
OPEN CAMERA FOR VIDEO RECORDING
* the gcams give me problems with the sound in the video recording, so I use this app
MAGISK MODULES
I know it is designed for other stock versions, but the sound is achieved in both speakers, a non-functional camera app will be installed, with no use of it.
AnxiousV30
OTHER MAGISK MODULES
PIX3LIFY
XMLPAK
YOUTUBE VENCED BLACK
WEB BROWSER
MINT BROWSER
DEVICE CONFIGURATION
Inside Settings we have the liquid lounge section, I have configured this to use the mobile with gestures:
Activate the gestures in: Gestures / Edge gestures, there are different options but this is the one that works best for me
In the screen settings I have the background color in black
With this configuration I get the following:
Stability: I have not rebooted or frozen my phone
Speed: Much difference with some other roms based on aosp and above all compared to stock
Battery: Here one of the main reasons, before almost didn't reach 4 hours screen .. now, usually reach 6, great change!
I run the stock US998 20H on my V30, rooted with Magisk, no modules in use. Hardly anything is really customized I suppose, I do use dark mode wherever possible and I do have the Dark G8 Theme installed from the Play Market. My brightness is always set to 50% unless I'm watching videos (75%) or outside (90%) but I never go higher than that - 100% brightness is bad for OLED technology especially wherever pure white is shown so I avoid full brightness always.
I keep my cellular radio off at home because I only use Google Voice - I don't give out my carrier number to anyone (there's only like 3 people + the carrier that have it) and since I'm always on Wi-Fi at home (Gigabit connection) I have absolutely no reason to have that active. Google Voice does all my voice calls, SMS/MMS, Hangouts (SMS), etc so I'm good there.
Typical SOT? 9+ hours on a charge and that is without using Battery Saver, which I never use, and that is also with a charge from about 88% down to 5% give or take a percentage point either way. The other day I actually got almost 12.5 hours of SOT but I spent a lot of time watching some TV shows ("Billions," a fantastic show, and I basically marathoned the entire 1st season so that was most of the screen on time).
I don't use a lot of things running in the background, in fact I tend to close out apps when I have no reason to leave them in the background whether they go idle or not. I have never thought that using apps like Greenify can help since it's yet another program that does use resources and does require background operation - it's just easier to close the apps I'm not using and be done with it and know for a fact they're not consuming battery.
I use Flipboard quite a bit every day, LiveNewsOn for watching MSNBC/CNN occasionally, Google News multiple times a day, Discord and Hangouts for chatting purposes, not a whole lot else really. I don't do "social media" stuff so no Facebook/etc kinda crap. LG Package Disabler Pro (purchased a long time ago) was used after a clean install of the OS to ensure what I don't need to be there and running isn't there and running.
Only phone that's ever given me this kind of battery life - and I plug in to charge once every 2-3 days, seriously - was a Samsung Galaxy S Active 7 with a 4000 mAh battery, I could run that device for 3+ days with 14+ hours of SOT most every single charge and I really do miss it.
Anyway, I do love this V30 for a variety of reasons but that crazy 9+ hours of SOT on a charge is probably my most favorite aspect so far.
Pics or it didn't happen...
First one was from a few weeks ago with ~9.25 hrs/SOT, the second from a few days ago with ~12.5 hrs/SOT, and again, I don't use Battery Saver at all, if I did, or if I lowered the brightness to 50% or less when watching videos, I'd probably go well past 15+ hrs/SOT without breaking a sweat. The ~9.25 hrs/SOT did have me charging it from my laptop's USB port for about 30 minutes, had to plug it in to move some movie files over to the device so that's why you see the slight rise in the middle there, but the ~12.5 hrs/SOT was done straight off the battery, the charge it had when I disconnected from the charger was 89% so, if it had been a full 100% charge, that would more than likely be close to 15 hrs/SOT. Might have to test that sometime and see if a 100% to 5% run could do that much SOT.
No issues with the stock ROM, no crashes, no force closes, performance is great, I have no complaints whatsoever.
Great post. Thanks for sharing your setups, I will give these suggestions a try once I get mine rooted.