Those of us who have tried Android Wear can probably agree that wearables are awesome technology. Many consumers question the value of smartwatches, but experience proves that receiving notifications and having basic phone controls on your wrist is valuable.
Contents1. Enable/disable tilt to wake2. Power button functions3. How to check watch statistics4. Take screenshot Smartwatch5. Wrist Gestures Got any other tips to share?
However, this is still an emerging technology, which means that the interface/navigation can still be improved. There are a lot of features that aren't as apparent as they should be.
Therefore, we have compiled our top 5 tips for one of the most popular Android Wear smartwatches on the market right now – the Moto 360 (2nd Gen). Note that some of these tips may apply to other Android Wear devices, but this guide is specifically for the Moto 360 (2nd Gen).
Moto 360 users check out this Tilt to wake east of the bat; Motorola has it enabled by default. This is basically a gesture that rotates the screen of the smartwatch au when you turn your wrist to look at your watch.
The problem is that if you don't like the feature, its setting can be hard to find. When I was a new Moto 360 owner, I expected Tilt to wake option to be in the device settings of the smartwatch. It's not. Motorola thought it would be fun to put it in the Android Wear app settings (which you access on your smart phone) instead.
Also, in the app settings, it's still not clear how to get there. That place in settings that shows your currently connected smartwatch is actually a button.
When clicked, additional smartwatch commands are listed. And that's where you'll find the Tilt to Wake setting.
Interestingly, while the Tilt to Wake Toggle is missing from device settings, Screen always on Toggle (so that the dimly lit preview is always on screen) is available on both the watch and the app. What's up with that?
That physical button on the side of the Moto 360 actually serves more purpose than just a power button. No, it's not a fancy scroll wheel like on the Apple Watch, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Motorola has coded useful shortcuts with different types of user presses. Let's go through them:
Bonus tip: You can access Reviews , Theater Mode , and Brightness increase on the watch if you swipe down from the home screen. The drop-down panel shows Lollipop's notification options (All , Priority , or Nothing ). If you swipe from the right, you will see the additional functions.
The Android Wear app has a few more useful functions. You can look up stats on battery usage or 360 storage space.
Battery stats are in the same format you'd find for your Android phone, where you see a graph of performance, an estimate of battery life, and the percentage of battery used by individual watch functions .
Similarly, storage information tells you how much of your smartwatch's internal storage is being used by which apps. This is especially useful for knowing how much music you can download to the watch (for streaming offline music directly from the watch to a Bluetooth headset or speaker).
Many users may not know that you can take a screenshot of the current screen on your smartwatch, as we have always done on Android phones. Well, getting the screenshot is different. Unfortunately, the function is also hidden in the Android Wear app.
In the device settings in the app, if you click on Actions you're shown a list of all the functions your watch can do (and which apps will do those functions). Strangely, the button to take a screenshot is buried in the three-dot menu button in this area.
We're not done there, however. The captured image is not saved to the phone for some reason. Instead, you're prompted for where to send the screenshot. I just send it to my Google Drive account.
Screenshots are saved in a square format.
In the Moto 360 settings, you may have noticed an option called Wrist gestures . While this might sound like a set of motion tricks you can do with the watch, the only feature Motorola has implemented so far is hands-free scrolling.
How it works is quite simple. You're essentially flicking your wrist in the direction you want to scroll.
It's really cool, but be aware when doing it in public. You might get some weird looks.
Besides the ubiquitous puncture, I think most Moto 360 fans can agree that the 2nd-gen smartwatch is a great update to the original. But we hope Motorola doesn't consider itself finished. There is definitely room for improvement.
Several of the software options outlined above should be more apparent and less fragmented between the Android Wear app. We would also like to see a library of gestures. Please share your thoughts and/or additional tips.
