Gadgetory

good midday morning afternoon whatever the hell it is for you wherever you are in the world episode 176 of the 359 podcast on Wednesday februari eighth good morning afternoon evening on and on because we're all over the world let's get a go come to Roger Cheng and our special guest at Scott Stein today thanks for living beyond time good to see you yo well that's a very appropriate thing to say James will be dedicating the entire show to Android wear two point oh and wearables watches is that something people care about still people care about time the concept of time is purple do you care about a SmartWatch this time travel a part of the Android wear two point oh yes you can now travel through taken three point oh uh yeah it's tough to get people to care about smartwatches we know that um but no work we'll probably no dinner we're gonna break down all the details Scott has had an extensive amount of time using the software as well as the new LG watch watch his watches and he'll break down and answer all your questions as awesome as always if you have any leave them in the comments section Brian will pick them out and we will answer them in about four minutes or so all right let us get through the recording and we'll come back and hit all your talking points in the chat and exactly three minutes and 59 seconds from 32 welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top tech news of the day only the crap we want to throw in I'm Roger Cheng and with me is a very special guest The Wizard of wearables Scott Stein thanks first time I've ever been called that and opaque I called it every time well Scott is here to break down Android wear two point oh just got announced as well as a couple new LG watches yes Scott first to break down the underwear has had you know tough time right the initial launch was kinda iffy people weren't really on the bandwagon what makes Android wear two point O different and better so I'm sure Google knows it's standing in relation to Apple watch but you know now Andrew where to is giving a lot of stuff that should have been on the watch before and if you have an Android SmartWatch you'll be really excited to see a lot of these features they're going to come to a lot of the watches android pay so if your NFC you can academic payments now watch faces have gotten better particularly if you know the term complications basically it's little bits of info that live on your watch Apple watch as these basically we get the weather gets steps and then they're kind of like widgets on your phone kind like little widget Sandra were already has some of these but they're not really like formalized in the system now you can add a lot some watch face allow you to add like eight which sounds crazy but it's really good cuz you get at a glance info and those a lot of times become app launcher so that's how i like to use watches you got that Google fit has gotten better is it as good as a Fitbit no but it does more activity tracking things like that obviously that's where wearables lie and those are the main things you know and it also just runs more on the watch the apps are meant to now download completely in work better in offline mode which is stuff the Apple watch does Samsung's watches do but then I've only used them so far on LG's to new watches which is a different story also a bottom line how does android wear two point oh how does the experience compared to apple watch not as good okay but I think also i'm looking at the story yeah and a story done but it's also beta software i'm looking at this is his pre-release so it could get better a lot of apps have not hooked into it yet I found that something's got a little sluggish times Google fit didn't seem like it was thinking quite right but that you know again might get ironed out I I think it's a lot more cocoa glanceable it pop stuff up in your face I'll get used to with Android wear for Google now assistant now is like Siri or the others we press a button and bring it up right it doesn't speak to you it shows you text it doesn't really feel that much different it's not going to feel like an Amazon echo or Google home it could hook into more thing so it's overall it's you say thank goodness it's better but it's not the best and that could be a problem you need great watches to take advantage of it and that's where google and its relationship to the hardware partners well speaking of which you spend some time with LG's two watches which are sort of the flagship devices for android 2.2 l g watch sport and as you watch style yeah glad they ditched the weird or bane name because that didn't make any sense yeah I'm gonna forget air being ever excited how are those watches what's experience like what does it work to play you basically i want the one that's in the middle that doesn't exist because style is thin but it lacks heart rate elects NFC for android pay so it's a launch watch it doesn't have android paid kind of strange it does your basic stuff at the battery life is really short it lasted less than a full day as we've been wearing it which is not great but it looks kind of clean it's 250 which is not the cheapest android wear watch right then sport ties everything in like the Samsung gear s3 it's an LTE phone ok plus gps + SmartWatch it's huge it's a gauntlet and it's on your right it actually makes the f3 look smaller yeah I know it makes s3 look really small that's insane which is insane it's really big I it definitely works as a phone in standalone mode that's kind of cool if you if you want that but you have to pay for data service for that like ten dollars a month yeah um it's $350 not an unreasonable price but the battery life was kind of a because that's what happened I took a look at both his watch is that they are kind of on the bland looking side right yeah they're a little bit futuristic generic right is what I would say so it's not as good as the samsung gear s3 which in and of itself was not as good as i would have liked it to be so you're in the middle okay well that more of these stories for more of these stories check us out Cena I'm Roger Cheng I'm Scott Stein stay tuned thanks for listening good talk yeah that's a very exciting new passion a lot of animation yeah I was trying applause I know it's like a marathon of just information Gus you have mixed feelings it's so hard to give us x and right rightfully this is here's the problem you're looking at beta pre-released ups you're like what is our final judgment that's why we don't have rated reviews right on these watches yet because you can't come to a consensus you got to give it a fair shake through launch do you think it'll actually get better once you get sort of the main the full software intact or I think it will but look are these gonna make people care the bottom line or these gonna make people care more about smart watches no yeah that's really kind of the takeaway because the Apple watch is sitting at the top in a war of attrition I think where it has a lot of companies going out of business they've made some good solid improvements nothing ground shaking but useful yeah i think the like when apple last year started focusing kind of pivoting i hate using that word pivoting towards the device is less of a fashion item but more of a activity tracker kind of capitalizing on the fitness aspect of yeah yeah that was a smart move that in I'm not sure Samsung has done that I'm not sure you know android wear has done that really well like they're still trying to present this as a SmartWatch and I think people don't want a smart watch it I care about Apple watch as a SmartWatch they care about it as a fitness tracker yes and they care about it as a statement or something that they can feel hooks into their stuff and there's something's apple watch does that are pretty simple there are other things that are really complicated about it that um that don't work that well and that's probably the best because you know pebble I always liked but pebble does not exist anymore it put it in what it ever was so now it's part of Fitbit who knows what's going to happen and even that hit its wall was more about certain features samsung yet samsung samsung makes great hardware those watchers are really interesting it's a problem because if you hook them up to an android phone that's why i have a hard time recommending them there's a lot of hook ins yeah you have to get into samsung stuff you're already using you have to create a Samsung Account you really be in the full samsung ecosystem take advantage of it like I use a trick soul what the s3 yeah and it's not the best experience and I switched it over do an iphone it's even worse like it's it's kinda like this this kind of half experience that you're getting right it's a double hooking and at least when you know the the Apple Apple watch experiences is is the idea that you you set it up it's not easy to set up and remove stuff it's kind of annoying but but once you're in there it's it's fully hooked in its part of one account system yep you know versus Google and Samsung NS health and a lot of permissions a lot of things I'm granting in bridge conduit a feeling super comfortable with all the permissions of yo in this age it freaks me out yeah I know it's like you can't it's hard to keep your eye on what's going on but it when you know you think like I am agreeing to so many different things right now it's like eula city and then um I yeah I don't know it's it's numbing then if you want third party apps you got to have bridge conduits for that and boy this sounds like fun and I look at wearables and I'm exhausted so right the average person forget it Google at least when you get say this on the four minutes the reason I'd be more likely to recommend Andhra whereas at least it's part of your google life yeah and if you're an Android user that's what you're after so you've got assistant that's what you want you want assistant on your wrist you know it's going to be hooked in better I don't think it's perfect right now but it's more of a watch and Google's and Adams watch family I have an unfortunate battery dietary died but because it's it's who this thing this is the style this is the smaller room how'd you watch style which is not the most stylish watch it's an unfortunate name for the style it's okay I like a dinner are definitely over sells itself by calling itself the style I would call it the LG watch neat it's like a nice clean air called not on the rocks right it's a clean hair cut it definitely I wouldn't mind wearing it I think is a clean it is clean I'll give you that so many watches I hate when they start looking like things that escape like a fancy jewelry shop from the 70s right I don't know is like for like bangles and bulb I actually like this I like the f3 design like I know you you thought it looks too much like an actual watch I thought I kind of liked it I like it I like it more going back to it that the thing is following up boy that is a lot nicer to me than the two Colonels right so let's let's throw some questions yeah we're gonna run out of time quick but let's let's hit the chat Jim and Jacob let's talk when in and who the updates coming for Jim and Jacob are hoping that their Sony SmartWatch 3 and moto respectively are going to be on the list for the young day so good question we actually put a story up on Sina today about all the watches that are getting updates I forgot which one specifically are it's a long list but the list is on cnet com yes look blog I can definitely check it out there but be comfy comforted knowing the list is actually quite long and here's the list I'm actually going to pull it up and talk to you about it Sony's is not on I'm sorry to say but moto 360 is which all of them the 2015 now if you have the first generation moto 360 you probably had a lot probably out of luck yeah it's a long list it's it's more current things aces n watch two and three casio fossil q founder no one's bought these watches you got a fossil q like exactly now the ones we care about more i would say huawei watch which has always been our top android wear pick for a while man that gets it the new Moto 360 was a new meaning 2015 onwards those get it um the tag tags connected watch yes I better get updated if yeah I know I wanted to be updated for life I wanted to regenerate and for more how much is that thing cost it's a couple thousand fifteen hundred thousand fifteen I mean to be there are actual tag watches are way more expensive so they can look at vango look it's it's a it's a bargain but they're also ones like actually watch urbane LTE gets the updates if makes sense though LG's super cuz of Google and watch urbane and LG watch are not the very first generation of Android wear watches if you had that makes sense you have a gear live or a LG watch not the round but the original school err you're not gonna be in luck what other questions do we got uh what about LG watch sport is that on the list LG watch well jus export is the new one ok so that's coming that's the one that we just looked at got it is there another is an earlier version of there was the LG watch are the LG watch urbane and the watch urbane LTE got those knees are ridiculous all the names are always dum la de calor of Smart Watch history like you have to pull a strange chart out they've run out of letters in terms names for these things and let's talk about specific time when is this rolling out good question there's not been so these watches the the watch sport and the watch style are available at the end of this week they're gonna be the first to get it the others are getting it on a roll out now you know how Android is work oh yeah they Google had said that these are coming but there but there's no unfortunately this time around there's no like carrier feirense aside from some of the I guess the lt1 but right so these are can be updated yourself I think that these should be happening pretty soon yeah but they are going to be rolling out might not like all of a sudden on Friday you're gonna get your update maybe maybe not but it's not there's no specific date updates that we've seen so you may have to hang in there but those will get it I imagine and you'll be I think you'll be better off however we have not tested Andrew where to point o on old watches I don't know so that's why we have not said it's aiming to make it better it should make it better i would i would imagine we got imagine the timing for the updates are gonna differ from manufacturer manufacturer just to make sure because things are they tweak the software different ways yeah they've got to go and we've got a vet all this stuff so I measure the battery I wouldn't happen anytime soon I want help I hope the battery life doesn't get impacted me again we're testing this on on new watches that we've never had any comparative results on so if you put it on an old watch what what is the battery life difference Google didn't talk about any gains or losses in battery life with Andrew were two point oh so we don't know alright so our buddy Michael is back in the chat he's been with a long time data Michael Scott he wants you to put apple watch side by side with the LG support I don't have the Apple watch on me nothing not literally Oh side by side oh that's what I thought he'd meant to like Oh at least side by side to come here give us your lap spective um but give it to us in like 15 seconds I think the Apple watch is a much more polished experience the one thing that Apple does right now they think is really smart is they're not creating too many variants in lines yeah in fact what's really cool is that their entire lineup does heart rate their entire lineup does Apple pay now you're going to have some manager watches that don't have android pay you're gonna have some that don't have heart rate I mean whatever reason core dilemma though is less rain unless share an iphone user Apple watch is irrelevant to you right hmm exactly yeah you can't use it anyway yeah yeah so would I would I go switch over just to use an Apple watch I mean probably not um I think it's more about iphone in total iOS experience but I like that it's all in there however I'm not wild with Apple watch a series to that the GPS functions are made so automatically invisible that you really have almost no awareness of them you can't turn gps on off it only works with certain activities it works when Apple wants it to and it hooks into things that Apple deems it to hook into so it's so invisible I guess all GPS works when at one when an app wants it to but it just feel you do feel like a little removed like where is it I don't even see it I'm not aware of it I love that the Apple watches swim friendly right that's something that there are some Andrew watches that do that I think it's like water resistance is always nice um it have more of it but i also get so much smaller that's the thing that kills me about LG watch sport is it super big so if you want a gps sport watch you may not want a monster watch and at least apple watches is pushing that other they can be fair and more normal size to be fair if you're a runner you're probably used those big clunky gps watches right you are but even dan graziano who wears running watches all the time basically looked at the sport was like oh my god yes i want what is that um it's super big it's super big and i don't know how many more times like I said it's it's and it doesn't feel like it needed to be that large so we're hoping that it's going to scale down hopefully some point the price is going to come down as the math you in the chat is mentioned the asking if we know any speculation about when android watches are going to start to come down I can't really imagine that we have much to say about that outside of we hope to yo guesses I mean I think you have so many people making watches I think that's going to start happening asus has made a couple of really competitive priced Andrew where smartwatches I mean Marvin Chevron's and watch two yep yeah super cheap does em watch three which we actually never did a full review umber we're going to now that it's gained the 2 point 0 update we're going to do lots of quick reviews on all these watches to try to get you an answer as soon as possible about what the best one is because that we're curious I think it's going to be a surprise as far as like ones will emerge you go this is now the grit best one I think they'll get really super affordable $150 you'll see once floating out there you know I really hope this becomes the beginning of really customizable Android wear watches that start looking very different from each other so that you there's a reason to buy one versus another not locked on to that that you can only get those features of that watch but just something a little yeah they all do kind of look they don't kind of the same shape and design there I'll come off I know that's why I said Jan Erik looking because they all kind of look similar but then then I also feel like at the same time so I say well I want them to all be different and then I think well how annoying would it be I don't like that Apple made its own nike sport watch in the sense that has a few features that are only baked into that one it's like special edition game consoles it's like it's like now I can only get those Siri hooked in nike controls on that nike watch will widen or that watch face Apple dozen have a watch space store which is crazy why can't you get that Nike watch face on your regular apple watch by a special version like I wouldn't want to have the casio one have one thing I like and then i go by can't get that although you know what that's really that's really the reality of how these companies think they need to have something differentiates it's true well rightly so rapid-fire last couple of points yeah Mike's rebuttal is he's waiting for the Google pixel watch yeah which by the way we talked to Google about that that's a follow-up story did so far there that they're not really hot a lot of the rumors were that they were gonna have a pixel watch for Andrew where to point o obviously that's not the case we came up we have the LG watches instead so I think it's good I wish it were rats gonna come down we should wrap things up yeah thank you Scott very much for joining us ya know always a pleasure to have you if you like anything you saw or heard here trick us on a cnet our podcast is also available on itunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music we will see you all tomorrow right