Interest in an Android Wear app? KS only for now.

[Zanoni]

17 minutes ago, Dzlchef said:

Thought it would work for me and realized the Samsung S3 wasn't on your list.  Bummer

For some reason I always though that the Gear S3 was Android Wear.  Now that I read about it, I see that it runs Samsung's Tizen OS.  That's too bad, it looks like a great watch.

[Planemo]

I have a Gear S2, they are really good and it would be fantastic to have wheel data available on it. Would you ever consider covering the platform?

I think it's possible to get speed/distance data via Map My Ride pushed to the S2 which is better than nothing but voltage/current would be better!

[Nimpom]

6 hours ago, Zanoni said:

Thanks!  Ooh, a new EUC coming in the post.  That's exciting! 

This weekend, if I get some time, I will be looking into my options for adding more devices.  

By the way, I haven't received any feedback yet.  Has anyone had a chance to try the app?

Yeah, realy exciting. Just got a verification from UPS that the package is on the way. Finaly I can retire my old Airwheel  x8. 

[Nimpom]

I found this that might be to some help when adding support for Inmotion wheels

[jitesar]

9 hours ago, Zanoni said:

Thanks!  Ooh, a new EUC coming in the post.  That's exciting! 

This weekend, if I get some time, I will be looking into my options for adding more devices.  

By the way, I haven't received any feedback yet.  Has anyone had a chance to try the app?

I'm all Apple gear user, so using iWatch all the time, but orderer Ticwatch Pro to meet also Android Enemy ;-)

I like Samsung smartwatch form factor more but I know, this is not Google Wear OS.

It should come next week then I will test it.

[Nick McCutcheon]

I just came across this thread. While I (sort of technically) don't own any KS wheels anymore, I'm happy there's finally an android wear app for EUCs! I'm excited to see where this project goes in the future. I've got a Ticwatch E, and I might be able to borrow my old KS14D from my friend for testing.

[RoadRunner]

Bought a used sony smartwatch 3 for little money and it should come today or tomorrow.

I have to find someone with android phone, iam an iphone kid, and i have to fiddle out how to get the app on the watch.

I will give an update when i did it.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Roadrunner

[Dzlchef]

Thinking of buying a cheap smart watch for a dedicated wheel monitor.  I won’t feel too bad then if I kill it in a wipeout.  I may be back soon with a tester!

[Zanoni]

6 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Bought a used sony smartwatch 3 for little money and it should come today or tomorrow.

I have to find someone with android phone, iam an iphone kid, and i have to fiddle out how to get the app on the watch.

I will give an update when i did it.

Yes, I think you're right that you'll need an Android phone to install on that watch.  I also have an old SW3 (the band broke) and it seems that they never updated it to Wear 2.0.  in Wear 2.0, you can download apps directly from the watch.  Let me know if you have any issues installing it.  I'll see if I can get it installed on mine too using the Play Store.  

[jitesar]

On 2/19/2019 at 12:14 PM, TomOnWheels said:

LG Watch Sport 4G/LTE... my previous was LG Urban 2 and I liked it a lot... I checked ticwatch pro too and it seems to be a good option too. I need 4G/LTE.

Bought also 2'nd hand LG Sport. My first non apple smart watch ;-) Looking forward to download the app.

[Ande]

Probably a daft question, but would it be feasible to integrate a “connect” button?  My biggest problem with the Kingsong app, and the KS18L, is that they keep falling out with each other, and stop communicating.  Don’t particularly want to invest in a smart watch, only to find that there is no data being displayed when I glance at it.  I don’t know if the wheel or the app is the culprit, and would things be more stable with a smart watch?

[Zanoni]

 

1 hour ago, Ande said:

Probably a daft question, but would it be feasible to integrate a “connect” button?  My biggest problem with the Kingsong app, and the KS18L, is that they keep falling out with each other, and stop communicating.  Don’t particularly want to invest in a smart watch, only to find that there is no data being displayed when I glance at it.  I don’t know if the wheel or the app is the culprit, and would things be more stable with a smart watch?

Actually, that's a pretty good point you have.  In the amount of testing that I've done, I haven't had any disconnects, but it could happen.  It would be nice to just automatically reconnect or add a manual button if it's an issue.  I'll take a closer look to this as I go to add more devices, since the code affecrted by this issue will likely change.

[Ande]

14 minutes ago, Zanoni said:

 

Actually, that's a pretty good point you have.  In the amount of testing that I've done, I haven't had any disconnects, but it could happen.  It would be nice to just automatically reconnect or add a manual button if it's an issue.  I'll take a closer look to this as I go to add more devices, since the code affecrted by this issue will likely change.

I only thought about it myself because I went riding today, and every time I got my phone out it showed a disconnect. Be great if it was feasible. Thanks

[Zanoni]

13 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Bought a used sony smartwatch 3 for little money and it should come today or tomorrow.

I have to find someone with android phone, iam an iphone kid, and i have to fiddle out how to get the app on the watch.

I will give an update when i did it.

Slightly bad news for the Sony SW3.  I tried installing, but now I realize that any Android Wear 1 watch isn't going to work from the Google Play Store.  Some of those watches are technically compatible, as in the app will run on them, but there's a catch.  In Android Wear 1.0, you had to install a phone app with the watch app bundled in.  I haven't created a phone app, so it won't show up for you in the store. Even though the phone app is not used, it's still required to install things.  I'll play around and see if I can get bundling to work, and keep you posted...

Another idea, if you're anxious to try it, and feeling adventurous.  It's possible to side-load the app directly from your computer.  I did that, and it works just fine.

[jitesar]

LG Sport + KS-18XL, my first feedback is that it really works :-) Didn't have time to ride it yet, but speed, battery is there!

My major issues are with scanning & connecting: it takes sometimes very long time until KS... is proposed to connect. And then connecting is also looong.

Maybe I can't use wear os smartwatch correctly but jumping to normal watch screen and back to the app starts connecting or scanning again and at the end I also had to switch off/on the wheel to be able to connect with it.

Or I see "Select wheel" but without option to select some. Then it apears for short time and disapears before I can select it and connect it.

I've seen also state when app was started but speed was not updated continuously.

So, issues mainly with connectivity.

But as firts watch version where we don't need tethering wit phone. Great! And it is only beta, so looking forward :-)

Thank you for spending your time with this project!

 

 

[RockyTop]

4 hours ago, jitesar said:

 

Maybe I can't use wear os smartwatch correctly but jumping to normal watch screen and back to the app starts connecting or scanning again and at the end I also had to switch off/on the wheel to be able to connect with it.

Or I see "Select wheel" but without option to select some. Then it apears for short time and disapears before I can select it and connect it.

I've seen also state when app was started but speed was not updated continuously.

The KSXL has connection problems. Most or at least some of the problem is likely the wheel. On the phone apps the KSXL commonly shows up as two different wheels and constantly switches back and forth between them. 

[jitesar]

Yes Scanning takes very long time (but in our company I see approx. 100 BT devices, so it can be also impacted). It could change when we will be able to save "My Wheel". It can then filter just this one.

But I have more Connectivity issues now. If finally name of my wheel apears and I catch this second.... Reloading app, restarting wheel. Takes minutes and when screen finally appers it randomly disconnects sometimes. 

I shut these wear os watches down until new version. I don't plan to use it for anything else then this app. Wearing back my iwatch is for me as teleporting forward in time ;-)

But still I think it is great result for the first version of the app.

[US69]

7 minutes ago, RockyTop said:

the KSXL commonly shows up as two different wheels

ALL Kingsong wheels Show up with 2 different Bluetooth tags, as one is for the Music and one is for the Wheel/app.

While there Maybe some wheels existing that have a not so good Connection -this can mostly be fixed by laying the BT antenna on the board a bit different- very often Connection Problems come from the Android Version or the specific phone. It is no secret that newer BT low Energy versions are not the highlight of Google development.

 

About a year ago i allready tested -several- Android 5.1 Smartwatches, where you are able to install wheellog and also the GW and KS app. None of those watches was able to make a stable Connection to whatever Kind of Wheel...tested on my KS18S and GW Tesla at the time which both had a rock Steady Connection to my phone. Thats mostly as -first the Signal strength of These watches are much lower than phones and -second Bluetooth waves are not able to travel through human flesh, so having a watch around the arm allready builds up a small obstacle. 

So i dumped About 300dollar in Smartwatches ...just because i wanted a speedometer on my arm so much….About all 15-30 seconds the Connection was gone and when i had one for a short time, the Speed wasnt updated as fast as on phone app.

I am very curious to see the results here with this Watch OS or Android wear, whatever it is called….hopefully it is better than on Android 5.1 Smartwatches.

Thumbs up for the developer …..when this all works out i am first to buy a Watch OS watch :-)

[RoadRunner]

12 hours ago, Zanoni said:

Slightly bad news for the Sony SW3.  I tried installing, but now I realize that any Android Wear 1 watch isn't going to work from the Google Play Store.  Some of those watches are technically compatible, as in the app will run on them, but there's a catch.  In Android Wear 1.0, you had to install a phone app with the watch app bundled in.  I haven't created a phone app, so it won't show up for you in the store. Even though the phone app is not used, it's still required to install things.  I'll play around and see if I can get bundling to work, and keep you posted...

Another idea, if you're anxious to try it, and feeling adventurous.  It's possible to side-load the app directly from your computer.  I did that, and it works just fine.

That’s a bummer, i bought the watch because i wanted a cheap one. I don’t wear watches i just want to use it when i ride so i sont want to spend much money on it.

Well then i have to go on and find a cheap watch to work with it, if someone has any suggestions.

[RockyTop]

1 hour ago, US69 said:

ALL Kingsong wheels Show up with 2 different Bluetooth tags, as one is for the Music and one is for the Wheel/app.

I understand that KS has a music bt and a data bt.  The darknessbot app switches between two KS18XL euc data identities while playing music.  the app shows recorded ride data for two KS18XL  with the same s#.  The darknessbot  has full ride data and history on what it sees as two different wheels. (not the same data on the same ride. the data has to be pieced together to get a whole ride,)  When using the KS app the connection is lost and the data is lost. I assumed the data was lost because is switched identity to the other line. My KS16s has never done anything like this. The KS16 has the best app connection of all my wheels and the KS18 has by far the worst.   (I understand that Darknessbot is not KingSong's problem. I just thought it might shed some light on the situation)

1 hour ago, US69 said:

 

While there Maybe some wheels existing that have a not so good Connection -this can mostly be fixed by laying the BT antenna on the board a bit different-

Good point! I might be improving the antenna a bit............    (evil laugh)

Edited February 22, 2019 by RockyTop

[Zanoni]

On 2/20/2019 at 11:07 PM, Planemo said:

I have a Gear S2, they are really good and it would be fantastic to have wheel data available on it. Would you ever consider covering the platform?

I think it's possible to get speed/distance data via Map My Ride pushed to the S2 which is better than nothing but voltage/current would be better!

Sorry, I wish I could say yes, but there's really no way that I'll be covering the Samsung side of things.  I've got to stay focused

[Zanoni]

13 hours ago, jitesar said:

LG Sport + KS-18XL, my first feedback is that it really works :-) Didn't have time to ride it yet, but speed, battery is there!

My major issues are with scanning & connecting: it takes sometimes very long time until KS... is proposed to connect. And then connecting is also looong.

Maybe I can't use wear os smartwatch correctly but jumping to normal watch screen and back to the app starts connecting or scanning again and at the end I also had to switch off/on the wheel to be able to connect with it.

Or I see "Select wheel" but without option to select some. Then it apears for short time and disapears before I can select it and connect it.

I've seen also state when app was started but speed was not updated continuously.

So, issues mainly with connectivity.

But as firts watch version where we don't need tethering wit phone. Great! And it is only beta, so looking forward :-)

Thank you for spending your time with this project!

 

 

Awesome, thanks so much the detailed feedback!  I will be adding issues here, just so that I can keep track, and prioritize things.  I also have some trials and tribulations connecting to my KS16s.  I just figured it's the wheel, but I do need to look a bit deeper.  I was hoping that once it sees the wheel, you can just save it as your default, and connect automatically.  That may make some of the connection issues less bad for the time being.  Thanks for testing it out!

[US69]

7 hours ago, RockyTop said:

point! I might be improving the antenna a bit............    (evil laugh)

Actually there is a curly wire laying on the board, going away from the BT chip. Can be interfered if not laying optimal.

BT chip is on all S/L/XL wheels the same. Perhaps you really have the bad luck of an unsteady connection. 

I had that on one of my older KS...and i know this sucks. :-( 

My point was more or less...that it is much harder to get a watch to connect...was one of the most frustrating experience. i ever had.

[RockyTop]

4 minutes ago, US69 said:

Actually there is a curly wire laying on the board, going away from the BT chip. Can be interfered if not laying optimal.

BT chip is on all S/L/XL wheels the same. Perhaps you really have the bad luck of an unsteady connection. 

I had that on one of my older KS...and i know this sucks. :-( 

My point was more or less...that it is much harder to get a watch to connect...was one of the most frustrating experience. i ever had.

I have done a little more research. What I have found is that if I use the BT speakers (connect and play music) The app stops connecting and disconnecting. When not using the speakers the app keeps disconnecting, My theory is that it is switching between the two BT connections.  I have access to two of these KS18XL and they both do the same thing. Just for the record even though I have access to two  KS18XL they have remained in two different regions or the country. 

[Zanoni]

Just a small update.  I've been doing some more tests with my equipment here.  2 observations:

1) Both of my watches seem to keep a pretty solid connection with my wheel once they are initially connected.  They also seem to have a pretty decent range, and keep connected consistently within 10 meters or so (depending on what's in the way).  

2) I feel like the battery life should be much better if anyone's going to take this on a long ride.  I'm dropping about 1% battery per minute, which I feel like is a bit high, even with the constant updating display.  Before I go much further with anything else, I will be looking to improve efficiency.