Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Original Review: This review has nothing to do with any sellers. I like to come to amazon for reviews so I feel this is one of the best places to post my review of the Moto 360 and as of yet this listing seems to be the most prominent, so... I've been using a Pebble for about a year so I have a baseline to compare this verses what has been regarded as the best smartwatch to date. Purchase experience: I ordered the moto 360 directly from Motorola just a few minutes after it started selling and received it on 9/15/14. I was tempted to pay a premium to get it a few days faster, but really a few extra days was no big deal and this watch is nice but it is not worth it to pay a premium. Initial impression: I saw all the box opening videos, so I knew what to expect. What I didn't expect was that the watch is really big. I have quite a lot of watches of all types and even "dive" watches and this is as big as the biggest watches I have - which is big. My daily don't care if it gets beat up watch (before the pebble) was a Citizen Nighthawk - which is just a bit smaller than a dive watch but pretty big itself. The Moto 360 dwarfs the Nighthawk, so it's bigger than I was thinking. It's heavier than the Pebble but not quite as heavy as my Nighthawk. Still it's comfortable on my wrist and I got used to the size and weight. The build quality is nice - on par with casual entry level watches like Citizen or Seiko - not really comparable to high end though. The band is o.k. but for my daily watch I like a waterproof band. This can take 22mm watch bands but they created a slim deep pocket so that only thin bands of around 2-3mm could possible fit - none of my other 22mm bands could fit. So, I'm in a pickle as to if I want to wear this in shower or let it get wet. I wore it in the shower once as a test and while the watch is water resistant there are two things that makes me not want to do it again. The touch screen is sensitive to water and it kept turning off my music even though I wasn't in the music settings on the watch - it keeps activating the "ok google" screen. Also, the band gets thoroughly soaked when wet and takes a few hours to completely dry. Setup: Already having a lot of reviews I knew I had to charge it before doing anything. Only thing is that when you place it on a charger it wants to turn on and you can't turn it off (or it's very difficult to and it keeps restarting anyway) so having the screen on at the same time it's initially charging slows down the whole process. What also is botched up is that the watch shows a screen asking you to connect to your smartphone and it doesn't go away - but if you connect it will supposedly try to download an update further slowing down the initial charging - but there is no charge indication showing how much charge you have so you know when it's safe to connect (which is recommended to be above 50% or higher). ou have to fight with the push button and the touch screen to go to settings and about to see the charge, but then the connect screen pops back up and you can't see anything. Anyway, after a couple hours charging I connected it to my phone, then it did it's thing with downloading a new update, and I left it on the charger to continue charging to 100% which took forever. I would say about 6-7 hours. While it was charging I loaded some apps and watch faces - which you can still do while it's charging. Setup update: After using this watch and having to reset it a few times I've come up with the opinion that you should not try to do anything with the Moto 360 while charging. I've noticed that the watch will get hot while charging and when it gets hot the battery drains very rapidly, so if you try to install or uninstall an app, or reboot, or reset that further strains the device making get even hotter - therefore making the battery drain even faster to the point the battery percentage drops even while on the charger. I recommend waiting till the device is cool to the touch to do any of those things. So I would infer that for the initial charge it would probably be best to just set it on the charger for several hours until it reaches 100% and then taking it off the charger and letting it cool down before syncing and updating. Then after the initial update I would reboot, and then install any other apps that I wanted. Battery Life: Update 09/29/14: Battery life has improved tremendously with update KGW42R so it's no longer an issue in my opinion. Update 10/28/14: As a basic watch for notifications and telling time battery life is not an issue at all. I turn ambient on and have no problem going the whole day. However, if you do any processor or screen intensive uses such as runkeeper, strava, navigation, remote camera, music boss, music status and controls, downloading music, graphic intensive games, or the like the battery drains like it's a windows pocket PC from 2003 (which means it drains very very fast). Also for *some* of these type of apps it seems to stay in memory and continues to drain unless you do a reboot. Actual use: I've been pretty satisfied with my pebble except for two things. I wish it had a touch screen, and the bluetooth connection is kind of shaky. None of the weather updates are consistent and many apps just don't work right. Though in hind site pebble was mess at first and they made massive improvements and still have room for more, but it's proven very useful. The Moto 360 has the touch screen and the apps as far as I've seen seem to update more reliably and quicker. However there are times that buttons are better than a touch screen - working out and showering especially. Working out it's really easy to do a no look volume increase or skip to the next track. It's also a convenient way to do other no look things like muting or rejecting a call. So far I've found the touchscreen too fiddly with too many swipes to do simple actions, but I'm getting used to it and there are apps to improve on the experience. Thank goodness for apps. I'll make a list of recommended apps below. Without the apps I would call the android wear user experience a big fail, right now it's functional and I hope that they make improvements like they did with Android for smartphones. One of the biggest pains is getting to the menus. You have to make the screen come on by flicking it up or pressing the side button, then either say "ok google" or tap the screen, then swipe up to get past the ok google mic screen, then scroll through to get to settings page or the "start" apps page. I though the pebble was over contrived, but it's so much easier than with android wear. Again I found apps that make this much easier. Round screen: Ok, the main thing that really makes this watch is the round screen and overall round form factor. It's really nice. The watch case is nice (if just a little large). The screen is nice enough resolution and brightness wise. I was on the fence about getting this or the LG G watch R, because I thought it would be nice to have a fully round watch face, but I've changed my mind. In actual use the rounded edges are pretty much dead space, so the bottom edge of the Moto 360 being gone is a nonfactor in functionality. The round screen cuts off way more by just being round than by lopping off a small piece of unusable screen at the bottom. There are a lot of apps that are not compatible or just won't work or have to be scaled down to make it fit on the round screen. Text, icons, and images get cut off but not at the bottom but all around the the watch - like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I really like that they made the screen edge to edge (for the most part it's edge to edge) and I think they need to take that technology and make a rounded off square form factor like the apple watch, but make the screen edge to edge and they would have a winner. I'll pass on the LG G watch R and wait for an edge to edge squarish but stylish watch. The Asus smartwatch case looks really nice but there is too much empty black bezel on the watch face. Recommended apps: Essential apps: Wear Mini Launcher - just swipe to see an app drawer of all your apps, and swipe once more to get quick vitals and settings menu Wear Apps Tracker - pops up notifications when you install, update or uninstall and app Wear Apps Manager - See and manage all your wear apps on your smartphone (this is only on your smartphone) Market for Android Wear - a pretty thorough app market place app you can browse on your smartphone Update 09/29/14 added apps: Showear: Android Wear Lock - It locks your screen so water on the screen doesn't make it go nuts and order a pizza. Wear Network Notifier - notifies you when your phone changes the network connection and displays the name and type Highly recommended: Find my Phone - activates an alarm to find your phone if you misplaced it, also notifies you if you lost a connection Wear Unlock for Android Wear - unlocks your phone when you are connected and locks it when connection is lost Music Boss for Wear - music controls with way more function than stock Calculator for Android - there are a lot of calculator apps, but this one works well with the round screen Calendar for Android Wear - again there are a lot, this one works well with the round screen and you can click through to see your agenda Wear Messenger - look up and read messages and you can reply with voice dictation Mini Dailer for Android Wear - useful if you have a headset and want to make a call just dailing from your watch Remote Shot for Moto 360 - access your smartphone's camera, take a picture and change a few settings Apps I like: Wear Internet browser - a browser for your moto 360, not very useful on a small screen but it's neat Wear Audio Recorder - record audio clips on the go Watch Membership Android Wear - input the numbers on you membership cards and the barcode is generated Draw Watch for Android Wear - doodle drawings on your watch Wear Translator - speak and the watch will speak back the translated version, used ok google engine but makes it easy to access Spirit Level for Wear - lay your watch down and use it as a level Wear Counter - just a basic counter, click and it goes up one Conclusion: I think the pebble is as useful or more so and way less maintenance. Just charge it every few days and that's it. I don't think android wear and the moto 360 is quite ready for the average consumer. As an early adopter I'm o.k. giving it a try for a while. I like that it's more flashy than the pebble with it's color screen, but I'm contemplating going back to the pebble (or maybe getting the pebble steel). Update 09/23/14: Fitness and health tracking: One thing that I really like about Moto 360 (or Android wear) as apposed to the pebble smartwatch is that apps can run in the background. So with Android wear the step counter can continuously work all day, even if you close the app. There are step counter apps for pebble but as soon as you leave the app then it stops counting, which makes that function pointless on the pebble. The built in app on the Moto 360 tracks your steps by the day and let's you know if you've reached your daily goals by showing you pop up cards, or you can open the app. You have to install another app to manage it or do anything more useful with the information. The leather band get's wet and stays wet, so I'd prefer not to use it working out, but I've been using while cycling. It's been fine, and it's not so heavy that it bangs around. It's big, but the round form factor makes it comfortable. It probably would bang around with a metal band, but the leather band holds it well enough. Ideally I'd like a rubber or silicone band but they are way to thick at the pins to fit into the narrow slot. I tried trimming a 22mm rubber watch band by shaving away with a razor but I ended up trimming too much so that the barrels of the pins were exposed on some parts and still it was too thick to fit. When I work out I use a Ant+ chest strap heart rate sensor with Ant+ garmin device. It reads heart rate continuously very well. You can't really use the heart rate monitor on this Moto 360 watch in a similar way while working out because you have to keep your wrist still and then wait for it to measure your heartrate. There are two built in apps for heart rate and they both take a few seconds to give a reading. The watch does take heartrate measurements at intervals throughout the day to see if you have been exercising and if it guesses you have done more than 30 minutes in a day it'll display a card telling you. Other than that it's not usable for fitness. Regarding battery while working out. Basically you can't leave it on a heart rate monitor while working out as it'll time out and the screen will go black after a few seconds and then go back to the watch face, so a continuous monitoring is out of the question. The step counter runs all the time anyway so there is no extra affect on the battery, also on the other hand you can't turn off the step sensor to save battery either. If you want to see your heart rate with a watch I think the only option is the Mio smartwatches. Other than that there are many watches that are compatible with chest strap sensors. Update 09/29/14: Improved Battery Life: Last week Motorola sent out an update for the Moto 360. The new update is Build Number KGW42R (previously it was KGW42N). This update is not the big Android Wear update that is expected in October but updates specific to the Moto 360. The official change log states they updated the following: Bluetooth connectivity - Improved Bluetooth connectivity between the watch and phone to reduce momentary disconnects experienced by some users Charging notification - Added a message to confirm that Moto 360 is charging in cases when its battery is fully depleted Bug fixes - implemented bug fixes and other system optimizations I installed my update 3 days ago and I've noticed a big improvement in battery life. I waited several days to confirm and it has been consistent. I really depend on my watch to see the time and date throughout the day so I leave the ambient setting on, and I've been running a custom watch face (even though I recommend against it till the official android wear api supports it) and before the update the watch was getting me from 6am to about 6-7pm so I would give it a boost charge during the day. After the update and even with ambient on and a custom watch face the watch will go till I go to sleep at 10 or 11 and still have a decent charge left. This is a major improvement in battery life and makes the watch soooo much more convenient. Though I have noticed changes in the display behavior that could be helping. The watch will tend to display the darker dimmed ambient clock in more situations than showing the fully on watch face than before, and even with the full watch on it will tend to dim the display more quickly than before. It still works fine and I can see what I need in clearly in most conditions, and I doubt most people would notice the change. The trade off in battery life is more than worth it. Regarding bluetooth disconnections - it seems some watches are affected and some are not. I think it has more to do with what phone you're connected to than the watch itself. My pebble disconnected quite often during the day with my phone and I noticed the same behavior with my moto 360 and that same phone (sony xperia Z). I was used to it and it doesn't bother me. After the update I still get occasional disconnection notices, but I do notice it's reduced the number of times it will disconnect to maybe just once a day vs several times a day. After the update I still think there is room for improvement with Android Wear, but I'm pretty satisfied with the Moto 360 especially with the improved battery life. I just may keep this watch longer before looking to upgrade to one of the newer watches expected to come out soon. Update 09/29/14 part 2: Custom Watch faces: Now that battery life has improved to the point you can have a custom watch face without compromise even without the official API supporting it I wanted to make some notes regarding it. First of all there are a lot of custom watch faces and several watch face systems that let you install and customize your watch faces. Some are free and some charge. I've also noticed some seem to use up more battery than others. I prefer the kind that charge you once for the app to join their ecosystem and then lets you customize and share with others. There is a big community growing around Facer. It's an app that lets you develop your own watch face and share custom watch faces developed by others. There are hundreds of watch faces already for Facer and it may become the de facto non-OEM watch face system for Android Wear. Another popular one that is still in beta is Face for Wear. I've had good experiences with Facer, but even that is sort of a work in progress. The watch faces people are developing are pretty amazing. Making your own watch faces with Facer is tedious though. For ease of use I like Android Wear WatchFaces by Intellicom AS. It has enough customization and ease of use for me to get the watch face I want, though it may not have enough customizations for a lot of other people - as it's basically an analog watch face that you can customize with preset options for hands, backgrounds, dials, and subdials. I'll either use this or watch faces I've downloaded for Facer. Between these I get all the variability I want and they seem to be ok with battery usage. One month update 10/16/14: So I've had the Moto 360 for about a month and thought I'd give a long term update. Battery life has been very good and to the point I don't bother checking how much charge I have left because it's been reliably getting me through the entire day - even long days where I have it off the charger from 6am to past midnight. I have ambient turned on, many apps installed, many phone calls and messages throughout the day. I don't play with it a lot though, such as playing games or navigation. Occasionally I'll check my heart rate or steps and use Google now. Regarding google now. In my original review I complained of having trouble with voice searches, though I think that had to do with trying to send a text or call up people by name, or start an app by name and it doesn't seem to understand proper names that well for me. However, everything else seems to work well by voice - Checking weather, sports scores, trivial facts, replying to text messages. So well, that I prefer to swipe away all my notification cards as soon as they pop up, so I can see my watch face unobstructed (knowing I can pull up that info again pretty quickly by voice). Replying to messages works really well, and it will work with many messaging apps also. Speaking of watchfaces, I've really been enjoying using custom watch faces using the Facer app. There are communities that share their new facer watch faces on reddit, and on other websites. A repository can be found on the facerepo site - I'm using a Halloween themed face I got off of there yesterday. I wanted to mention a user on the XDA forums that goes by the username boostr29 (I have no connection to), who makes the most incredible replica watch face designs. Now as far as any negative feedback so far. It appears to me that the major battery savings might be coming from having the screen turn off much quicker than before, and that goes for ambient mode as well. Before the update the watch face would stay on for a lot longer in ambient mode, now it turns off pretty quickly. With Ambient turned off, to me it seems to take too much wrist action to get the watch face to light up so I leave it on. With Ambient on it seems to act like I would want it to act normally - if that makes any sense. As it takes just slight movement for the watch to light up dimly and then more defined movement for it to light up brighter, and then it dims again almost immediately and screen turns off pretty quickly after that. It seems to do that whether I'm indoors or out - which makes me think that the light sensor isn't really doing much to adjust brightness based on light conditions or was possibly overridden in the update. Also, another gripe is the awful watch band hidden lug design. It makes it very hard to find replacement bands, and there are numerous reports of people cracking or damaging the plastic backs after replacing with aftermarket bands. I wanted a rubber/silicone band and after experimenting and ruining several I was able to modify one enough to where it fits, but now after a couple weeks I can see that the plastic back of the watch is lifting, so I might have to take it off before it get permanently damaged. Also, I wished they sold the chargers separately, just in case I want one at work or traveling. I bought 2 totally different aftermarket Qi chargers but they seem to take a lot longer to charge than the original charger. To make it worse, after changing the band my watch doesn't lay flat anymore so it doesn't sit on the flat aftermarket chargers low enough to charge. Which I guess I don't need to worry too much about now that battery life is better, except for when I want to control my music. The stock music control app is not very good so I use Music Boss, but Music Boss really drains the watch battery, so if I want to use Music Boss then I'll need to recharge to get me through the day. Same goes for any other processor intensive app, another reason I just stick to the basics. But the screen is so small it's kind of pointless to do anything more than just basic stuff anyway - such as checking notifications, weather, scores, time, calculator, google now searches. Firmware update 10/23/2014: Just got a new update to build number KNX01S, it updates moto 360 software version to 4.4W.2, and Android Wear to 1.0.1.1526154. The official update by Motorola is: ******************************************************************** "Moto 360 was designed to be timeless--and that goes for our software, too! Today we are beginning to roll out a new Android Wear update coming to your watch soon. In this update you will find: Smart Battery Saving - When your battery hits 15%, your Moto 360 will turn off ambient mode, so you don't have to remember to. Timely Time Checks - Moto 360 will synchronize the time with your phone more often to make sure it is up to the minute. User Interface Tweaks - We observed with consumers that there are many times where you want to use your Moto 360 as truly a classic watch--a beautiful way to see the time. A new gesture now lets you see the full watch face without permanently dismissing a notification. Just touch the top of a notification and swipe down. You'll see the notification again when you have another high priority notification. Mood Lighting - Moto 360 will adjust to the lighting of the room while charging, so that it isn't too bright or too dark. Readying the wires for Bluetooth - There are a couple of under-the-hood enhancements that will pave the way for connecting Bluetooth headsets to the watch. Bug Squashing - As usual, bugs are squashed to enhance the overall user experience. We will roll out the new software in phases. Look for the update notification on your watch! You will be prompted to install. To install the update, make sure that you're connected to your phone with an internet connection and that your watch has at least 80% battery. " ********************************************************************* The update came as a card notification. When I tried to install it a message popped up telling me to charge the watch. I charged it to 100% and took it off the charger and let it cool (I notice the watch becomes erratic if I apply an update when it is hot). It took about 15-20 minutes to complete the update and used up about 15% of the battery. I've noticed a new menu option called "Play music" that activates google play music on your phone and gives you very basic controls from your watch. lso under settings there is a new menu option to list "Bluetooth devices". I feel the biggest change is in the notification cards. ou can now swipe them all down and out of view (without swiping them away completely) so you can see your entire watchface and recall the notification cards at anytime. I also noticed that the pull down screen that shows you the date and battery % and silences your watch has changed slightly. Before if you wanted to pull down to see the date or battery it was way to easy to mute the watch. Update 10/25/14: I wanted to give an opinion after a few days with the latest update. I figured out how to load music onto the watch and play over a headset. You need to launch the google play music app on your phone, go into settings and click to "Download to Android Wear" which will store your downloaded google play music on wear for offline playback. On your watch go into settings, bluetooth, and then pair with your headset or speakers. Download speed is very slow. I just had one album and a few other songs downloaded on my phone and it took a couple hours to download. I noticed the battery drained very quickly while downloading, so this might be best done overnight while on the charger. I tried playback on my headset and it worked. Controlling the music is kind of wonky with the swipe, press, swipe, and such, and it's kind of hard to know if you're really playing from your watch or the phone unless you look at your phone to confirm it's not playing, or swipe all the way to the watch song list to confirm you're playing from a song on the watch. A disappointment I have is it seems the screen dimming is more aggressive than before. I guess this is an attempt to improve battery life, but I can't notice any improvement over the last update in battery life, just more frustration in trying to see a very dimmed screen. It makes me look like I'm going blind having to put my watch inches from my face just to tell the time it's so dim, or shaking my wrist until it brightens up. I'm having serious second thoughts about keeping this watch now as it's usability went way down in my book if I can't tell time in a quick glance. I'm considering the LG G Watch R for the always on screen, but I'm thinking I might as well wait till the new batch of watches comes out to see what improvements they'll have. Update 10/28/14: Fix for Loosing Bluetooth connection. When I first got the watch I would loose bluetooth connection several times a day even with the phone right next to me and sometimes it would require that I go into the phone and re-pair. I believe a lot of folks had that issue and they made bluetooth improvements in the first update, which did help some.However, I kept loosing connection on occasion and after playing with my phone settings I found a solution.I'm not sure if this is a setting option for all Android versions, or just my particular phone (Sony Xperia Z running Android 4.3). In settings>Bluetooth>Menu there is an option for "visibility timeout". I changed it to "Never time out". Since it's never timing out I also changed the phone to be "Only visible to paired devices". After making these changes I very rarely lost bluetooth connection between my moto 360 and my phone, unless I have actually walked out of bluetooth range with my phone, and even then when I'm back in range it re-pairs perfectly every time. It doesn't seem to adversely affect battery life in my phone or watch either. As an additional benefit my bluetooth headset has been working like a champ as well. Update 10/29/14 Google Fit App released yesterday. Finally I can track my fitness readings from the moto 360 to the phone in an official google app. The app is not very robust or full of options, but hopefully they will improve it. I just downloaded it yesterday and when I loaded it, it basically erased all the existing fitness data on my watch and started fresh. So far today it has been sync'ing my steps and heart activity. I guess I should give it time to build up a data base of information to start analyzing. Supposedly you can integrate data from third party apps as well, but as of today there are only a handful of compatible apps.I'm sure or hopeful that will multiply with time. Update 11/10/14 Motorola issued a new update to their Connect android app. It now includes many more watch faces that you can customize and one face that you can add your own background image. They even included the watch face that won the Design Face Off that was voted on by fans. However, I believe due to the fact that android wear has not been updated to include watch face API's there are still no weather or status options on any OEM watch faces yet. You would still need to use a third party custom watch face (not from google or motorola) to get weather or other status information on watch faces. Furthermore, each watch face, even the existing faces now have the option to show date information whereas previously only one had a date. I like to have dates on all my watch faces, so I really like the new updates. I'm impressed at the rate of updates that Motorola is pushing out, though at the same time it just reinforces the notion that this is basically a beta product that they are testing and improving as they go. I had thought about trading for another android wear watch, but I'm now feeling that any others will not improve on the experience of the Moto 360 so I'm sticking with it, at least until something else comes along that significantly improves on the smartwatch experience. Long term update 12/03/14 I installed an aftermarket silicone band about 2 months ago and it was fine until just last night I noticed two small cracks on the plastic case back about 2-3mm long but I can foresee them getting worse. Because of the poorly designed lug design I'm going to stick with just officially approved bands from now on. The official metal band is priced to high IMHO, so I'm going back to the original Horween band for now. I saw a press release that they have partnered with DODOcase for a leather stitched band and TYLT for silicone bands, which don't seem to be available yet, but will try them out when they are. Also, just wanted to confirm that gorilla glass does scratch so you may want to use a screen protector, I like to go commando so I have some barely visible scratches on my glass. Regarding the brightness, I didn't like how the watch would adjust the brightness with a tendency to turn off the back light too quickly. I changed the brightness setting from "Auto" to "1"(which is the lowest back light setting) and it seems to be working better for me, it could just be my imagination too. I don't use any custom watch faces anymore because I'm satisfied with the new updated selection, and I don't like having to go into my phone to change out faces. Also, now that that the novelty has worn off I only use just a handful of functions on the watch because the screen is so small and the interface with the swiping and voice is more frustrating than just pulling my phone out of my pocket. I still find the watch very useful for those few functions those. As I said earlier I'm not going to upgrade to another wearable device unless someone (apple?) really improve the user interface. Update 12/12/14 Android Wear 5.0.1 update. See comments or use this url: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2GKA84WLP7BLQ/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=B00NC8PMUK&cdForum=Fx36TMHB9I7QWCR&cdMsgID=MxUNOE6EXZMJ27&cdMsgNo=18&cdPage=2&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1K0KWV1LW4DHZ&store=wireless#MxUNOE6EXZMJ27 Update 12/17/14 Minor bug fixes: See comments or use this url: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2GKA84WLP7BLQ/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=B00NC8PMUK&cdForum=Fx36TMHB9I7QWCR&cdMsgID=MxQ8UR7XS5Z57&cdMsgNo=19&cdPage=2&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1K0KWV1LW4DHZ&store=wireless#MxQ8UR7XS5Z57 Update 2/14/15 Quick comparison to LG G Watch R See comments or use this url: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2GKA84WLP7BLQ/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=B00NC8PMUK&cdForum=Fx36TMHB9I7QWCR&cdMsgID=MxM64YW5FGI1T6&cdMsgNo=21&cdPage=3&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1K0KWV1LW4DHZ&store=wireless#MxM64YW5FGI1T6