Android Wear

[kkrithivas]

Does anyone have feedback on how well Aqua works on Android Wear devices - specifically the Samsung Gear Live smartwatch?  Any thoughts on how well it may work on the to be released Moto 360 smartwatch?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

I've tried it with the emulator image. As expected, you get mirrored status bar notifications.

This is not perfect, but better than the same function on Samsung's Gear 2 / Gear 2 Neo devices.

I'd like to implement a better on-watch UI, but this is not my top priority at the moment.

[apuder]

I'd like to voice my hope that Aqua Mail will support Wear devices. Right now Wear only supports the GMail app properly. Forwarding notifications is sub-optimal and proper Wear support would certainly be very nice.

My 2 cents.

Arno

[Kostya Vasilyev]

This information in this topic is outdated.

Aqua has "proper" Android Wear support since version 1.5.1.

This includes:

- Proper "stream of cards" on the watch (each message gets its own card)
- Per-message actions (you can mark read or delete a single message)
- Replying via voice input

[apuder]

Very embarrassing but only now I see that AquaMail supports Android Wear. I am a little puzzled though. I have a LG G Watch and AquaMail does not show any cards on my watch. I've been looking over all the setting but couldn't see an option to enable wear support. What am I missing?

TIA,
Arno

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Wear support is enabled when Aqua sees that Google's "Android Wear App" is installed.

And it does use "cards", but ...

... Wear watches show combined notification at first. To "unglue" the individual cards, you've got to tap the "+ N more" or swipe (I believe it's swiping up).

https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/notifications/stacks.html

[apuder]

Thanks, I appreciate your response! Actually, the problem turned out to be that I hadn't enabled notifications in Android's system settings. Things now work as they should and I can finally retire my Tasker hack to forward mail notifications.

Arno

[Scott_Miller]

Hi Kostya,

I recently bought a Zenwatch 3 and started looking at AquaMail's Android Wear support. My Zenwatch has Android Wear 2.0, which may be causing the issues I am trying to solve. My phone is a Nexus 6, with Android 7.0. I have enabled the Wear support in AquaMail, and I have the Android Wear app installed. I do get notifications when new email arrives. I've been trying some of the other settings in AquaMail with mixed results. My ultimate goal is to get a notification that displays on the watch briefly so I can get a quick idea of whether or not it is important. I did try the "high priority" setting, and it accomplishes the goal, but it makes the notification semi-persistent. I find that I cannot swipe it away from the watch, and must pick up the phone to dismiss the notificiation. This defeats the purpose of getting notifications on the watch. Even then, if I don't actually read the message, the notification will come back, on both the phone and the watch. But if I turn off that high priority setting, then I don't get a visual notification. I must open the notification drawer.

Another issue I am having is when the high priority notification is turned off, I dismiss the notification on the watch, then read the message on a different device, my tablet. The state of the message is changed and I get a second notification on the watch. I did see a setting in AquaMail that I thought would be related, but changing this did not seem to impact this issue.

Is there anything I am overlooking?

Scott M.

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Can't comment on "priority" / "drawer" / "immediately visible" / "having to swipe to see a notification" -- the on-watch UI might have changed in AW 2.0 and the actual way that Google chooses to present notifications on "a" watch is out of our control.

In particular I don't know (sorry) how AW 2.0 treats the "priority" flag.

Re: cannot swipe it away from the watch, and must pick up the phone to dismiss the notificiation

Meaning what, a notification just won't swipe away? And it's only like this if you enable "priority"?

Aqua doesn't make AW notifications ("unswipable") in any way, again could be something that AW 2.0 does on purpose.

--

Re: if I don't actually read the message, the notification will come back

Yes. It's not clear to me what should happen if you dismiss a single "sub" (individual) message's notification out of several that may be posted at the time.

Should it mark that message as read?

Remember it so that it never comes back?

What if (for the "never comes back") case, next time, there is a new unread message -- so you're going to have a "parent" notification that says "2 unread messages" and yet only one actual message visible, since you'd swiped the other and the app doesn't show it anymore?

Wouldn't that be strange?

Re: read the message on a different device, my tablet. The state of the message is changed and I get a second notification on the watch

In this case you should be getting a new "parent" notification (since the # of unread messages has changed, so a notification saying "5 unread messages" has to change to a notification saying "4 unread messages") -- but I hope (expect) that the message you just marked as read won't actually be included in that notification?

[StR]

@Scott_Miller:

I don't know how it works with Android Wear, but for a regular device (phone, tablet), if you set "notify only about new unread messages", - when you swipe the notification away, you will not get any other notifications about that (those) message(s).
I suspect it might solve one of the problems described by you.

[Scott_Miller]

Can't comment on "priority" / "drawer" / "immediately visible" / "having to swipe to see a notification" -- the on-watch UI might have changed in AW 2.0 and the actual way that Google chooses to present notifications on "a" watch is out of our control.

In particular I don't know (sorry) how AW 2.0 treats the "priority" flag.

Re: cannot swipe it away from the watch, and must pick up the phone to dismiss the notificiation

Meaning what, a notification just won't swipe away? And it's only like this if you enable "priority"?

Aqua doesn't make AW notifications ("unswipable") in any way, again could be something that AW 2.0 does on purpose.

--

Re: if I don't actually read the message, the notification will come back

Yes. It's not clear to me what should happen if you dismiss a single "sub" (individual) message's notification out of several that may be posted at the time.

Should it mark that message as read?

Remember it so that it never comes back?

What if (for the "never comes back") case, next time, there is a new unread message -- so you're going to have a "parent" notification that says "2 unread messages" and yet only one actual message visible, since you'd swiped the other and the app doesn't show it anymore?

Wouldn't that be strange?

Re: read the message on a different device, my tablet. The state of the message is changed and I get a second notification on the watch

In this case you should be getting a new "parent" notification (since the # of unread messages has changed, so a notification saying "5 unread messages" has to change to a notification saying "4 unread messages") -- but I hope (expect) that the message you just marked as read won't actually be included in that notification?

I need to test this some more. I turned the high priority notifications back on, and now it seems to be working correctly. And the behavior also changed when I read a message on a different device. I may be trying to do too much to control the notifications. I've got a couple of plugins for Tasker that are sending notifications to the watch, too. I need to isolate AquaMail and make sure it's not one of these other apps that are causing some of this.

As for AW 2.0, it definitely behaves different than AW 1.5. The watch had 1.5 installed when I got it, so I was able to see how it was working for a few days before I got the upgrade. I was getting popup notifications for everything on 1.5, then on 2.0 that completely stopped. The high priority flag is apparently now the method to be used to get the notification to popup. Some things still do, but not everything.

If I get anything figured out, I'll post back here, if for no other reason than to provide some closure to this thread. Thanks

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk

[Scott_Miller]

@Scott_Miller:

I don't know how it works with Android Wear, but for a regular device (phone, tablet), if you set "notify only about new unread messages", - when you swipe the notification away, you will not get any other notifications about that (those) message(s).
I suspect it might solve one of the problems described by you.

I had this option set. Tried with it on, and with it off. There are a few other options that also looked like they might have an effect, so tried changing those as well. But, as I mentioned in my reply to Kostya, I have other apps doing notifications as well, in my effort to get Tasker to send only the notifications that I want, and one of those might be getting in the way. I will do some further testing, and I'm sure I will eventually come up with something definitive.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: if you set "notify only about new unread messages", - when you swipe the notification away

This is true, good point, but -- this only applies when you "swipe away" the whole "notification stack" (the "parent" notification that says "5 new messages" for example).

When you swipe a "child" notification (about an individual message), be it on Android Wear, or the phone (Android 7.0+), that has no effect.

We probably need to do something here. I've filed a task (those famous words...)

[Scott_Miller]

An update to what I am seeing. First, the behavior seems to have changed since I originally posted here. So this is what I am seeing now.

If I have "High priority notifications" enabled, I get a notification card displayed on the watch. It remains displayed until I clear it, either by swiping it away or clearing it on the phone, or another high priority notification shows on top. The bottom line is that I can clear the notification. If I do not have "High priority notifications" enabled, then the notification does not show. I must slide up the notification drawer to see it. This is the part that changed between AW 1.5 and AW 2.0. In the earlier version, the notification would appear for a few seconds, and then slide away. In the newer version, it does not show at all. This is not unique to AquaMail, as Gmail behaves the same way. So I blame this on AW 2.0. I prefer the earlier method, as I can glance at the notification when it occurs and decide what to do.

As for the other problem, when I read a message on my tablet, I get a new notification on the watch, it seems to not be consistent. I have tried turning off "Only when there are changes" with no effect. I have tried turning off "Only when new messages arrive" with no effect. I normally have both of these turned on. I believe that is the default setting. But the end result is not consistent. Sometimes reading a message on the tablet will cause a new notification, sometimes it will not. I have not been able to identify what the circumstances are for either situation.

My compromise is to first turn off "high priority notifications" in the global settings, and turn it on only for the account which is for work. I am grateful that this option is available in the account settings. I then use Tasker with plugins for AquaMail and AutoWear to generate more specific notifications as email arrives from people in my contacts.  It's not perfect, but it will do for now.

One question about "high priority notifications". I could probably test this, but I haven't done so, yet. If an email arrives with the high priority flag set, will the notification act as though the "high prioriy notifications" option is set? I'm not certain I can take advantage of this, but it could be very useful if it does work this way.

I have only had the watch for about two weeks, so I am quite certain I will make adjustments to this process over time.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: changes between AW 1.5 and 2.0, Gmail notifications acting same as Aqua's

Thanks for the clarification - so Google made an "improvement" here and made it less usable. OK.

Re: high priority notifications from messages with priority flag set

No we don't "connect" the two in Aqua Mail - the "use priority notifications" (also called "heads up") setting always has an effect when it's on, and is always off when it's off (pardon the unclear wording, but I think you know what I mean).

Re: repeat notification after a "mark read" on the other device

It notifies about same message? Which is now "read" (or maybe when it does, the message isn't "read" yet? in which case, what is it syncing?)

Does this happen if you swipe off the notification about this particular message on "device 1" (and let's call the device where you marked read - "device 2")?

Or even if you don't?

I'm quite sure we never show an already-showing notification again - if it's a "child" notification (not the top level "you have N new / unread messages", but rather an individual message's "card" == "child").

But for a notification "about" just one message - there is only one notification too, there is no "parent" ("N new / unread messages") vs. "child" ("message 1", "message 2", "... message N") distinction.

I'd appreciate any clarification / pattern you may happen to observe here.