I had my Note 3 long before I picked up my Gear, and as with all things, I made some adjustments to my Note 3 software experience to improve it for my use. This has had some undesirable effects on the Gear and I just want to list out what I have done and what effects it had on my Gear for awareness so those of you who plan to make changes to your Note will know what you're getting into.
I have made the following changes to my Note 3:
I usually don't modify my devices too heavily, but I really felt like my Note needed some of this and some features (such as Dynamic Notifications and S for Switch Voice) give me a Moto X type experience that I miss when using the Note. Below are the effects I have noticed this having on my Gear:
This is all I have really noticed so far. I will update this post if I discover anything else. I hope this helps anyone considering getting a gear and/or making any of these modifications on their Note 3. Happy Gearing.
I have made the following changes to my Note 3:
- Rooted
- Frozen all Knox apps/services
- Frozen some other misc bloat
- Nova Launcher set as default Launcher
- S for Switch Voice installed (overrides S Voice with Google Now and gives you a Moto X - like Touchless control)
- Dynamic notifications set as default lock screen
- Adway blocking ads
- Samsung TTS frozen (to fix the Accessibility bug for Pebble)
I usually don't modify my devices too heavily, but I really felt like my Note needed some of this and some features (such as Dynamic Notifications and S for Switch Voice) give me a Moto X type experience that I miss when using the Note. Below are the effects I have noticed this having on my Gear:
- No voice feedback for S Voice on Gear (probably due to S for Switch Voice or Samsung TTS being disabled)
- Notifications delay - Because of Dynamic Notifications, if my phone is face up out of my pocket, my watch will not receive a notification until the screen turns off. This is because the display is effectively on. This isn't a huge issue because if my phone is face up and I can see it, I'm not going to read the notification on my watch anyway. Most of the time, it's when it's in my pocket that I need the Gear to step in and in those cases, the notifications are instantaneous.
- Occasional network errors when using S Voice - May be due to adblock (which I will not give up).
This is all I have really noticed so far. I will update this post if I discover anything else. I hope this helps anyone considering getting a gear and/or making any of these modifications on their Note 3. Happy Gearing.
